The Light of Grace: John Owen on the Authority of Scripture and Christian Faith 9783666550904, 9783525550908

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Reformed Historical Theology Edited by Herman J. Selderhuis in Co-operation with Emidio Campi, Irene Dingel, Elsie Anne McKee, Richard Muller, Risto Saarinen, and Carl Trueman

Volume 34

Andrew M. Leslie

The Light of Grace: John Owen on the Authority of Scripture and Christian Faith

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: http://dnb.d-nb.de. ISSN 2198-8226 ISBN 978-3-525-55090-8 You can find alternative editions of this book and additional material on our Website: www.v-r.de Ó 2015, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen/ Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht LLC, Bristol, CT, U.S.A. www.v-r.de All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Germany. Typesetting by Konrad Triltsch, Ochsenfurt Printed and bound by Hubert & Co, Göttingen Printed on non-aging paper.

Contents

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 The evolving scripture “principle”: some issues 1.3 Scope and shape of this study . . . . . . . . . .

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2. Reason of Faith (1677) and the problem of certainty . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 “Certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence” 2.3 “Infallible” versus “moral” certainty . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 John Owen and certainty : Reason of Faith (1677) . . . 2.4.1 “Infallible faith” defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 “Motives of Credibility” and the insufficiency of “Moral Certainty” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3. Implanted law and the light of nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 “Natural light” and the exercise of reason . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Excursus: “Illumination” within the Christian cognitive tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 The “light of nature” and practical reasoning in seventeenth-century England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Owen and the “law” and “light” of nature before the Fall . . 3.3.1 The lex operationis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1.1 The lex operationis and Adam’s covenantal end 3.3.1.2 The lex operationis and Adam’s “light” . . . . .

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4. The Habit of Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 “Supernatural illumination” and the light of grace . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 The infused “habit of grace” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Habitual grace, the Word of God and “special illumination” . 4.3 A new “spiritual sense”: habitual grace, the will, affections and the internal “testimony” of the Spirit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105 105 106 107 115 126 132

5. Scripture, evidence and the imago Dei . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Evidence and reason . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Evidence and faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Scripture’s self-evidencing “light” . . . 5.3.2 Scripture’s self-evidencing “power” . . 5.4 A spiritual “intuition” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 The imago Dei and the authority of scripture 5.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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135 135 136 145 149 154 157 160 174

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7. From scripture to Christ: authority, perspicuity and the life of faith . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3.3.2 Owen and the “light of nature” 3.3.3 “Positive” commands . . . . . . 3.3.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The “light of nature” after the Fall . . 3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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6. From Christ to scripture: the origin and inspiration of scripture . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Excursus: the problem of “inspiration” in the historiography of Early Modern Protestantism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 The origin of scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 The inspiration of scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 Prophecy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1.1 Prophetic inspiration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1.2 Divine concursus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 Scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.3 Summary and evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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7.2 The perspicuity of scripture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.1 Illumination and the “unction” of the Spirit . . . . . . . . . 7.2.2 The “proper” object and motive of faith, love and obedience 7.2.3 Spiritual unction and the church . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3 The proper object of faith: a hermeneutical principle? . . . . . . . 7.4 The perspicuity of scripture and the use of “means” . . . . . . . . 7.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

219 220 225 229 234 235 240 246

8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Appendix: Owen and the rudiments of cognition . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Primary sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Secondary sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

265 265 270

Names Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Acknowledgements

This monograph is a slightly revised version of a doctoral thesis completed at the University of Edinburgh in 2013. The somewhat unexpected, providential opportunity to study the thought of John Owen in the beautiful city of Edinburgh was nothing short of a joy. As ever, these things are rarely less than a team effort. If it were not for the remarkable financial generosity of several dear friends and the unfailing goodness of God, that unforgettable, truly formative, and not least peaceful and restorative chapter in our family life would never have been more than a dream. The study itself grows out of an admiration for Owen which was initially provoked during a stint as a divinity student at Oak Hill Theological College, London, in 2005. It was Garry Williams who first sowed the idea of pursuing further studies in early Reformed thought, and it was gradually nurtured into reality through the encouragement and advice of tutors and friends at Moore Theological College in Sydney, especially my now beloved colleagues, Mark Thompson and Robert Doyle. Apart from the untold amount of stimulation I have received from pioneers in this field of scholarship, notably Richard Muller, the late Willem van Asselt, and Carl Trueman, without doubt, the greatest credit goes to Susan Hardman Moore for injecting tireless personal support and technical feedback as the doctoral thesis slowly took shape. I am also deeply grateful for endless fascinating discussions with Simon Burton at the nearby “Wash Bar”, whose enthusiasm for Owen’s great nemesis, Richard Baxter, did not, gratefully, preclude the blossoming of a wonderful friendship! Not to be forgotten either are David Furse-Roberts, Jonathan de Groot, Matt Newboult, Andrew Marsh, Mark Tannahill, Stephen Cox, and the good folk at St Stephen’s Comely Bank, who provided regular cheer for the journey. I wish to thank those who have offered their critical feedback at various stages along the way : my examiners, Stephen Holmes and Paul Nimmo; David Fergusson; Mark Jones; and especially Prof. van Asselt, who generously commented

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Acknowledgements

on my thesis not very long before he tragically passed away. In the late stages of editing, Lily Strachan has also offered invaluable help. All shortcomings that remain are entirely my own! Finally, I am most grateful to the delightful Herman Selderhuis, together with his co-editors, for their willingness to incorporate my study in this series. However, it is my wife, Felicity, together with her love, patience, frequent sacrifices, and not least humour, which I cherish above all; and humanly speaking, these have contributed more to this project than anything else. We had the joy of seeing our son William, just six weeks old when we left Sydney, grow into boyhood in Scotland, only to be augmented by the priceless blessing of our very own wee bonny lass, Tessa. And it is to my family that I dedicate this book as a small gesture of appreciation. Soli Deo honor et gloria. Andrew M. Leslie

Moore Theological College, Sydney Christmas, 2014

Abbreviations

Ad Hebraeos Comm STh DLGTT DV Lect Ord PL PRRD RD Rep SCG Sent

Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos Lectura Commentaria in Summa Theologiae Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms Questiones Disputatae de Veritate Lectura in libros Sententiarum (Oxoniensis) Ordinatio Patrologia Latina Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics Reformed Dogmatics Reportatio Parisiensis Summa contra Gentiles Referring to Peter Lombard’s Sententiarum libri quatuor or a mediaeval commentary thereon SQO Summa Questiones Ordinariae STh Summa Theologiae Sup Boethium Super Boethium de Trinitate Vg. Vulgate

1.

Introduction

1.1

Prologue

Since his death, John Owen (1616–1683) has enjoyed a hallowed if somewhat uncritical reputation among admirers of Reformed theology as a towering giant of seventeenth-century English theology and piety. Born into a Puritan home in Stadham, Oxfordshire, it is his formidable, multi-volumed library of works for which he is largely remembered and esteemed. Outside these circles, however, it is only in the last century or so that Owen has earned more than periodic judgments of contempt for his relentlessly unyielding defences of quaintly “Calvinist” prerogatives such as particular redemption and the doctrine of “limited atonement”. Most of this more recent scholarly interaction has been driven by historical theologians who have rightly discerned Owen’s considerable stature as a uniquely learned, articulate and influential advocate of Reformed theology in seventeenth-century England.1 Recent years have also witnessed a growing historical interest in Owen’s contribution to seventeenth-century Puritanism and polity, particularly since the appearance of Peter Toon’s fine monograph in 1971,2 although this still remains significantly overshadowed by the focus on his theology – partly because it is his unique Reformed voice that continues to intrigue, but also because the biographical data available on Owen is sufficiently slim to render assessments of his impact on seventeenth-century polity somewhat opaque. Recently, Tim Cooper has lamented the relative paucity of biographical studies on Owen, and while recognising the possibly insurmountable difficulty of containing within a single volume a thoroughly balanced integration of social

1 For a relatively up-to-date and comprehensive bibliography of the literature on John Owen, see John W. Tweedale, “A John Owen Bibliography”, in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). 2 Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: the Life and Work of John Owen, Pastor, Educator, Theologian (Exeter : Paternoster, 1971).

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Introduction

history and theology, wishes more scholarship would emerge along these lines.3 A few pieces have begun to grapple with clues Owen gives about his response to national developments, particularly where these tumultuous happenings appreciably seem to influence his thought.4 Perhaps the most successful full-length attempt at this is the work of Steve Griffiths, Redeem the Time: Sin in the Writings of John Owen. Griffiths consciously avoids getting bogged down in purely historiographical debates that have often dominated recent analyses of seventeenth-century theology, for fear that it artificially portrays an abstract and detached theologian with relatively little pastoral concern.5 Others, to varying extents and with somewhat divergent results, have also recognised the importance of examining Owen’s Congregational ecclesiology with a careful eye to his political engagement before, during and after the Interregnum.6 Not to be forgotten, either, is Cooper’s own recent and highly stimulating attempt to integrate aspects of Owen’s thought into a biographical evaluation of Owen’s infamously fraught relationship with Richard Baxter.7 Cooper’s warning of intellectual abstraction is a salient one as our study embarks on yet another examination of Owen’s thought.8 Even where most studies dominated by intellectual interests rightly appreciate that Owen’s theology cannot be analysed in a vacuum, he certainly has not escaped having his 3 Tim Cooper, “John Owen Unleashed. Almost”, Conversations in Religion and Theology 6 (2008), passim. It is worth noting that a major new biography of Owen by Crawford Gribben is forthcoming. 4 E.g., Sarah G. Cook, “A Political Biography of a Religious Independent: John Owen, 1616–1683” (Unpublished Ph.D., Harvard University, 1972); Lloyd G. Williams, “‘Digitus Dei’: God and Nation in the Thought of John Owen: A Study in English Puritanism and Nonconformity” (Unpublished Ph.D., Drew University, 1981); Paul C.H. Lim, “The Trinity, Adiaphora, Ecclesiology, and Reformation: John Owen’s Theory of Religious Toleration in Context”, Westminster Theological Journal 67 (2005); Alan Bearman, “‘The Atlas of Independency’: The Ideas of John Owen (1616–1683)” (Unpublished Ph.D., Kansas State University, 2005). 5 Steve Griffiths, Redeem the Time: The Problem of Sin in the Writings of John Owen (Fearn: Mentor, 2001), 11–12. 6 Williams, “‘Digitus Dei’”; Lim, “Toleration”; Bearman, “‘Atlas’”; Ryan Kelly, “Reformed or Reforming? John Owen and the Complexity of Theological Codification for Mid-SeventeenthCentury”, in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); John Coffey, “John Owen and the Puritan Toleration Controversy, 1646–59”, in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). 7 Tim Cooper, John Owen, Richard Baxter and the Formation of Nonconformity (Andover: Ashgate, 2011); also, “Owen’s Personality : The Man behind the Theology”, in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012). 8 Throughout this study, we will use the standard “Goold” edition of Owen’s works. We have generally removed any printed italics from quotations. See, John Owen, The Works, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855).

Prologue

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thought assessed against the alien criteria of subsequent centuries. To some extent this is unavoidable. Modern interpreters will bring their own agendas when analysing an historical figure, but the best couple a degree of self-awareness with a disciplined desire to uncover and assess their subject on its own terms, conscious that this process needs to occur before a careful and critical contemporary appropriation can proceed.9 In that spirit, Carl Trueman has echoed Quentin Skinner in advocating a chiefly historical approach to examining the thought of significant British Puritans like Owen, which is sensitive to both the “synchronic” and “diachronic” context of their ideas, listening for their distinctive contribution to the history of Western Christianity, while also recognising how that contribution evolved from an undoubtedly eclectic array of influences.10 It is along these lines that our study intends to examine how Owen understands the nature and authority of scripture and, particularly, how he sees that authority intersecting with the life of faith. According to Richard Muller, the Reformed doctrine of scripture typically centred upon the complementary twin foci of authority and interpretation, reflecting the primary intellectual and polemical tensions of the era.11 While two recent monographs have devoted substantial attention to different aspects of Owen’s approach to scriptural interpretation,12 it is, perhaps, surprising that no comprehensive exposition of his understanding of its authority has yet appeared. I say surprising because this is one of a number of aspects of his thought which continues to attract attention across a relatively diverse range of fields such as philosophical apologetics, hermeneutics, and, not least, systematics. For example, Catholic philosopher John Lamont regards Owen’s careful articulation of faith as something grounded exclusively in divine “testimony”, rather than any supporting proofs or “motives 9 On this issue generally, see, Richard A. Muller, “Reflections on the Persistent Whiggism and Its Antidotes in the Study of Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Intellectual History”, in Seeing Things Their Way : Intellectual History and the Return of Religion, ed. Alister Chapman, John Coffey, and Brad S. Gregory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). 10 Carl R. Trueman, “Puritan Theology as Historical Event: A Linguistic Approach to the Ecumenical Context”, in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001). Cf., Quentin Skinner, “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas”, History and Theory 8 (1969). 11 Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), II.146. 12 Henry M. Knapp, “Understanding the Mind of God: John Owen and Seventeenth-century Exegetical Methodology” (Unpublished Ph.D., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2002); Thomas J. Tucker, “Safeguarding the Treasury : John Owen and the Analogy of Faith” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Aberdeen, 2006). Cf., Carl R. Trueman, “Faith Seeking Understanding: Some Neglected Aspects of John Owen’s Understanding of Scriptural Interpretation”, in Interpreting the Bible: Historical and Theological Studies in Honour of David F. Wright, ed. A.N.S. Lane (Leicester : Apollos, 1997).

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Introduction

of credibility”, as a “major advance” in the centuries-long quest to furnish Christian faith with a coherent, indefeasible explanation.13 Similarly, in his mission to recover a “theological hermeneutic” where self-understanding is finally dependent upon a knowledge of God, Jens Zimmerman believes Owen’s harmonious subordination of human reason to a personal, dynamic faith, which is mediated through an authoritative scriptural text, is paradigmatic of the best pre-critical offerings.14 More recently still, John Webster has prized the dogmatic value of Owen’s statements on spiritual illumination, which enables a regenerated person to recognise scripture’s divine origin and perceive its material content, while fully engaging their created rational capacities without in any way casting them aside.15 It is not just recent scholars who have detected some lasting constructive value in Owen’s treatment of scriptural authority. Long ago, his nineteenthcentury editor, William Goold, repeated the judgment of Thomas Chalmers, who regarded Owen’s explanation of scripture’s self-evidencing authority as superior even to those of Leslie, Lyttelton, Doddridge, Bates and Baxter. According to Chalmers, Owen rendered a more essential service to the cause of divine revelation, when, by his clear and irresistible demonstrations, he has proved that the written Word itself possesses a self-evidencing light and power for manifesting its own divine original, superior to the testimony of eye-witnesses, or the evidence of miracles […].16

At the very least, all these judgments suggest Owen’s formulation on this issue is worthy of some fresh, detailed examination. None of these claims are regulated foremost by historical conventions, of course. To a greater or lesser degree, they are influenced by the diverse constructive agendas of their authors. This point is most starkly illustrated by those who have come to rather different conclusions about Owen’s treatment of this subject. The relentlessly negative appraisal offered by Dale Stover, for instance, is quite obviously and explicitly dominated by his commitment to a modern, existential understanding of revelation as “event”, which typically demurs against the standard Reformed emphasis upon the in-

13 John R.T. Lamont, Divine Faith (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 14 Jens Zimmermann, Recovering Theological Hermeneutics: An Incarnational-Trinitarian Theory of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004). Cf., Barry H. Howson, “The Puritan Hermeneutics of John Owen: A Recommendation”, Westminster Theological Journal 63 (2001). 15 John B. Webster, The Domain of the Word: Scripture and Theological Reason (London: T& T Clark, 2012), 50–64. 16 Quoted by Goold in, Owen, Works, XVI.296; cf. IV.4. See, Thomas Chalmers, ed. The Christian’s Defence Against Infidelity (Glasgow : William Collins, 1829), xxxiii–iv.

Prologue

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spired form of the scriptural text (which Owen shared).17 Similarly, the ambivalence of Jack Rogers and Donald McKim towards Owen in their now infamous study is clearly influenced by the authors’ own stance towards the various controversies over scripture within more recent American Protestantism.18 In other words, the extent to which any of these judgments – affirming or otherwise – fairly represent the historical Owen can only really be assessed after Owen’s own writings have been examined on their own terms, within their native intellectual context. That is certainly not to condemn the practice of theological retrieval; it is only to suggest, as we have already, that such appropriation ought occur alongside, and in conversation with the more strictly historical exercise, which studies like ours attempt. To some degree, this historical evaluation of Owen’s doctrine of scripture has already commenced in the excellent, paradigmatic studies of Trueman and Sebastian Rehnman.19 Both of these scholars suggest Owen needs to be viewed not just as an English Puritan, but also as belonging to a European community of Reformed orthodox thinkers. These thinkers were united by their confessional commitments, and possessed a certain penchant for the tools of scholastic methodology alongside traditional, broadly Aristotelian metaphysics, as instrumental means for articulating those commitments. On the specific issue of biblical authority, Trueman points to Owen’s explicit confrontation with the Catholics, Quakers, and the authors of that landmark in Early Modern biblical criticism, the London Polyglot Bible (1657). He helpfully 17 Dale A. Stover, “The Pneumatology of John Owen: A Study of the Role of the Holy Spirit in Relation to the Shape of a Theology” (Unpublished Ph.D., McGill University, 1967). 18 Jack B. Rogers and Donald K. McKim, The Authority and Interpretation of the Bible: an Historical Approach (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979), 218–23. For this reason, the approach of this study has been challenged: John D. Woodbridge, Biblical Authority : A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982); Robert W. Godfrey, “Biblical Authority in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: A Question of Transition”, in Scripture and Truth, ed. D.A. Carson and John D. Woodbridge (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983); Muller, PRRD, II: passim. 19 Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998); Sebastian Rehnman, Divine Discourse: The Theological Methodology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002). Note also, “John Owen: A Reformed Scholastic at Oxford”, in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001); Carl R. Trueman, John Owen: Reformed Catholic, Renaissance Man (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). Not to be missed, either, are the brief, but valuable discussions in Stanley N. Gundry, “John Owen on Authority and Scripture”, in Inerrancy and the Church, ed. John D. Hannah (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984); J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1990), 81–96; Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology : Doctrine for Life (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 11–26; Ryan M. McGraw, A Heavenly Directory : Trinitarian Piety, Public Worship and Reassessment of John Owen’s Theology (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), 81–9.

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Introduction

underlines the way Owen grounds scripture’s authority and sufficiency as the verbum engraphon in its relationship to Christ (the verbum agraphon), whose Spirit both “controlled its composition”, and operates within believers, enabling them to perceive its divine authority and interpret it according to his will. In particular, Trueman draws attention to the important inter-relationship Owen perceives between divine revelation, the faithful, spirit-led apprehension of its authority and perspicuity, and the subordinate function of reason and ecclesiastical helps in aiding a believer’s interpretation of its content.20 Rehnman’s study intends to analyse Owen’s theological method, largely following the contours of his monumental Theologoumena, published on the cusp of the Restoration, in 1661. Like Trueman, he highlights Owen’s use of scholastic terminology when distinguishing between God’s infinite selfknowledge (theologia archetypa), and the finite expression of that truth (theologia ectypa), graciously communicated via the incarnate Christ, the pages of scripture, and creation itself.21 As Rehnman shows, Owen views scripture as the pre-eminent “supernatural” expression of ectypal theology, second only to the christological theologia unionis, reflecting God’s gracious revelation to humanity after the Fall, as distinct from what can be known of him through our naturally created means.22 Rehnman especially wishes to explore the relationship between faith and reason in Owen’s thought, offering a plausible contextual explanation for the apparent incongruity between Owen’s scathing condemnations of scholastic metaphysics in Theologoumena, versus the relative ease with which he uses these tools elsewhere.23 In connection with this theme, Rehnman devotes a chapter to Owen’s mature statement on scriptural authority, Reason of Faith (1677), pointing to the way Owen distinguishes true Christian belief as something based exclusively on divine testimony and enabled via the Spirit, from a purely natural “opinion” founded on rational arguments or evidences.24 Indeed, Rehnman has been sufficiently intrigued by this treatise to offer some further observations in a very recent article.25 Although he now appears to approach Owen from a more philosophical angle, this piece possibly does a better job still of highlighting the inseparable connection Owen sees 20 See, Trueman, Claims, 64–99. 21 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 57–71; Trueman, Claims, 48–64. On the Reformed use of this terminology, see, Willem van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology : Archetypal and Ectypal Theology in Seventeenth-Century Reformed Thought”, Westminster Theological Journal 64 (2002); also, Muller, PRRD, I.225–38, 248–69. 22 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 73–89. 23 Divine Discourse, 109–28. 24 Divine Discourse, 129–54. 25 Sebastian Rehnman, “Graced Response: John Owen on Faith and Reason”, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 53 (2011). Rehnman’s chapter in the recent Ashgate Research Companion (Kapic and Jones, ed.) is identical.

The evolving scripture “principle”: some issues

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between a certain perception of scripture’s divine origin and faith proper, together with the nuanced relationship of this claim to other intellectual acts. Notwithstanding the numerous strengths of these studies, there is still scope for a full-length treatment of scriptural authority in Owen. While both Trueman and Rehnman illuminate some of its salient features, their respective foci are clearly broader than scripture itself, and naturally enough, important aspects to both the intellectual context and specific features of Owen’s formulation remain unexplored. A longer study affords the opportunity to trace the crucial relationship of scripture to connected themes like christology, pneumatology, anthropology and soteriology in more depth. It also allows us to explore the contextual factors and metaphysical commitments which have apparently shaped Owen’s doctrine, features which are, at times, surprisingly obscured in Rehnman’s account. While Rehnman does flag the so-called “rule of faith” controversy which erupted between Catholics and Protestants over the authority of scripture, he underplays the extent to which Owen’s argument was influenced by the evolution of this dispute among his Establishment contemporaries, especially when it comes to the role of “evidence” in securing faith, and the metaphysical implications this entails. Owen does not merely restate “the conservative Reformation position in scholastic terms”;26 rather, as we intend to show, he creatively draws upon an “ecumenical” dogmatic and metaphysical heritage to refine the traditional Reformed position in a fashion that was sensitive to intellectual developments in his own late seventeenth-century context. However, before outlining the scope of this study, it is worth paying some attention to the wider scholarly discussion concerning the general prominence of scripture within Protestant and Reformed thought, together with the more controverted issues it entailed.

1.2

The evolving scripture “principle”: some issues

The distinctive emphasis upon the final authority of scripture, with its famous polemical slogan “sola scriptura”, is a virtual commonplace in popular perceptions of the Reformation. Yet, however much the principle has acquired a hallowed, virtually confessional status as a kind of Protestant shibboleth, it cannot so straightforwardly be claimed as a novel discovery or invention of the sixteenth century. Nor, even, can it be readily pinned down to certain “protoProtestants” like John Wyclif or Jan Hus, as if their lonely resistance to the wild inventions of the Papacy somehow blazed the trail for the great events which followed a century or two later, when the slate was finally wiped clean of any 26 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 130.

20

Introduction

illegitimate traditionary dogmatic incursions, allowing a truly “biblical” theology to emerge in its wake. Rather, as is often the case, the reality is a good deal more nuanced than the hagiography can sometimes suggest. Thanks, in large part, to Heiko Oberman and others, scholars have come to appreciate the relationship of this reformational principle – amongst many others – to the currents of thought percolating in the centuries leading up to time of the Reformers. And what seems closer to the truth is that the Reformation claim for scriptural supremacy represents the decisive, and perhaps, radical culmination of a recognisable stream within mediaeval Catholic thought, which had always sought to acknowledge scripture’s transcendence over the churchly process of interpretation and doctrinal formulation, even while aiming for an essential harmony between the two – what Oberman has rather prosaically labelled “Tradition I”. In Oberman’s view, this stance towards scripture is, in fact, the best way to categorise the majority of theologians up until the fourteenth century. Indeed, until the Renaissance, it was chiefly the canon lawyers, more than the theologians, he feels, who typified the other identifiable pattern within late mediaeval theology, which explicitly gave tradition a distinct authority alongside scripture in the codification of churchly dogma (so-called “Tradition II”).27 In other words, if Oberman is correct, the reformational commitment to sola scriptura was not an “unprecedented” “supernatural breakthrough”, but more a product of the swelling tension between these two traditions as the Middle Ages drew to a close.28 More recently, Muller has augmented this observation by suggesting that a trend towards more literal methods of exegesis significantly exacerbated this tension from the fourteenth century onwards. In his view, the bitter antagonism between scripture and tradition which erupted at the Reformation did not so much stem from a desire to wrest scripture from its churchly or traditionary interpretive context, but from a growing realisation that the plain teaching of scripture could not easily harmonise with various traditional doctrines, or a magisterium increasingly settled in its commitment to “Tradition II”, and resistant to the call for biblical reform.29 Yet, however much the Reformers’ commitment to scriptural supremacy can be shown to come from good Catholic stock, it is well known that with their vehement rejection of anything approximating “Tradition II”, they soon found themselves embroiled in a protracted clash with Rome over this issue, lasting well into the seventeenth century. The particularly contentious question did not so much concern the status of scripture as the authoritative “Word of God”, but 27 Heiko A. Oberman, Forerunners of the Reformation: the Shape of Late Medieval Thought, trans. Paul L. Nyhus (London: Lutterworth, 1966), 53–66. 28 Oberman, Forerunners, 65. 29 Muller, PRRD, II.51–80.

The evolving scripture “principle”: some issues

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the possibility of being certain that its authority transcends the teaching of the church.30 In his seminal studies on the history of scepticism, Richard Popkin has shown how various influential Catholics – particularly those trained in the French Jesuit schools of Clermont and Bordeaux – leaned heavily on the strategies of ancient Pyrrhonism in their polemics against the Protestant appeal to sola scriptura. If the Reformers rejected any reliance upon the final authority of churchly interpretation to decide controverted questions of scriptural exegesis, on the grounds that interpreters can err, how is it, they replied, that any fallible person can be certain of scripture’s supreme authority, canonical limits, fundamental perspicuity, or its capacity to settle Christian doctrine decisively?31 As Popkin observes, Protestants frequently responded by appealing to the Spirit’s inward testimony or illumination, which secures an infallible conviction of scripture’s canonical boundaries and authority, and delivers a certain grasp of its core teachings necessary for saving faith.32 Even still, however important (and convenient) this solution may have been, it had problems of its own. Indeed, according to D.F. Strauss, the confessional reliance upon the so-called testimonium internum was “the Achilles’ heel of the Protestant system”.33 As G.C. Berkouwer remarks, it raises the thorny possibility that “for Protestantism”, ultimate authority no longer resides “in the ‘objective’ revelation itself, but in the human heart, feeling, or experience, or at least in the subjectivity of an ‘internal’ revelation.”34 Wolfhart Pannenberg even claims that Calvin’s testimonium internum was, perhaps, the decisive “turning point in a major shift away from the Reformation thesis of the precedence of God’s truth over human judgment to the modern neo-Protestant conviction that subjective experience is the basis of faith and Christian doctrine.”35 Certainly, the Catholics quickly seized upon this vulnerability, denouncing the doctrine for its unverifiable subjectivity and precarious similarity to the “enthusiastic” teachings of Reformation radicals who were derided by Catholics and Protestants alike.36 Take, for example, the English Catholic polemicist, Thomas Stapleton. While conceding that the mainstream Protestants do uphold

30 PRRD, II.76–7. 31 Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 66–73. 32 Popkin, Scepticism, 69. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.77. For the Reformed confessional consensus on the testimonium internum, see, for instance: Gallic Confession (1559) c.4; Belgic Confession (1561) a.5; Westminster Confession (1647) c.5. 33 Quoted in G.C. Berkouwer, Holy Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 39. 34 Berkouwer, Scripture, 39–40. 35 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991–1993), I.34; cf. 33–4. 36 Popkin, Scepticism, 69.

22

Introduction

the church’s teaching ministry – unlike the radicals,37 Stapleton thinks the Fall has necessitated the divine establishment of the church as the authoritative, infallible “medium” for recognising and trusting the truthfulness of scripture.38 And so the argument goes that scripture has no more authority than the voice of the church (vox ecclesiae), at least in respect to us (quoad nos). Ironically, perhaps, the Catholics did not necessarily question the need for an inward spiritual work in faith – so called “infused faith” – which provides the capacity to assent to the authority of revealed truth;39 something Protestants were quick to point out.40 But for Stapleton, any spiritual testimony to scriptural authority must be “public” – that is, it must operate through the vox ecclesiae – and not “private” or “secret” (arcanum), lest it “be easily alleged (obtendi) by someone”, hinting at the dangers of “spiritualism”.41 Similarly, on the related matter of scriptural interpretation, someone like Robert Bellarmine would insist that scripture’s inherent lack of clarity could only be resolved by appealing to the Spirit-guided judgment of the church and its councils, lumping “Calvin and the other heretics” in with Schwenckfeld for their refusal to follow this route.42 The Protestants responded to these allegations by simply appealing to the “public” nature of scripture itself as the yardstick of the Spirit’s internal testimony, claiming an inseparable unity of “Word” and “Spirit”.43 However, this alone may not have been enough. Indeed, Muller notices how Reformed thinkers increasingly turned to various “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” arguments to support the objective or rational credibility of scripture. Catholic writers had used these too:44 they were hardly new to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but emerge from a long pedigree of Christian apologetics. Nonetheless, these arguments certainly do appear to have become increasingly important for Protestant writers as time wore on; especially those intrinsic features of the text, such as its internal harmony or majestic style and content, which could be used to

37 Thomas Stapleton, Principiorum fidei doctrinalium (Paris: Apud Michaelem Sonnium, 1579), 275. 38 Stapleton, Principiorum, 281–7, 294–7. 39 Principiorum, 275–7. 40 William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture: Against the Papists, Especially Bellarmine and Stapleton, trans. William Fitzgerald (Cambridge: University Press, 1849), 346, 355. Cf., Owen, Works, IV.114–5. 41 “Testimonium quidem Spiritus Dei esse omni authoritate superius, sed ne seductorii spiritus sub titulo Divini Spiritus se ingerant, debere hoc testimonium Spiritus publicum esse, non privatum tantum: & manifestum ac certum, non arcanum: quale obtendi facile a quocunque posset.”: Stapleton, Principiorum, 336; cf. 334. 42 E.g., Robert Bellarmine, Opera Omnia (Naples: Josephus Giuliano, 1856–62), I.106. 43 So, Whitaker, Scripture, 345–7. Whitaker would proceed to have an extended debate with Stapleton on this issue. 44 So, Bellarmine, Opera, I.24–6.

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defend its inherent superiority over the church’s teachings.45 Another sizeable factor fuelling the growing reliance on these defences was, of course, the emergence of newly critical attitudes towards the scriptural text itself, emanating largely from outside traditional church circles. In late seventeenth-century England, for instance, various Establishment churchmen widely relied on these kinds of arguments to shore up the rational credibility of scripture and the Christian faith amidst deepening (and increasingly fashionable) sceptical attack.46 Even still, however important and elaborate these defences became in their increasingly extended loci scripturae, Muller believes the orthodox Reformed remained convinced that the Spirit’s internal testimony is uniquely decisive in securing a conviction of scriptural authority. The intrinsic and extrinsic arguments may well be compelling enough to quell all reasonable doubt and objection – at least, so they thought – and support the faith of Christian believers. But in themselves, they fall short of securing that faith itself, along with its corresponding state of certainty. For this, only the self-attesting, authoritative voice of God will do.47 Consequently, Muller concludes that “[t]he continuity of the orthodox position with the Reformation is nowhere more clear than in this presentation of evidence.”48 What the complexity of this development does illustrate, he thinks, is an increasing difficulty in maintaining a “balance between the subjective and inward certainty resting on the Spirit and on faith alone and an external objective certainty resting on evidence.” “The former”, he suggests, must be present if the Reformed emphasis on grace alone to the exclusion of works is to be maintained and paralleled at this crucial juncture, the doctrine of the self-authenticating authority [of: sic] Scripture to the exclusion of individual human proof and of churchly testimony. But the latter must also be present if the subjective conviction is to be grounded in reality.49

Anyone familiar with the field of early Reformed theology will undoubtedly appreciate the paradigmatic nature of Muller’s work in reshaping its assessment – particularly, in its relationship to Catholic thought, or its fundamental con45 Muller, PRRD, II.267–81. 46 See, Henry G. van Leeuwen, The Problem of Certainty in English Thought, 1630–1690 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1963); Barbara J. Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); Gerard Reedy, The Bible and Reason: Anglicans and Scripture in Late Seventeenth-century England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985); John Spurr, “‘Rational Religion’ in Restoration England”, Journal of the History of Ideas 49 (1988); Martin I.J. Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism in the Seventeenth-Century Church of England (Leiden: Brill, 1992). 47 Muller, PRRD, II.281–5. 48 PRRD, II.265. 49 PRRD, II.259.

24

Introduction

fessional coherence from the early sixteenth century up until the eventual demise of orthodoxy in the eighteenth century. With others, he has overturned older assumptions and hackneyed caricatures of Reformed orthodoxy, enabling the period to be viewed with fresh eyes, an achievement which has now been so well documented that it hardly needs rehearsing at any length here.50 Certainly, on the gradual emergence of the dedicated Reformed locus scripturae out of the earliest reformational convictions, with its central affirmation of scripture as the principium cognoscendi theologiae, Muller’s second volume in his monumental PostReformation Reformed Dogmatics is a definitive landmark. It is noteworthy, however, that on this specific matter concerning the conjunction of the Spirit’s internal testimony with apologetic arguments, at least two studies have challenged aspects of Muller’s claim for a fundamental “continuity” between the Reformers (particularly Calvin), and their successors. The first is Jeffrey Mallinson’s monograph, Faith, Reason, and Revelation in Theodore Beza 1519–1605.51 Following Popkin’s lead, Mallinson argues that sceptical attacks on the self-attesting authority of scripture, from both humanist and Catholic quarters, may have been decisive in the eventual incorporation of “objective” arguments by certain Reformed thinkers into their versions of the Spirit’s internal work at the foundation of faith. This, in fact, had been the claim of B.B. Warfield many years earlier concerning Calvin himself, namely, that the Spirit effects a certain apprehension of scripture’s divine origin “through” use of the arguments or “indicia”, convincing a person of their cogency, and thereby

50 Amidst his many articles, it is worth singling out Muller’s seminal volumes, including, Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1986); The Unaccommodated Calvin: Studies in the Foundation of a Theological Tradition, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition, Oxford Studies in Historical Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); “The Placement of Predestination in Reformed Theology : Issue or Non-Issue?”, Calvin Theological Journal 40 (2005); Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012). Also worth noting are six other edited collections from a range of scholars: Carl R. Trueman and Scott R. Clark, eds, Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 1999); Willem van Asselt and Eef Dekker, eds, Reformation and Scholasticism: an Ecumenical Enterprise (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001); Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten, eds, Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honour of Willem J. van Asselt (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Willem van Asselt, ed. Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Reformation Heritage Books, 2011); Jordan J. Ballor, David S. Sytsma, and Jason Zuidema, eds, Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism: Essays in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the Maturation of a Theological Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Herman J. Selderhuis, ed., A Companion to Reformed Orthodoxy (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 51 Jeffrey Mallinson, Faith, Reason and Revelation in Theodore Beza, 1519–1605 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

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assuring them of scripture’s authenticity.52 Yet, like Muller, Mallinson agrees that Calvin quite explicitly walled off these arguments from the Spirit’s testimonium internum in his 1559 Institutes. According to Mallinson, the Spirit’s internal persuasion is, for Calvin, something “immediate and non-inferential”, excluding “objective evidence”, which only has a subsequent, ancillary function in supporting a believer’s Spirit-led conviction.53 By contrast, however, Beza may mark something of a transition within the Reformed tradition when he seemingly treats the Spirit’s internal work not so much as a distinct testimony, as Calvin had done, but as a “power to understand the objective evidence itself”. Mallinson is cautious in claiming too much. Muller may rightly describe the “majority of Reformed orthodox theologians” in claiming they did not “attempt to rise from effects to cause and to prove the divinity of Scripture by recourse to an evidentialistic argument.” However, Beza represents a notable “exception”, he feels. And it may well be his influence that led to an alternative, minority trajectory within the Reformed tradition, followed – he believes – by prominent figures such as Francis Turretin and Philippe de Mornay.54 Another more recent study draws a similar conclusion. Against Muller’s “challenging” claim for an essential “continuity” with the Reformers on the function of arguments or evidences in securing faith,55 Henk van den Belt also shows how several later writers integrated these “notae” with the testimonium internum as its “objective” grounds. Agreeing that this represents a “discontinuity” with Calvin, van den Belt seems to regard this as a more widespread phenomenon than Mallinson, citing several examples from the writings of Whitaker, Junius, Walaeus and Turretin.56 It is fascinating to notice how these two independent studies come to radically different assessments regarding this development. On the one hand, Mallinson judges it positively, seeing it as a correction of the subjective, fideistic imbalance he detects in Calvin’s thought. On the other hand, van den Belt is far more pessimistic. While Calvin allowed for the limited use of “proofs” when defending the authoritative “majesty” of scripture against the Libertines and sceptical humanists, or in buttressing the faith of believers, he believes the eventual incorporation of these notae into the testimonium internum obscured Calvin’s original insistence that faith must rest exclusively upon the self-authenticating,

52 53 54 55

B.B. Warfield, Calvin and Calvinism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1931), 87–9. Mallinson, Beza, 178; cf. 15. Beza, 14–20, 184–7. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.255–6. Henk van den Belt, The Authority of Scripture in Reformed Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 122. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.265. 56 See, van den Belt, Scripture, 130–1, 140–1, 150–1, 155–8, 176, 331–2. Van den Belt makes no mention of Mallinson’s work in his study.

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Introduction

divine power and authority of scripture, apart from any rational argument or demonstration.57 Perhaps these differing assessments merely illustrate how these two studies are driven more by theological rather than merely historical concerns. In some ways, van den Belt’s study is more significant from a historiographical perspective, not least for the way it restates some older criticisms of the emerging orthodox doctrine of scripture. After tracing the diachronic evolution of the term autopistia in Reformed thought up to the early twentieth century, van den Belt maintains that the principle was best conveyed by Calvin, for whom scripture’s autopistic character is inseparable from the testimonium internum. For Calvin, the Spirit’s inward conviction operates dynamically through the selfauthenticating divine voice of the inspired text itself. However, in his view, the mounting pressure of anti-Protestant polemics “tragically” ruptured these two dimensions. Soon enough, he argues, autopistia came to be applied to scripture as an adjectival, technical term describing its inherent authority quite apart from the Spirit’s internal testimony and a person’s actual faith. In other words, it quickly migrated from its proper soteriological home to prolegomenous discussions, wherein scripture was now regarded as autopistia and the principium externum of theology as a kind of “logical necessity”, irrespective of a person’s belief. This had the unfortunate effect of fracturing the “objective” and “subjective” grounds of faith in later Reformed theology, mirroring – indeed, perhaps even contributing to – the so-called “subject-object dichotomy” plaguing much modern thought, but foreign to the world of Calvin. Once again, like Mallinson, van den Belt is not wishing to assert a fundamental theological departure by later thinkers, as earlier scholars have often done. Indeed, he undoubtedly wishes to distance himself from the more tendentious, plainly inaccurate claims of the older scholarship, which Muller has so decisively set out to denounce. Nonetheless, it is striking how he echoes some of its material concerns. First, like Rogers and McKim (or Heinrich Heppe before them), van den Belt feels that for Reformed orthodox theologians like Turretin, scripture has become a logically necessary principium, with its self-authenticating nature or authority separated from faith, and rather abstractly dependent upon both a particular theory of inspiration which secures the text “from human influences”, as well as the uncorrupted integrity of the extant manuscripts to the original autographs.58 Furthermore, like them, he too sees this development as a possible factor in the Reformed tendency to treat the Bible as a mine for theo57 Scripture, 331–2. 58 So, Scripture, 317; cf. 158–63, 174, 329. Cf., Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics: Set Out and Illustrated from the Sources, ed. Ernst Bizer, trans. G.T. Thomson (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950), 18; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 172–83, 185–7.

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logical proof-texting.59 And finally, he agrees that an altered understanding of the Spirit’s internal testimony, which makes someone’s assent to scriptural authority partially reliant upon rational arguments, creates an “inherent tension” with the Reformed refusal to make reason or demonstration the foundation of faith.60 We do not intend to interact extensively with either of these impressive studies, although important questions could be asked of each. So, in Mallinson’s case, for example, the somewhat anachronistic “objective-subjective” grid he derives from contemporary apologetical discussions and uses to assess the development between Calvin and Beza obscures the way Calvin did attempt to tie his testimonium internum to the “objective” power and authority of scripture itself. Certainly, someone like Owen thought he did, as we shall see in due course. Mallinson also neglects to address the full theological significance of Calvin’s refusal to allow rational proof any place in securing saving faith. By comparison, this is something van den Belt makes loud and clear. As he observes, Calvin is convinced that the will’s certain adherence to revealed truth cannot ultimately depend on a rational judgment inferred from the proofs (however much it is helped by the Spirit), since such judgment never truly rises above the level of inescapably equivocal human opinion. An undoubting adherence to scriptural truth can only occur through a one-step, immediate apprehension of God’s selfauthenticating voice within it. Indeed, in many ways, the greatest strength of van den Belt’s study – from an historical perspective – is the way he highlights the inseparable connection in Calvin’s thought between scripture’s autopistic character, the Spirit’s internal testimony, and the nature of faith itself. For Calvin, to be certain of God’s voice in scripture is seamless with saving faith. And both are secured by the same illumination or testimony of the Spirit, apart from any rational proofs.61 What is intriguing, though, is that Beza seems to agree with Calvin here – at least, according to Mallinson’s reading. However much proofs play a role in Beza’s testimonium internum, like Calvin, he apparently will not allow the full certainty of fiduciary faith to depend on an inferential judgment derived from their demonstration. If we have understood Mallinson correctly, Beza thinks the 59 van den Belt, Scripture, 333, 335. Cf., Rogers and McKim, Authority, 173–5. 60 van den Belt, Scripture, 176–7; cf. 155–8. Cf., Rogers and McKim, Authority, 176–7, 207. 61 See, John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960), I.vii. References are from the Battles translation, but any quotation may, without warning, contain the occasional modification from the Latin edition, published in Ioannis Calvini Opera quae supersunt omnia, ed. G. Baum, E. Cunitz, and Reussm E. (Braunschweig: C.A. Schwetschke, 1863–1900). Note Dowey’s critique of Warfield: Edward A. Dowey Jr, The Knowledge of God in Calvin’s Theology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 115–24. On this, compare, Paul Helm, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 278 – 81; cf. 246–81.

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Introduction

proofs can only produce historical faith at best (so-called notitia and assensus), or a mere intellectual assent to scriptural authority. For fiduciary, saving faith, the objective proofs are insufficient; the subjective certainty exclusive to true Christian faith needs to have some other (spiritual) cause.62 From this, we might posit a two-step sequence to Beza’s understanding of the Spirit’s work in forming faith. First, the Spirit illumines the proofs, enabling an assent to the truth of revelation (in theory, this assent could even occur through the “light of nature”63). Secondly, the Spirit causes the “full and certain persuasion” of its truth. Since this second operation does not seem to add any extra “objective” information about the truthfulness of revelation per se, its effect appears to be entirely “subjective”; indeed, even possibly confined to the will and affections.64 In other words, however much he fortified an objective, evidential foundation within the testimonium internum, for Beza no less than Calvin, it remains the case that the unique personal certainty which distinguishes properly Christian faith from mere assensus, cannot at all be “objectively” derived from the intellect’s apprehension of the proofs. Questions may be asked of van den Belt’s proposal too. For instance, even if he is correct to notice a general drift between the subjective and objective grounds of faith in Reformed thought, marked by an altered use of autopistia, the picture is unlikely to have been quite as uniform as he implies, and the exact degree this phenomenon precipitated later philosophical and theological developments remains to be seen. Furthermore, some of his specific contentions may be open to debate. So, for instance, the common Reformed practice of discussing scripture towards the beginning of their systems as the principium cognoscendi need not itself have any substantive bearing on an alleged evolution in the meaning of autopistia, as if this methodological arrangement ought necessarily cause some divorce between scripture and soteriology, simply because they are discussed separately. Irrespective of their sophisticated methodological choices, the Reformed always assumed the inter-relationship of the various loci, and this must be kept in view. In other words, the development van den Belt detects may not arise from a failure in methodology, as he seems to imply.65 He is on surer grounds when he points to various polemical forces at play, which are bound to have influenced the more substantial and technical elaborations found in later loci scripturae, compared with the writings of the Reformers.66 Moreover, even if 62 63 64 65

Mallinson, Beza, 219–27. Beza, 220, 225–7. Beza, 227–34; cf. 218. Note, van den Belt, Scripture, 333–6. Cf., Muller, PRRD, I.127. On this historiographical problem, as it has affected perceptions of the Reformed teaching on predestination, see, Muller, “Placement”. 66 So, Muller, PRRD, II.108–19.

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autopistia evolved into a substantive and technical attribute of scripture, it is not altogether clear that the orthodox cut scripture’s autopistic character off from its confessional, soteriological context; as if they somehow lost Calvin’s emphasis on scripture’s self-evidencing power in securing faith (in the “verbal”, or effectual sense). Once again, as Muller warns, errors readily creep into the historiography when the technical statements in one section of a Reformed locus are examined to the neglect of related statements elsewhere.67 Let us consider Turretin, for example. It is true that he makes the rather puzzling remark that “before faith can believe, it needs to have the divinity of the witness […] made clear (perspectam), from various fixed (certis) marks which it grasps in it, otherwise it cannot believe”.68 Moreover, he does call scripture and its “marks” (notae) the “external testimony” of the Spirit, or the “objective” “argument” the Spirit uses to persuade us of the scripture’s truth. And that inner spiritual persuasion, or illuminating efficiency, is undoubtedly what he means by the Spirit’s “internal testimony”. Given that Turretin’s list of “marks” reads like the standard list of apologetic arguments, he might appear to be saying that the Spirit merely illuminates a set of arguments to establish scripture’s authority on rational (and, effectively, natural) grounds, before faith proceeds from there. Indeed, that is clearly the primary point of contention here. However, what is often missed is that when Turretin discusses the nature of calling later in his system, he clearly states that the Spirit’s regenerative “illumination” consists in a habitual impression of the Word on the intellect, enabling the same proclaimed Word to be received with actual faith.69 Consequently, it is only when a person’s intellect is thus illuminated, and they are regenerated into a “new man”, that their “spiritual senses” are “well disposed” to the self-evident marks which infallibly demonstrate the authority of the scriptural principium – bringing “theological certainty”, as he states back in his locus scripturae.70 In other words, while Turretin’s set of “marks” may prima facie look similar to the standard list of rationally discernable arguments, the cross-referencing of loci helps us realise that their fully self-evident power and truthfulness is actually lost on the mind until it has been specially illuminated through a regenerative impression of the Word itself. This is much more than a spiritual restoration of natural reason, as if to imply that faith somehow piggy-backs on a rational 67 PRRD, II.185, 202. 68 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr, trans. George Musgrave Giger, three vols. (Phillipsburg: P& R Publishing, 1992), II.iv.13. References are from the modern English translation, but any quotation may, without warning, contain the occasional modification from the Latin edition, published in Opera (Edinburgh: John D. Lowe, 1847–1848). 69 Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.23, 50–2, 54. Cf., II.ii.9; vi.14. 70 Institutes, II.iv.22; vi.11, 14, 18, 19.

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Introduction

demonstration which could, in theory, convince anyone. It is true that Turretin only sets down one list of intrinsic and extrinsic “notae”, and does affirm their apologetic value. However, it is only the Spirit-inscribed intrinsic notae, or the marks emanating from the inspired Word itself that can convince someone to believe, he feels.71 And most importantly, they can only act as a fully self-evident “principle” or “argument” convincing someone to adhere to scripture as the principium fidei, when that same Word is implanted on the intellect, enabling them to see the “light” of scripture in its own spiritual light.72 When viewed this way, Turretin’s understanding of scripture’s autopistic power certainly does have an interest in “objective” notae, “argument” or “demonstration” that is absent from Calvin’s discussion, but in terms of its essential relationship to faith and the Spirit’s internal illumination, he may not be so distant from Calvin after all. Like Calvin, Turretin does not believe scripture’s authority is actually selfevident (in the verbal sense) to any apart from those savingly illuminated by the Spirit.73 Recently, Trueman has fairly questioned the helpfulness of the continuitydiscontinuity paradigm often used to assess the development of Reformed orthodoxy out of its Reformation roots (whether positively or negatively).74 Differences in formulation and even doctrine clearly did emerge, as one would naturally expect in an evolving intellectual and political environment, even where underlying confessional consistency remains intact. And at the very least, the studies of Mallinson and van den Belt illustrate an undeniable development in the way the orthodox interpreted the Spirit’s internal work in securing faith’s certain profession of scriptural authority. Later writers certainly do appear to be more willing than Calvin to suggest the Spirit might somehow incorporate various objective arguments in persuading someone to believe.75 And in all likelihood, polemical forces were behind this development. Perhaps Mallinson and van den Belt are right that Muller glosses over this somewhat. That said, it is important not to claim too much for this development, as if on 71 Institutes, II.iv.7. 72 Institutes, II.vi.11, 18–19. Cf., Franciscus D. Junius, Opuscula Selecta, ed. D. Abraham Kuyper (Amsterdam: Frederick Muller, 1882), 116; note also Mastricht’s response to the objection, “Characteres divinitatis, ex quibus demonstratur Scripturae divinitas; sunt rationis”, namely, “Characteres illi, ipsa sunt Scriptura, ut Scriptura, agnoscatur divina, ex se, non ex ratione: sicut Sol agnoscitur ex propria luce, non aliunde”: Petrus van Mastricht, Theoreticopractica theologia (Utrecht: W. van de Water, 1724), I.ii.34 (31b). 73 For a more sympathetic treatment of Turretin, responding to Rogers and McKim, see, Godfrey, “Authority”, 236–43. 74 Carl R. Trueman, “The Reception of Calvin: Historical Considerations”, Church History and Religious Culture 91/1 (2011). 75 Cf., also, Wallace’s similar observations regarding Richard Baxter, William Bates and John Howe, Dewey D. Wallace, Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660–1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 167–204.

Scope and shape of this study

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the one hand it represents the embryonic stages of a neo-Reformed evidentialist tradition, or on the other, adds to a general dogmatic drift from the Reformer’s emphasis upon the dynamic, self-authenticating divine Word towards a more static formalism in regards to scripture and subjectivism in regards to the Spirit’s work. It seems better to read it as further evidence of Muller’s point that later Reformed writers found it increasingly difficult to integrate the subjective, spiritual work at the foundation of faith with the objective grounds for that work in the authoritative scriptural Word itself. And it is undoubtedly true that by the eighteenth century, the external intellectual and polemical pressures upon different facets of the traditional doctrine became sufficiently intense to push this relationship beyond the brink of complete rupture, bringing with it the end of orthodoxy, as Muller illustrates with reference to Hermann Venema (1697–1787).76 Yet, if we restrict ourselves to the seventeenth century, we will likely find a variety of subtly different approaches to explaining this relationship between scripture, the Spirit’s internal work, faith, and the “arguments”; whether from amongst the orthodox, or from within more progressive Protestant circles. And whether or not any given thinker moved away from the confessional emphases of the earlier Reformers in tackling the mounting pressures needs to be considered carefully, case by case.

1.3

Scope and shape of this study

Even from a casual glance at Owen’s condensed, post-Restoration masterpiece, Reason of Faith (1677), it quickly appears that he too is acutely conscious of precisely these tensions, along with a variety of different ways of accounting for the relationship between scripture itself, rational argument, and the Spirit’s work, in securing a certain, faithful apprehension of its authority. And in the process of carving out his own distinctive approach to this question, we shall see how Owen engages with these alternatives, some of which he condemns as stepping outside the boundaries of orthodoxy, and others of which he feels are satisfactory as far as their orthodoxy, but require a certain amount of modification. Indeed, the argument in Owen’s Reason of Faith will dominate much of our study, since it is his last and most complete statement on this issue of 76 Muller, PRRD, II.283–4. Cf., Hermann Venema, Institutes of Theology, trans. Alex W. Brown (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1850), 47, 68, 71, 96–7. On these later developments, see also, Martin I. Klauber, “Reason, Revelation, and Cartesianism: Louis Tronchin and Enlightened Orthodoxy in late Seventeenth-century Geneva”, Church History 59 (1990); Martin I. Klauber and Glenn S. Sunshine, “Jean-Alphonse Turrettini on Biblical Accommodation: Calvinist or Socinian?”, Calvin Theological Journal 25 (1990).

32

Introduction

scriptural authority. Owen first gave it concentrated attention in Of the Divine Original (1659), and in many ways, the later Reason of Faith represents a refinement rather than a substantial modification of his earlier views, engaging with a wider set of contextual factors surfacing after the Restoration. As Goold points out, this later treatise forms part of an exhaustive five-volumed collection on the Holy Spirit,77 whose famous first volume, Pneumatologia (1674), Webster has recently described as surely “the greatest Reformed treatise on the Spirit”.78 Like many Puritans, Owen has not set down a comprehensive, Ramist-style elenctic system, broken up into different loci and following a quaestio pattern, as his continental brethren so often did.79 Consequently, Reason of Faith does not touch on every feature of scriptural authority one might find in a contemporary locus scripturae, dealing systematically with authority, canon, inspiration, properties of the text such as its perfection or perspicuity, and rules of interpretation. Rather, in writing this treatise, Owen’s concern is, as we shall see, specifically limited to giving a theological and pastoral defence of the proper means and grounds whereupon someone becomes convinced the Bible truly is the Word of God. And in the bulk of our study, we intend to highlight the way this certain conviction regarding scripture is, for Owen, something that is, and must be, seamless with faith in God himself, if that faith is to retain its proper integrity as something finally resting on God and his supernaturally revealed truth, rather than natural human effort or rational inquiry. As he argues in the treatise, this certainty is secured in believers through a concursus of the Spirit’s internal work alongside a specific kind of “objective” and “infallible” “evidence” bound up with the inspired scriptures themselves. Conscious of the inter-connected nature of Owen’s mature theological discourse, we will need to take careful note of Owen’s statements both in Reason of Faith and elsewhere, when examining these twin features of the Spirit’s internal illumination and the unique evidence which, he believes, establishes a person’s faith. A vital part of this task will clearly entail an exploration of the intellectual 77 As Goold explains, the evidence suggests that Owen intended the following five treatises to have been successive stages in a comprehensive exposition of the Spirit’s work: Pneumatologia, or, A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit, Reason of Faith (1677), Causes, Ways, and Means of Understanding the Mind of God (1678), The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer (1682), and a two-part, posthumously published treatise on the work of the Spirit towards the church, Two Discourses concerning the Holy Spirit, and His Work: The One, of The Spirit as a Comforter ; The Other, as He is the Author of Spiritual Gifts (1693). As such, although the term Pneumatologia only appears in the original title of the first volume, Goold believes it can fairly be applied to all volumes: see, Goold, Owen, Works, III.2; IV.352. Note Owen’s own remarks, Works, IV.6, 355; and also Nathaniel Mather’s comments in his preface to the posthumous discourse, Works, IV.354. 78 Webster, Domain, 52. 79 On the evolution of the standard locus method, see, Muller, PRRD, I.177–220.

Scope and shape of this study

33

and social factors informing this treatise, paying careful attention to Owen’s engagement with the apologetic efforts of his contemporaries, who like him, were keen to promote the cause of Christian belief in the face of increasing scepticism and radical philosophical revision. Furthermore, we will also seek to highlight the critical theological relationship Owen sees between scripture’s selfevidencing authority, spiritual regeneration, and not least the person and work of Christ. Some of these connections are not immediately obvious in Reason of Faith due to its quite specific, and even somewhat polemical focus, but they are readily apparent when casting an eye across other great works of his maturity, such as Pneumatologia, the christological treatise, Christologia: Or, A Declaration of the Glorious Mystery of the Person of Christ (1679), or the moving pastoral exhortation written shortly before his death, Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ (1684). We shall see how Owen locates scripture within a comprehensive narrative of redemption, where its pivotal self-evidencing character in securing faith is a direct function of the Son’s mediatorial office as the “substantial” image of God. According to Owen, it is the Son who stands behind the gradual inspiration of scripture, furnishing it with a reflected glory as the “glass” wherein people behold his image and are transformed into his likeness. Indeed, for Owen, an encounter with scripture’s unique evidence, or what he calls its divine “light” and “power”, is no less than a prolepsis of the future visio Dei, where elect believers finally meet their saviour face to face in an event which completes that comprehensive renovation of their natures first begun through the conjunction of Word and Spirit. In noticing these theological connections, it will be fascinating to see how this narrative, with the Son and scripture at its centre, is informed by a traditional metaphysical understanding of the human faculties and their operations in acquiring knowledge. While Owen adopts a certain rhetorical cynicism towards metaphysics in his Theologoumena, there is no doubt that when articulating his thought, he still allowed it a critical, if somewhat muted, instrumental role, as did most Reformed thinkers up until the eventual demise of the eclectic AristotelianAugustinian synthesis at the end of the seventeenth century. As others have observed, Owen displays a fluent grasp of the wider catholic corpus of thought, not just his own Reformed tradition, and was readily capable of incorporating metaphysical and even theological formulations from outside his circles where they could service his own, confessionally Reformed agenda. Indeed, a recent study has pointed again to the particular influence of Thomas Aquinas upon Owen,80 not least in the arena of grace and soteriology – which is probably true of 80 Christopher H. Cleveland, Thomism in John Owen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013). I will generally refer to this published work, but occasionally to the earlier thesis, which contains further

34

Introduction

many Reformed thinkers.81 Here Cleveland echoes earlier conclusions of Trueman and Rehnman, who both detect what they call a “Scotistically modified Thomism” within Owen’s thought, befitting the typical eclecticism of the age.82 In keeping with these findings, our study will also have an eye to these influences as they surface throughout Owen’s exposition of the various theological motifs related to scripture’s authority. Such a study, we trust, will help shrink the lacuna in this area of Owen’s thought by providing a detailed, contextual analysis, pointing to his distinctive, albeit confessionally Reformed voice within this Early Modern discussion. The contemporary theological usefulness or otherwise of his contribution needs to be put aside for another day. However, we hope our study will not only supply further evidence of Owen’s credentials as a uniquely impressive and coherent advocate of Reformed theology in the seventeenth century, but will also furnish some benefit to those with an on-going interest in the nature and grounds of Christian belief, especially where the early Reformed tradition, or Owen’s thinking in particular, has attracted attention already. Beginning, then, with the immediate contextual factors influencing Owen’s argument in Reason of Faith, chapter two will introduce the intellectual background to the notion of “certainty”, and its relationship to faith in the scholastic tradition. On the one hand, it will specifically observe how Owen’s definition of “infallible faith” is shaped by that tradition, and will examine the reasons why he rejects the apologetic strategy adopted by some of his contemporaries, who have begun to advocate that “moral certainty”, secured through rational proofs, is an adequate standard for faith. On the other hand, it will point to the way Owen shows some sympathy with their desire to ground the faithful acceptance of scripture as divine testimony in objective evidence. Indeed, the next three chapters are devoted to exploring closely his own constructive approach to this issue, both from the perspective of the believing subject (chapters three and four) and the scriptural text itself (chapter five). These chapters will concentrate on elucidating the context and connection between important metaphysical and theological themes central to the fabric of Owen’s account, such as the nature of cognition, illumination, the natural law, regeneration and grace, the image of God, and not least, christology (a more extended excursus outlining Owen’s material: Christopher H. Cleveland, “Thomism in John Owen” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Aberdeen, 2011). 81 Muller alludes to this general connection: Richard A. Muller, “The Covenant of Works and the Stability of the Divine Law in the Seventeenth-Century Reformed Orthodoxy : A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus — Brakel”, Calvin Theological Journal 29 (1994), 91–3. 82 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 62–3, 181; Trueman, Owen, 58–60. Cf., Carl R. Trueman, “John Owen’s Dissertation on Divine Justice: An Exercise in Christocentric Scholasticism”, Calvin Theological Journal 33 (1998).

Scope and shape of this study

35

metaphysical understanding of the human cognitive processes is left for the final Appendix). Having seen that, for Owen, the certain acknowledgment of scripture’s divine authority is a confessional matter, inseparable from faith in the divine redeemer, the last two chapters can give attention to significant related issues extending beyond Reason of Faith to his mature discussion elsewhere. Chapter six addresses Owen’s explanation of the origin and inspiration of scripture. The Reformed doctrine of inspiration has faced much pungent criticism for the way it allegedly dislocates scripture from the dynamic rule of the Word incarnate, so that its authority ends up resting on a theory rather than a person. In keeping with Muller’s findings about the Reformed position more generally, we will show that Owen’s explanation of inspiration, as found in Pneumatologia, or his earlier work, Of the Divine Original, is far from radical, but clearly honours a longestablished traditional approach. Rather than functioning as a rational theory that somehow establishes scripture’s authority, it needs to be read the other way around, as a faithful and coherent attempt to account for scripture’s origin in light of its authority, which he, and all believers, have already come to experience. Similarly, Owen readily notices that the critical function of scripture’s authority in a believer’s life entails weighty implications for the context and manner in which it is to be read. And in our final chapter, we will explore some of these implications in connection with Owen’s teaching on scriptural perspicuity, the church and its teaching office, and the disciplines Owen thinks are necessary for a believer to deepen their understanding of scripture’s material content. To some extent, this last chapter is provisional, limited to examining the interface between authority and the other major dimension of the scriptural locus – namely, its interpretation – rather than delving into any one aspect at considerable depth. By necessity, some questions will need to be left to one side, such as the relationship between the written Word and preaching or the sacraments. But, at the very least, we hope that in pointing to some of these other important connections, Owen’s attempt at coherently integrating the nature of scriptural authority, its interpretation, and the ecclesiological context in which it is read will become apparent, perhaps opening up further avenues for exploration.

2.

Reason of Faith (1677) and the problem of certainty

2.1

Introduction

Over the next four chapters, we shall examine in detail Owen’s last and most mature statement on scriptural authority, Reason of Faith. It is here, more than anywhere else, that the foundations of Owen’s distinctive contribution to the evolving Reformed consensus on this subject may be readily discerned. The treatise itself has a somewhat targeted, polemical thrust, and in this chapter, we specifically examine Owen’s interaction with an apologetic strategy for defending scripture’s authority, which had become popular after the Restoration. In an increasingly challenging climate for Christian belief, Owen’s chief concern is to ensure every Christian properly understands the true reason or ground for their faith. As we shall begin to see, these contextual forces set the parameters for Owen’s own constructive approach to this issue, which we take up in chapters three, four and five. Owen will forge an account of scriptural authority which thoroughly harmonises with the traditional Reformed appeal to the unique witness of the Spirit, yet at the same time responds to the material concern of his contemporary apologists to ground Christian faith in objective “evidence”. In addition to exploring some of these contextual factors, over the coming chapters we shall concentrate on Owen’s theological rationale, as well as the metaphysical assumptions which appear to inform his approach to this controverted question. We intend to show that the focussed argument of this treatise needs to be viewed as an important subset of Owen’s mature theological discourse in which scripture retains a crucial role in mediating the redemptive divine light and power of the ascended Christ. In that way, Owen offers a traditionally Reformed, yet contextually nuanced and theologically integrated defence for the unique role of scripture in securing Christian faith.

38

2.2

Reason of Faith (1677) and the problem of certainty

“Certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence”

Arguably, central to understanding Owen’s Reason of Faith is a distinction he makes towards the end of the treatise between “certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence”. As Owen himself alludes, the comparison itself is a traditional one, and can be traced back at least as far as the early thirteenth century, surfacing again with considerable impact in the polemics of the postRestoration world in which this treatise was composed.1 In making this distinction, the mediaevals were comparing two different means by which the intellect attains certain perception of a particular truth.2 On the one hand, “certainty of evidence” refers to the subjective certainty which results from the intellect’s normal process of acquiring knowledge (scientia) of an evident object. For this certainty to occur, the truth of an object must be sufficiently apparent or visible to the intellect to cast aside “doubt” or “opinion”. The most evident truths are those principles which are immediately and universally understood “through themselves” (per se nota), sometimes styled as “self-evident”, like the law of non-contradiction. And these form the foundation upon which all scientific knowledge of less immediately knowable objects can proceed via demonstration. On the other hand, “certainty of adherence” arises chiefly through the strength or firmness of the will’s assent to truth about a particular object. It is not that the will is uninvolved in “certainty of evidence” – indeed, the will is integral to any act of understanding3 – it is simply that in scientia, the transparent truth of the object itself compels the intellect’s apprehension with its corresponding state of certainty. But in distinguishing “certainty of adherence” from “certainty of evidence”, the scholastics were anticipating the situation where certainty arises from a cause more powerful than the natural light of reason, enabling the will to command a firm assent to an object whose truth is insufficiently transparent for the intellect to apprehend on its own. This situation classically arises in faith. Indeed, the lack of “evidence” in faith is partly why Ockham famously opposed the Thomist classification of theology as a “science”.4 Nonetheless, both Ockham 1 See, Owen, Works, IV.101. Here Owen quotes (without reference) Bonaventure, III Sent d.23 a.1 q.4. 2 For the following, see Thomas Aquinas, DV q.14 a.1; STh I q.1 a.5; II–II q.4 a.8. Cf., Albert the Great, III Sent d.23 q.17; Bonaventure, III Sent d.23 a.1 q.4; John Duns Scotus, Lect III d.23 q.un.; Ockham, I Sent prol. q.7. This distinction goes back at least as far as Robert Grosseteste: Katherine H. Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham: Optics, Epistemology and the Foundation of Semantics, 1250–1345 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 166. 3 See, Aquinas, STh I q.82 a.4. 4 Gordon Leff, William of Ockham: The Metamorphosis of Scholastic Discourse (Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1975), 320–98; Alfred J. Freddoso, “Ockham on Faith and

“Certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence”

39

and Aquinas agree that if “evidence” is used as a measure, faith clearly has less certainty than scientia, since its truths can never be fully known in this life. But crucially, they equally insist that certainty of adherence in faith is greater than any certainty of evidence in scientia, because the will’s assent is compelled by divine truth and authority – a superior and objectively more certain cause than the normal processes of human reason.5 Owen does not know exactly what to make of this distinction, since to him it is not altogether obvious how certainty of assent towards any object can ever exceed the certainty arising from evidence. In his view, what gives “scientifical” knowledge a lower degree of certitude is its purely “speculative” evidence appealing primarily to the intellect, whereas the certainty of faith rests on “the goodness and excellency of the things believed” – evidence appealing to the mind, will and affections alike.6 Owen’s interest in what motivates the will and affections above the purely speculative knowledge of science may well reflect what Rehnman labels a pietistic turn in later Protestant scholastic theology, echoing the renewed focus on voluntaristic and Augustinian themes towards the end of the Middle Ages.7 Of course, in making a distinction between certainty of evidence and certainty of adherence, older scholastics like Aquinas were not intending to imply that faith is somehow entirely devoid of evidence. For Aquinas, faith involves a dynamic co-operation of the volitional and intellectual powers, what he describes as “thinking with assent”.8 Out of love for its proper object (God as the supreme good), the will perfects faith by driving the intellect’s hesitance and deliberation concerning its proper object (God as “first truth”) on towards an increasingly firm assent.9 However, it is equally true that for Aquinas, the will cannot command that assent unless it can somehow perceive the good, requiring at least some direction from the intellect.10 Here, at least, Gilson’s important delineation between “faith” and “understanding” in Aquinas’ thought needs some qualification; as Aquinas himself remarks, “faith cannot precede ‘understanding’ (intellectum) altogether, for a person cannot assent by believing what

5 6 7 8 9 10

Reason”, in The Cambridge Companion to Ockham, ed. Paul Vincent Spade (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 335–6. Cf., Ockham, I Sent Prol. q.7. So, Aquinas, DV q.14 a.1 ad7; Ad Hebraeos XI.i.558; STh II–II q.4 a.8 ad2. Owen, Works, IV.101. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 125. James A. Mohler, The Beginning of Eternal Life: The Dynamic Faith of Thomas Aquinas, Origins and Interpretation (New York: Philosophical Library, 1968), 40–57. See, e. g., DV q.14 a.1. Aquinas, STh II–II q.2 a.1; q.4 a.2, a.3. Mohler, Eternal Life, 51. Aquinas outlines his understanding of the relationship between the intellect and the will in STh I–II q.9 a.1.

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Reason of Faith (1677) and the problem of certainty

is proposed without understanding it in some way.”11 It is true that this statement has perplexed his interpreters. Recently, for example, Jenkins has suggested that Aquinas intends the special “gift” of understanding, the subject of the question in the Summa where the remark is made. On this reading, the gift of understanding accompanies the infused habit of faith and furnishes the intellect with a rudimentary awareness that the articles of faith are true and ought to be believed, thereby enabling the will to enact its assent.12 Others, however, argue that Aquinas cannot here mean the “gift” of understanding since that gift explicitly pertains to the perfection of understanding proper to believers already possessing sanctifying grace. And if that is the case, there is no way it can function to cause the basic assent of so-called “lifeless faith”, where someone is given the “habit of faith” without the perfection of charity.13 According to Lamont, then, Aquinas simply asserts that the Holy Spirit causes the will to assent in faith without explaining how that actually occurs.14 However, for several reasons this conclusion will not quite do. Aquinas quite explicitly states that a certain “understanding” is required for the will to assent in faith. Even if this is not the special “gift” of understanding which perfects faith, Jenkins is surely correct to notice how Aquinas frequently refers to a “light” – above the “light of reason” – that accompanies the infused habit of faith and enables the intellect (and, therefore, the will) to discern the principles which ought to be believed.15 Accordingly, earlier Thomists tended to interpret this as a God-given capacity or internal illumination which did not so much enable the object of faith to be known in itself, as in the beatific vision, but “under the common aspect of credibility” (sub communi ratione credibilis), thereby directing the will to assent.16 Furthermore, Aquinas quite clearly regards the “gift” of understanding as a necessary complement to the grace of charity which forms or perfects the will’s faithful assent. In that sense, there is no doubt it is fundamental to a salvific, 11 Aquinas, STh II–II q.8 a.8 ad2. English quotations are from the “Blackfriars” edition, but any quotation may, without warning, contain modifications from the Latin edition: Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, ed. P. Caramello (Rome: Marietti, 1950–53); Summa Theologiae: Latin text and English translation (London: Blackfriars with Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1964–81). Cf., Êtienne Gilson, Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages (New York: Scribner’s sons, 1938), 70–80. 12 John I. Jenkins, Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 192–4. 13 E.g., Dominico B‚Çez, Scholastica commentaria in secundam secundae angelici doctoris S. Thomae (Douai: Petrus Borremans, 1615), 238–240; and, recently, Lamont, Faith, 71–2. 14 Lamont, Faith, 72–3. 15 Aquinas, Sup Boethium q.3 a.1; III Sent d.23 q.2 a.1 ad4; DV q.14 a.2 resp. & ad9; STh II–II q.1 a.4 ad3, a.5 ad1; q.2 a.3 ad2. 16 Cf., Aquinas’ response in STh II–II q.1 a.4 ad2. So, Thomas Cajetan, Comm STh q1.a.4; B‚Çez, Secundum secundae, 25–6; Francis de Sylvestris, Commentaria in libros quatuor contra gentiles S. Thomae de Aquino (Rome: S. Hieronymo Aemiliani, 1897), III.187–8.

“Certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence”

41

formed and properly “virtuous” faith. Without it, the intellect cannot correctly apprehend the supernatural end of revealed truth, making it impossible for the will to adhere to it firmly or with certainty as the soul’s greatest good.17 In other words, whether or not he is speaking of formed faith or the bare assent of the lifeless habit, Aquinas sees some kind of God-given intellectual illumination or understanding as essential for the act of faith. What exactly Aquinas means by the infused light of faith will be considered further in due course. Nevertheless, for now it is enough to say that when viewed like this, Aquinas apparently does not regard Christian faith and its certainty or firmness of adherence to arise entirely apart from some evidence. Obviously, the intellect can never fully penetrate the truth or essence of certain revealed doctrines such as the Trinity or the Incarnation so long as it is in the state of faith. This is necessarily so, by definition, or else faith would not be faith. Indeed, in this world no one can reach the kind of evident certitude which fully apprehends the essence of the things believed.18 Even still, Aquinas equally believes that by grace, God supplies the intellect with degrees of light, so that at the very least, the goodness and divine authority of believed truth becomes apparent, without which it would be impossible for those possessing the habit of faith to enact their assent.19 Faith’s dependence on a certain intellectual apprehension of evidence is a point that cannot be confined to Aquinas and his “intellectualist” followers either. It equally applies to the so-called “voluntarists” who followed Aquinas in the centuries before the Reformation. For instance, in outlining John Duns Scotus’ analogy between theology and science, Bychkov points to a place in Scotus’ Reportatio where he remarks that just as any science has as “an object that is certain and is evident from the evidence of the object; [so] faith has an object that is certain to it and is evident from authority.” In that way, therefore, “the object of faith is not completely non-evident” to the mind; only in this case, the evidence does not emerge from self-evident truths or the results of scientific demonstration, but from some acknowledged authority.20 Similarly, Oberman notices how Gabriel Biel sees the same dependence of the will on the intellect’s lead in faith, adding that this was virtually commonplace among his late me-

17 Aquinas, STh II–II q.8 a.4, a.5. Cf., Cajetan, Comm STh q.8 a.8. 18 See, DV q.14 a.1 ad7, a.2 resp. 19 So, Mohler, Eternal Life, 51–4; Jenkins, Knowledge, 161–210; Creighton Rosental, Lessons from Aquinas: A Resolution of the Problem of Faith and Reason (Penfield: Mercer University Press, 2011), 112–3; cf. 83–140. 20 Scotus, Rep I-A prol. q.2. Cf., Oleg Bychkov, “The Nature of Theology in Duns Scotus and his Franciscan Predecessors”, Franciscan Studies 66 (2008); Antonie Vos, The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006), 341–2, 344–7.

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Reason of Faith (1677) and the problem of certainty

diaeval contemporaries.21 After all, it must be remembered that however much labels like “intellectualist” and “voluntarist” are applied to high mediaeval thinkers, no one writer fits neatly into either camp.22 Correcting a number of Kendall’s now infamous claims, Muller also detects a similarly careful interrelationship of the intellect and will in faith among early Protestant thinkers like Calvin and Melanchthon.23 Calvin may well be a “soteriological voluntarist” insofar as he sees the will’s ultimate freedom from the intellect captured in the very irrationality of sin.24 Nevertheless, the mutual dependence of intellect and will in conversion is illustrated in his notion of spiritual illumination and the accompanying knowledge (cognitio) of faith, which is neither bare intellectual assent nor sheer voluntarism.25 As Muller postulates, in the soteriological context, the intellect must have “temporal priority” insofar as the will needs “to have a ready object for its act of trust”. But the will takes “causal priority” insofar as the intellect’s apprehension of faith’s object does not constitute the full knowledge of faith without the will’s “fiducial apprehension of the truth presented by the intellect.”26 As we shall see, Owen’s position fits squarely within this orthodox trajectory on faith in Reformed and mediaeval thought. Yet, his view is distinctive for the way it refuses to privilege certainty of adherence over certainty of evidence. The impact of this decision on his account will become apparent in due course. However, his position can be better appreciated by first considering the way this very distinction had been adapted by some of his contemporaries, in an intellectual climate where scepticism had taken hold with renewed vigour.

2.3

“Infallible” versus “moral” certainty

In writing Reason of Faith, Owen’s primary concern seemingly relates to an apologetic stance taken by a number of contemporary churchmen, growing out 21 Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology : Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 68–89. Cf., Bonnie Kent, Virtues of the Will: The Transformation of Ethics in the Late Thirteenth Century (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1995), 108, 115–6. 22 See, Tobias Hoffmann, “Intellectualism and Voluntarism”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 414. 23 Muller, Unaccommodated, 159–73. Cf., R.T. Kendall, Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649 (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 1997 [original edn, 1981]). 24 As Muller observes, Calvin sees the bondage of the will not in terms of its essential privation (non voluntate privatus), but of a privation of soundness (voluntatis sanitate): Calvin, Institutes (1559), II.iii.5. Cf., Muller, Unaccommodated, 166. 25 Calvin, Institutes (1559), III.ii.33. 26 Muller, Unaccommodated, 170.

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of the so-called “rule of faith” controversy between various Catholic and Protestant polemicists in the early part of the century.27 As van Leeuwin observes, throughout the seventeenth century, English Protestants were haunted by the prospect of a resurgent Catholic dominance, particularly in view of such events as the Gunpowder Plot (1605), the Popish Plot (1678), and the later attempt of James II to establish a Jesuit seminary at Magdalen College, Oxford.28 Owen no doubt shared this fear.29 Nonetheless, he is equally troubled by the harmful implications of the apologetic strategy which English Protestants increasingly used to defend the supremacy of scripture by the time he writes in 1677. We have already seen that soon after the Reformation, influential Catholic polemicists seized upon a potential vulnerability in the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura by raising the question of certainty. If there is no papal arbiter, they claimed, then from where does assurance of authority and correct interpretation arise? Catholics employed this tactic to denounce the Protestant reliance on the Spirit’s internal testimony as being essentially no different from the sectarian fanaticism they so despised. The lingering power of this rhetoric can be witnessed in the interchange between the Catholic polemicist, Edward Knott and the Laudian confrÀre, William Chillingworth, resulting in the latter’s The Religion of Protestants, a Safe Way to Salvation published in 1637, followed by numerous reprints well into the eighteenth century. Here Chillingworth sets out Knott’s challenge to sola scriptura as contained in his Charity Maintained (1634), which amongst other things explicitly seeks to impale his opponents upon the horns of this very dilemma: either one accepts a public, papal voice of authority or else every judgment is resolved unto a “private spirit”, which not only is the seed-bed of every heresy, but threatens the very fabric of civil order itself.30 Like all his fellow apologists, Knott proceeds from the assumption that scripture itself has insufficient clarity to act alone as a rule of faith, then couples this with a requirement of absolute certainty for faith and religious knowledge, and ends with the inevitable assertion of papal infallibility. As van Leeuwen remarks, for Knott there are only two alternatives regarding religious knowledge: “either absolute certainty of the truths of the faith or none at all.”31 It is Chillingworth’s answer to this dilemma which is most illuminating for our purposes. Rather than defending the scriptures as the sole objective or public foundation for faith’s infallible certainty, Chillingworth refuses to grant that there ever is any direct correlation in religious matters between objective and subjective certainty attainable in this world. Chillingworth does not deny 27 28 29 30 31

Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 129–30. van Leeuwen, Certainty, 13. Toon, Owen, 158–9. William Chillingworth, The Works (Philadelphia: R. Davis, 1844), 100–1; cf. 87–105. van Leeuwen, Certainty, 18. Cf., Chillingworth, Works, 90–1.

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the objective infallibility of scripture, but he does not think this infallibility can result in an unerring “certainty of adherence” for the believing subject.32 Chillingworth is far from being utterly sceptical with respect to human knowledge: he readily grants that one can be “infallibly certain” of self-evident axioms like “the whole is greater than the parts”, or “God is truth”, along with demonstrative conclusions derived from these axioms, like “all which God reveals for truth, is true”.33 These sorts of axioms and conclusions compel the mind’s assent. Chillingworth also appears committed to the basic veridicality of the senses.34 In other words, like the scholastics, he affirms the certainty of “sense” or “science”.35 But whether or not we can have the same certainty that the doctrines we believe are divine truth, or that the Bible truly is that infallible revelation, is another matter altogether. Presumably, Chillingworth would allow for absolute, infallible certainty of faith if he thought God had furnished a selfevident basis for it. But the point is, he has not; if he had, Chillingworth argues, everyone would inevitably assent to its truth. That is, the infallible authority of the Bible (let alone the church) cannot be “evidently certain”. Instead, we can only have a “moral certainty” regarding its authority, and the credibility of the doctrines derived from it.36 The concept “moral certainty” (certitudo moralis) may extend back to John Buridan (d. 1361), who spoke of a lower level of evidentness required for acting well morally than for knowledge in metaphysics or the arts. Against Nicholas of Autrecourt, whose quest for a secure foundation for knowledge left him with nothing more than the reliability of the sense perception, Buridan sought a variety of reliable foundations for different types of knowledge, resting on a range of epistemic standards.37 Whilst adequate for practical matters, moral certainty does not entail infallible certainty or absolute immunity from error regarding its object, such as is necessary for other types of knowledge. The precise term itself was probably coined by Jean Gerson (1363–1429), who, as Rudolf Schüssler shows, forged the idea in response to the inevitable crisis of authority created by the Great Schism of 1378. It was standard scholastic parlance to distinguish “faith” from “opinion” (opinio) through its certainty and 32 Chillingworth, Works, 476. 33 Works, 81, 399. 34 However, he does mention the case of sensory illusion (which fascinated mediaeval scholastics like Peter Aureol) as a reason to question the absolute infallibility of sensory knowledge: Works, 166. 35 Works, 430–1. 36 Works, 80–2, 166–7, 476–7. 37 Robert Pasnau, “Science and Certainty”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 367–8; Dominik Perler, “Skepticism”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 395–6.

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absence of fear.38 But how could this kind of “fearless” faith ever be possible where there were two (and eventually three) Popes, each making contradictory claims, accompanied with the usual threats of eternal damnation for disobedience? In cases of doubt or moral uncertainty, thirteenth-century theologians devised the regula magistralis which enshrined the duty of carefully weighing up different authorities concerning a case and choosing that course of action which entailed the least moral risk. However, the schism had created a virtual impasse. No fail-safe criterion could be found to arbitrate between these rival claims to authority. One of Gerson’s innovative solutions to this acute and urgent difficulty is to argue that in a case of doubt, a moral agent only needs to find authoritative but not exhaustive support for a particular course of action in order to act with a clear conscience. This provides sufficient “moral certainty” for them to act without rational fear of error or sin, even if absolute certainty is not actually attainable.39 Scholars like Perler and Schüssler doubt whether this kind of late-scholastic innovation reflects a dramatic intellectual shift, as if ancient Pyrrhonic scepticism had been suddenly raised from the dead in quite the fashion Popkin may suggest.40 What is more likely, according to Schüssler, is that renewed interest in the strategies of ancient scepticism was precipitated by a crisis of authority beginning well before the turbulent polemics of the Reformation, or the later Enlightenment, for that matter. Certainly, as Schüssler and Passnau remark, and as other scholars like van Leeuwin, Shapiro and Griffin have shown, the relatively early notion of “moral certainty” proved to be hugely influential when negotiating questions of authority in the intellectual dialogue and ethical casuistry of the decades and centuries to follow.41 What is highly significant about Chillingworth’s appropriation of this latemediaeval concept is his insistence that “moral certainty” is the highest epistemic standard attainable in religious matters. God has not furnished a selfevident basis of religious authority, he claims, and therefore, proceeding from the old Aristotelian dictum that no greater assent to a conclusion can be expected than is warranted by the premises,42 moral certainty must be entirely sufficient to eradicate any rational doubts and procure saving faith in scripture 38 See, e. g., Aquinas, STh II–II q.1 a.4 resp. 39 See, Rudolf Schüssler, “Jean Gerson, moral certainty and the Renaissance of ancient Scepticism”, Renaissance Studies 23 (2009). 40 See, Dominik Perler, “Was There a ‘Pyrrhonian Crisis’ in Early Modern Philosophy? A Critical Notice of Richard H. Popkin”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 86 (2004). 41 Schüssler, “Gerson”, 453; Pasnau, “Science”, 368. Cf., van Leeuwen, Certainty ; Shapiro, Certainty ; Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism. 42 The principle is derived from Aristotle’s comment in Nicomachean Ethics, I.iii. Cf., van Leeuwen, Certainty, 38.

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as the divine Word and final rule of faith. God has given adequate evidence to forge a very high degree of certainty, but not quite enough to rule out the possibility of error, explaining the wide variety of responses to the scriptures. Hence for God (or the Papacy) to demand more certainty would be unreasonable. According to Chillingworth, moral certainty (regarding scriptural authority) arises from what he calls “motives of credibility”, the sort of thing Calvin would have undoubtedly categorised as external “proofs”, accessible to the naked mind alone: “the goodness of the precepts of christianity”, “the greatness of the promises”, “great and glorious, and frequent miracles in confirmation of it” and so on.43 Chillingworth agrees that these cannot provide absolute certainty, but critically, he refashions the scholastic axiom noted above and insists that certainty of adherence must never be expected to exceed certainty of evidence. The Holy Spirit may well grant a certainty that exceeds the evidence, but this cannot be regarded as necessary for salvation.44 By levelling the distinction between certainty of adherence and certainty of evidence, Chillingworth can now cleverly sidestep any accusation of enthusiasm which may arise when resorting to some internal spiritual testimony as the decisive means by which faith and its certainty are secured. For whatever the Spirit’s role in establishing faith, Chillingworth is adamant that a Christian’s certainty of faith is chiefly derived from evidences which are universally visible to any rational mind, without the necessity of some irresistible compulsion of the Spirit.45 It is striking that a contemporary Catholic polemicist like Thomas White was in fact conscious of a possible lacuna, or at least potential for misunderstanding, in the old distinction between certainty of adherence and certainty of evidence. In his preface to the last edition of Rushworth’s Dialogues, White is aware of the way moral certainty had been applied by some Catholics to doubtful or obscure matters of faith, and fears that the “gap” between this certainty of evidence and the greater certainty of faith must be filled by some form of illumination easily equatable to the modern-day irrational, voluntaristic enthusiasm he finds among the sects.46 Chillingworth may have successfully evaded this association, but to achieve it, he is forced to lower the bar when it comes to both the degree of evidence God has provided for the authority of Christian truth, and the measure 43 Chillingworth, Works, 81. 44 Works, 82, 167, 204. 45 See, e. g., Works, 209–10, 236–7; cf. 515–6. On Chillingworth’s Arminian sympathies, see, Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c.1590–1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 84–5. 46 William Rushworth and Thomas White, Rushworth’s Dialogues: or, The judgment of common sense in the choyce of religion, last edition, corrected and enlarg’d by Thomas White, gent (Paris: Jean Billain, 1654), *5–9.

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of assent which is consequently possible – an outcome someone like White would find thoroughly intolerable. Popkin would describe this move as a pragmatic strategy in the face of a sceptical crisis or an “abyss of doubt” created by the Reformation, a “mitigated” or “constructive” scepticism aiming for stability rather than certainty concerning unanswerable doubts posed by the sceptical Catholic assault upon the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura.47 Whatever the case, Chillingworth’s approach was influential in English Protestant circles.48 As the seventeenth century progressed, the “quest for certitude”, as Shapiro calls it, only became more hotly contested in every arena, whether philosophical, scientific or religious.49 In the English religious sphere, Shapiro points to several factors that aggravated this anxiety from the Civil War onwards: the lingering rule of faith controversy with the Catholics; the rise of “enthusiasm” with its uncomfortably radical, unverifiable and potentially seditious claims to inspiration; and the phenomenon of “atheism”, not associated with any particular movement, but emerging from a new, anti-clerical drive to emancipate religion from its confessional context, often accompanied by a quest to judge all religious claims by the unrelentingly precise standards of mathematical certainty (exemplified to devastating effect in Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, posthumously published in 1677).50 Indeed, if the Catholic assault on sola scriptura was one factor precipitating this climate of epistemic insecurity, Catholics too would soon find themselves entangled within the very same quandary. Various English Catholic apologists like White, and particularly John Sergeant, resolutely maintained against the Protestants that the church’s infallible, authoritative teaching tradition could be rationally verified beyond possibility of error, furnishing the basis for an infallible faith.51 This would only raise the ire of other Catholics like Dublin Archbishop, Peter Talbot, who continued to insist that faith’s infallibly certain assent to authority – whether that be revelation or the church’s infallible teaching – relies on a miraculous internal work of the Spirit (infused faith),

47 Popkin, Scepticism, 125; cf. 112–27. 48 Reedy notes how much late seventeenth-century Anglican theology footnotes Chillingworth: Reedy, Bible, 10. Cf., Shapiro, Certainty, 80; Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism, 91–7. 49 Shapiro, Certainty, 4. 50 Certainty, 82–3. Cf., Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism, 49–59. For a discussion of this in relation to Spinoza’s Tractatus, see, Popkin, Scepticism, 239–53. On the influence of a fashionable anti-clericalism driving the rejection of traditional, supernaturally revealed religion, see, Spurr, “‘Rational’”; J.A.I. Champion, The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and its Enemies, 1660–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 51 E.g., John Sergeant, Faith vindicated from possibility of falsehood; or the immovable firmness and certainty of the motives to christian faith, asserted, etc. (Lovain: [s.n.], 1667), 67–70, passim. Cf., Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism, 56–7.

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giving someone an immediate apprehension of God’s authoritative truth in these media, apart from any rational perception of evidence or motives of credibility.52 In light of these factors, many mainstream Protestant apologists considered the late mediaeval principle of “moral certainty” to be most useful indeed. The possibility of arriving at any kind of “infallible” certainty – irrespective of the subject – had only become more doubtful as the seventeenth century progressed, and Establishment apologists like Edward Stillingfleet and John Tillotson virtually ruled it out.53 Yet, in defending the essential “reasonableness” of Christianity, and accounting for the nature of faith, they heavily relied on the tool Chillingworth had popularised within the English scene.54 Of course, in doing so, they continued to take the basic veridicality of the senses for granted,55 even as this became an increasingly problematic assumption as the seventeenth century wore on.56 Nonetheless, like Chillingworth, they were adamant God had provided enough evidence for someone to perceive and assent to scriptural authority, even if such evidence is not quite sufficient to remove all possibility of error. And crucially, it is this rationally derived perception, they claimed, which provides the sufficient basis for a properly Christian, salvific faith – both in its truths, and in the God who revealed them. Once again, the Spirit was not necessarily cast aside. If anything, these apologists emphasised the need for spiritual healing of the faculties, and illumination of truths beyond the powers of reason, with greater force and clarity than Chillingworth.57 Nevertheless, in much late seventeenth-century, mainstream English Protestant thinking, a discernable shift away from an earlier emphasis on the Spirit’s internal testimony was welland-truly in place. No longer was it reasonable to claim that an infallibly certain faith springs from experiencing the powerful vox Dei. Not only is such certainty beyond reach, faith must now find its raison d’etre elsewhere – in the “motives of

52 Note Talbot’s exhaustive censure of White and Sergeant: Peter Talbot, Blakloanae haeresis olim in pelagio et manichaeis damnatae, nunc denuo renascentis, historia et confutatio. Auctore M.Lomino theologo (Ghent: [s.n.], 1675). 53 Edward Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, or, A rational account of the grounds of christian faith (London: R.W. for Henry Mortlock, 1662), 229; John Tillotson, The Works, ed. Thomas Birch (London: Richard Priestley, 1820), I.ccciv ; X.312–13. 54 For the following, see, e. g., Tillotson, Works, IX.173–346; Edward Stillingfleet, A Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion (Oxford: University Press, 1844), I.321–73. 55 So, John Wilkins, Of the principles and duties of natural religion (London: T. Basset, H. Brome, etc., 1675), 9; cf. 4–10; Matthew Hale, The primitive origination of mankind, considered and examined according to the light of nature (London: William Godbid for William Shrowsbery, 1677), 128–9. Cf., Spurr, “‘Rational’”, 577–8; Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism, 70–1. 56 On the evolution of anti-realism in late seventeenth-century philosophy, compared with late mediaeval realism, see, Robert Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 491–518. 57 So, e. g., Stillingfleet, Origines, 250–1; Tillotson, Works, IX.248–257.

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credibility”, or the reasonable amount of evidence God has left for the truthfulness of his written testimony.58

2.4

John Owen and certainty: Reason of Faith (1677)

Owen’s Reason of Faith explicitly seeks to address this very issue of certainty. Although he had already set down his views on scriptural authority in Of the Divine Original (1659), he is sufficiently troubled by these developments to restructure the rudiments of his earlier argument around the terminology framing this contemporary discussion.59 Rehnman’s analysis of this treatise rightly acknowledges the influence of these contextual forces, but to claim Owen does not really engage the new philosophy and theological method is misleading.60 The great strength of Rehnman’s study is its demonstration of Owen’s connection to “Reformed scholasticism”. Yet, in searching for such “continuity”, the impact of Owen’s immediate context on his thought is somewhat muted, with important interactions and influences occasionally overlooked.61 While Owen certainly sees his position to be far more consonant with the “conservative Reformation position” than this “new wine” (as Owen puts it), he definitely shows a sensitivity and even sympathy to the sort of issues driving these developments, viewing his own account as an attempt to refine the traditional position in a fashion which ought satisfy these concerns. Moreover, the relationship between what Rehnman calls “pan-Protestantism” and late mediaeval scholasticism is a complex one. As ought to be clear even from the elusive nature of certainty for Early Modern thinkers, it is not simply the case that some Protestants like Owen identified with an older Reformed and so-called scholastic way of thought, whereas other Protestants identified with radically new protoEnlightenment trends. Rather, the critical climate which faced all thinkers in the late seventeenth century – Catholic and Protestant alike – and which helped precipitate the ultimate demise of scholasticism, had its roots in the sort of issues thinkers began to face in the centuries preceding. And Owen is as much part of that contemporary evolution as he is a “conservative”, merely repristinating a traditional view. As Owen states in the preface to Reason of Faith, he is very conscious of the 58 59 60 61

For Tillotson, the rational evidence is the Spirit’s “testimony”: Tillotson, Works, IX.245. See Owen’s preface, Owen, Works, IV.5–6. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 130. So, for instance, in dismissing Goold’s observation regarding the importance of “evidence” to Owen, Rehnman’s own analysis tends to underplay the distinctive, contextual significance of this feature within Owen’s argument: Divine Discourse, 140–1. His later piece rightly gives more attention to this theme: see Rehnman, “Graced Response”.

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energies his contemporaries have expended refuting both Roman claims to papal infallibility and an emerging “atheism”, and shows no desire to overturn these well-intentioned efforts. Nonetheless, he expressly wishes to clarify something he fears is being lost or obscured, which is nonetheless crucial to a believer’s confidence in the face of such “atheistical” objections against scriptural authority and the like: namely, What is the obligation upon us to believe the Scripture to be the word of God? What are the causes and what is the nature of that faith whereby we do so? What it rests on and is resolved into, so as to become a divine and acceptable duty?62

Central to any clarification of these questions, he notes, is a proper exposition of the Spirit’s role in illuminating a particular kind of “evidence” which, to his mind, infallibly attests to scripture’s divine authority. Presumably this is why he includes this discussion in his multi-volume treatment of pneumatological themes. As Rehnman points out, the Goold edition has inserted chapter divisions from a later edition, in lieu of their absence in Owen’s original,63 but the treatise falls roughly into four parts: an introduction; a discussion of “external” arguments or evidences and their function in demonstrating scriptural authority ; a statement of the Spirit’s indispensable role in creating the certainty of faith, which is the centrepiece of the treatise; finishing with a section drawing out some connections to the contemporary discussion. There is also a short appendix, where Owen expresses some caveats on the scope of his discussion and quotes some “authorities” from the tradition to support his thesis. He tellingly avoids quoting Protestant authorities, with a distinct emphasis on the Fathers and even some influential Catholic polemicists like Stapleton, Bellarmine and Canus, attempting to show that his position on the necessity of the Spirit’s internal work over and above the traditional “external” evidences or proofs represents no fundamental departure from the mainstream tradition.64 In his introduction, Owen provides a summary of his answer to the question posed, using scholastic terminology adapted by the Reformed and standard in their various loci scripturae, combined with language which reflects the immediate contemporary discussion. In particular, he intends to show the following: first, what, in general, it is to believe infallibly that the Scriptures are the 62 Owen, Works, IV.5; cf. 7. 63 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 132. For the original, John Owen, The reason of faith, or An answer unto that enquiry, wherefore we believe the scripture to be the word of God. With the causes and nature of that faith wherewith we do so. Wherein the grounds whereon the Holy Scripture is believed to be the word of God with faith divine and supernatural, are declared and vindicated (London: for Nathaniel Ponder, 1677). 64 Owen, Works, IV.15.

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Word of God and why this is a duty ; secondly, the “external arguments”, or effectual “motives of credibility” for this authority ; thirdly, the importance of “infallible faith” above “moral certainty”; and finally, the work of the Spirit enabling infallible faith through “illumination” and “evidence”.65 In the remainder of this chapter, we will consider the first three of these, taking the second and third points together, and leaving Owen’s own constructive position for chapters three to five. Yet, even before we come to Owen’s approach to this question, in the rest of this chapter we shall begin to see how the contemporary discussion shapes his argument and his distinctive interest in the evidence which grounds Christian faith.

2.4.1 “Infallible faith” defined Right at the outset of this treatise, Owen clarifies what he means by an “infallible” belief in scripture as the Word of God. Clearly, he does not mean the believing subject is infallible. “Absolute” infallibility is obviously an attribute of God alone, as Wilkins had said; however, against many of his contemporaries, Owen wishes to stake a claim for “infallible faith”, which is “that property or adjunct of the assent of our minds unto divine truths or supernatural revelations, whereby it is differenced from all other kinds of assent whatever.”66 In other words, like older mediaeval thinkers, he has in mind a specific kind of assent or adherence to scripture’s authority, which has an infallible, divine cause, so that the resulting faith is immune from any possibility of deception or error that may occur when human reason is the sole cause of assent. And it is this infallible cause which brings with it the highest certainty or assurance possible in this world, exceeding anything obtainable in rational matters, and only to be eclipsed by the beatific vision.67 To clarify, Owen seemingly follows the earlier Scottish Reformed theologian, Robert Baron,68 by introducing the distinction Aquinas himself had made long before between the “formal” and “material” objects of faith.69 The “material” object of faith answers the question, “what is believed?”, and consists in the 65 Works, IV.15. In our view, Owen begins outlining his own position on pg. 55 (Goold), from “There are two things […]”. 66 Works, IV.17. 67 Works, IV.90, 100–2. 68 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 130–1. 69 Aquinas, STh II–II q.1 a.1 resp. Robert Baron, Disputatio Theologica de formali objecto fidei (Aberdeen: Edwardus Rabanus, 1627); also the much longer subsequent work, Ad Georgii Turnebulli […] sive apologia pro disputatione de formali objecto fidei (London: R.N. pro Jos. Kirton, 1657).

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doctrinal content of divine revelation; whereas the “formal” object or cause is the reason why someone believes, which is the infallible “authority” and “veracity” of God himself. In other words, the formal reason scripture is to be believed as divine truth (materially) is because God is true. This is the sole foundation of infallible faith.70 The integrity of infallible faith assumes, of course, an “infallible” causal link between its formal and material objects, that is, between God’s essential verity and the inspired scriptural content through which one believes in him.71 Reformed Protestantism came to express that link in terms of scripture’s “internal” formal causality, which as Junius puts it, consists in a relation (in relatione) to the “invisible Word”, so that just as divine truth is the essential form of the Word, so too is it the essential form of scripture.72 The problem is, of course, what happens when it is no longer possible to be sure of this relationship? It is well and good to assert that infallible faith believes scripture and the things contained in it because of the veracity of its author : but what if one cannot be infallibly sure that he really is its author? The Catholics most definitely understood the need for infallible faith, but many were unable to answer this doubt concerning scripture without asserting another objective medium of divine truth, namely the Papacy, which itself had some assured “relation” to divine truth. As we have seen, Protestants traditionally relied on the “secret” (arcanum) internal testimony or “afflatum” of the Spirit, inwardly confirming the truth of scripture, as earlier writers like Whitaker and Polanus classically expressed it.73 But with the withering and highly effective Catholic assault on this doctrine, infallible faith was increasingly regarded by Owen’s contemporaries as beyond a believer’s reach: it was unreasonable for God to ask more than the evidence required, and if it is insufficient to remove all doubt – as they clearly thought it was – then infallible faith is an intolerably high burden to lay in a believer’s path. However, in making his unfashionable claim for infallible faith, Owen was not blind to the weight of the Catholic assault. Manifest especially during the interregnum, Owen shared with Cromwell a special fear and aversion towards the sectarian left-wing of Protestantism, matched only by his hatred of Catholicism. The failure of the Barebones Assembly quite probably left him acutely sensitive to the threat radical religion posed to a stable Protestant settlement, something 70 Owen, Works, IV.16–20. Cf., Baron, who draws on his Catholic opponents for these commonly accepted definitions: Baron, Disputatio, 3–4; Apologia, 27–8. 71 The scholastics had long been conscious to express the infallible relationship between God and his Word, and its implications for faith. See, e. g., Albert the Great, III Sent d.23 a.7, a.12. 72 Junius, Opuscula, 106. 73 Whitaker, Scripture, 345–7; Amandus Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma theologia christianae (Hanover : Wechel, 1609), I.16 (I cc.117–121).

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he felt was crucial to the successful, long-term propagation of the gospel.74 In 1654, he famously expelled from Oxford two Quaker prophets with their disparagement of learning and emphasis on the Spirit’s “inner light”, and was sufficiently haunted by these radical Quakerian claims that he set about to refute them in his 1658 treatise, Pro Sacris Scripturis.75 Fisher’s rejoinder in 1660, with its relentlessly critical attack on scripture and strident reaffirmation of the universal “inner light” as the only guiding principle of religion, must only have exacerbated Owen’s fears.76 Therefore, it is Owen’s very sensitivity to the “inspired” claims of the radicals which could partly explain why he was reluctant to make any distinction between “certainty of adherence” and “certainty of evidence”, much like his apologist contemporaries. In Reason of Faith, Owen appears equally committed to the Aristotelian principle that assent can be no more certain than the evidence warrants:77 insufficient evidence for the certainty of infallible faith would leave him vulnerable to precisely the kind of “enthusiasm” he opposed. Consequently, in staking a claim for infallible faith, Owen insists it is necessary for God to have provided equally “infallible evidence” of scripture’s divine authority.78 When Owen’s position on evidence was first properly put to paper back in Of the Divine Original, close at hand, then, were the well-worn Catholic assault on the self-evidencing authority of scripture, the Quakerian claim to inner light, and increasingly critical attitudes towards the scriptural text. Indeed, while this last phenomenon had initially been propelled by the more radical “lay” philosophical voices of the age, it was increasingly exploited by figures like Fisher, various Catholic polemicists, and perilously echoed, in Owen’s mind, by too many of his Protestant contemporaries such as Louis Cappel and Brian Walton, whose position on Hebrew vowel points he so (in)famously denounced.79 In other words, it is fair to say that Owen’s unique approach to the question of evidence was forged with a genuine fear for the on-going pre-eminence of scriptural authority in the English church firmly in view. Above all, however, it is, perhaps, his pastoral sensitivity in the face of these various rival perspectives – not least the emerging “atheism” – that is behind his search for an infallible, 74 Toon, Owen, 87–9. 75 Owen, 76. 76 Samuel Fisher, Rusticus ad academicos in exercitationibus expostulatoriis, apologeticis quatuor (London: Robert Wilson, 1660). Popkin notices striking similarities between Fisher’s attack on scripture and the critical views of Spinoza and La PeyrÀre, with whom he may have had contact: Popkin, Scepticism, 230–8. On the connection between Quakerism and the emerging Enlightenment, see, Jerald C. Brauer, “Puritan Mysticism and the Development of Liberalism”, Church History 19 (1950). 77 Owen, Works, IV.17, 50, 100. 78 Works, IV.17–19. 79 See Owen’s Preface to the three treatises of 1658 and 1659, Works, XVI.283–93.

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evident foundation for Christian faith in divine revelation. In this bewildering context, a Christian believer needs to understand why it is they happen to believe scripture is the Word of God lest they be “shaken” by those who claim such belief is groundless or, at least, something less than infallibly stable.80 For Owen, infallible faith and its accompanying certainty – derived from infallible evidence – are of non-negotiable significance. He describes the alternative as “fallible” faith, foreseeing the situation where scripture is acknowledged as “infallible”, but not because of the authority and veracity of God evident within, but by virtue of some other, fallible grounds. In his view, “fallible” faith is not faith at all, either in God or his revealed truth.81 Indeed, for whatever other ways someone may assent to scriptural truth (assensus), or acknowledge its material content (notitia), the unique kind of assensus Owen has in mind here is basic and essential to a saving, fiduciary faith which rests in God alone.82 And as others have observed with Calvin, this “divine and supernatural” faith cannot be a two-step affair, beginning with assent to the scriptural testimony via one set of grounds, only for faith-proper to launch off another set of grounds; rather, it is all of a piece.83 The same divine authority which formally summons saving faith in God is exclusively mediated “in and by” scripture and its own evidence, to use one of Owen’s favourite expressions.84 Or, to put it differently, the truth and authority of God, absolutely speaking, is the “ultimate” formal object of faith, whereas the “immediate” formal object is scripture, evidently communicating that authority,85 so that “hereby alone are our minds affected with the authority and veracity of God; and by what way soever it is made unto us, it is sufficient and able so to affect us.”86 Accordingly, while Lamont is certainly correct to say that for Owen, the formal reason of faith is ultimately the veracity and authority of the self-testifying God, it is a mistake to suggest Owen somehow drives a wedge between the “effects” that cause our recognition of scripture’s divine authority (or in Owen’s terms the “evidence”), and the act of faith itself, as if the factors or reasons which 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Works, IV.5. Works, IV.48. Works, IV.14–5, 55, 98. Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, 246–8, 270–1. Cf., van den Belt, Scripture, 13–115. E.g., Owen, Works, III.202; IV.82, 92, 102, 111, 424, 501; VI.638; XVI.328, 336. Works, IV.18–19. Works, IV.19. For Baron, the principle of accommodation necessitates an external divine revelation, operating as the immediate formal object of faith, rather than God’s uncreated essence. Nevertheless, as Su‚rez remarks, the authority and infallibility of revelation is derived from its formal relationship to uncreated divine truth. This gives faith its essential unity in spite of its various formal and material aspects (Baron appears heavily reliant on Su‚rez here, whom he quotes extensively, and cleverly, against his Jesuit opponent, George Turnbull): Baron, Apologia, 47–8. Cf., 45–54; Francisco Su‚rez, Opera Omnia (Paris: Ludovicum VivÀs, 1858), XII.43–44.

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cause us to recognise God’s voice in scripture do not enter into the reason of faith.87 Owen explicitly regards scripture’s own evidence of its authority as a divine “testimony” in and of itself, inseparable from the scriptural testimony : Now, because faith […] is an assent upon testimony, and consequently divine faith is an assent upon divine testimony, there must be some testimony or witness in this case whereon faith doth rest; and this we say is the testimony of the Holy Ghost, the author of the Scriptures, given unto them, in them, and by them […].

Directly following this remark, Owen goes on to outline this “testimony of the Spirit” under two headings which comprise scripture’s own unique evidence.88 In other words, Owen consistently maintains that recognising God’s voice in scripture, or believing the Spirit’s own testimony or evidence of its authority, is identical to faith in God itself. These are not separate claims. Yes, it is true that faith ultimately rests in the authority of God, but what Lamont appears to miss is that for Owen, just as divine authority is mediated through the text of scripture and its own evidence, so faith moves seamlessly from that evidence back to the authority of first truth.89 As Owen suggests: “the nature of every assent is given unto it by the nature of the evidence which it proceedeth from or relieth on.”90 That is why he sees a sequence of logically connected questions terminating with the evidence as the ground upon which the one, saving act of faith in God’s ultimate authority arises: We do believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God. Why do we so do? on what ground or reason? It is because of the authority of God commanding us so to do […]. But how or by what means are our minds and consciences affected with the authority and truth of God, which makes our faith divine and supernatural? It is alone the divine, supernatural, infallible revelation […]. But what is this revelation, or where is it to be found? It is in the Scripture alone […]. How, or on what grounds, for what reasons, do we believe the Scripture to be a divine revelation […]? Whereunto we answer, It is solely on the evidence that the Spirit of God, in and by the Scripture itself, gives unto us that it was given by immediate inspiration from God.91

It is notable that Owen’s contemporary, Baxter, with whom he had such a notoriously difficult relationship, appears to share very similar sensitivities on this issue of faith and evidence. So, for instance, in his own Methodus, Baxter refers to the internal Catholic dispute between Talbot and White mentioned above. Against both their positions, Baxter resolves that God cannot have left his 87 88 89 90

Lamont, Faith, 198. Owen, Works, IV.91; cf. 72–3. Works, IV.17–20. Works, IV.17. Owen frequently correlates the nature and “reason” of faith’s assent to the evidence of scripture’s authority : Works, IV.55, 60–1, 72–3, 81, 88–9, 91. 91 Owen, Works, IV.19–20.

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scriptural testimony bereft of evidence regarding its truthfulness: faith must derive its infallible certainty from “evidence of truthfulness” (evidentia veritatis) found within the scriptural text itself.92 But leaving this comparison aside for now, how will Owen convincingly demonstrate such authority to be infallibly evident, especially in a context where it is now widely assumed that it is not? He sets out his answer in the third part of the treatise, which we take up in following chapters. However, before that, he gives further attention to the “external considerations”, or so-called “motives of credibility” which lead to moral certainty.

2.5

“Motives of Credibility” and the insufficiency of “Moral Certainty”

Owen does not extensively discuss these arguments in either treatise on scripture, feeling they have been thoroughly addressed by many others. He is probably thinking of his contemporary English apologists, as he expressly endorses their efforts on this front, even if he dismisses their total reliance on these arguments.93 That said, of course, Owen was undoubtedly familiar with the discussion elsewhere, which was commonplace in Protestant treatments of scripture. In the earlier Of the Divine Original, the arguments are treated towards the end of the treatise, after he has outlined his own position. Here they are discussed first. Time has obviously afforded Owen an opportunity to witness and reflect on the proliferation of contemporary defences of scripture, as the latter treatise addresses these arguments and their limitations more systematically, with a noticeably greater awareness of the terminology typically employed, such as “moral” versus “infallible” certainty, “motives of credibility”, “unprejudiced minds” and the like. Regardless of how later generations may assess these arguments, Owen considers them to be cogent, and more “pleadable” than the Catholic reliance on the fallible human judgment of the Papacy.94 Rather than providing a comprehensive list, Owen singles out those he believes are the most cogent:95 the antiquity of the scriptural writings; their providential preservation; their style and design, which befits the infinite holiness, wisdom and goodness of God; the

92 Richard Baxter, Methodus theologiae Christianae (London: M. White & T. Snowden, 1681), II.123–6. I am grateful to Simon Burton for pointing me to this section. 93 Owen, Works, IV.109–11. Cf., 5, 20–1, 47, 109–11; XVI.334, 337. 94 Works, IV.21; cf. XVI.329–36. 95 Works, IV.21–45. Cf., XVI.337–43; XVIII.43–55.

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testimony of the church; and the “success” of their doctrine in bringing conviction and faith, saying at a later point he considers this the most persuasive.96 Owen does not dispute the value of these evidences in persuading “unprejudiced reason” of scripture’s veracity. Moreover, they are useful for strengthening the faith of believers, and for convicting “gainsayers”, much as Calvin had said earlier.97 The expression “unprejudiced reason” is closely related to the notion of moral certainty. In this context, it was commonly said that only a “prejudiced” mind could deny the moral evidence for scriptural authority.98 These motives of credibility are not infallibly self-evident like mathematical axioms, it is said, but are certain enough for any properly functioning (“unprejudiced”) mind to arrive at an undoubted, if fallible, persuasion that scripture proceeds from God.99 Of course, this begs the question as to whether such a mind actually exists. Owen is doubtful, fearing that the contaminations of poor education, wayward tradition, and sinful habits are virtually “invincible” obstacles to their usefulness in inducing assent.100 That is why few – at least within mainstream Protestant circles – had ever really denied some role for the Spirit, at least to heal the broken intellectual faculty, as Owen readily concedes.101 Even still, the point is – according to Owen’s hypothetical interlocutor, these evidences are the highest “motives of credibility” on offer, and as such, faith in scripture cannot exceed the certainty of these evidences. In other words, there is no “infallible” faith or certainty since “moral certainty” is the summit of what the evidence will bear.102 For Owen, this scenario is intolerable, as he is adamant that a faith built on moral certainty alone falls well short of what God requires as a moral “duty” incumbent on all. It is, in his view, a species of “fallible” faith, or faith built on potentially fallible grounds. Expanding on what he had claimed in his introduction, “infallible faith” rests ultimately on the unfailing authority and veracity of God; it “believes” for no other “reason” than God is who he is. Faith grounded on moral certainty believes scripture to be true because the mind has rationally determined with a high degree of probability that it is of divine origin. For Owen, this cannot properly speaking (or scholastically speaking) be called “faith” at all, since it entails an element of uncertainty. Neither is it “knowledge”, since these arguments fall well short of self-evidently demonstrating scripture’s 96 Works, IV.95. 97 Works, IV.47, 49, 50. Cf., Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.viii.1. 98 Owen, Works, IV.21, 45. Cf., Stillingfleet, Origines, 33, 246; Tillotson, Works, X.285, 329; William Bates, The Whole Works, ed. W. Farmer (London: James Black, 1815), I.87, 116. 99 So, classically, e. g., Bates, Works, I.116–176. 100 Owen, Works, IV.45–6, 53. 101 Works IV.58, 105. 102 Works, IV.45–7, 49. Owen does not name his interlocutor – if, indeed, it is anyone in particular – and I have been unable to identify a source for these quotations.

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authority. In any case, if they did, there would be no need for faith. Consequently, the assent arising from these motives of credibility can only be a version of “opinion”. He is aware that its advocates speak of it as “indubitable”, placing it in a higher category than opinion traditionally understood, but given it has never been properly classified, he is content with “high opinion”, “human” or “fallible” faith as adequate descriptors. It definitely is not “divine faith”, by which he means a faith that has the highest degree of certainty possible, arising out of the infallible authority of God alone.103 In condemning the inadequacies of this view, Owen casts aside any claim that suggests it is possible to assent to scripture’s divine origin through moral motives but still to have an infallible faith, where the truths disclosed in scripture are then believed to be infallible.104 “[W]e must believe the revelation and the things revealed with the same kind of faith”, he insists, “or we bring confusion on the whole work of believing.” Since scripture is the sole testimony containing those allegedly infallible truths, the degree of faith in those truths cannot exceed that wherewith the testimony is believed. In other words, the standard of belief which pertains to the material object (the doctrines) must equate to the standard of belief in the formal object (the revelation itself).105 He also dismisses an appeal to the inherent “majesty, holiness, and excellency” of the scriptural doctrines themselves and their “suitability” to the human condition as the grounds for faith. Since Calvin at least, it had become common to distinguish between “internal” and “external” evidences, with the inherently noble and majestic content of scripture often regarded as a particularly impressive motive for recognising its authority.106 However, in Owen’s view, there is no way of discerning the beauty or usefulness – let alone meaning – of so many scriptural teachings, especially the most important, without a special spiritual illumination. Some truths in scripture are simply beyond the reach of the mind in its native state. In other words, although he himself had mentioned this “internal” motive in his own list of arguments, he clearly regards it to be of considerably less apologetic value with unbelievers than others might. Either way, it is still incapable of yielding anything greater than moral certainty.107 If advocates of this last position acknowledge the need for some internal spiritual work, healing the broken faculties and enabling a fully “divine and 103 Works, IV.47–51. 104 Cf., Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached at Several Times (London: W. Bowyer & C. Bathurst, 1724–44), IV.288; V.186–201; Joseph Glanvill, Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London: Baker, 1676), V.10–12; Stillingfleet, Rational Account, I.322–3. 105 Owen, Works, IV.46, 51–2. 106 E.g., Turretin, Institutes, II.iv.7–9. Cf., Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.viii.1–2. 107 Owen, Works, IV.53–5.

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supernatural faith”, Owen seems less alarmed. In this case, he concedes that the substance of their argument would be “coincident” with his own. Nonetheless, for two reasons, he is still not entirely satisfied. First, the formal reason of faith consists in the authority of the testimony or revelation itself, and its relationship to the divine nature, not the material doctrines the revelation contains. The second reason is related: an admiration of scripture’s doctrines and an appreciation of their salvific value is a perspective of “spiritual sense”, which assumes the assent of faith, and therefore cannot be the formal cause of faith (what Owen means by “spiritual sense” will be discussed in chapter four).108 Nevertheless, a further point of clarification may be necessary here, since Owen is sometimes a little vague about whether or not those with whom he is engaging actually ascribe any role to the Spirit in producing faith. It seems that some do (as just observed), whereas others do not.109 Indeed, he appears conscious of an array of subtly different approaches to the Spirit’s role, perhaps too many to afford commenting on each one without significant distraction. One thing is clear : he is emphatic that faith in any way grounded in “moral certainty” sweeps aside all fundamental dependence on the Spirit in its formation.110 The trouble is, however, virtually no one, whether Catholic, Protestant, or even Socinian, asserted such a “bare” version of faith derived from moral evidence without some prevenient or concurrent internal operation of the Spirit. As noted above, Owen does seem aware of this, even if he still believes some “disregard” this work, reducing everything “unto sense and reason”.111 Furthermore, we have just seen that Owen does grant, in at least one situation, how an acknowledgment of the Spirit’s internal work alongside the impact of moral evidence changes things sufficiently for that position to be “coincident” with his own. So the question is, then, to whom precisely does Owen consider his condemnation of faith grounded in “moral certainty” to apply, if all his “opponents” actually do ascribe some necessary supernatural role to the Spirit? Does this blunt the impact of his criticism somewhat, or is he drawing an implicit distinction between some accounts of the Spirit’s attendant supernatural work which are sufficiently robust to overturn the condemnation, and others which are not? The last option seems most likely. Leaving aside the position of the confessionally heterodox Socinians, take the more mainstream example of Tillotson. Tillotson strongly argues for the sufficiency of a faith based solely on rational argument. He agrees with the traditional claim that the authority of divine 108 109 110 111

Works, IV.53. E.g., Works, IV.47, 49, 53, 54, 58. Works, IV.49. Works, IV.56, 58–9, 105.

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testimony provides the highest grounds for faith. Nevertheless, when it comes to scripture, unless there is an immediate internal testimony certifying its authority – which for Tillotson is out of the question – no other corroborating testimony is available, as it would necessitate a sequence of testimonies ad infinitum. Consequently, “divine faith” may comfortably proceed from the lower, but perfectly sufficient standard of rational demonstration.112 Even still, Tillotson is also adamant – perhaps showing greater clarity here than Chillingworth – that unless the Spirit performs an efficacious internal work, healing the broken faculties, and fixing the mind on the rational arguments, no person would come to faith.113 What is certain, however, is regardless of this efficacious spiritual operation, the resulting assent to scripture’s truth is still – by Owen’s definition – fallible faith, based on the deductions of reason – healed reason maybe, but with a reach extending no further than the usual “motives of credibility”. In other words, the Spirit’s internal work is not ultimately foundational to a truly divine faith.114 In this case, then, Owen’s condemnation still seems to apply. But in Reason of Faith, Owen is conscious of other ways of understanding the Spirit’s internal work in securing faith. One is to suggest faith rests on a “private testimony” or extraordinary word from the Spirit, over and above the canonical Word of scripture. For obvious reasons Owen sets this aside, yet he also realises this is precisely the charge levelled at Protestants who reject the authority of the church or the “motives of credibility” as sound bases for faith.115 Aside from the radicals, however, Owen is confident there is “no one of them” who holds to such an absurdity. Nonetheless, he does concede that “some learned men” do speak of the “internal testimony of the Spirit”, not as a private testimony, but as something foundational to a properly infallible faith: [T]hey say that besides the work of the Holy Ghost before insisted on, whereby he takes away our natural blindness, and, enlightening our minds, enables us to discern the divine excellencies that are in the Scripture, there is another internal efficiency of his, whereby we are moved, persuaded, and enabled to believe. Hereby we are taught of God, so as that, finding the glory and majesty of God in the word, our hearts do, by an ineffable power, assent unto the truth without any hesitation. And this work of the Spirit carrieth its own evidence in itself, producing an assurance above all human judgment, and such as stands in need of no farther arguments or testimonies. This faith rests on 112 See Tillotson’s series of sermons on “divine faith”: Tillotson, Works, IX.173–346. 113 Tillotson emphatically limits the Spirit’s internal testimony to an illumination of the evidences, upon which the persuasion of scriptural authority for faith is based: Works, IX.243–257. Cf., Edward Fowler, The Principles and Practices of Certain Moderate Divines of the Church of England […] (London: for Lodowick Lloyd, 1670), 56–8; and from the era of late orthodoxy, Venema, Institutes, 71, 96–7. 114 Cf., Griffin Jr, Latitudinarianism, 82–4, 87–8. 115 Owen, Works, IV.61–2.

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and is resolved into. And this some learned men seem to embrace, because they suppose that the objective evidence which is given in the Scripture itself is only moral, or such as can give only a moral assurance.116

It is hard to know exactly whom Owen has in mind here. As we mentioned in the introduction, recent scholars have convincingly shown that at some point in the evolution of Reformed thought – possibly around the time of Beza – there was a discernable shift in Reformed approaches to the internal testimony of the Spirit.117 Whereas Calvin had excluded the standard list of apologetic evidences from his account of the testimonium internum, later writers increasingly responded to the Catholic denunciation of enthusiasm by somehow incorporating these evidences into the Spirit’s internal witness, thereby providing it with some objective foundation. Nevertheless, as common as this move may have been, there appears to have been considerable variety in the way this concursus of the Spirit’s testimony and objective evidence was actually understood, perhaps more than even van den Belt suggests. So in the case of Tillotson, it is simply enough that the Spirit takes away the mind’s sinful prejudices, enabling it to judge the evidence or “motives of credibility” aright, and proceed from there with a morally certain assent to scripture’s divine authority. However, in the quotation given above, Owen alludes to another way of understanding the Spirit’s internal work, which also incorporates the testimony of “objective evidence”. In this case, however, it appears there are two steps to the Spirit’s work in forming faith. First, the Spirit heals the mind of its “natural blindness”, so it can see the “objective evidence” and discern the “divine excellencies” of scripture. But since it is felt this objective evidence can only provide a morally certain judgment, a further spiritual work is posited which communicates the self-evidently ineffable, irresistible power and majesty of God, and alone provides the “testimony” or foundation for a properly “divine and supernatural faith”. Irrespective of precisely whom Owen has in mind, it is not hard to identify accounts that roughly approximate this latter view. Take, for example, another of Cromwell’s chaplains, John Howe. Howe was as keenly interested as any in the objective, rationally discernable evidences of scriptural authority, so much so that Wallace has recently aligned his apologetic efforts with those of his Establishment contemporaries. According to Howe, it is these evidences which alone oblige people to believe scripture as the Word of God.118 Nonetheless, as Wallace rightly observes, what distinguishes Howe from Tillotson and others is the way he leaves room for a regenerative spiritual work that extends beyond a mere 116 Works, IV.62–3; cf. 61. 117 Cf., Mallinson, Beza; van den Belt, Scripture. 118 John Howe, The Whole Works (London: F. Westley, 1822), VI.450–1; cf. 443–95.

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restoration of reason, and ensures faith ultimately rests on divine persuasion rather than rational proofs or moral certainty.119 Although scripture contains objective evidences which oblige belief, Howe is adamant that Christian faith must rest exclusively on the divine testimony of scripture itself rather than any rational inference. However, this kind of faith can only occur when an internal spiritual work causes that testimony to “take hold of men’s souls, and come with power upon them.”120 More clearly still, van den Belt notes how in the fifth disputation of his Leiden Theses Theologicae, Junius seemingly incorporates the rational evidences into his account of the testimonium internum, by hinting that the Spirit somehow “adds power” (vim addit) to their argument.121 Even so, Junius insists, however much the Spirit may incorporate these evidences in establishing a person’s faith, the chief and ultimately decisive factor is the “internal”, “secret testimony” (arcano testimonio) of the Spirit, which “fills our souls with a certain wondrous ‘full assurance’ and causes us to embrace Holy Scripture as truly ‘God-breathed’.”122 As a final example, it is interesting to note that Owen’s younger Scottish contemporary and one-time assistant, Robert Ferguson, wrote his own treatise on the role of reason in understanding scripture, not long before Reason of Faith was published. Like Howe and Junius, Ferguson also believes the Spirit incorporates the rational evidences into his internal testimony. Ever fearing the spectre of “enthusiasm”, “[t]he Holy Ghost convinceth no man as to the Belief of the Scripture,” Ferguson insists, “without Enlightning his mind in the Grounds and Reasons upon which it’s proceeding from God is evidenced and established” [sic]. Indeed, “[t]here is no Conviction begot by the Holy Ghost”, he adds, “otherwise than by rational Evidence satisfying our Understandings, through a discovery of the Motives and Inducements that ascertain the Truth of what he would convince us of.”123 In fact, Ferguson has a very emphatic commitment to the objective certainty of these rationally discernable evidences, going so far as to regard them as “infallible” in themselves – especially those which are internal to scripture itself.124 Even still, he does not wish to deny that the internal spiritual testimony is, in itself, the “most convincing Evidence” for any believer. Without 119 120 121 122

Wallace also portrays Baxter and Bates in this light: Wallace, Shapers, 167–204. Howe, Works, VIII.494; cf. 450. Junius, Opuscula, 118. Junius, Opuscula, 117–8; cf. 107, 116. Cf., van den Belt, Scripture, 133–42. Van den Belt does note that in Junius’ second and fourth disputations, the relationship of the testimonium to the evidences is expressed somewhat differently. In fact, here in this fifth disputation, he observes a striking parallel with Whitaker : Cf., Whitaker, Scripture, 294–5. 123 Robert Ferguson, The Interest of Reason in Religion (London: for D. Newman, 1675), 57. 124 Interest, 123–8.

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it “elevating and preparing our Understandings”, and “giving Efficacy to Scripture Truths in and upon our Hearts and Consciences” – enabling us, as it were, to discern “spiritual things spiritually” (pneumatika pneumatikos) – the scriptures will never take hold of us with the requisite “Demonstration of the Spirit and Power”. This, Ferguson admits, is “a Diviner thing and more Convincing, than any Demonstration.”125 In each of these cases, then, there is a firm conviction that in bringing someone to divine faith, the Spirit somehow persuades the mind of the rational veracity of the standard apologetic proofs. Equally, however, each writer wants to stress that beyond this Spirit-aided rational demonstration, it is somehow ultimately the ineffable, divine effect of this spiritual work or “testimony” on the soul which is in itself the most convincing and decisive factor in establishing faith, together with its unique sense of assurance. Compared with the position of Tillotson or Chillingworth, Owen is clearly much more at ease with an account like this. Faith must ultimately rest on the infallible grounds of divine testimony, and not simply upon an inference drawn from motives of credibility, which in his view amounts to little more than fallible, human opinion. Nevertheless, for several reasons, Owen is still not entirely satisfied with a two-step affair, especially if the ultimate reason of faith ends up being a purely internal, secret spiritual persuasion exceeding the persuasion derived from objective evidence bound to the scriptural testimony itself. First, like Baron had said many years earlier, Owen feels the formal reason of faith must always be some object or authoritative external testimony proposed to the faculties, not an ineffable internal work of the Spirit which is better classified as the “power” or the “efficient cause” of faith.126 Indeed, Owen goes on to argue that the Spirit’s internal efficiency in faith is not technically a testimonium at all. As we shall see, Owen does concede there is a sense in which the Spirit’s internal efficiency provides what he calls a “corroborating” testimony ; but importantly, this is not the testimony upon which faith is ultimately based. Secondly, Owen says, the formal reason of faith must be the same for all who believe, if the same duty of faith is commanded and required of all. Should the decisive formal reason for any person’s belief arise from some ineffable Spiritual work, then there are as many reasons for faith as there are believers. Thirdly, and perhaps most persuasively, this account of faith implies it can only be a duty to believe infallibly for those who have received this immediate internal testimony, flagging the danger of deception and delusion typically as-

125 Interest, 60. 126 Owen, Works, IV.106. Baron quite possibly draws from Su‚rez. Cf., Baron, Apologia, 394–5; Su‚rez, Opera, XII.47–50.

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sociated with “enthusiasm”, as well as the Catholic charge of subjective circularity. For him, this is to undo the “autopistia” or self-credibility of scripture.127

2.6

Conclusion

Having cleared the ground of different contemporary approaches to the question of faith and evidence, which he feels are all inadequate to varying degrees, Owen will use the remainder of Reason of Faith to outline his own. However, what ought to be apparent from this chapter is that in spite of any marked differences, the thing uniting Owen, Tillotson, Junius, Howe, Ferguson, and indeed, virtually any other contemporary Protestant, is an increasingly acute interest in this very question. As we saw at the outset, this concern is hardly a late seventeenthcentury novelty ; it was bequeathed by scholastic terminology and questions – many of them never precisely resolved – tracing back over five hundred years. Yet, faced with a withering Catholic assault on the Protestant doctrine of sola scriptura, which was only exacerbated by the lingering presence of radical religion together with an increasingly subversive philosophical scepticism, the increased preoccupation with this issue among seventeenth-century writers is scarcely surprising.128 Owen’s concerns are chiefly pastoral. With so many rival claims to authority, it is vital for the stability of any Christian to know the true reason for their faith. Yet, as much as Owen applauds the apologetic intent of his Establishment contemporaries, to his mind they have conceded far too much ground. It simply will not do to answer the Catholics or the more militant sceptics by lowering the acceptable standard of faith’s grounds. A faith resting on anything less than the infallibility of unadulterated divine testimony is not faith at all. The Spirit’s work at the foundation of faith cannot be contracted to a mere removal of intellectual prejudice, leaving “right reason” to do its work from there. Here Owen is far more comfortable with those “learned men” who insist on the decisive significance of the Spirit’s own, irresistible testimony for Christian faith, above any objective “motives of credibility” he may somehow incorporate into his testimony. Then again, where Owen seemingly agrees with the Establishment apologists is in his conviction that the quality of faith’s assent must be determined by the quality of objective evidence accompanying the 127 Owen, Works, IV.63–4. 128 Worden makes this illuminating remark comparing more enlightened post-Restoration apologists for religious tolerance, such as Hale, Wolseley, and Whitelocke, with conservative “Calvinists” like Owen: “To those men – no less than to Owen – the most alarming feature of the age was the ubiquitous and pernicious advance of atheism and libertinism.”: Blair Worden, God’s Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 90. Cf., 86–90.

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truths or testimony believed. Only, as we shall see, the kind of evidence he has in mind manifestly exceeds the power of the standard arguments or motives that are capable of producing “moral certainty” at best. Having questioned the classic scholastic axiom that “certainty of adherence” exceeds “certainty of evidence”, in the coming chapters we will see how Owen goes on to outline an account of evidence which neither entirely departs from the spirit of this scholastic distinction, nor capitulates to the rationalism of his progressive contemporaries, but forms the objective basis or “reason” for a properly divine and supernatural faith.

3.

Implanted law and the light of nature

3.1

Introduction

Midway through Reason of Faith, Owen begins his constructive answer to the question of authority and evidence by framing his discussion in terms of the “subject” or “the mind of man”, and how it is enabled to believe, and the “object to be believed”, or the “true reason” why scripture is believed with “faith divine and supernatural”.1 The Spirit is crucial to each of these perspectives – something which is underlined in his earlier treatise, Of the Divine Original (1659), where he speaks of these twin dimensions as the subjective and objective polarities of the “testimony of the Spirit […] usually delivered by our divines.”2 In Reason of Faith, his terminology has altered slightly, although the substance of his position is the same. In the later treatise, the subjective spiritual work at the foundation of faith is twofold: there is an “illumination” of the mind, accompanied by a new “spiritual sense”. Eager to avoid implying that faith itself rests on some secret spiritual persuasion, Owen now only reluctantly calls this spiritual sense a “testimony”. In other words, this later qualification and clarification of terminology can be put down to the sort of extended and mature reflection on the issues naturally expected in a work written nearly twenty years later. While Owen is apparently ambivalent towards some Protestant accounts of the Spirit’s internal testimony, at the outset it is worth noticing that he sees his own approach to be perfectly in line with Calvin and the “divines at the first reformation” who did not ignore external arguments akin to “motives of credibility”, and much less did “exclude that evidence thereof which the Holy Ghost gives unto it in and by itself.” Then in the only substantial quotation from a Reformed thinker in the entire treatise, Owen endorses that striking section of Calvin’s 1559 Institutes where he speaks of the “undoubted power that we sense 1 Works, IV.55. 2 Works, XVI.325; cf. 318–29.

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to live and breathe” in scripture itself, by which “we are drawn (trahimur) and led to obey (accendimur) more vitally and efficaciously than on account of human willing (voluntate) or knowing (scientia)”.3 Here Calvin is exclusively discussing the testimonium internum only experienced by the elect, before turning to the “proofs” in his next chapter. In other words, when Calvin speaks of the Spirit’s internal testimony establishing faith, Owen interprets him to mean that the Spirit works “in and by” a unique kind of “evidence” which resides in the text itself – over and above any rational proofs. Our intention is not to demonstrate some continuity or otherwise between Owen and Calvin, although it is telling that Owen sees a connection himself. Rather, the important point is that whatever else Owen means by “evidence”, it is vital to see how he regards it as something more than natural or moral, and in that sense, merely scientific evidence. Whatever it is, it is fundamental to the very life of faith itself. The task, therefore, is not merely to uncover Owen’s understanding of “evidence” abstractly considered, but to discern how that “evidence” functions as the foundation or testimony which effectually establishes infallible faith. But before examining what Owen intends by this evidence, or the Spirit’s “objective testimony” (chapter five), we will first concentrate on the subjective spiritual dimension, which he regards as the indispensable condition for perceiving scripture’s evidence. As we shall see, Owen follows the pattern of other Reformed orthodox thinkers in drawing upon a traditional scholastic account of illumination that he modifies to accommodate his Reformed and covenantal convictions. Arguably, this classical refinement allows him to avoid the downsides to earlier Reformed accounts of the testimonium internum, and to give full weight to the objective testimony of scripture, together with its spiritual evidence, as the formal reason of faith. It will be useful to examine this subjective spiritual illumination in two stages, by first considering what Owen calls the “natural light” of the soul (this chapter), before turning to the special illumination which operates as the efficient cause of faith (chapter four). Juxtaposing these two “illuminations” like this will better enable us to see the important relationship between them, and to grasp their respective roles in the apprehension of objective evidence – whether that be the truths discernable within the natural world, or those which are uniquely revealed in the text of scripture. In this chapter, we shall concentrate on the metaphysical and theological function Owen ascribes to the “light of nature” before and after the Fall by surveying this theme across his mature writings.

3 Works, IV.68–9. Cf., Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.vii.5.

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As recent scholarship has shown, Owen was no stranger to the wider metaphysical themes of mediaeval scholasticism and the Renaissance, and like so many other Early Modern Reformed thinkers, readily (if reservedly) incorporated them as a “hand-maid” to his theological interpretation of scripture.4 To risk repeating a point already made almost ad nauseum, the polemics of the Reformation against metaphysical excess must not be mistaken for a philosophical revolution it was not. It should come as no surprise, then, that Owen’s explanation for the natural, rational process whereby the mind cognitively grasps any given thing is fundamentally traditional, reflecting a broadly Aristotelian theory still current in the late seventeenth century, whose roots can be traced back to the twelfthcentury genius, Averroes, and its assumption into the Christian West via figures like Aquinas and Roger Bacon. Within late mediaeval thought, it became widely accepted that reliable, and to some degree, infallibly certain knowledge of an extra-mental object could be obtained through a multiplication of “species” or “images”, truthfully representing the object as “light”; beginning with the object, extending through a transparent medium, imposing itself on the senses (chiefly sight), and ultimately on the mind, which finally attains knowledge of that object. Key to this framework were both the activity of the object in producing knowledge, and some true, formal connection between the object’s essence and its representative species, which terminate in the soul as an accidental quality of the intellect. Accordingly, the actual knowledge that results from this process was often described as a true formal union or adequation between the intellect and its extra-mental object (we leave a more detailed discussion of how Owen appropriates this peripatetic framework to the Appendix, where we examine Owen’s remarks in his commentary on Hebrews 4:1–2).5 4 See, Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 109–28. 5 For discussions of “representation” in mediaeval epistemology and related issues, see, David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976); A. Mark Smith, “Getting the Big Picture in Perspectivist Optics”, Isis 72 (1981); Tachau, Vision; Norman Kretzmann, “Infallibility, Error, and Ignorance”, in Aristotle and His Medieval Interpreters, ed. Richard Bosley and Martin Tweedale (Calgary : University of Calgary Press, 1991); Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, I. Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Robert Pasnau, Theories of Cognition in the later Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Giorgio Pini, “Scotus on the Object of Cognitive Acts”, Franciscan Studies 66 (2008); Claude Panaccio, “Mental Representation”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Timothy Noone, “The Problem of the Knowability of Substance: The Discussion from Eustachius of Arras to Vital du Four”, in Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages, ed. Kent Emery Jr, Russell L. Friedman, and Andreas Speer (Leiden: Brill, 2011). See too, essays in Gyula Klima, ed., Intentionality, Co-

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Owen’s adoption of this theory suggests he was thoroughly committed to a deeply empirical foundation for the soul’s perception of truth. And this needs to be borne in mind as a potentially significant factor in his quest for an “infallible faith” resting on equally certain evidence, as we shall see further in chapter five. Even still, for all the radical objectivity of this framework, an equally crucial factor at play in his understanding of the soul’s cognitive processes is the “natural light” of the mind, which he introduces at the outset of his own constructive treatment of evidence in Reason of Faith.6 Before addressing the specific evidence God has left in scripture, Owen claims that God has furnished sufficient evidence in creation of his existence, eternity, wisdom and power, to induce the mind’s infallible assent in its natural state. He is emphatic: “They are clearly seen, and therefore may be perfectly understood as to what they teach of God, without any possibility of mistake.”7 As he elaborates, there are two things he appears to be suggesting in this claim. First, God’s “being, his authority, and his will, so far as our natural dependence on him and moral subjection unto him do require” is (self-)evident by the “innate principles of our nature”, or the “inbred principles of natural light”.8 Secondly, there is enough evidence in the “greatness, order, beauty, and use” of created things that through “reason in its exercise”, the mind can form a mental judgment and proposition “that there is a God, and he is eternally powerful and wise, without any farther arguments to prove the revelation to be true.”9 Crucial to grasping Owen’s point here is to discern what he means by the “inbred” natural light, and the role this plays in acquiring knowledge of God, together with the external, created world. Whatever else Owen believes about the empirical sources of knowledge, immediately it ought to signal that he does not regard cognition to be an entirely autonomous, materialistic or externalistic affair. In every human being, there is a God-given internal light necessary for acquiring cognitive content and certitude, not just in respect to the foundational principles of all practical or moral understanding such as elementary notions of good and evil or the existence of an authoritative divine being, but also of speculative truths like the principle of non-contradiction, or that “the whole is

6 7 8 9

gnition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014); Henrik Lagerlund, ed. Representation and Objects of Thought in Medieval Philosophy (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Dominik Perler, ed. Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality (Leiden: Brill, 2001). Owen, Works, IV.82ff. Works, IV.87; cf. 86–7, 89. Works, IV.84, 82; cf. 82–3, 84. Works, IV.84, 89; cf. 83, 84–5.

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greater than the parts”.10 Obviously, Owen is particularly interested in the practical and theological principles this light delivers, but the fact he considers it foundational to all principles of reason needs to be kept in mind.

3.2.1 Excursus: “Illumination” within the Christian cognitive tradition Owen’s reliance on a doctrine of natural illumination as something underwriting the soul’s cognitive processes reflects a long and relatively diverse Christian tradition stretching back through the scholastics to Augustine. Indeed, at this point, it is worthwhile surveying the salient features of this tradition before turning our attention specifically to Owen’s application of the doctrine. The vital function of an internal divine “illumination” within the human cognitive process is embedded within the Christian philosophical tradition, and is typically traced back to Augustine and his dependence on neo-Platonic modes of thought. It is an aspect of his philosophy that has been discussed extensively and has frequently mystified his interpreters.11 Recently, Schumacher has classified the references scattered throughout Augustine’s works into remarks that refer to an internal light providing cognitive capacity, content, process, certitude and the knowledge of God.12 Most commonly, the notion has been attributed to a Platonic world view adopted into the Christian doctrine of creation, whereby some innate or infused participation in the light of the eternal types underwrites the cognitive content, stability and unity of the human soul in a created material world that is constantly in a state of flux.13 As Pegis remarks, “[t]he famous Augustinian doctrine of the divine illumination is, at once, deeply religious 10 Works, IV.82–3; XXII.368. For other naturally known, foundational principles, see Works, XXII.222; XXIII.176. 11 Some of the vast literature includes, R. Allers, “St. Augustine’s Doctrine on Illumination”, Franciscan Studies 12 (1952); Êtienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine, trans. L.E.M. Lynch (London: Victor Gollancz, 1961); C.E. Scheutzinger, The German Controversy on Saint Augustine’s Illumination Theory (New York: Pageant Press, 1960); Vernon J. Bourke, “Light of Love: Augustine on Moral Illumination”, Mediaevalia 4 (1978); Gareth B. Matthews, “Knowledge and Illumination”, in The Cambridge Companion to Augustine, ed. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Bruce Bubacz, Saint Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge: A Contemporary Analysis (New York: Edwin Mellin Press, 1981); Joseph Owens, “Faith, ideas, Illumination, and Experience”, ed. Norman Kretzmann, et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); John Rist, Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Peter King, “Augustine on the Impossibility of Teaching”, Metaphilosophy 29 (1998); Roland Nash, The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003); Lydia Schumacher, Divine Illumination: The History and Future of Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge (Chichester : Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). 12 Schumacher, Illumination, 4–7. 13 E.g., Rist, Augustine, 42.

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teaching, as anyone can discover by reading the Confessions, and a Platonic survival in the Christian theology of creation.”14 Whatever the case, Augustine certainly does appear to interpret Plato’s famous notion of a pre-existing, incorporeal and innate knowledge within the embodied soul as a natural participation in an uncreated divine light that somehow precedes and informs the knowledge derived from the senses and the material world.15 Even if Augustine left the notion somewhat opaque, part of the perplexity amongst interpreters can easily be attributed to its vexed inheritance within mediaeval thought. Certainly, its association with Platonic illuminism created a jarring note for the Aristotelian revival of the thirteenth century. In the Middle Ages, the idea is prominently found in the writings of Bonaventure and Henry of Ghent. In keeping with the rubrics of peripatetic cognitive theory, and in explicit opposition to Plato, Bonaventure certainly recognised that knowledge begins with the experience of the senses, which form phantasms (or sense images) that are then abstracted into likenesses of the extra-mental thing. Nevertheless, he vigorously appeals to Augustine’s “eternal reasons” which he believes are immediately impressed by God on the intellect as the sole means by which the process of intellectual abstraction (from the phantasm) reliably occurs, so that immutable cognitive certitude is guaranteed.16 Henry of Ghent differed from Bonaventure insofar as he was committed to the possibility of some purely natural knowledge of extra-mental objects (aside from the doctrines of faith) without any “special divine illumination infused by some supernatural light”. By “purely natural knowledge”, Henry does not mean to exclude divine causality from knowledge, but only to limit it to the general motions of providence.17 Nevertheless, Henry distinguished between the natural simple understanding of a “true thing” (under the notion of “being”), and the process of composition and judgment that leads the intellect back to the “truth of the thing itself”. Although the former can be achieved infallibly without illumination of any sort, Henry is adamant that the latter can only be reliably grasped by apprehending the object’s conformity to the immutable divine exemplar, as opposed to the created exemplar (or species) formed through abstraction. For this, Henry says, the mind must receive a likeness of the object from the eternal exemplar via “divine impression”, which conforms the likeness 14 Anton C. Pegis, “Four Medieval Ways to God”, Monist 54 (1970), 320–1. 15 E.g., Augustine, De Trinitate XII.xv.24 [PL 42 cc.1011–12]. 16 Bonaventure addresses this point in detail in his Quaestiones Disputatae de Scientia Christi IV. Cf., Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, trans. Zachary Hayes (St Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute Publications, 2005), 115–44; esp., 132–7. 17 See, Henry of Ghent, SQO a.1 q.2. Translations of a.1 q.2 from Robert Pasnau, ed. The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts, vol. three (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 110–35.

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received through natural abstraction to the truth of the thing (veritas rei) contained in the eternal exemplar.18 Against the prevailing scholarly consensus which tends to view Bonaventure’s version of illumination as being most sharply at odds with the rudiments of Aristotelian metaphysics, Boring has recently argued that it is really in Henry’s account that Plato emerges as the true hero.19 Whereas Bonaventure regards cognition to be a co-operative affair between the natural operation of the faculties and the supervisory role of the impressed eternal exemplars, only Henry marshals Augustinian illumination as an independent source of knowledge providing the “truth of the thing” alongside the “obscure, and foggy” data derived from the senses.20 In any event, it is well known that Scotus’ arguments against Henry’s account put a decisive end to this sort of approach to illumination within mediaeval accounts of cognition.21 Scotus’ primary concern with the theory as it stood is the way it invites scepticism regarding the operation of the faculties and the possibility of certain natural knowledge.22 Instead, Scotus reinterpreted Augustine’s notion in a naturalistic direction that only requires God’s general, providential concursus. No special illumination is needed, he argues, because God has infused all being with a light or intelligibility that is derived from the uncreated light of his essence. In that way, through its natural participation (participatio) in the uncreated light, the agent intellect can illumine the phantasms coming from 18 Henry of Ghent, SQO a.1 q.2. Henry did not think that the eternal exemplars are ever actually seen in this life (apart from exceptional circumstances), but their impression on the agent intellect is like the radiant light of the sun which enables the intellect to see the truth of other objects: SQO a.1 q.3. For Henry’s account of illumination, see, Tachau, Vision, 28–39; Robert Pasnau, “Henry of Ghent and the Twighlight of Divine Illumination”, Review of Metaphysics 49 (1995); Stephen P. Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance: Science and Knowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, Volume One, a Doctrine of Divine Illumination (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 273–98, 359–88. 19 Wendy Petersen Boring, “Revising our Approach to ‘Augustinian Illumination’: A reconsideration of Bonaventure’s Quaestiones disputatae de scientia Christi IV, Aquinas’s Summa theologiae Ia.84, 1–8, and Henry of Ghent’s, Summa quaestionum ordinarum, Q. 2, art. 1, 2”, Franciscan Studies 68 (2010). Her point is in some ways similar to, Thomas A. Fay, “The Problem of Intellectual Intuition in the Metaphysics of Thomas”, Sapienza 27 (1974). 20 Henry of Ghent, SQO a.1 q.2. 21 See, Jerome V. Brown, “John Duns Scotus on Henry of Ghent’s Arguments for Divine Illumination: The Statement of the Case”, Viviarum 14 (1976); “John Duns Scotus on Henry of Ghent’s Theory of Knowledge”, The Modern Schoolman 56 (1978); Tachau, Vision, 77–81; Pasnau, “Twighlight”; Timothy Noone, “The Franciscans and Epistemology : Reflections on the Roles of Bonaventure and Scotus”, in Medieval Masters: Essays in Memory of Msgr. E.A. Synan, ed. R. Houser (Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1999); Marrone, Countenance (II), 401–43; Timothy Noone, “Divine Illumination”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 382–3; Schumacher, Illumination, 194–208. 22 Scotus explicitly refutes the position of Henry in Ord I d.3 q.4.

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the senses by itself, and thereby discern the essence of a thing (quidditas rei).23 It is true, Scotus concedes, that just a few arrive at the self-evident (per se) knowledge of the eternal reasons or essences (quidditates), whereas the majority only arrive at concepts formed through sensible accidents. But this is not because the few have received special illumination (specialem illustrationem); it is merely due to them possessing better natural powers (meliora naturalia). And in his view, this is how Augustine’s metaphor of illumination as an individual on a mountain seeing the pure light above the mist of sensory data below ought to be understood.24 Whether or not Scotus did justice to Henry’s view is a matter of conjecture.25 Either way, his recasting of the doctrine along structural lines was highly influential in Franciscan circles at least. We have deliberately left Aquinas out of the picture until now. Generally speaking, Aquinas seems to construct a model of cognition along AristotelianAverroistic lines, adhering to the fundamental importance of the senses in the acquisition of knowledge as well as the indefectibility of the faculties in delivering an intelligible species to the mind that accurately corresponds to the extramental object. Nevertheless, it has intrigued scholars that Aquinas does in fact approve of Augustine’s notion of illumination and explicitly affirms that in some respect, an object is known in its eternal type or exemplar.26 Aquinas rules out any direct sight of these eternal types before the visio Dei. Rather, he argues that the light of the agent or active intellect within us, which is responsible for the formation of intelligible species, is a participated likeness of the uncreated divine light which contains the eternal types. All knowledge, therefore, is the outcome of a co-operation between the abstractive power of the agent intellect delivering a likeness of the object as it exists in its material essence (the intelligible species), and the agent intellect’s natural participation in the eternal type of that same object.27 As Boring points out, scholars have frequently dismissed Aquinas’ reference as either a political strategy, a piece of “lip service” to Augustine, or an unusually

23 Ord I d.3 q.4. See translation, John Duns Scotus, Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, A Selection edited and translated by Allan Wolter, O.F.M. (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1962), 131. Cf., 121–31. Marrone notes how Scotus (alongside William of Ware) freely spoke of the agent intellect’s God-given power in Augustinian terms as a “lux sui generis”, sustained by God’s general providence, making uncreated divine light a “remote cause” of human understanding: Marrone, Countenance (II), 416–7. 24 Scotus, Ord I d.3 q.4. Cf., Scotus, Philosophical Writings, 128–9 See, Augustine, De Trinitate IX.vi.11 [PL 42 c.967]. 25 Pasnau, “Twighlight”, 72–3. 26 Aquinas’ best known reference to illumination is in STh I q.84 a.5. Cf., DV q.11 a.1. 27 STh I q.84 a.5.

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Platonic regression in an otherwise Aristotelian scheme.28 However, with slightly different intentions and conclusions, Boring and Schumacher have both set out to show that by the notion of “participation”, Aquinas does not intend to imply some immediate internal communication of cognitive content to the intellect apart from what is derived through the senses, but only an analogical, creaturely participation in divine knowledge possessed by the agent intellect as a concreated habit, giving it a capacity to carry out its processes of abstraction, composition and judgment. This itself is not a controversial judgment, but both scholars go on to argue that far from misrepresenting Augustine, Aquinas captured his intention precisely and that many appraisals of Augustine’s doctrine have been unduly skewed by later mediaeval interpretations or modern philosophical concerns.29 Leaving aside the alleged continuities or otherwise with Augustine’s own view, if this reading of Aquinas is correct, then he joins Scotus – albeit with important differences – in providing an essentially structural account of illumination. That is to say, insofar as the created intellect “somehow” participates organically in the uncreated divine source of truth, the possibility of it arriving at truthful knowledge of material, created things, through its interaction with the world, is thereby ensured. Nevertheless, in spite of their distance from Plato’s innate knowledge of eternal forms, it is equally true that neither Scotus nor Aquinas were prepared to let go of some ontological relationship between God and the knower as foundational for the intelligibility of any known object. While it may be claimed – as it is commonly is – that Scotus, in particular, paved the way for a thoroughly naturalistic account of human knowledge,30 this point must not be lost.31 Even within Aristotle’s own theory of cognition, the translation from material sensory data to immaterial knowledge is not a straightforward naturalistic phenomenon, and rests on the notoriously mysterious abstractive powers of the agent or active intellect, which Aristotle enigmatically described as something “immortal and 28 Boring, “Illumination”, 42. Pasnau makes a similar point, and his own later reading of Aquinas is quite consistent with Boring’s: Pasnau, Human Nature, 302–10. 29 Boring, “Illumination”, 42–56; Schumacher, Illumination, 154–80. Intriguingly, Schumacher comes to a very different conclusion from Boring as regards Bonaventure. According to Schumacher, Bonaventure’s illuminism represents a radical departure from Augustine. Schumacher’s reading of Bonaventure corresponds to that of many scholars, although she is unique in distancing him from Augustine. For her reading of Bonaventure, see, Illumination, 110–53. 30 E.g., Schumacher, Illumination, 181–216. 31 Importantly, Pasnau does concede that all mediaeval thinkers – even Scotus – saw the acquisition of knowledge as a co-operation between divine assistance and the natural operation of the human faculties: Pasnau, Human Nature, 309–10. Cf., Marrone, Countenance (II), 416.

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eternal”, “separate, impassible”, and “unmixed”.32 Indeed, that that seems to be Boring’s point: although it is true that Aristotle’s writings were filtered through Neoplatonic eyes for most of his Arabic and Western mediaeval readers, the ambiguity in his theory alone initially spawned a whole host of illuminationist theories amongst his Arabic interpreters,33 and thus also hinted at the possibility of integrating “Augustinian illumination” – or a version of it, at least – within a consistently Christian and basically Aristotelian world-view. Despite the outcomes of Aquinas and Scotus, the connection between the God-given inherent powers or “light” of the agent intellect and the causal role of the senses in the process of cognition continued to trouble Renaissance thinkers, as is evidenced by some heated controversies concerning the immortality of the soul. And it is probably fair to say that the revival of Neoplatonism, with its immanentist ontology of participation, had a significant impact on the way Renaissance scholastics interpreted the general Aristotelian framework of cognition, possibly contributing towards its ultimate seventeenth-century demise.34 In some prominent and influential thinkers, the enlightened mind was given an increasingly foundational role in cognition. Francisco Su‚rez, for example, reduced the causal role of sensory data in cognition to mere efficiency so that it played no formal role in the mind’s cognitive processes. Su‚rez was no “nativist”, mind you: he explicitly rejected any notion of innate knowledge that bypasses the causality of the senses.35 Nevertheless, the elevation of the enlightened mind paved the way for the full-blown nativism of Descartes, as well as the heightened subjectivism of Hobbes, Gassendi and Early Modern philosophy in general. This brief survey is really the tip of an exceedingly complex intellectual history stretching right up to Owen’s day, and its point is merely to illustrate the recurring difficulty faced by thinkers in integrating the subjective and objective foundations of reliable human knowledge, and some of the many solutions that were invoked. Certain patterns are clear. Even if Schumacher possibly overstates the specific link between particular mediaeval Franciscan accounts of illumination, such as that of Bonaventure, and the subjectivism of modern philosophy, she is undoubtedly right to see a connection between the way some mediaeval 32 Aristotle, De Anima III.5. 33 On “illumination” amongst Arabic writers, see, John Walbridge, “Suhrawardi and Illuminationism”, in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, ed. P. Adamson and R.C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 34 For the impact of Neoplatonism on Renaissance Aristotelianism more generally, see, Edward P. Mahoney, “Neoplatonism, the Greek Commentators, and Renaissance Aristotelianism”, in Neoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. Dominic J. O’Meara (Albany : State University of New York Press, 1982). 35 Spruit, Species (II), 303–6, 385.

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thinkers looked to a version of divine illumination as cognitive security, underwriting the natural operations of the senses, and the function of innate ideas in Early Modern thought. Yet the general picture is rather eclectic, reflecting the diverse array of sources from which these Christian thinkers drew. What emerges is a wide spectrum of views, from a kind of nativism whereby God directly supplies the mind with information concerning the world experienced through the senses, through to a purely structural participation in being infused with divine light, as typified by the thought of Scotus. A related observation, and one especially relevant to our purposes, concerns the different approaches to the problem of cognitive certitude observable across the spectrum. Whereas at one end, Henry of Ghent, and to a lesser extent Bonaventure foreshadow an Early Modern figure like Descartes, who finds certainty in the cognitive content and furniture God has immediately provided the mind,36 thinkers like Aquinas and especially Scotus were far more confident that the sheer “evidentness” of an object before the senses played a primary role in delivering coherent and truthful knowledge of the world. Even still, it is important to see that with the lingering influence of a “doctrine of illumination” in one form or another, no one – not even Scotus – was prepared to dispense with the necessity of some subjective God-given foundation that underwrites the quest for truth and the accompanying assurance of understanding.

3.2.2 The “light of nature” and practical reasoning in seventeenth-century England Prior to Locke’s famous critique of “innate ideas” in 1688, the doctrine of illumination lived on in one form or another within seventeenth-century England, and was especially prominent in discussions concerning the source or foundation of practical reasoning, or what was commonly known as the “natural law”. The association of illumination with natural law is similarly embedded in the Christian tradition, reaching back to Jerome’s commentary on Genesis and the notion of synderesis with the related function of the conscience.37 As Greene 36 On the relationship of Augustinian illumination to the nativism of Descartes and other early modern philosophers such as Leibniz, Spinoza and Malebranche, see, Ayers, “Knowledge”, 1011–18. On related Augustinian themes in Descartes, see, Stephen P. Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). For Malebranche’s adaptation of Augustine’s theory of illumination to Cartesian themes, see, Jolley, Ideas, 81–98. 37 On the notion in English Renaissance thought in particular, see, Robert A. Greene, “Synderesis, the Spark of Conscience, in the English Renaissance”, Journal of the History of Ideas 52 (1991). For a concise survey of the notion in Aquinas and Bonaventure, see, Luc-Thomas Somme, “The Infallibility, Impeccability and Indestructibility of Synderesis”, Studies in Christian Ethics 19 (2006).

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points out, whereas the concept of synderesis featured prominently in mediaeval scholastic thought, it virtually disappeared in early Protestant theology under the weight of its emphasis on total depravity and its suspicion of rationalism (and, accordingly, Pelagianism). In Luther’s earlier writings, the term appears in traditional form as a “left-over” of upright reason, but is explicitly rejected in his second set of Psalms lectures (1519–1521).38 Calvin does not use the term in his 1559 Institutes either. Nevertheless, even if the term almost entirely disappeared, the notion lived on, albeit with significant qualifications to account for the turpitudinous effects of sin.39 In its place, “spark of conscience” and “natural instinct” became the more dominant rubrics to describe some lingering knowledge of God and the principles of good and evil, or the natural law engraved upon the heart.40 Consistent with the way illumination traditionally functioned in supporting cognitive certitude, amidst the various permutations of the practical form of the doctrine advanced by seventeenth-century English thinkers, the “light of nature” was universally regarded as an essential precondition for certainty regarding the principles or “common notions” of moral reasoning. Indeed, it was crucial to the structure and stability of society.41 The scholastic origins of this doctrine were well known to seventeenth-century thinkers, and amongst the variety of positions, Yolton identifies both a “nave” and a more sophisticated “dispositional” version. According to Yolton, adherents of the naive view postulate that the natural law and its principles are divinely implanted on the mind as a list of axioms, infallibly rising to the surface of consciousness via means of the conscience or the related faculties of judgment. Whether or not anyone actually held to a view quite as crude as this is a matter of some conjecture. Nevertheless, caricature or not, it was certainly represented as such by its critics who labelled it somewhat pejoratively as “Platonic”, preferring in their case a more dispositional account which retained the notion of an implanted law, but defined strictly 38 Michael G. Baylor, Action and Person: Conscience in Late Scholasticism and the Young Luther (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 177; cf. 157–208. A useful discussion of Luther’s relationship to the older tradition can also be found in Douglas C. Langston, Conscience and other virtues: from Bonaventure to MacIntyre (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), 71–85. 39 Greene, “Synderesis”, 203–5. Actually, the term readily reappears in later Reformed writings. E.g., Johann Alsted, Scientarum omnium encyclopaediae (Lyon: Huguetan & Ravaud, 1649), I.51–2; Edward Reynolds, The Whole Works (London: B. Holdsworth, 1826), IV.359, V.59, 302; Turretin, Institutes, I.iii.5. Cf., Aza Goudriaan, Reformed Orthodoxy and Philosophy, 1625–1750 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 270–82. 40 Calvin uses both. For “spark”, see, Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.iii.1; II.ii.12, 19, 25; for “instinct”, see, Institutes (1559), III.ii.20. Of course, Calvin also uses the Stoic “seed” metaphor, semen religionis, and sensus divinatis: Institutes (1559), I.iii.1. Cf., the association of conscience and the engraved natural law : Institutes (1559), II.ii.22. 41 So, e. g., Reynolds, Works, IV.360–1; Owen, Works, V.244.

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in terms of a God-given power or capacity to assent immediately to those common notions upon the actual stimulation of the senses.42 Discerning which category applies to any given thinker may prove somewhat more difficult than we expect. In Owen’s case at least, the frequency with which he describes the “light of nature” and its principles as “innate”, “implanted”, “inbred” or “ingrafted” might easily suggest he subscribes to the more naive version of the doctrine. Yet, in Theologoumena (1661) he is quite careful to say that humans are not born “instructed” with a knowledge of God, as if they somehow perceive these principles through birth (naturaliter); rather, they are simply furnished with a “power of knowing” (vi cognoscendi), which automatically (sponte) exercises itself in rational adults, much like the very operation of reason itself.43 This certainly lends doubt to any suggestion that he adheres to a naive form of illumination. Indeed, the fact that he views this light as a “power” may be why he sometimes associates its innate principles with the “first” “actings” or “dictates” of reason.44 Nevertheless, the bare fact that Owen regards this light as a disposition does not necessarily add much clarification. Indeed, as Spruit notes, even Descartes, with his famous mid seventeenth-century espousal of divinely-implanted “innate ideas”, did not intend anything more than a disposition or potential aroused by the senses.45 And certainly, among those Yolton identifies as holding the more sophisticated version of the doctrine, there are considerable differences in how this power was understood, from the determined peripatetic realism of someone like Ferguson through to the more Platonic nativism of Henry More.46 To get a more precise picture of Owen’s position, then, it is worth paying 42 John W. Yolton, Locke and the Way of Ideas (Bristol: Thoemmes, 1993), 26–48. 43 “Homines nasci cognitione aliqua Dei instructos, haud dicimus; nullam omnino habent. Sed vi cognoscendi, dicimus: neque ita naturaliter cognoscunt, atque sentiunt: insitam potentiam Deum cognoscendi, ad cultum ejus aliquo modo praestandum stimulantem, sponte se in adultis, rationis compotibus, non minus certo et necessario quam ipsum ratiocinari, exserturam, unumquemque retinere, ratio nulla est cur opinemur, cum sentiamus.”: Owen, Works, XVII.I.v.2. Cf., Thomas Barlow, Exercitationes aliquot metaphysicae, de Deo (Oxford: Guilielmus Turner, 1658), 121; Turretin, Institutes, I.iii.2. 44 Owen, Works, V.422; VII.367; XIV.357; cf. XVII.I.v.2. 45 Leen Spruit, Species Intelligibilis: From Perception to Knowledge, II. Renaissance Controversies, Later Scholasticism, and the Elimination of the Intelligible Species in Modern Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 377–8. 46 For Ferguson, the source of all knowledge is strictly objective. He rejects language like “innate” and “ingraft”, and speaks only of a God-given “natural sagacity”, which enables the mind to reflect on its own acts, and from this, discern the existence of God along with principles of good and evil. More, however, likens the same “sagacity” to a sleeping musician, who upon awakening, has his memory “jogg’d” by hearing a couple of notes. That is, the source of his awakened knowledge is entirely subjective or innate. See, Ferguson, Interest, 41–45; Henry More, An Antidote against Atheisme (London: Roger Daniel, 1653), 13–4, 16–9. Whilst More had substantial disagreements with Descartes’ distinctly anti-Platonic mate-

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careful attention to how he sees this natural light functioning before and after the Fall.

3.3

Owen and the “law” and “light” of nature before the Fall

3.3.1 The lex operationis For Owen, as for many of his contemporaries, the “light of nature” is closely related to Adam’s original state when he was placed under what he calls the “law of creation”.47 Like Aquinas, who speaks of all things being subject to and participating in the eternal law of divine providence, inclining them to their proper acts and ends,48 Owen believes that each creature was created possessing a natural or “operational law” (lex operationis), shaping and expressing the dependence it has on the sovereign will of God, and directing it towards its proper ends. That is, the lex operationis imposed on each creature needs to be understood as something issuing inevitably from God’s supreme right as creator, and its inescapable dependence upon him. And since God has made every creature with specific ends, all terminating in the one common end of declaring his glory, Owen considers a naturally implanted law to be necessary for them to attain those specified ends.49 For the irrational portion of creation, it is exemplified in animal instincts such as self-preservation, or the tendency of a mother to look after her young. Such instincts are governing insofar as it is no more possible for an animal to act against them than it is for a falling rock to defy the laws of gravity. Only violence can interfere with their natural course.50 It is true, Owen says, that when the first human was created, many “principles of his nature” were shared in common with “brute creatures”.51 However, the

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rialism, on the matter of innate ideas at least, Christian Platonists like More regarded him as something of an ally : Michael Ayers, “Theories of Knowledge and Belief”, in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1014–5. On More’s own version of “illumination”, see, Robert Crocker, “Mysticism and Enthusiasm in Henry More”, in Henry More (1614–1687): Tercentenary Studies, ed. Sarah Hutton (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1990). Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.2. For recent discussions tracing the development of the natural law doctrine within Reformed thought, see, Stephen J. Grabill, Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); David VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). So, Aquinas, STh I–II q.91 a.2. Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.5. Cf., VI.303; XX.349; XXIII.60. Cf., Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.xvi.4; Turretin, Institutes, XI.i.5. Owen, Works, VI.303–5. Works, VI.304.

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picture is more complex in rational creatures, and two special features of Adam’s lex operationis need to be grasped: first, its relationship to God’s original covenant with humanity ; and secondly, its connection to the “light of nature”. 3.3.1.1 The lex operationis and Adam’s covenantal end Aside from the general end of glorifying and worshipping God, which the first man shared with all other creatures, Owen believes Adam was created for a particular covenantal “end”. As he points out in his treatise, Indwelling Sin (1668), the lex operationis implanted on Adam stipulated a “special end” over and above the natural ends implanted on other creatures, which was “to give glory to God by rational and moral obedience, and so to obtain a reward in the enjoyment of him.” Specifically, it called Adam “to love God above all, to seek the enjoyment of God as his chiefest good and last end, to inquire after his mind and will, and to yield obedience and the like.”52 What is implied in these statements is the intimate connection Owen sees between Adam’s lex operationis and the special natural covenant (foedus naturae) God enacted with humanity at creation. As he mentions in his Hebrews commentary (1668–84), God could have, strictly speaking, made Adam and Eve like other creatures, possessing a natural law of dependence and nothing else. Yet, for Owen, this is a purely speculative question, since through a sheer act of gracious freedom, God “annexed” onto Adam’s natural law of dependence certain covenantal “promises” of reward for obedience, along with “threatenings”, which imposed a sanction upon the covenant-breaker.53 The reward held out by the covenant consisted in none other than the eternal enjoyment of God.54 In the end, then, Owen wishes to avoid driving any wedge between Adam’s lex operationis and the annexed “promises and threatenings” of the covenant. Like the law itself, Owen can speak of this covenant as being “connatural” (connatum) with Adam, so that “in his creation”, Adam was “constituted under a covenant”.55 Of course, by inseparably annexing these covenantal promises and

52 53 54 55

Works, VI.303–4; cf. XVII.I.iv.5. Works, XXIII.60; cf. XIX.336–7. Works, XVII.I.iv.7. Cf., XIX.337; XXIII.66. Works, XIX.336–337, 356; XVII.I.iv.7. Contra, seemingly, Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 223. See, also, n.111 below regarding the sacramental trees. It may be, however, that the Reformed differed on the precise relationship of the covenant to Adam’s creation and the natural law : Rowland S. Ward, God & Adam: Reformed Theology and The Creation Covenant (Wantirna: New Melbourne Press, 2003), 99–102. Cf., Muller, “Divine Law”, 90; Willem van Asselt, The Federal Theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669), trans. Raymond A. Blacketer (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 259–60; J. Mark Beach, Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin’s

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threatenings to Adam’s lex operationis that does not at all mean God was somehow bound to enter into a covenant with him. Owen is very clear : even if some law of dependence and obedience is a necessary feature of any creatorcreature relationship, the special, supernatural end of the original covenant, disclosed by the promises and threatenings annexed onto that law, was a strict consequence of God’s sovereign freedom.56 In that sense, like other seventeenthcentury Federal theologians, Owen regards the covenant of works, and the special fellowship with God it entailed, as entirely an act of gracious condescension. It rested, ultimately, on a unilateral divine promise; and no amount of human obedience – however much God assumed its natural necessity into the terms of the covenant – would ever come close to meriting the reward de jure.57 The first distinctive feature of Adam’s lex operationis was, then, its essential composition of the strictly necessary requirement of obedience flowing out of the creator-creature relationship, and the special covenantal end expressed in the promised reward of eternal blessedness. Owen describes this law as something “concreated” with Adam’s soul.58 By calling this implanted law “concreated”, he is suggesting at least two things. At a most basic level, Owen is undoubtedly underlining his typically Reformed aversion to a view that emerged amongst late Renaissance Catholics, namely, that Adam was (or may have been) created in puris naturalibus, or “bare” nature, with various gifts added subsequently. Accordingly, Owen regards this teleogical ordering of Adam’s soul as something “concreated”, not “superadded” at a later point.59 But the term also implies, in

56 57

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Federal Theology as a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 96–106, 108–28. Owen, Works, XXIII.60; XIX.336–7. Works, XXIII.66. Cf., 65–6, 68–9; XIX.337. So, rightly, Trueman, Claims, 126. Contra, Michael W. Bobick, “Owen’s Razor: The Role of Ramist Logic in the Covenant Theology of John Owen (1616–1683)” (Unpublished Ph.D., Drew University, 1996), 46, 71; cf. 224–33. Bobick’s view reflects the now well-refuted older consensus, classically expressed in, J.B. Torrance, “Covenant or Contract? A Study of the Theology Background of Worship in Seventeenth-Century Scotland”, Scottish Journal of Theology 23 (1970); “Strengths and Weaknesses of the Westminster Theology”, in The Westminster Confession in the Church Today : Papers Prepared for the Church of Scotland Panel on Doctrine, ed. Alasdair I.C. Heron (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1982); “The Concept of Federal Theology – Was Calvin a Federal Theologian?”, in Calvinus Sacrae Scripturae professor : Calvin as Confessor of Holy Scripture, ed. W. H. Neusner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994); Holmes Rolston III, John Calvin versus The Westminster Confession (Richmond: John Knox, 1972), 16–46. To a lesser degree, this older view is also evident in, Sinclair B. Ferguson, “The Doctrine of the Christian Life in the Teaching of Dr John Owen (1616–83)” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Aberdeen, 1979); David Wai-Sing Wong, “The Covenant Theology of John Owen” (Unpublished Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1998). For an extensive review of the literature, including the more recent scholarship on this general issue, see, Beach, Christ, 19–64, esp., 47–60. Owen, Works, VI.303. Trueman, Owen, 69–70. Cf., Owen, Works, III.103.

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Aristotelian fashion, that Adam’s lex operationis was an “accidental” quality or perfection. While it was concreated to inhere in Adam’s soul, it is fundamentally distinct from the soul’s natural essence.60 This is important, since it ensures the natural law can never be understood as something emerging or originating from within bare human nature. As a law, “it depends upon God the supreme lawgiver”, as Turretin puts it.61 In other words, however much this law was created with Adam’s nature, and is, to a degree, a necessary feature of the creatorcreature relationship (covenantal aspect aside), it still needs to be seen as something gifted to and imposed upon his nature by its law-giving creator : human “nature” is not self-regulating. Moreover, given the association of this lex operationis with a purely gratuitous, covenantal end, there is a very real sense in which lex operationis was, for Adam, a “supernatural life”, “inlaid” “by especial grace”.62 3.3.1.2 The lex operationis and Adam’s “light” There is another vital feature to Adam’s lex operationis, however. Given human beings possess the rational faculties of intellect and will, this law cannot be adequately described in terms of animalistic instinct, as it operates in other creatures. Indeed, in an introductory exercitation to his commentary on Hebrews, Owen echoes Aquinas, stating that for something to be called a “law”, properly speaking it refers to something rational: a law must be known and understood as such by the subject it rules.63 This is what gives human obedience a distinctively “moral” character,64 and it is also why the lex operationis of nonrational creatures can only loosely be called a “law”. By now, it ought to be clear that Owen evidently follows a recognisably Aristotelian ethical model where the intellect and will are naturally ordered to certain ends through an implanted law.65 Here he obviously shows a preference for Aquinas’ approach to natural law and ethics over the later views of Scotus. Although Scotus possesses a theory of natural law, he does not cast human action as the fulfilment of certain naturally ordered ends, but purely as the product of volitional choice (albeit informed by the intellect).66 Even still, for Owen – and 60 Owen, Works, III.285. 61 Turretin, Institutes, XI.i.7. 62 Owen, Works, III.285; cf. 284–5. Contra, Horton, who claims that for Owen, among others, Adam was not a recipient of grace pre-Fall: Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville: WJK, 2007), 194. 63 Owen, Works, XIX.343; cf. V.240–1. Cf., Aquinas, STh I–II q.90 a.1. 64 Works, VI.304; XVII.I.iv.5. 65 This is especially apparent in his Mortification where he discusses the effects of sin on the “law of operation”: Works, VI.303ff. 66 See, Hannes Möhle, “Scotus’s Theory of Natural Law”, in The Cambridge Companion to Duns

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for Aristotelian ethics in general – an implanted natural law does not irrationally compel humans, as in the case of animals, nor does it impose a rule of force. Rather, it is discerned and obeyed through the co-operation of the intellect and the will, the one apprehending the good which the other then freely chooses. For this deliberative process to occur, however, humans need to be furnished with a certain natural understanding of this law objectively embedded in their own nature. This is where Adam’s “innate” light plays a crucial role. As Owen outlines in the section of his Theologoumena where he discusses Adam’s natural theology at length, the law of nature was concreated in his soul with its own innate, subjective light.67 Through the power of this light illuminating his soul, Adam immediately assented to the terms of the covenant,68 and was thoroughly capable of both discerning and following the route of obedience and worship, ending in the full knowledge and enjoyment of God.69 Together with the implanted law, this innate light gave Adam his “theology”. Once again, in describing this “natural theology”, Owen insists there is an important sense in which it really was “supernatural”, insofar as Adam’s final end depended strictly upon God’s gracious free will, and could never be a purely natural claim.70 Therefore, it could loosely be called “revelation”.71 Nevertheless, by saying this, he is not putting himself at odds with Reformed thinkers like Turretin and others who insist any knowledge of God or gift bestowed on Adam at creation was “natural”. In fact, Owen very clearly qualifies that irrespective of the “supernatural” character of Adam’s theology – insofar as it respects a supernatural end – we refer (dicimus) to it as “natural” (naturale), on the grounds that it was “implanted and innate” (1mdi\hetom ja· 5lvutom).72 Consequently, in our view, Rehnman confuses things somewhat by introducing the technical concept of “supernatural theology” to the state of Adam’s integrity.73 In his Theologoumena at least, Owen seems to reserve this technical concept for the

67 68 69 70 71 72

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Scotus, ed. Thomas Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 323–28; Cal Ledsham, “Love, Power and Consistency : Scotus’ Doctrines of God’s Power, Contingent Creation, Induction and Natural Law”, Sophia 49 (2010). Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv. Works, XXIII.61. Works, I.iv.5. Works, XVII.I.iv.3. Works, XIII.465–6. “Quamvis ideo natura sua, usumque et finem quod attinet, plane supernaturale fuerit (nam ut Deo homo, secundum foedus praemium aeternum pollicitans, obediret, ex Dei liberrima erat constitutione); tamen, quia 1mdi\hetom ja· 5lvutom, id ei naturale fuisse dicimus.”: Works, XVII.I.iv.3. Cf., Johann Alsted, Praecognitorum theologicorum libri duo (Frankfurt: Antonius Hummius, 1614), I.119. On Owen’s use of the Hellenistic terms endiathetos, emphytos and prophorikos, see, Trueman, Claims, 68–71; Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 85–6. Cf., van den Belt, Scripture, 142–4. So, Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 79, 83–4, 167–8.

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verbum pqovoqij|m, or the new, especially gracious revelation Adam received after the Fall.74 In other words, when Owen points to the supernatural character of Adam’s concreated “life”, or innate light and law, he is merely pointing out that it was not “natural constitutively or consecutively”, to borrow Turretin’s phrase – concreated, yes, but a quality accidental and gratuitous to nature itself, and pertaining uniquely to his end of supernatural blessedness.75 With this sort of formulation, Owen, like Turretin, exemplifies the Augustinian consensus crystallised by Scotus, who suggested that while humanity may have been naturally created for a supernatural end of blessedness, the actual possibility of attaining that end could only ever be provided by supernatural, gracious means.76 What unites the Reformed, however, is the conviction that in Adam, at least, this means was furnished upon him as a quality or gift at birth. This sort of conviction was not unique to the Reformed, of course, but can also be found in those who followed Aquinas in maintaining that Adam was created in a state of grace, insofar as he was furnished with all those virtues or qualities which were necessary for his understanding of the world, moral agency, and, importantly, for his capacity to attain beatitude.77

3.3.2 Owen and the “light of nature” For our purposes, however, we need to explore the exact function of this concreated, innate light within Adam’s soul in a little more detail. Referring to Adam’s natural theology, Owen remarks that it was “implanted (1mdi\hetor) and natural, but not, however, altogether innate (5lvutor). From the beginning it was increased through revelation.”78 The difficulty is, Owen goes on to use the terms 1mdi\hetor and 5lvutor somewhat interchangeably when referring to our first parents’ concreated “law of their operation”.79 Perhaps we can clarify by tracing out some of his comments regarding the Sabbath regulation in the Hebrews exercitation noted above. There, as in other places, Owen refers to certain “ingrafted notions of [Adam’s] mind concerning 74 Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.1. Cf., I.iv.3; II.i.2, 3. If we are correct on this, Owen may not be at odds with Turretin after all, contra, Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 79, or Goodwin, for that matter (although Goodwin may be more emphatic than Owen on the natural character of Adam’s theology, due to his distinctive understanding of the covenantal reward). Cf., Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 12–6. 75 Turretin, Institutes, V.xi.4–6. Turretin does concede that original righteousness may be properly called “grace”: Institutes, V.xi.16. 76 For the principle, see, Scotus, Ord prol.I q.un.sol. 77 Aquinas, STh I q.95 a.1, a.3; cf. I–II q.109 a.1, a.2, a.3. Cf., Muller, “Divine Law”, 92. 78 Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.2. 79 Works, XVII.I.iv.5.

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God and his duty towards him.” These ingrafted notions comprised, he says, “a principal part” of the “law of creation”, by which he means “every thing whereby God instructed man, in the creation of himself and of the universe, unto his works or obedience, and his rest and reward.”80 What he seems to mean by this, as he goes on to suggest, is the concreated “natural light” of Adam’s mind supplied him with the foundational principles of his similarly concreated lex operationis. However, these dictates did not exhaust the “law of creation”, which here is a broader concept than the ingrafted notions, encompassing what God designed to reveal to human beings through the order and operation of the natural world. In other words, to discern his legal duty, Adam was required to learn not only from the ingrafted principles of his lex operationis but also from the works of nature. Together, this comprised the “law of creation”, furnishing Adam with a knowledge of himself, God, and the world, as well as spelling out all his covenantal duties. It is hard to know whether or not Owen actually intends to make any sharp distinction between Adam’s specific lex operationis and the “law of nature”/“creation” properly speaking, as he can seamlessly describe both as providing Adam with all his legal, covenantal duties and ends.81 What is clear, however, is the “innate” or ingrafted notions, while comprising a principal or foundational part, were not exhaustive of this natural law. This, then, could explain his comments in Theologoumena, which on the one hand can speak of Adam’s “implanted” (1mdi\hetor) theology or law, which was, nonetheless, not entirely “innate” (5lvutor), in the sense that its innately ingrafted notions did not exhaust the (implanted) law’s content. Indeed, as he goes on to say, one way this innate theology could be daily augmented was through “a consideration of the works of God.”82 The point is, however, Adam’s concreated “light” delivered both fundamental, ingrafted notions – the principal dictates of the law – as well as a capacity to discern the rest of the law from the works of creation. But the vexing question remains: what does he mean when he claims this natural illumination furnished an understanding of certain principles innately ingrafted on Adam’s soul? One obvious possibility is that knowledge of these notions was subjectively implanted within Adam’s created mind – even in potential or dispositional form – which was then actively recalled by the triggering of his senses and experience, along the nativist lines espoused by some of his contemporaries. Certainly, Owen’s choice of expressions like “innate”, “ingrafted” and “inborn” naturally suggest this possibility. 80 Works, XIX.343. 81 Cf., Works, VI.303–4; XIX.343. 82 Works, XVII.I.iv.2.

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A clue to Owen’s meaning may be found by honing in a little more closely on his distinction between the “light” or understanding of the implanted law and the law itself.83 As has been mentioned already, an implanted law cannot properly be a “law” for rational creatures without it furnishing some awareness of its demands. And Owen describes the internal illumination or “salutary light” (lumine salutari), which gave Adam this awareness, as a power (vi) which led him in the performance of the law’s prescribed duties and enabled him to arrive at his intended end. Indeed, Owen equates this light with a “habit of mind” (mentis habitu).84 And importantly, the understanding of the law (legis cognitio) given by this light was not really different from the law itself.85 In “this [natural] theology”, the light or mental habit furnishes (supplet) the place of instruction (doctrinae), Owen says, so that its very leading is materially (materialiter) consistent with the law formally (formaliter) set out in spoken or propositional form (as it was after the Fall, with its republication in the Decalogue).86 Practically, what this seems to mean is that Adam’s “light” was a habit which infallibly led him to assent to the foundational principles of the law,87 and to discern whatever further instruction God intended to provide from the works of nature. So, in relation to the Sabbath regulation, for example, Owen postulates that by this light, Adam would have instinctively known as an innate principle that a certain time ought to be set apart for the worship of God. Then, as his illuminated mind reflected on God’s work and rest in creation, he would have perceived that one day in seven was to be set apart for Sabbath worship.88 Consequently, Owen believes this prelapsarian light was a very powerful instrument indeed. Due to the Fall, we are in no position to grasp its full potential, he says. Indeed, he does not want to assume too readily that Adam was as dependent as we are on further “special” assistance from God through extra

83 “Circa legem autem istam innatam duo considerari possint: lex ipsa scilicet seu obedientiae requisitae norma, et legis cognitio […]”: Works, XVII.I.iv.5. 84 “Ejusmodi autem lumine salutari, cujus vi et ductu, obedientiam secundum legem Deo debitam rite homo praestare possit, ita ut finem suum proprium assequeretur, eam constitisse apparet.”: Works, XVII.I.iv.5. Cf., I.iv.3; XVI.471. 85 “Hujus vero legis cognitio realiter a lege ipsa non discrepavit.”: Works, XVII.I.iv.3. 86 “Cum vero lex haec 5lvutor, quae in hac theologia, doctrinae locum supplet, seu k|cor 1mdi\hetor, menti hominis fuerit congenita, abs eo lumine, seu mentis habitu, quo doctrina de Deo ejusque cultu salutariter percipitur, rem ipsam quod attinet, seu materialiter, quod aiunt, loquendo, alia non erat: neque quid amplius fuit, quam ordinis istius dependentiae creaturae rationalis fons et origo, respectu autem exercitii, et actualis obedientiae, et formaliter loquendo, ab ea distincta fuit.”: Works, XVII.I.iv.5. 87 In Reason of Faith, he remarks, “the mind is necessarily determined to an assent unto the proper objects of these [foundational] principles; it cannot do otherwise […] yea, those dictates are nothing but its assent.”: Works, IV.82. 88 Works, XIX.344.

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revelations not otherwise discernable through his natural light.89 Owen is confident that the “moral light” fully enabled Adam not only to grasp his covenantal duties, but also to understand the created world and faithfully exercise his Godgiven role of dominion. This alludes to the way he even seems to regard principles of “speculative” knowledge as bound up with this light and law of nature.90 Indeed, Owen says, unless Adam was furnished with an intimate knowledge of the creation around him, he would not have been able to fulfil his vocation of dominion.91 In other words, any purely speculative knowledge of the world Adam originally possessed cannot be readily separated from the moral and covenantal ends which were intertwined in his single lex operationis. Whatever wisdom his natural light endowed – speculative or moral – served his creaturely design and covenantal mandate to glorify God through obedience and worship. The depiction of Adam’s law and its light as an implanted habit suggests a further comparison with Aquinas’ doctrine of natural law. Like Owen, Aquinas views the operation of the natural law within the rational soul from two perspectives, whether in its actual consideration as propositions formed through the process of judgment and directing moral action, or in its habitual presence within the soul as a natural capacity or light by which its principles are instinctively discerned and acted upon, and from which more discursive conclusions may be derived.92 Indeed, Aquinas explicitly locates the soul’s habitual possession of the natural law within the frame of his doctrine of illumination.93 Just as in the speculative sciences, where all knowledge derived from experience requires the agent intellect’s illumination by God, consisting of a structural participation in the omnipotent knowledge of God, so too in the practical realm of morality and ethics, the natural inclinations of the soul are a “participation” in the eternal law, or an imprint of divine light.94 For Aquinas, as for every classical pre-modern Christian thinker, all truth is God’s truth, and although he regards the speculative and practical sciences as distinct, the agent intellect’s habitual participation in the eternal law, whose truths direct the will to act in accordance with its proper end, is not of a fundamentally different order to its habitual participation in the divine source of truth, infusing everything with in89 Works, XIX.347. 90 Works, XVII.I.iv.6; cf. II.112. In Communion with God (1657), Owen is clear that all the natural knowledge he possessed via this light was originally “spiritual”, in that it was bound up with his creaturely mandate and supernatural end: Works, II.112–13; cf. XVII.I.iv.3. On this, compare, e. g., Girolamo Zanchi, Omnium operum theologicorum (Geneva: Samuel Crispin, 1619), t.III cc.684–5. 91 Owen, Works II.112; XVII.I.vi.6. 92 Aquinas, STh I–II q.94 a.1; cf. q.90 a.1 ad2. 93 On this, see, Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 100–6. 94 Aquinas, STh I–II q.91 a.2; cf. I q.117 a.1.

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telligibility. That is to say, it is only through the “light” of God’s countenance signed upon the intellect (Ps 4:6) that “everything is made clear to us.”95 Furthermore, Aquinas believes this light immediately delivers certain “common notions” or self-evident principles and directives. As he puts it, “in every human, there is a certain foundation of knowledge (principium scientiae), namely the light of the agent intellect, through which certain universal principles of all sciences are naturally, and, from the beginning (a principio), immediately understood.”96 The self-evident (per se nota) principles of the natural law, such as elementary notions of good and evil and inclinations towards proper ends, exactly correspond to the self-evident principles of speculative reason like “the whole is greater than the part.”97 The application of these immediately understood principles to the data received from the senses then enables the mind to advance in knowledge, exercising the habitual light, as it were, proceeding from the known to the unknown.98 In spite of these claims, however, Aquinas insists that such an illumination does not deliver innate knowledge in the Platonic sense.99 When describing the natural law as a habit, Aquinas does not mean the actual propositional demands of the law are the habit, but only that it is the habit by which those propositional demands are held (actually or potentially).100 It is true, as has been suggested already, that for Descartes and the seventeenth-century revival of a thoroughgoing nativism, it matters little whether the innate knowledge is active or merely dispositional and potential. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that within the peripatetic cognitive framework to which Aquinas adheres, the only thing engaging the habit’s actual assent is the formal data entering the senses (the phantasm) from the extra-mental object, uniting or adequating the mind to that object by means of an abstracted formal representation or species. Even in the case of self-reflection, the embodied soul only becomes aware of itself and its own operations through a form of those actual operations entering via the senses and resulting in an intelligible species.101 Without this, the intellect remains a “blank slate”, as Aristotle famously remarked. Unless Aquinas intends to overturn the very empirical fundamentals of this framework, his claim can only be that the habitual light of illumination enables an immediate and infallible apprehension of certain principles when the mind, through its formal reception

95 96 97 98 99 100 101

STh I q.117 a.1 ad1. STh I q.117 a.1. STh I–II q.94 a.2; cf. q.91 a.3. STh I q.117 a.1. STh I q.117 a.1; DV q.10 a.6. STh I–II q.94 a.1. STh I q.87 a.1.

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of experiential data, is confronted with cases where they apply.102 In that sense, Aquinas’ dispositionalism differs markedly from Descartes’. Descartes would have no truck with such psychology : indeed, it is well known that Descartes’ nativism is bound up with his whole project to undermine this very psychology. For Descartes, there is no formal motion from something external, via the senses, into the mind. The senses only offer a physiological prompt for the mind, but the actual source of the ideas is strictly internal.103 When comparing Owen and Aquinas’ accounts of Adam’s prelapsarian state, there are important differences, of course. First, Owen’s explicitly covenantal understanding of Adam’s relationship with God is clearly foreign to Aquinas’ pattern of thought. Moreover, Owen does not speculate about any further immediate divine inspiration Adam may have received beyond the light of nature, as Aquinas does, especially in reference to Adam’s special, supernatural end.104 Aquinas adheres to quite a clear distinction between humanity’s natural and supernatural ends.105 In a sense, Owen and the seventeenth-century Federal theologians echo this too by distinguishing the natural law from the annexed promises and terms of the covenant. Nonetheless, as we have seen, Reformed thinkers like Owen are particularly concerned to underline the fact that Adam’s supernatural destiny was integral to his natural, created state. Consequently, for Owen, Adam’s single infused natural light was fully sufficient for him to understand the natural world, his moral duties as a rational creature, together with the supernatural end promised by the law’s annexed covenantal stipulations. It is also true that Owen rarely engages in the sort of technical metaphysical elaboration which not only distinguishes older scholastics like Aquinas, but other Reformed thinkers too. For instance, the prominent Reformed encyclopaedist, Johann Alsted, provides quite a detailed metaphysical account of the lumen naturae, where the influence of the older mediaeval tradition is striking and unmistakable. Alsted defines the lumen naturae as a “certain ray of divine light, shining in the summit [monte] or intellect of a man”, “through which we discern [cernimus] light”. In the “theoretical intellect” it is called “under102 Pasnau notes Aquinas’ comment in SCG II q.83, “Our knowledge of principles themselves is derived from sensible things. Unless we had perceived with the senses something that is a whole, we could not have intellectively cognized that the whole is greater than its part – just as someone born blind could not perceive colors”: Robert Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature: A Philosophical Study of Summa theologiae Ia 75–89 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 307–8. 103 Nicholas Jolley, The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 28–31, 40; Spruit, Species (II), 353–90; Alison Simmons, “Are Cartesian sensations representational?”, No˜s 33 (1999). 104 Cf., Aquinas, STh I q.94 a.1, a.3; DV q.18 a.1, a.2, a.3. 105 E.g., STh I q.23 a.1. On this, see Bernard Mulcahy O.P., Aquinas’ Notion of Pure Nature and the Christian Integralism of Henri de Lubac (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), 49–78.

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standing” (intelligentia), and “in the practical”, “the law of nature”. And then when describing its precise function, he speaks of it as a partly innate habit which immediately attains the truth of foundational speculative and practical principles, through the usual process of intellectual abstraction from sensible species.106 Yet, whatever the differences and relative sparsity of metaphysical elaboration, Owen’s adherence to the same fundamentals of cognition suggests that like Alsted, he too holds to an understanding of natural illumination which owes more to the older Thomist theory than to the nativism of some of his contemporaries.107

3.3.3 “Positive” commands As a final observation, it is important to note that the provision of this concreated law and light in Adam’s soul did not dispense with the need for God’s ongoing providential concursus to help him attain his supernatural end.108 Nor did it rule out the possibility of God “enlarging” (augendum) his natural light by revealing various “positive” commands not contained within the natural law itself, but which might be equally necessary for him to attain that covenantal end.109 An obvious example is the “sacramental” stipulation concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and implicitly, the tree of life (Gen 2:16–7).110 106 Alsted, Encyclopaediae, I.51. 107 Certainly, when Owen’s remarks in Reason of Faith are examined more closely, his explanation of the way this natural light operates here shares some similarities with that of his close acquaintance, Robert Ferguson, noted above, which were published just two years before Owen’s treatise appeared (Cf., Ferguson, Interest, 41–45). Owen states, “there are two things in this natural light and these first dictates of reason; first, a power of conceiving, discerning, and assenting; and, secondly, a power of judging and determining upon the things so discerned and assented unto” (Owen, Works, IV.84). Referring to certain essential attributes of God as being among these first dictates, Owen says that “[b]y” this first power, these attributes immediately evidence themselves to the mind “endued with natural light and reason”. In other words, the dictate or truth becomes apparent in this very power or operation of the mind itself. Furthermore, through the second power, and the judgments it “cannot but make” of the soul and its actions with respect to the higher authority of God, that very divine authority is also immediately evident. Therefore, like Ferguson, what Owen seems to mean by these “first dictates” of reason, is that by virtue of an inherent light or capacity, they are truths which instinctively strike the mind through an immediate, reflexive and sensible awareness of the soul’s natural contingency and judging operations. 108 Works, III.286. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, VIII.iii.14. 109 Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.2; XIX.354. Muller rightly notes that for the Reformed, even prelapsarian “natural theology” did not set aside the need for “grace drawing it toward perfection”, or indeed, for some further revelation: Muller, PRRD, I.288. In this sense, Rehnman is correct, even if Owen does not call this “supernatural theology” in the technical sense (see n.74 above): Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 79, 83–4. 110 Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.2. Cf., I.474; XV.229; XIX.344.

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According to Owen, this “superadded” precept did not reveal the covenant and its promise of life to Adam: since the covenant was “connatural”, with its “promises and threatenings” essentially annexed to the law of nature, it was already known by Adam, as we noted above. In other words, the structure, duty and reward of the covenant was capable of being known “by the power of his theology”. What the positive sacramental precept did provide, however, was a way of sealing the covenant symbolically.111 It was an arbitrary precept, in that it was suspended purely from God’s will rather than any essential divine characteristic.112 Another example Owen gives of a vocal, “positive” law is God’s explicit hallowing of the seventh day, confirming it as the particular day of rest.113 Nonetheless, as we have said already, Owen is cautious in positing the necessity of these added revelations, as if to imply there was some inadequacy in Adam’s native light and the implanted natural law. Moreover, it is important to notice that like Aquinas, Owen rejects the possibility that God could overturn the natural law with any later positive command. According to Scotus and his more radical late mediaeval successors, the natural law was suspended from God’s absolute power (potentia absoluta), making it possible for God to replace one natural order with another in situ, so that in one, for instance, human sacrifice might be forbidden, whereas in another it is permitted, as illustrated by the apparently arbitrary command to Abraham concerning his son, Isaac.114 It is not that Scotus believes any given effect of God’s power could contradict his essence. God could never erect an evil order. It is simply that unlike Aquinas, Scotus shows no interest in connecting the natural law to an eternal law ; that is, the unalterable essence of God.115 Yet, in Owen’s view, the absence of such connection would threaten God’s very trustworthiness,116 alerting us to the fact that more is at stake here for Owen than a bare preference for Thomistic metaphysics. For Owen, as for Aquinas, the nat111 “ipsum autem foedus, ut Adamo connatum, ita cognitum fuit; nam vi huius theologiae, ilium et officium et praemium suum cognovisse constat: praeceptum autem sacramentale supperadditum, foedus non revelavit, sed ad illud aperuit viam obsignandum”: Works, XVII.I.iv.7 (Contra, Rehnman, who mistakenly claims that the supernatural nature of the covenant stipulations meant that it could only be known through the sacramental precept regarding the tree: Divine Discourse, 84). Consequently, Owen says, Adam’s acceptance of the innately revealed promises and threatenings, together with the sacramental commands would have “established” the covenant: Owen, Works, XXIII.60–1. Accordingly, Beeke and Jones are likewise not quite correct to read Owen as saying (in this Hebrews passage), “by these [sacramental] signs God established the original law of creation as a covenant and gave it the nature of a covenant”: Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 223. 112 Owen, Works, XIX.344, 355. 113 Works, XIX.346–7, 356. 114 On this, and Scotus’ theory of natural law more generally, see, Möhle, “Natural Law”. 115 “Natural Law”, 315; Ledsham, “Doctrines”, 570. Cf. Aquinas, STh I–II q.93 a.2. 116 See, e. g., Owen, Works, V.241–2.

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ural law is a mirror of God’s unalterable holiness.117 Indeed, if Trueman is correct, this aversion to the more radical views of contingency current in the late Middle Ages may have developed early on in Owen’s theology from his interaction with Socinian teaching, which denied the necessity of Christ’s punitive sacrifice for sin. Whereas Owen had initially held a view in common with many Reformed divines, including Calvin (and even Aquinas), that Christ’s penal substitutionary sacrifice was not something absolutely necessary for forgiveness, but only a function of God’s potentia absoluta, Owen changed his mind, fearing this might sit too comfortably alongside the arbitrary and mutable God typified in Socinianism.118 It is this very connection between natural, vindicatory justice and the eternal justice of God, demanding the atonement, which is mirrored in Owen’s mature, settled commitment to an indelible law of nature more along the lines of older Thomism than what might be found among certain key figures of the Reformation. While Calvin certainly acknowledges an intimate relationship between the natural law and God’s eternal nature, scholars like Schneewind, and more recently, VanDrunen, detect a greater influence of certain voluntaristic convictions in the approach of Luther and Calvin to the natural law, compared with later Reformed thinkers like Turretin and Owen. Indeed, Turretin has a fascinating discussion outlining different views among the mediaeval scholastics and the Reformed on the relationship between the moral law and the eternal nature of God, observing that the Thomist approach is ultimately the majority position among the Reformed.119 Therefore, with such a close connection between the natural law and God’s unchanging character, Adam could be entirely confident that God would never change his mind and overturn this law with some later command. Moreover, an important implication is that the natural law provided cognitive access not merely to the will of God, but to the very nature of God’s holiness, which may be another part of the reason why he cautions against underestimating the sheer potency of its light for directing Adam’s life of obedience and worship.120

117 Works, VI.391–2. Cf., Alsted, Encyclopaediae, I.52a. 118 Trueman, “Christocentric Scholasticism”; Trueman, Owen, 42–6. Trueman’s recent chapter in Drawn into Controversie (Jones and Haykin, eds) is largely identical to this earlier piece. 119 Turretin, Institutes, XI.ii.10–11. See, J.B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy : A History of Modern Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 26–36; VanDrunen, Natural Law, 104–5, 156–9. 120 Owen, Works, XIX.347.

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3.3.4 Summary Drawing this together, then, like so many of his contemporaries, Owen is clearly unwilling to dispense with the claim that right from the outset of creation, the human soul was divinely furnished with a natural illumination which delivers certain foundational principles, speculative and moral, providing the basis for all rational, and indeed, theological thought. No doubt Owen would have shared with many of his Reformed brethren a deep aversion to the denial of certain Godgiven foundational principles – especially those of an explicitly theological nature – which had lately been advanced in Socinian circles, and would eventually take hold in mainstream philosophical thought.121 Nevertheless, as Yolton shows, it is equally true that in late seventeenth-century England, the “natural light” of reason inherited from the scholastic tradition was understood with considerable variety, stretching from a strongly habitual dispositionalism through to the full-blown nativism found in Cartesian thought. It is also clear that in accounting for the role of this light in understanding, its advocates were not necessarily blind to the philosophical implications for the still-common peripatetic framework of cognition, which at least partly explains why there was such a variety of views.122 To our mind, Owen’s depiction of Adam’s natural light emerges as being remote from the awakened “recollection” of someone like More and closer to the older dispositionalism of Aquinas.123 What, perhaps, is distinctive about Aquinas’ version of natural illumination is the way all knowledge actually and really acquired through the senses is strictly co-ordinate with whatever participated light of God’s eternal knowledge is bestowed on the soul via its agent intellect. No knowledge of the world is possible without a symmetrical co-operation between these two factors. So in the case of the natural law, for instance, its principles and directives can only ever be actually discerned through experience, because that law is already present as a habit within the soul via the agent intellect’s participation in the eternal law. At the same time, however, Aquinas attempts to give full credence to the intelligible world – including the individual’s own soul – as

121 So, Works, XVII.I.iv.4; X.522. For an examination of the role the denial of the innate idea of God had on the development of Arminian theology, see, John E. Platt, “The Denial of the Innate Idea of God in Dutch Remonstrant Theology from Episcopius to van Limborch”, in Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment, ed. Carl R. Trueman and Scott R. Clark (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 1999). 122 Platt also points to Dutch Reformed thinkers like Vorstius and Timpler who eschewed a nativist account of innate ideas on the grounds that it conflicted with Aristotelian empiricism: Platt, “Denial”, 216–8. Cf., too, Turretin, Institutes, I.iii.2. 123 Contra, then, Rogers and McKim, Authority, 222.

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the real, objective source of that knowledge, irrespective of whatever power is naturally present within the soul. The same could be said for Owen. Adam could not arrive at any actual awareness of God’s natural law woven into the fabric of creation unless that law existed within his soul in the form of a habitual light, a mirror of God’s infinite, unchanging holiness, graciously concreated in his mind.124 That is to say, the objectively implanted law of nature is, as it were, symmetrically poised alongside the subjective light of that law, through which its principles are readily discerned. Through this natural illumination, together with the positive commands, Adam was fit to have been thoroughly instructed by God, lacking nothing to honour him rightly and lead a good and blessed life.125 Clearly for Adam, the full reward of the covenant was yet to come. Owen has some kind of beatific encounter in mind.126 But to attain this “unseen” reward, Adam knew he must simply obey the law set forth. Owen refuses to speculate over exactly how much obedience was required for Adam to enter that blessed state; what is clear, he says, is that the obedience of the first man was in everything a universal exemplar expressing the “image of God”, the reward of which was God himself.127

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The “light of nature” after the Fall

As we shall see in chapter five, the connection Owen makes between Adam’s preFall light and the imago Dei is significant. Just as Adam’s image was intimately connected to this infused light and his transparent perception of the natural law, we shall see that the restoration of the fallen image in Christian believers is similarly tied to the infused light of grace and their faithful grasp of the scriptural Word, particularly as it reflects the redemptive image of Christ. However, for now, our interest is to see what impact the Fall had on Adam’s natural light and theology. According to Owen, the Fall almost entirely vitiated this innate light. In Theologoumena, he goes as far as saying it is extinct.128 124 Owen, Works, VI.391–2. 125 Works, XVII.I.iv.6. 126 It has been claimed that Owen is “agnostic” on the debated question of a heavenly or earthly reward: e. g., Beach, Christ, 130; Mark Jones, Why Heaven Kissed Earth: The Christology of the Puritan Reformed Orthodox theologian, Thomas Goodwin (1600–1680) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 79. Owen does refuse to speculate about the “time and means” in which Adam may have obtained his reward. Yet, he also explicitly says there is no substantial difference between the reward and punishment of the Old and New Covenants. Consequently, it is hard to decide Owen’s position on this question with full certainty : Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.7. 127 Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.7. 128 Works, XVII.I.v.1; cf. I.iv.10–11.

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Nevertheless, he proceeds to qualify that stark assessment, stating that although the rectitude of nature has been lost and its original light extinguished, the “law of dependence and subjection” remains inscribed in the human heart by God.129 Owen, therefore, clearly regards the implanted law and its light to be an indelible feature of our nature, persisting beyond the Fall,130 a conviction which was commonplace among the scholastics, as his Oxford mentor Thomas Barlow readily observes.131 While Owen thinks the covenantal possibility of acquiring our heavenly reward through obedience to the law is now well and truly defunct, the implanted law of that covenant, with its natural demand for obedience and threat of divine retribution, is not.132 And with it, a certain ability or light remains within our natures to perceive some of its dictates: the “candle of the Lord” (cf., Prov 20:27) remains within our nature giving us the on-going capacity to “discern the things of man; – an ability to know, perceive, and judge of things natural.”133 Or, as he puts it in Pneumatologia (1674), “[u]nder the ashes of our collapsed nature there are yet remaining certain sparks of celestial fire.”134 Even still, this habitual light has been darkened or “blotted” out irretrievably by a habit or “inbred law” of sin, and can no longer enable people to rise above the things of nature to their supernatural end of blessedness.135 In his famous collection of treatises on sin from the 1650s and 1660s, Owen describes the habit of sin as an act of violence against our nature, its light and principles.136 To some degree, however, Owen concedes this evil habit may be subdued in the unregenerate and the natural light re-kindled through trials or considerable effort, particularly through the use of the written law and its chief expression in the Decalogue, which represents a duplication of the natural law graciously provided in lieu of the darkened natural light.137 That said, given his commitment to the utter depravity of sin, Owen is very pessimistic about the capacity of the written law to awaken the light of nature. Yet, an awakened natural light may well manifest itself in fresh convictions and reformations of behaviour.138 Owen actually attributes this powerful effect of the written law to the gracious work of the Spirit.139 In Pneumatologia, he speaks of a kind of “illu129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

Works, XVII.I.v.2. Works, I.382; III.259, 470; VI.165, 389–91; XVI.310, 469, 471; XVII.II.i.1; XVIII.7; XX.168. Barlow, Exercitationes, 126–7. Owen, Works, XXIII.61–2. Cf., Barlow, Exercitationes, 134–5. Owen, Works, I.382. Works, III.345, 474; XVI.469. Works, II.113–4; VI.165–6; XVI.471–2. Works, VI.28, 303ff. Works, XIX.350, 405, 408; cf. VII.162. Cf., Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 171. Owen, Works, III.490. Works, VI.309–10.

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mination” which the “fountain of all illumination” may grant prior to regeneration.140 According to Owen, there are two degrees to this illumination.141 In the first instance, the Spirit may “superadd” a light to the “innate conceptions of men’s mind”, which fills the want that rational reflection on nature ought to supply. That is, he is very clear that whatever “light” the Spirit adds is only a strengthening of the natural light otherwise vitiated by sin. In that sense, it only answers the law of nature. A second kind of illumination may provide a certain understanding of things extending beyond the light of nature, specifically the truths of the gospel, albeit falling short of the illumination that results in genuine conversion. This second illumination is how Owen explains the phenomenon described in Hebrews where some “once enlightened” (Heb 6:4) seem to perish eternally. Yet, either way, Owen says, “no new real supernatural strength” is being conveyed to the soul.142 Moreover, the habit of indwelling sin always remains at hand to “giveth stop or control”, in spite of the exceedingly great power of any awakening.143 Psychologically, Owen describes the habit of sin as putting the mind in a state of blindness or subjective darkness. As we have seen, within the typical scholastic psychology, the intellect, and specifically its practical or judging faculty, retains a structurally significant role in proposing the particular good that the will may choose.144 That is to say, light is a perfection of the mind – as Owen puts it,145 and before the Fall, Adam’s intellectual light would have been entirely sufficient to direct the will and appetitive affections towards their proper ends. Formally speaking, Owen sidesteps the debate between “intellectualists” (normally associated with Aquinas) and later mediaeval “voluntarists” by averting from discussing whether or not the will always follows the intellect in the specification of its acts.146 Although Aquinas never says that the will is de140 Works, III.231–33, 307, 311. 141 He actually says there are three degrees of special illumination, although the third, which he does not address here, refers to the illumination of regeneration: Works, III.231–233. 142 Works, III.309. Cf., III.307–15; XXII.75–6. Among the Reformed, this was a common way of explaining the phenomenon of temporary faith. See, e. g., John Calvin, Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews (trans. John Owen; Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1853), 135–8; Institutes (1559), III.ii.11; Turretin, Institutes, XV.xv.1–15. 143 Works, VI.309–10. 144 On Owen’s adoption of Aristotelian faculty psychology, see, Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: the Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 51–7. As Muller points out, it was a standard feature of Protestant scholastic thought: Muller, PRRD, I.356. 145 Owen, Works, III.280. 146 Works, III.281. For the late mediaeval developments, see, J.B. Korolec, “Free Will and Free Choice”, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Kent, Virtues.

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termined by the intellect, it always naturally follows its lead, even after the Fall. In his psychological portrait, sin takes hold of the soul through the arousal of passions within the sensible appetite, which distract the intellect from its proper object, introducing error and deception into the soul that way, without needing to posit some fundamental rupture between the will and the effectual priority of the intellect.147 Perhaps reflecting the later mediaeval tradition, Owen seems to accord more weight to the “ruling” or “governing” power of the will within the soul than Aquinas.148 Not only is the soul somewhat dependent upon the will for its operations, as Aquinas had held, but it seems its own peculiar desires may even be capable of swaying the judgment of the mind. Certainly, that is how Owen describes the nature of sin. The fallen mind is captive to a double impotency, Owen says: “natural” and “moral”.149 On the one hand, sin has introduced deception into the mind, causing an immediate deprivation of its original natural light, especially in relation to spiritual things.150 On the other hand, there is an intractable obstinacy within the will and affections which “always and unchangeably” rejects and refuses spiritual things because of the “various lusts, corruptions and prejudices invincibly fixed in them.”151 And according to Owen, this latter impotency is particularly virulent: filling the mind with enmity ; flooding the imagination or “fantasy” with sensual, earthly objects which distract the mind from its proper spiritual object; and introducing prejudices which inordinately inflate the value of material objects and dismiss the true wisdom in gospel mysteries.152 Indeed, Owen can go so far as claiming that the will and affections are “more corrupted than the understanding”.153 The picture Owen paints, then, is entirely consistent with what Muller calls a “soteriological voluntarism”, typical amongst Reformed thinkers.154 On the other hand, Griffith risks overstating things in claiming that for Owen, the Fall somehow inverted the “psychological priority” within each individual, or that it “radically altered the way in which the mind works”, so that before the Fall, Adam was an “intellectual being with reason informing the will”, but now is a “voluntarist being with the corrupted will and affections […] driving and 147 As Kent points out, Aquinas does not locate the cause of sin in a weakness of the will, but in the failure of a distracted mind: Bonnie Kent, “Aquinas and the Weakness of Will”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 75 (2007), 81–91. 148 Owen, Works, III.238. 149 Works, III.266. 150 Works, III.267; cf. VI.213–4. 151 Works, III.267. 152 See, Works, III.271–80. In describing these effects, Owen specifically has “moral” impotency on view here: Works, III.275. 153 Owen, Works, III.268. 154 Muller, Unaccommodated, 159–73.

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informing the mind.”155 It is true that within the upright soul, Owen believes the will and affections were naturally designed and inclined to follow the mind’s leading light. Yet, however much corrupt volitional appetites have now come to exert a ruling influence within fallen creatures, he never suggests this has somehow overturned the structural workings or priorities of the soul. Just as the will is always the soul’s “ruling” or “governing” power – before or after the Fall – so too is the mind always the “leading” or “directive” faculty, insofar as the will and affections can never apprehend any supposed good without the bearing of its judgment.156 Consequently, it is more likely that the soul’s appetites wield their crooked influence through distracting and manipulating the mind’s judgments rather than literally rejecting its lead, in the more radical or so-called “compound sense”.157 Indeed, this pattern explains how someone becomes “earthly minded”: the affections so manipulate the data the mind receives via the imagination that the mind is transformed – or, we may say, adequated – to the “image” of purely sensual goods; namely, the lowest, simplest, accidental objects of knowledge, rather than the spiritual truth it was designed to apprehend.158 This, in turn, leads to profound deception and errors of judgment, which the will cannot escape.159 We need to be cautious, therefore, in hastily attaching the labels “intellectualist” or “voluntarist” to Owen, or in claiming the Fall caused a fundamental inversion of psychological priority. From what we can establish, Owen’s psychological portrait is such that the will’s inclinations clearly do have the capacity to influence the mind, whether for good or ill. Indeed, in chapters four and five, we shall see how Owen allows for the will to exercise a profoundly positive effect in uniting the mind to its spiritual object in regeneration (and beyond). Yet, there is no doubt that its governing power within the soul is starkly illustrated in the fallen state. Even still, those very desires (and its consequent actions) seemingly cannot arise entirely independent of the intellect’s guid-

155 So, Griffiths, Sin, 65. 156 Owen, Works, III.281. 157 While Owen does explicitly avert from discussing this more radical possibility, he frequently suggests the will is bound by the judgment of the mind, even after the Fall: e. g., Works, III.281; VI.213. 158 See, e. g., Works, VII.448. Cf. 410–2, IV.178–85. Cf., Aquinas’ depiction of the internal cause of sin, STh I–II q.75 a.2. On this in Aquinas, see Pasnau, Human Nature, 241–64; Kent, “Weakness”. For confirmation that Owen’s technical understanding of the “imagination” corresponds to the general scholastic understanding, see his description of scriptural inspiration, where he explicitly follows Aquinas’ psychology : Owen, Works, III.135. It is worth noting how Owen regards this pattern as the essence and outcome of idolatry, a phenomenon he tirelessly illustrates by reference to the visual forms of Catholic worship: e. g., Works, III.273. Cf., I.143–4, 159, 313–4, 389, 393–4, 401–3; XXI.252–3. 159 Owen, Works, III.281.

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ance.160 In fact, Owen can equally describe the mind as the soul’s “ruling” faculty,161 as he does the will, suggesting, at least, that all moral action – before and after the Fall – relies upon an inalienable co-operation between them both. Even if the Fall did not necessarily effect a fundamental inversion in Adam’s psychology, Griffiths is certainly correct to identify the profound chaos sin has introduced to the post-Fall soul. This is precisely why Owen considers it an act of violence against the law and light of nature. And its on-going, irrepressible power is the very depraved habit of sin.162 Consequently, when the gospel is proposed to a sinner in this state, they may arrive at some natural understanding of its claims – from the perspective that its truth is sufficiently accommodated to be grasped through the mind’s natural capacities163 – but when it comes to their true spiritual meaning and ends, they will judge them as utter foolishness. At the very most, he says, they will seize on those aspects appealing to any remaining light by reiterating the natural law (in its prescriptions, for instance), but even still, without a proper regard to their intended ends.164 As mentioned, though, in spite of this bleak assessment, Owen does leave some residual scope for the light of nature. And it is this remaining “light” Owen refers to in Reason of Faith, whether in the more comprehensive sense pertaining to all reasoning, speculative and practical, or the narrower sense of merely practical, moral reasoning alone. Owen certainly does intimate that our speculative capacities were similarly corrupted and cursed by the Fall,165 yet he still thinks there is some innate postlapsarian light by which the basic principles of all reasoning – speculative and practical – are recognised as self-evident. Reflecting the impact of the Reformation, Owen rarely mentions the term synderesis and gives a similarly truncated portrayal of its light post-Fall.166 That said, like many of his Renaissance and post-Reformation contemporaries, he does see this residual light as the explanation for a “common reason of mankind”, or the general consent to certain fundamental practical principles.167 Needless to say, however, he shows no affinity with the more optimistic hue the notion was beginning to assume amongst some of his enlightened contemporaries, a number of whom were reliant on the notion in attempting to release the conscience and natural law 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167

Works, III.319; cf. VI.213. Cf., Works, III.238, 250. Works, III.270. Owen describes this as a “remote” or “passive” power of the soul, that is, the power of the faculties to be “wrought upon” by the exhortations of the gospel. Even still, this remote power cannot be actualised without (common) grace: Works, III.289. Works, III.261–66, 278–9. See, Works, II.112–4. E.g., Works, XVI.471. See his Hebrews exercitation noted above, with its extensive quotation of classical sources, Works, XIX.338–43

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from their sacred, theological strongholds, to escape the quagmire of ethical scepticism that had divided the religious landscape.168 Owen is adamant that the “law of nature” cannot be reduced to common consent, not least because the depravity of reason has led to confusion and disagreement over these notions – making them not so common after all! – or has delivered accepted notions that have proven somewhat dubious over the course of time, such as incest or cannibalism.169 Leaving that caveat aside, it is important to notice how in Reason of Faith Owen regards various truths about God’s existence, essence and character to be among the self-evident principles still detectable by the residual light of nature. In fact, here he seemingly departs from Aquinas, who did not regard God’s existence among the self-evident truths of nature. For Aquinas, something is only self-evident to us (quoad nos) when its essence is known. But since God’s existence is the same as his unknowable essence, the proposition “God exists” cannot be self-evident. God’s existence can only be inferred from his effects.170 Owen undoubtedly agrees that the unknowable God is only detected a posteriori, through his created effects, but his chief concern is to follow the lead of scripture. And to his mind, the self-evident existence of God is a necessary implication of two key statements of the Apostle in Romans.171 First, where Paul speaks of “that which may be known of God” (t¹ cmyst¹m toO HeoO) being “manifest in them” (vameq|m 1stim 1m aqto?r, cf., Rom 1:19), Owen follows the admittedly unlikely exegetical route of identifying the antecedent of 1m aqto?r as each individual’s natural light, and specifically the basic rational “power of conceiving”.172 Although Owen is quite abstruse at this point, what he seems to mean, as was hinted above,173 is that God’s existence is evident in the nature and operations of the intellect itself, specifically as it is a unique analogue of the divine intellect (more will be said on the subject of analogy in chapter five). That is, since 168 See, e. g., Isaac Barrow, The Theological Works, ed. Alexander Napier (Cambridge: The University Press, 1859), II.30, quoted in, Greene, “Synderesis”, 215. On the seventeenthcentury development of a wholly secular natural law theory, driven by an anti-sceptical agenda and associated with figures like Grotius and Locke, see, Stephen Darwall, The British Moralists and the Internal “Ought”: 1640–1740 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Schneewind, Autonomy. 169 Owen, Works, XIX.340–1. Owen’s point here is somewhat reminiscent of Montaigne’s denunciation of common notions, yet without the radical scepticism determined to undermine the veridicality of the conceptual faculties. Any “scepticism” in Owen is strictly tied up with the impact of the Fall. Cf., Schneewind, Autonomy, 45–6. 170 Aquinas, STh I q.2 a.1. 171 Similarly, Barlow, who, in drawing upon Rom 1:19, clearly does not see any real conflict with Aquinas at this point, given the degree he cites him in support: Barlow, Exercitationes, 121–2, 128–30. 172 Owen, Works, IV.84. 173 See, n.107 above.

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whatever light or power the intellect possesses can only be derived from the eternal light of God, its divine source is self-evident much as the sun is known “in and by” its own light. He who suggests otherwise is “blind” and “contradicts his own sense”.174 Furthermore he interprets Paul’s statements regarding the Gentiles in Romans 2:14–15 as evidence of both the indelibly implanted natural law and a remaining, residual light which gives rise to conscience and its unavoidable suggestion of a higher judgment and authority.175 From a foundational knowledge of these principles, Owen also believes that the fallen rational faculty retains the capacity to proceed with a discursive reflection on the created world and the evidence of God therein. That way, like Adam, but in a far more restricted fashion, the fallen person is still capable of augmenting these self-evident principles with further knowledge of God, derived from what God has revealed of himself within the visible, created world.176

3.5

Conclusion

Before addressing the specific evidence of scripture’s divine authority and its relationship to faith, in Reason of Faith, Owen first claims that certain truths regarding God’s existence and character are self-evident through the soul’s natural “light”, and its further discursive reflection on creation. By introducing the “light of nature” to his argument, Owen signals his allegiance to a long Christian tradition which advocates the necessity of some subjective, God-given foundation for the natural acquisition of knowledge, irrespective of any noetic value he might attach to empirical or objective evidence. Tracing this theme across his mature writings, this chapter has sought a comprehensive picture of the role Owen ascribes to this natural illumination before and after the Fall. As a result, we will be better placed to grasp the precise function of the special illumination of grace, which we take up in the next chapter. As we shall see, Owen will proceed to argue that the infused light of grace has a correlate role in the perception of specially revealed scriptural truth. In unfallen Adam, Owen chiefly associates this natural light with a concreated habit or capacity God originally gave him to discern the intelligible order or “law” God implanted in his soul and the natural world. Furnished with this light, Adam was able to understand the world, to perceive all his creaturely and covenantal duties, and to worship God as he was designed. Owen’s account of the soul’s innate light appears to be distant from the nativism espoused by some of 174 Works, IV.89. 175 Works, IV.84; cf. XVI.310. 176 Works, IV.83, 84–5, 87–8.

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his contemporaries, and closer to the older scholastic formulation of Aquinas, with its symmetrical juxtaposition of an implanted natural law alongside its habitual light, both emulating the infinite and immutable holiness of God. That way, Owen can posit the necessity of subjective illumination while at the same time giving full credence to the objectively intelligible truth God has implanted within his world as the empirical source of any understanding that actually ensues. As we shall see, Owen will draw upon the same scholastic tradition to explain the redemptive light of grace in a parallel fashion – not as some secret subjective inspiration or afflatus, but as a graciously infused habit which enables the mind to discern the objective evidence and truth of scripture. In Owen’s view, the Fall has radically darkened the mind’s natural light. Nonetheless, by introducing the light of nature to his argument in Reason of Faith, Owen is suggesting that despite the seriously deleterious noetic effects of the Fall, each person retains sufficient light for them to discern the rudimentary speculative and practical truths of the law, and not least to apprehend the natural evidence of God’s “glorious being and power”.177 Whatever the metaphysical dependencies of Owen’s claim, he is simply content that this is what the scriptures teach: “the heavens declare the glory of God”, and “there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard” (Ps 19:1–3).178 Consequently, should someone object by saying “it doth not so appear unto him that the being of God is so revealed by them, it is a sufficient reply”, Owen insists, to say he is “phrenetic”. There is no problem with the evidence, nor with its self-evidencing capacity, but purely with the depraved habits which cause someone to argue “in express contradiction to his own reason”.179

177 “Viget adhuc in natura nostra ea lex et ratio quæ veritatem hanc docet, clamat […]. Ubicunque autem lex est, ibi, ut legislator aliquis agnoscatur, oportet; legis naturae lator, quam naturae auctor, alius esse non potest”: Works, XVII.I.v.4. 178 Works, IV.84. 179 Works, IV.89.

4.

The Habit of Grace

4.1

Introduction

Having examined the function Owen ascribes to the “light of nature” in acquiring an understanding of the created world – especially of that evidence it provides for the existence and character of God – we can now turn to the special internal work of the Spirit, which Owen regards as necessary for grasping the objective evidence of scripture’s divine authority. As we saw in chapter two, Owen fears that a reliance on mere moral certainty risks jettisoning the special work of the Spirit in forming faith for a dangerously optimistic confidence in the natural powers of reason. Such an outcome is thoroughly intolerable, and in company with the Reformed confessional consensus, Owen simply assumes that without an internal, gracious preparation of the soul “antecedent unto all divine objective evidence”, the doctrines of faith cannot be received with any saving benefit.1 Given Owen’s emphasis upon evidence in Reason of Faith, as well as his acute aversion to “enthusiasm” and all its associated opprobrium, it may seem surprising that Owen would not only affirm the necessity of an inward spiritual work before outlining the evidence of truth he finds in the scriptural text, but also give it the force he does. As we observed at the beginning of the last chapter, Owen mentions two aspects to this internal work in Reason of Faith: the supernatural illumination of the mind, and an accompanying new “spiritual sense”. This chapter shall examine these two dimensions in turn, taking care again to trace their development across Owen’s mature corpus. What we will notice is that when Owen’s account of gracious illumination is set against the natural illumination of the soul, it can be seen to operate in exactly the same way : not in a fashion that casts aside the noetic role of evidence, but in a manner that preserves the subject’s non-negotiable dependency on God for its certain access to truth. Consequently, as we shall see, Owen can comfortably say 1 Works, IV.55.

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there is, indeed, infallible evidence of truth within the text of scripture which is the sole formal reason of faith, while at the same time insisting upon a special illumination to faith, primarily because such evidence is beyond the natural light of reason to detect. Whatever else has been said about the operations of grace within the soul in Reformed theology, this close conceptual link between natural and supernatural illumination – at least in Owen’s thought – is something yet to receive any thorough attention.2

4.2

“Supernatural illumination” and the light of grace

While Owen does discuss the theme of supernatural illumination in Reason of Faith, it is something he explores in even more expansive detail in its sequel, Causes, Ways, and Means (1678), and in his lengthy discussion concerning regeneration and sanctification within Pneumatologia (1674).3 Given the way it connects illumination to these broader soteriological themes, we will primarily focus our discussion on this latter treatise, without losing sight of its place within his argument in Reason of Faith. Owen concludes his treatment of the effects of sin on the mind and soul in Pneumatologia by accenting the priority of illumination in conversion. This, of course, harmonises with the vital “leading” function he assigns to the mind in its apprehension of truth and the specification of each faculty’s proper objects. Unlike John Cameron and his followers, who had advocated the rather idiosyncratic view that regenerative grace can be restricted to illumination, on the grounds that the will always follows the mind’s lead, Owen clearly adopts the mainstream Reformed stance, positing the necessity of a further, special influence of grace within the will and affections, as we shall see further below.4 Nonetheless, he says,

2 Whilst containing some valuable material, McKinley’s treatment of Owen’s doctrine of illumination is dominated by other concerns and overlooks this wider intellectual context: David J. McKinley, “John Owen’s View of Illumination and its Contemporary Relevance” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Santo Tomas, 1995); also, “John Owen’s View of Illumination: An Alternative to the Fuller-Erickson Dialogue”, Bibliotheca Sacra 154 (1997). The same can be said of Philip A. Craig, “The Bond of Grace and Duty in the Soteriology of John Owen: The Doctrine of Preparation for Grace and Glory as a Bulwark against Seventeenth-century AngloAmerican Antinomianism” (Unpublished Ph.D., Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2005), 128–38. 3 Respectively, Owen, Works, IV.55–69; IV.121–73; III.297–366, 466–527. 4 On this, see Herman Bavinck, Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration, ed. J. Mark Beach, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008), 49–53.

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[a]s the eye is naturally the light of the body, or the means thereof, so is the mind unto the soul. And if darkness be in the eye, not only the eye but the whole body is in darkness […]; so if the mind be under darkness, the whole soul is so also, because it hath no light but by the mind. And hence both is illumination sometimes taken for the whole work of conversion unto God, and the spiritual actings of the mind, by the renovation of the Holy Ghost, are constantly proposed as those which precede any gracious actings in the will, heart, and life.5

Consequently, as he puts it later in the treatise, illumination is “the most eminent act of our sanctification.”6 However, with this preliminary note in place, the specific theme tends to get subsumed somewhat amorphously within the broader discussion of regeneration and sanctification that follows. It will be useful, then, to examine the critical function of an infused “habit of grace” in Owen’s understanding of regeneration, before turning to consider the relationship of this habit to the mind’s special illumination.

4.2.1 The infused “habit of grace” Prior to embarking on his treatment of regeneration proper in Pneumatologia, Owen provides a preliminary comparison between the natural and supernatural life of Adam in the Garden.7 Over and above his “natural” physical existence with the various functions and abilities with which God endowed his body and soul, Adam was given a concreated “supernatural” life prescribing his “end”, who was God himself. This, of course, is entirely consistent with what we have seen already. Indeed, Owen goes on to draw a significant comparison between Adam’s “supernatural” life before the Fall and the supernatural life of faith. In his innocency, Adam had three things that were part of his concreated nature, supplying him with his supernatural life: a “quickening principle” giving him a habitual light and disposition towards all the duties of obedience required of him; “continual actings” from and suitable to this principle; and a “power or ability” to perpetuate the principle for all obedience the covenant required. According to Owen, the supernatural life of faith “answers” this life of innocency. The only notable differences are: first, whereas the principle under the old covenant belonged entirely to the individual through its concreation in the soul, under the new, it belongs strictly to Christ whose “life” – meaning the spiritual perfections of his human nature – is graciously infused in the Christian’s soul via the Spirit. Secondly, under the new covenant, this principle chiefly acts itself 5 Owen, Works, III.281. 6 Works, III.493; cf. XXIII.148. 7 Works, III.284–6.

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through faith and obedience to Christ, whereas obedience under the old covenant waited upon natural revelation which was always open to the growing discernment of reason and the further positive commands of God. Other than that, the concreated life in Adam pre-Fall and new life in Christ were “so far of the same nature and kind […] as they serve to the same end and purpose.”8 And it is this “principle of faith and obedience”, infused at the moment of regeneration, that is the indispensable foundation of all acts of faith and Christian duty.9 This comparison yields several important insights into Owen’s understanding of regeneration. Among the most significant is the way he grounds the new life of faith in a graciously infused habit.10 Although earlier Protestant thinkers had veered away from the terminology of infused habits common throughout scholastic theology, primarily due to their possible link with semiPelagian views of righteousness and merit, Owen – along with many of his Reformed contemporaries – shows no such reticence, giving them an indispensable function within the Christian life.11 In this respect at least, Owen does not have quite the aversion to a “physical” or “created” concept of grace which Muller and others believe distinguishes Reformed thinkers from their scholastic forebears. Actually, there is good evidence to suggest that Owen was not alone in adopting this kind of terminology without any real difficulty, even if in doing so, Reformed thinkers like him did make some important modifications to the way it had functioned within mediaeval and Renaissance thought.12 8 Works, III.286; cf. 292, 521–2. 9 Works, III.334, 409. 10 For a recent, sound treatment of the way Owen has drawn on Aquinas in applying the notion of an infused habit to regeneration and sanctification, see, Cleveland, Thomism, 69–120 (Cf., “Thomism”, 118–217). The following adds to his discussion by offering several further observations and focussing on particular aspects relevant to our purposes. 11 For the background to Luther’s rejection of habitual terminology, see Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, third ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 176–86. As Cross points out, surprisingly little has been written on the relationship between grace and the philosophical concepts of virtue in mediaeval thought: Richard Cross, “Weakness and Grace”, in Cambridge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 449; cf. 449–53. The same can be said for its reappearance in Reformed thought. If mentioned at all, their re-introduction is often viewed negatively. E.g., Ronald Norman Frost, “Richard Sibbes’ Theology of Grace and the Division of English Reformed Theology” (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, King’s College, 1996), 98–104, 175–6; Horton, Salvation, 191–204; William B. Evans, Imputation and Impartation: Union with Christ in American Reformed Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), 46–52. 12 For the notion of “created” grace, see explicitly, Owen, Works, II.199–200; cf. III.321. For an “infused” “habit” or “quality” of “grace”, see, Works, III.220, 329, 472, 477, 491, 492, 496. Cf., William Ames, The Marrow of Sacred Divinity drawne out of the Holy Scriptures (London: Edward Griffin for Henry Overton, 1642), 127; John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification: or the disputatio de justitia habituali et actuali, two vols. (London: Hamilton, Adams and Co., 1844–6), I.121, 278–9; II.84–5; Johannis Maccovius, Loci Communes Theologici (Am-

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As with Adam’s spiritual life in the Garden, Owen sees the habit of grace as being strictly a “supernatural” power, distinct from the purely natural powers of the mind and the will. But that does not make it any less a quality inhering in the natural soul. Indeed, as Owen’s older contemporary and friend, Thomas Goodwin, puts it, “the natural soul is in that respect absolutely necessary as the subject of this new spiritual life”, only, the “natural soul and its faculties are as the root and foundation [the “principium quod”], or as the stock that the other new principle of life [the “principium quo”] is engrafted upon.”13 Owen’s frequent depiction of habitual grace as a “created” “quality”, parallel to the “concreated” spiritual life of Adam’s soul, ensures that is properly understood as something “accidental”; added to, and inhering in the soul’s natural essence.14 In other words, however much it is proper to describe this quality as something “supernatural”, it “partakes somewhat” of the physical, as Turretin puts it, insofar as it is a genuine creation of the Spirit, no less than Adam’s original “quickening principle”.15 It seems, then, that the later Reformed did not tout court reject the language of habitual grace, as some have suggested. Nor did they necessarily redefine it in an entirely non-scholastic way.16 Of course, as is the case within the older scholastic tradition itself, the Reformed appeared to understand the precise operation of this infused grace in a variety of ways. Some, like Goodwin, seem to follow the older Thomist position by insisting that for a fallen soul to have any relationship with God and the world above nature, it must have a new supernatural life – a habit of grace, added to the soul’s natural essence, healing the effects of habitual sin, elevating the soul’s existing powers, and disposing them for all regenerative acts, before considering any subsequent outworking or special effects of grace upon those individual faculties.17 On the other hand, there are those like Go-

13 14 15 16 17

sterdam: Ludovicum, 1658), XXII (166b – 7a); John Prideaux, Opera Theologica (Zurich: Davidis Gesseneri, 1672), 35; Reynolds, Works, I.425, II.27; Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity: consisting of ten books (London: A.M. for William Lee, 1654), VII.iii (492), VII.xii (535), VII.xiii (537); Thomas Goodwin, The Works (Edinburgh: Nichol, 1861), I.135, 298, 374; VI.207–11; Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works (Edinburgh: Nichol, 1864–6), III.88–165; Gisbertus Voetius, Selectarum disputationum theologicarum, five vols. (Utrecht: J. a Waesberge, 1648–67), II.437–9. Pace, Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), 131, 134; Muller, PRRD, I.358–9. Goodwin, Works, VI.209. Cf., Voetius, Disputationem, II.451. Owen, Works, III.285. Cf., Voetius, Disputationem, II.438–9. Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.18–20. Contra, Horton, Salvation, 193; following, Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003–2007), III.577–8. Goodwin, Works, VI.207–11. Cf., Aquinas’ statements on grace throughout STh I–II q.109, and especially, q.110 a.3. Objecting to the synergism he perceives in later Catholic developments, Goodwin insists the soul’s natural essence needs a new power for supernatural acts, entirely distinct from the soul’s existing natural powers. According to Wisse, this kind

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marus or Turretin who may show the influence of later mediaeval thought by speaking of “habitual grace” primarily in terms of the discrete habits or virtues of faith, hope and love infused at regeneration, without appearing to assert the need for an antecedent “habit of grace”.18 Like Goodwin, Owen very much asserts the Thomist principle that infused grace supplies the soul with a “supernatural life”, but he adapts it so that all the particular regenerative graces, whether it be the gift of “illumination”, “faith” or “love”, are merely different aspects of the one “habit of grace” infused at conversion rather than discretely infused virtues. As he puts it in his Communion with God (1657), “though many particular graces are mentioned, yet there are not different habits or qualities in us, – not several or distinct principles to answer them; but only the same habit or spiritual principle putting forth itself in various operations or ways of working, according to the variety of the objects which it goeth forth unto.”19 Among more recent commentators, this scholastic theme of “graced nature” has been dismissed rather pejoratively as a piece of incautious Neoplatonism, where a supernatural-natural hierarchy eclipses a more ethical relationship between sin and grace.20 However, what is often lost in these assessments is the fundamental ethical principle Aquinas and others are seeking to enshrine, which is that human relationship with God is never a purely natural claim, but only ever by grace – a gift or privilege concreated with nature that, at least in Adam’s case, could be lost or seriously impaired through sin, and is now recovered only through a new act of divine grace in Christ.21 At any rate, the primary reluctance

18

19 20 21

of accent on the habitus as a potentia fidei, associated strictly with the “new creature” is distinctively Reformed compared with Tridentine Catholicism (at least), where the infused habit merely perfects existing natural powers: Maarten Wisse, “Habitus Fidei: an Essay on the History of the Concept”, Scottish Journal of Theology 53, no. 2 (2003), 180–1. Turretin speaks more often of discrete habits of faith, hope and love infused at conversion, and only very occasionally refers to “habitual grace”: Turretin, Institutes, III.xx.8; XV.iv.18; cf. XVII.ii.19; likewise, Gomarus, although he does bracket these habits under the “habitual grace of conversion”: Franciscus Gomarus, Opera theologica omnia (Amsterdam: Joannes Janssonius, 1664), I.104b. On the way Aquinas’ distinct habit of grace was fused with the specific infused virtues, notably charity, in later mediaeval thought, see Cross, “Weakness”, 451–3. Owen, Works, II.199–200; cf. 172 Cf., Prideaux, Opera, 35; Goodwin, Works, VI.211 Bavinck, RD, III.576–7; cf. 573–9; Horton, Salvation, 193. Cf., Herman Dooyeweerd, Roots of Western Culture, trans. John Kraay (Toronto: Wedge Publishing Foundation, 1979), 116–9. So, Aquinas, STh I q.95 a.1. For a more sympathetic appraisal of this theme in Aquinas, see, Joseph P. Wawrykow, God’s Grace & Human Action: “Merit” in the theology of Thomas Aquinas (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995). Trueman is entirely correct to observe that Owen adopts “the scholastic nature-grace model of humanity”, meaning any capacity to fulfil the covenant is only ever a function of God’s grace: Trueman, Claims, 126; Owen, 68–9. For a critique of the common Protestant misconceptions about the so-called “nature-grace” distinction in Aquinas, see, Arvin Vos, Aquinas, Calvin, and Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Grand Rapids: Christian University Press, 1985), 123–60.

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some modern writers have towards notions of “created” grace implied by the terminology of habits seems to stem from a suspicion of scholastic systems of merit, excessive “anthropocentrism”, or a fear that the integrity of forensic justification is necessarily compromised therein.22 These reactions are often coupled to recent Protestant difficulties with the nature and order of regeneration and faith, and its relationship to justification. The allegedly unresolved dilemma presented by classic Protestant thought is that even though justification is said to be a forensic declaration, it is only actually received by faith, which although itself a gift, appears to be a kind of logically, if not temporally prior condition or virtue (in the common meritorious sense) required for justification.23 Consequently, Protestant theological discourse is often seemingly forced to choose between “participatory” motifs such as faith and union versus “legal” motifs of imputation and justification.24 The fact is, however, someone like Owen did not see that dilemma at all. For Owen, habitual grace is central to his understanding of a believer’s union with Christ, especially in light of the crucial identification he makes between this habit and the “life” of Christ (or a “measure” thereof; cf., Eph 4:7) residing in the Christian soul. It is true that union with Christ cannot be reduced to this infused quality. Union properly encompasses the actual spiritual bond with Christ’s person, which forms the basis of the Christian’s unique “communion” with the Triune God.25 Nevertheless, the indwelling of Christ’s Spirit is inextricably linked to the habitually renewed heart, since this kind of personal union can never occur with a defiled soul, but only “in and by the new creature in us.”26 That does not mean the regenerative infusion of grace somehow precedes this union as a 22 So, Frost, “Sibbes”; Evans, Imputation; Horton, Salvation. 23 See, for instance, how McCormack sets this up as an unresolved dilemma in Bruce McCormack, “What’s at Stake in the Current Debates over Justification?”, in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates, ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2004). 24 A recent example of the former emphasis is Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapis: Eerdmans, 2010). In this respect, Canlis appears to be fond of the so-called “Finnish” school of interpreting Luther’s doctrine of justification. Horton’s accent on the priority of legal imputation is partly a reaction against the former : Horton, Salvation. More recently still, Fesko and Muller have bought into this debate with a fresh appraisal of the sources: J.V. Fesko, Beyond Calvin: Union with Christ and Justification in Early Modern Reformed Theology (1517–1700) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012); Muller, Calvin and the Reformed Tradition. 25 Owen, Works, III.516–7. 26 Works, III.465. Oh’s contention that Owen’s account of union tends to bypass Christ’s humanity misses the critical point that this infused grace or “new creature” is no less than a participation in Christ’s “life”, or the holy qualities infused into Christ’s humanity: Changlok Oh, “Beholding the Glory of God in Christ: Communion with God in the Theology of John Owen (1616–1683)” (Unpublished Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary, 2006), 108–13. See, e. g., Owen, Works, I.366; III.521–2.

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prior cause – in fact, quite the reverse: it is an effect of union, Owen says, but one that occurs “immediately and inseparably” in that very act of union.27 Indeed, regeneration, habitual grace, faith, justification and sanctification all need to be seen as “inseparable” effects of the one real, gracious act whereby Christ undertakes to unite himself with the souls of his elect.28 It may well be that there is a sequential arrangement – an ordo – between these effects, as befits what is suggested by the scriptures themselves. So, in the one uniting act, Owen likely sees a sequential (but not necessarily temporal) order, beginning with the one gracious principle – Christ’s “life” infused within the soul – leading to faith, wherein the state of union actually occurs, which then functions as an instrumental cause of justification and sanctification alike.29 There is no question, then, that like the Catholics, Owen ties the consequent act of faith to this gracious “quality” infused within the Christian soul at the point of union. But the instrumental relationship between this quality and justification must not be mistaken for a meritorious causality. Driven by their Pauline exegesis, the Reformed simply refuse to follow the mediaeval and Renaissance tradition of viewing justification as in some way “conditional” upon faith or even indistinguishable from habitual grace. Instead, they give it a distinctively forensic character, where it is merited solely by the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed to a sinner as the basis of that declaration.30 In fact, even if faith (and its regenerative habit) is the instrumental cause of that legal imputation and justification, Owen refuses any inference that this somehow inverts the traditional Reformation priority of justification over sanctification, precisely the kind of inference made by critics of infused regenerative grace.31 Owen insists that the one act of union infuses grace, and brings about faith and justification at the same instant in time. That is, the instrumentally causal relationship between faith and justification is established immediately by one act, so that there is no way regeneration and faith can be interpreted as a temporally prior “condition” for justification. Furthermore, this immediately established 27 Owen, Works, III.464–5; cf. 517; I.365–6. 28 Works, V.133, 156, 353–4; III.414, 464, 516, 517; XXI.149–50. Evans’ suggestion that Owen erects a “bifurcation” between a “forensic” union and a subsequent union of sanctification cannot be sustained: Evans, Imputation, 43–83; nor can Stover’s claim that “union with Christ” is the “goal” of sanctification rather than the ground of it: Stover, “Pneumatology”, 258–61. Gleason and Oh are much more accurate in this respect: Randall C. Gleason, John Calvin and John Owen in Mortification: A Comparative Study in Reformed Spirituality (New York: Peter Lang, 1995); Oh, “Communion”. 29 Owen, Works, V.107–13; III.414. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XVI.vii.15; Maccovius, Loci, LXXI.i (689–90). 30 Rightly, Horton, Salvation, 199. Contra Evans (n.28), this imputation of righteousness is never described by Owen as a distinct “union”. 31 So, Horton, Salvation, 197, 216; following, McCormack, “Justification?”.

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justifying relationship ensures that justification itself retains a certain antecedence over the actual obedience subsequently flowing out of faith, irrespective of how much this infused “quality” of faith is said to be the “seed” of personal righteousness.32 But nor does this understanding of regeneration create, as Horton presumes, an irresolvable tension between two rival “ontological” grounds for the ordo salutis: “forensic justification” on the one hand, and “infused grace” on the other.33 For Owen, as for many seventeenth-century Reformed thinkers, there is no doubt that the gracious act of union, along with all the consequent benefits which flow to the elect, is grounded ultimately in the covenant of redemption, whereby the Son volunteered to assume the office of mediator, bearing the debts of his people, while securing a treasury of gifts ready to be bestowed on them in whatever order he sees fit.34 In that way, neither forensic justification nor the infused habit of grace act as the “basis” of a believer’s union with Christ, as such – both of these are more properly speaking “effects” of union rather than its grounds;35 rather, it is chiefly the eternal covenantal decision to impute the sinner’s debts to Christ in exchange for various graces which are imputed and imparted in return.36 It is not so much the rejection of habitual grace, then, that marks out a Reformed thinker like Owen from his mediaeval and Renaissance forebears, but his refusal to travel the same route in its relationship to justification or, for that matter, in its sacramental reception.37 But why did later Protestants like Owen return to this older scholastic conception of grace, after it had receded from conspicuous view within the thought of the Reformers? It is not possible to address all the likely reasons here. The influence of mediaeval scholastic 32 Owen, Works, V.112–13, 133, 156, 231 Rightly, Fesko, Beyond Calvin, 290–1. At one point Owen does say faith is “in order of nature” antecedent to justification: Owen, Works, V.212. Yet by this, he is asserting no more than the necessity of the instrumental relationship between faith and justification. 33 Cf., Horton, Salvation, 197–8, 216, 236–7. 34 So, Owen, Works, V.179; cf. 179–205. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XVI.ix.8–11. Rightly, Fesko, Beyond Calvin, 287–9, 297–99. 35 As Owen remarks, “we receive nothing by him but by virtue of relation unto him, or especial interest in him, or union with him.”: Owen, Works, III.414; cf. 478, 514, 516, 518. 36 Pace Fesko, it is somewhat misleading to claim that for Owen (amongst others), “justification is the legal ground of the believer’s union with Christ.” The dogmatic concern here is understandable: classically, the Reformed account of justification understood it as the declaration of a legal right to salvation. Therefore, without imputation and justification, union with Christ would be simply inconceivable. But the Reformed would never have described justification as the legal “basis” of union, only ever as an effect, which is ultimately grounded in a believer’s election “in Christ”. Fesko is on surer grounds, then, in pointing to the pactum salutis and what this entails: Beyond Calvin, 382. 37 So, Cleveland, Thomism, 5–6, 116–9.

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methodology on the later defence and institutional codification of Reformed theology, as well as the on-going institutional appeal of peripatetic philosophy and metaphysics, must surely tell part of the story. Indeed, the fact that such a synthesis had become virtually commonplace amongst Owen’s Reformed contemporaries makes it quite reasonable to suspect they considered the terminology a most useful tool indeed, and two possible specific instances of this usefulness will be suggested below in our discussion of special illumination. At this point, however, perhaps we can suggest a couple of general observations regarding their reappearance. A basic and explicit reason why Owen insists upon a “principle of life” or habit of grace is to ensure someone can still be called a “Christian” even when actual faith is not present or substantially diminished, presumably due to infancy or from some serious or besetting sin.38 From at least as far back as the late sixteenth century, the Reformed seemed to turn to the language of graciously infused habits in an effort to find a stable and permanent foundation for the ultimate perseverance in faith of those effectually called to salvation, that would not be threatened by the reality of occasional, serious lapses, as illustrated by the biblical examples of King David and the Apostle Peter.39 Naturally, this was to become something of a flashpoint in the Arminian controversy, since Arminius himself denied the indefectibility of gracious habits, arguing that they could be lost by a lapse in actual faith after regeneration.40 Indeed, according to Twisse, other Remonstrants like Grevinchoven refused to admit any gracious habits at all.41 Consequently the association of infused habits with regeneration and a permanent state of grace was henceforth enshrined in the teachings of the Reformed.42 And as Cleveland observes, the monergistic character of infused ha38 Owen, Works, III.329–30. Owen does not explicitly refer to infancy here. Elsewhere he shows a certain agnosticism regarding the actual point of regeneration in a child of the covenant: Works, III.409; IV.408, 432; cf. XVI.258–68. 39 See, e. g., William Perkins, Opera omnia theologica (Geneva: Petrus et Jacob ChouÚt, 1624), I c.152. Owen’s dependence on these Thomistic themes is strikingly clear in defending the perseverance of the elect. See the preface to his refutation of John Goodwin, The Doctrine of the Saints Perseverance (1654): Owen, Works, XI.19–74. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XV.xvi.41. This important usefulness of habitual terminology is completely overlooked by Frost in his relentlessly negative appraisal of Perkins’ doctrine: Frost, “Sibbes”. 40 See Arminius’ response to Perkins, James Arminius, The Works, trans. James Nichols and W. R. Bagnall (Auburn and Buffalo: Derby, Miller and Orton, 1853), III.500–9. For Twisse’s subsequent defence of Perkins, see, William Twisse, Vindiciae Gratiae, potestatis ac providentiae Dei (Amsterdam: Joannes Janssonius, 1648), 742–4. 41 See, Twisse, Vindiciae, 754. 42 Wisse argues that the indefectibility of the habitus fidei also distinguishes the Reformed understanding from Catholic uses of the concept, even that of Aquinas. To some extent that may be true. Yet it must be remembered that at least within the Thomist/Dominican tradition, the final perseverance of the elect is guaranteed both by the on-going presence of habitual grace, and by God’s concursus with this habit in act (so, Aquinas STh II–II q.137

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bitual grace would also serve as a useful and poignant counterpoint to the stark Pelagianism they eventually confronted in Socinian teaching too.43 Also related to this is, perhaps, the implication that a “Christian” is not defined primarily by particular acts of faith and love, but by the habitual or dispositional presence of these qualities within the soul, just as an unregenerate “sinner” is not called such purely by reference to particular sinful acts but due to an indwelling habit of sin.44 After all, as Owen observes – following the usual definition found in Aristotelian systems of virtue – a “habit” is that which “qualifies the subject wherein it is, so that it may be denominated from it, and makes the actions proceeding from it to be suited unto it or to be of the same nature with it.”45 Consequently, although Owen can regard regeneration as an umbrella term for the entire ordo salutis, as earlier Reformed thinkers had, frequently he follows the trend of later writers in describing it as the instantaneous event whereby the habit or “seed” of holiness is implanted within the soul. Yet, with the infusion of this grace, the habit of sin is definitively weakened and impaired from its ruling influence; it may not be entirely removed from the soul, but it is dealt a fatal blow.46 Consequently, Owen can fairly describe the regenerative infusion of grace as “the head, fountain, or beginning of our sanctification, virtually comprising the whole in itself.”47 A Christian’s actual growth in holiness is none other than the actual exercise and strengthening of this habit through “vital” acts of faith, obedience and love, aided by the Spirit’s on-going, gracious concursus.48 In other words, far from erecting a Neoplatonic ontology antithetical to the biblical and Augustinian themes of redemption, there is a very real sense that habitual grace serves to restore our created integrity, albeit not through a reversal to Adam’s pristine state, but through a qualitative participation in the new life of Christ.

4.2.2 Habitual grace, the Word of God and “special illumination” Following on from these general observations regarding the nature of habitual grace is its critical relationship to the law or Word of God. Just as the implanted

43 44 45 46 47 48

a.4). The Reformed understanding is, in fact, closer to this than Wisse perhaps implies: Wisse, “Habitus”. Indeed, Owen explicitly cites the Thomists approvingly on this point: Owen, Works, XI.70–3. Cleveland, Thomism, 82–3. On Owen’s distinction between habitual and actual sin, see, for instance, Owen, Works, III.431–2. Cf., Cleveland, Thomism, 86–8. Owen cites Aristotle: Owen, Works, III.502–3. Works, III.488–90. Works, III.299; cf. 367. Works, III.387–406, 409, 468ff.

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law of nature took the shape of a habitual light within Adam’s rational soul, Owen can similarly describe the habit of grace as “nothing but a transcript of the law of God implanted and abiding in our hearts, whereby we comply with and answer unto the whole will of God therein” (quoting Deut 30:6; Jer 31:33; Ezek 26:26–7).49 Owen makes it very clear what he means by this. When speaking of the “law” implanted as a habit of grace, he does not mean the moral law of nature or its codification within the written law. Of course it is true that the presence of habitual grace within the soul will decrease the influence of sin, thereby awakening the natural light of conscience and enabling it to discern its legal duties. Yet, as Owen adds, the natural and written law (taken in isolation) “knows nothing” of “evangelical holiness”, its radical and more sublime spiritual acts of faith, love and communion with Christ, along with its call for “mortification of sin, godly sorrow, [and] daily cleansing of our hearts and minds.” Therefore, the “law” implanted by grace refers specifically to the “doctrine of the Gospel […] in the preceptive part of it.”50 This distinction between the natural or written “moral” law and the gospel hints at an important hermeneutical principle governing Owen’s understanding of the scriptural canon, something we will touch on again in chapter seven. However, the key point to notice here is how the introduction of habitual grace “moulds” the soul into the shape of the gospel, causing “our minds and the word” to “answer one another, as face doth unto face in water.”51 The immediate thing to notice from this is the vital, effectual role Owen seeks to give the Word, and specifically the gospel, in regeneration. While Owen naturally denies the Arminian suggestion that the Word can bring about conversion by persuading an otherwise indifferent soul to believe,52 that does not mean the process of spiritual regeneration somehow excludes its agency.53 This challenges yet another one of Horton’s fears regarding the later Reformed reliance on regenerative habitual grace. In Owen’s case at least, it is not that the Spirit mysteriously inserts a habit of grace prior to the effectual call or proclamation of the gospel, as if to evacuate the Word’s agency from regeneration. Rather, the very habit infused at regeneration is, itself, a formal copy of the gospel, just as the habitual light of nature is a formal copy of the natural law. In 49 50 51 52 53

Works, III.476; cf. XXIII.148. Cf., also, Works, XXIII.148, 149. Works, III.508, 507–9; cf. 370–1, 470, 476, 498. Works, III.303–15. From Owen’s rejection of “mere” “moral persuasion” in regeneration, Chan concludes that for Owen, the Spirit works “along with” but not “in” or “through” means, such as the Word: Simon K.H. Chan, “The Puritan Meditative Tradition, 1599–1691: A Study of Ascetical Piety” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Cambridge, 1986), 204–15. Yet, Owen’s rejection of mere moral persuasion needs to be read not so much as a denial of the Word’s agency in spiritual regeneration, but as a straightforward, uncontroversial rejection of Arminian teaching.

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this sense, Owen considers the Word to be the “vehicula gratiae”, or the instrumental means by which grace is communicated to the soul, following the lead of passages like James 1:18 and 1 Peter 1:23.54 But herein too is the precise connection between habitual grace and spiritual illumination brought into focus. As mentioned already, Owen gives primary significance to illumination in regeneration, and in this respect, it is intimately tied to the infused habit of grace.55 Specifically, through the infusion of the habit and its likeness to the gospel, the mind is furnished with a new “spiritual light” whereby it is prepared to receive the truth of this Word. Without such light, that truth will never be evident as authentically divine. While Owen believes the literal words and propositions of the gospel are perspicuously accommodated to the “common reason” of humanity, so that even someone of the “meanest capacity” can grasp their “sense” without the Spirit’s special illumination, natural reason is unable to detect the spiritual truth actually signified by those words.56 That is, the gospel will never be regarded as anything more than an object of reproach or indifference.57 When discussing this theme in Theologoumena, Owen reminds his readers that the darkness of the Fall does not simply consist in a failure to know the gospel is divine truth; it is supremely something internal to the mind. Consequently, when the gospel is described in scripture as a “wondrous light” (v_r haulast|m), it does not merely refer to the doctrines as objective propositions, but the spiritual light through which the glory of God signified in those propositions may be rightly perceived.58 In Owen’s view, then, spiritual light performs a parallel function to the natural light before the Fall. Indeed, if the Fall darkened that natural light, the gracious work of salvation must at the very least restore what was lost.59 Only now, the spiritual light, or the Word formed in the souls of the regenerate, furnishing their minds with an “innate knowledge of the truth” (veritatis insitae agnitio), is not a 54 Owen, Works, III.290. Cf., Horton, Salvation, 236–9. In fact, contra Cleveland (following Horton), the same may be said of Turretin, for whom the habit of faith is explicitly an effectual impression of the Word on the mind, enabling the proclaimed Word to be believed. Turretin also explicitly binds effectual calling to regeneration: Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.23, 50–2, 54; cf. II.ii.9, vi.14. Cf., Cleveland, “Thomism”, 131–3, 165. 55 While Kapic rightly qualifies that “the mind influences” the will infused with grace, he overstates things when he says, “[n]ow all moral habits are seated in the will”: Kapic, Communion, 52. 56 Owen, Works, IV.155, 194–5, 230. Cf., William Ames, Disceptatio scholastica de circulo pontifico (Amsterdam: Joannes Janssonius, 1644), 25–7. As Muller notes, the Reformed orthodox continue to operate with the classic understanding of words as signifiers of truth: Muller, PRRD, II.326. More will be said on Owen’s understanding of scriptural perspicuity in Chapter seven. 57 Owen, Works, III.509. 58 Works, XVII.VI.vi.14. 59 Works, XVII.VI.vi.12.

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mirror or reproduction of the natural law implanted in creation, but the peculiar gospel proclamation objectively disclosed by Christ and reproduced in the pages of scripture.60 It does not simply heal the intellect’s natural light, but augments it, so it can infallibly grasp God’s new revelation of saving grace, which is the gospel. Yet as before, the association of this light of grace with a new habitual disposition implies that the “innate knowledge of the truth” ought to be understood as a capacity to perceive the Word’s truth, giving the mind “a sense and spiritual taste of the things of the Gospel.”61 That is, just as natural illumination is not some kind of nativism whereby God infuses actual understanding of the world and its maker directly into the mind, so too, this special gracious illumination is not an internal word or divine inspiration, a heopmeust_a or afflatus such as that received by the inspired prophets and apostles. Neither is it a mere external proclamation of the gospel. It is a “gracious ability” infused into the mind: a “subjective” “light” mirroring the “objective” “light” of the proclaimed Word, in which the truth signified by those words may be savingly apprehended.62 In Causes, Ways, and Means, Owen describes this illumination as a spiritual “unction” or teaching (cf., 1 John 2:20, 27). As we shall explore at greater length in chapter seven, this unction infallibly causes someone both to recognise the divine authority of scripture, and to apprehend its key doctrines with saving faith, as if they had been taught directly by God himself. In other words, it is this illumination which crucially ensures scripture can have an assured authority and a saving clarity for any believer, independent of the church’s ministry or their native rational capacities.63 The important symmetry between the subjective intellectual light of illumination and the objective light of scripture is especially clear in Reason of Faith. Right at the outset of the treatise, Owen sets down his intention to “declare the work of the Holy Ghost in the illumination of the minds of men.” That may seem like a slightly odd way to begin a discourse on scripture, yet as he quickly points out, the “supernatural revelation” contained in scripture is “only the objective cause and means of supernatural illumination.” So, for instance, when David prays God might “open” his eyes to “reveal” the wonders of God’s law (Ps 60 61 62 63

Works, XVII.VI.vi.14. Works, XVII.VI.vi.12. Works, IV.167–71. Works, IV.144–5, 147, 149, 151, 153, 168. Also, III.494; cf. IV.144–73. Owen also discusses this “unction” as part of his posthumous Discourse on the Holy Spirit as a Comforter (1692): Works, IV.389–99. As a noteworthy comparison, Ames also relates this illumination to 1 John 2:27, describing it as “innate” or “5lvutov”, containing “a certain ready seed of every salutary good; enabling a discernment of them, where the [actual] knowledge flowing from it is such that is only stirred by sense, concerning which it is rightly said, ‘nothing is in the intellect, which was not first in the sense’”: Ames, Disceptatio scholastica, 28–9.

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119:18), “[t]he light he prayed for within”, Owen says, “did merely respect the doctrine of the law without.”64 Consequently, when he discusses the theme in the treatise proper, on the one hand he is comfortable describing illumination as an “internal revelation” of what is “outwardly” revealed. He calls it an “elevation” of the mind, since the gospel contains truths which are beyond the powers of the mind to grasp, both in terms of its depravity, and in view of the fact that reason can only ever attain to what is natural anyway.65 On the other hand, however, lest he be accused of advocating a form of enthusiastic “illuminism”, he is very careful to insist – like Baron before him that this spiritual “elevation” of the mind is not itself the formal “reason of faith”, but only an indispensable, “efficient cause” of faith. In other words, it is not the reason why anyone actually believes, which must be something “external and evidently proposed”.66 Once again this sort of consistency between “natural” and “spiritual” illumination can be seen to echo the teaching of Aquinas. As we observed in chapter two, Owen follows Aquinas (and others) in drawing a distinction between the formal and material objects of faith. Aquinas had distinguished between the material object, consisting of the various propositional statements of Christian revelation, and the formal object who is God, or “first truth”, who has revealed them.67 Accordingly, the assent of Christian faith consists in no less than recognising these material propositions are formally truth from God. Yet, as we saw, in order for faith to make that assent, the divine origin of these truths must to a certain degree be evident to the intellect. Faith falls well short of a comprehensive knowledge of its object, although for it to occur, that object must at least be sufficiently apparent as a good to which the will can then adhere. Nevertheless, like Owen, Aquinas insists the natural light of the intellect is incapable of forming that judgment regarding the unseen truths of Christian doctrine.68 Consequently, in addition to the proclamation of these truths, Aquinas posits the necessity of a graciously infused habit, accompanied by its own light, providing that capacity to assent to the objects of faith, just as the intellect assents to the basic principles of science through its natural light.69 Apparently Aquinas envisages that this light may be possessed in various degrees. To the person who is merely given the habit of faith alone, but deprived 64 Owen, Works, IV.7–8. 65 Contra Lamont, who appears to miss the relationship between this special illumination and a supernatural habit that enables a believer to reach their supernatural end: Lamont, Faith, 79. Cf., Owen, Works, IV.54, 90; cf. 134. 66 Owen, Works, IV.59–60. Cf., III.331–4; IV.164–5. Owen has quite conceivably followed Baron in this formulation: Baron, Apologia, 468–9; cf. 466–70. 67 Aquinas, STh II–II q.1 a.1. 68 STh I q.1 a.5; II–II q.4 a.8. 69 Sup Boethium q.1 a.1 resp.; q.3 a.1 ad4; STh I–II q.62 a.3; II–II q.1 a.4 ad3; q.2 a.3 ad2; q.6 a.1. On this, see, Mohler, Eternal Life, 51–4; cf. 40–57; Rosental, Lessons, 113–5.

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of sanctifying habitual grace or the further gift of charity, the accompanying “light of faith” (lumen fidei) may be sufficient for the soul to perform a basic act of assent to the truths of faith (so called “lifeless faith”), but it falls short of illuminating their supernatural end as the greatest good to which the will should firmly adhere.70 For the habit of faith to become the proper “theological virtue” of formed faith, the soul’s essence needs to be augmented by habitual grace. As we alluded above, Aquinas’ understanding of the soul and its powers commits him to the view that the perfection of the infused theological virtues – which are associated with particular facultative powers – needs to be rooted in a soul whose essence has been antecedently healed and raised by habitual grace. Bound up with this habitual grace is the “light of grace” (lumen gratiae), consisting in an elevated “participation” in the divine nature, or essential truth. And just as the “natural light of reason” is crucial to the proper functioning of the natural virtues, so too are the theological virtues or dispositions properly derived from (derivantur) and regulated by (ordinantur) the light of grace.71 Accompanying sanctifying grace, then, is the “gift of understanding”, which Aquinas equates with this “light of grace”.72 And it is this light or gift that enables the intellect not only to see the truth and authority of revelation which it might otherwise see by the “light of faith”, but it provides the intellect with a true “perception” of its supernatural end and goodness to which the will, helped by charity, can adhere with firmness and certainty.73 Clearly, this supernatural light or augmented participation in the divine nature is imperfect, reflecting the partial knowledge of faith, and will only be finally perfected with the further illumination of glory.74 What is crucial to grasp, however, is its direct correlation with his version of Augustinian natural illumination and the vital role it assumes within his theory of cognition. As Mohler points out, the extension of illumination to include the infused light of faith can be found throughout the writings of William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, and indeed, Augustine.75 70 On the “light of faith”, see, Aquinas, STh II–II q.2 a.3 ad2; on “lifeless faith”, see, STh II–II q.4 a.4; q.6 a.2. 71 STh I–II q.110 a.3. 72 STh II–II q.8 a.5. 73 STh II–II q.8 a.4, a.5, a.6 ad2. Cf., I–II q.109 a.1. 74 DV q.14 a.1 ad5; STh II–II q.8 a.7. 75 Mohler, Eternal Life, 42–4. See, William of Auxerre, Summa Aurea III t.12 c.4, c.7 q.3. Albert the Great speaks of a “certainty according to holiness”, or a “certainty of faith” which surpasses the rational “certainty of understanding truth”. The higher certainty of faith arises when a light which is a “likeness of first truth” alone strikes the eye and opens it to accept the truth offered: Albert the Great, III Sent d.23 a.17; cf. a.8, a.10. For Bonaventure, illumination is a critical fact distinguishing fides infusa from fides acquisita: III Sent d.23 a.2 q.2; see also, In HexaÚmeron c.12, where the special illumination of faith is exactly parallel to his account of general illumination. Cf., Augustine, De Trinitate XV.xxvii.49 [PL 42 c.1096].

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Although faith was chiefly regarded as an act of the will for these writers, a role was given to this internal intellectual light as an indispensable means of strengthening and adding certainty to that assent. For Aquinas, the infused light of grace is equally crucial for the unique certainty of faith.76 The distinctive feature of Aquinas’ account is, of course, his adaptation of illumination to the peripatetic cognitive scheme of potentiality and actuality. As with the light of nature, in the supernatural habit of faith, God does not immediately infuse any actual knowledge or truth into the intellect independently of what is actually perceived through the revelation touching the senses.77 That is, the actual knowledge and accompanying certainty of faith is “determined” strictly via the senses alone. Quoting Dionysius, Aquinas says: “The divine rays cannot enlighten us except wrapped up in many sacred veils.”78 Along with natural illumination, then, the relationship between the gracious internal participation in eternal truth or God’s nature and the revelation given through the sensible propositions and imagery of scripture is symmetrical. The augmented intellectual participation in eternal truth mirrors the truth signified objectively in the verbal forms of proclaimed revelation, one providing the agent intellect with the capacity by which the authority and truth of the other is actually perceived. Importantly, though, the doctrine of special illumination ensures that faith in the truth of Christian revelation can never be the preserve of mere natural reason, irrespective of its moral state. Aquinas makes this very clear. External inducements such as the persuasion of a preacher or a miracle – valuable as they are – do not universally cause someone to believe. Therefore, if these are the only inducements to faith, then actual belief is purely a product of free-will. For Aquinas, this introduces the intolerable heresy of Pelagianism. Consequently it is necessary, in his view, to assert an “internal cause” – both the supernaturally infused habits, and God’s gracious concursus, which inwardly moves a person possessing the habit to the actual assent of faith.79 The pivotal importance of some spiritual illumination in effectually causing saving faith was vigorously carried over into Protestant thought, even as it remained decisive for many Renaissance Catholic thinkers too, especially in circles loyal to Aquinas.80 Yet, as we have seen, Owen appears to distance himself 76 77 78 79

E.g., Aquinas, STh I q.1 a.5. See, e. g., Sup Boethium q.3 a.1 ad4. Cf., III Sent d.23 q.3 a.2 ad1, ad2. STh I q.1 a.9. Cf., II–II q.6 a.1. STh II–II q.6 a.1. In this article, the infused habit and special illumination (cf. ad3; q.2 a.3), alongside the actual concursus of the Spirit in the assent of faith, seem to come together seamlessly as one “internal cause” of faith. 80 For the late mediaeval and Renaissance developments, see, Avery Dulles, The Assurance of Things Hoped For: ATheology of Christian Faith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 36–9, 48–50, 54–8. Against the rising prominence of “acquired faith” (fides acquisita) in some schools of late mediaeval thought, Thomists continued to insist that divinely infused

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from the earlier Reformed tendency to speak of this illumination in terms of an internal, secret or ineffable divine afflatus occurring in tandem with the externally preached Word, and turns instead to the Thomist association of illumination with a graciously infused habit. We have already suggested that the Arminian controversy may have played a significant role in the eventual widespread adoption of habitual language by the Reformed to stabilise the indelible effect of grace in a regenerate believer, something to which Owen himself directly alludes. But in this specific context, it is likely that the distinctively Thomist manner of connecting illumination to habitual grace presented other advantages too. First, the symmetrical relationship between the truth habitually impressed on the mind and its inscripturated form allows Owen to preserve the effectual agency of the Word in regeneration, while clearly distinguishing illumination as the “efficient cause” of faith from the “formal cause”, which must be something objectively proposed to the mind, and not some secret persuasion. Indeed, this careful delineation between the efficient and formal causes of faith may well have a fascinating proximate source. More than half a century earlier, Francisco Su‚rez had sensed a possible lacuna in the way some Renaissance Catholic commentators on Aquinas had interpreted his habitual, infused “light of faith” as a “motive of assent” in its own right.81 Conscious that objective revelation and rational “motives of credibility” are insufficient on their own to generate the proper assent of infused faith, Su‚rez observes how commentators like Canus and B‚Çez turned to the light of faith as the proper “formal object” of faith, insofar as God – in the very illumination itself – is the internal cause or “helper” (auxilium) of faith.82 Others like Molina regarded the objective revelation as incomplete on its own, so that together with the internal light, it could be perfected as the formal object of faith. While Su‚rez is resolute on the necessity of an infused light or habit of faith, he is dissatisfied with either of these suggestions, pointing to the (Protestant) “heretics of today” who seem to distinguish between true and false faith on the basis of “internal instinct” – truly the faith (fides infusa) provided its own grounds for belief quite distinct from the “motives of credibility” which might otherwise lead to a purely natural fides acquisita. See, e. g., Capreolus, in his Defensiones Theologiae Divi Thomae Aquinatis III d.24 [English translation, John Capreolus, On the Virtues, trans. Kevin White and Romanus Cessario (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2001), 52–81]; also, Cajetan, Comm STh q.6 a.1; Dominico B‚Çez, Scholastica commentaria in primam partem angelici Doctoris D. Thomae usque ad sexagesimamquartam quaestionem (Salamanca: S. Stephanus OP, 1585), 230–1. Scotus, on the other hand, denied that fides infusa adds any motives of credibility beyond those leading to fides acquisita: Lect II d.23 q.un. For a discussion of how this develops in Ockham and Biel respectively, see, Leff, Ockham, 339–46; Oberman, Harvest, 68–89. 81 The following discussion is drawn from Su‚rez’s De Fide Theologica, d.3 s.3: Su‚rez, Opera, XII.45–52. 82 Cf., e. g., B‚Çez, Secundum secundae, 6.

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seed of every error, he adds! Having sounded this alarm, he argues that a habit must take up its species from something objectively proposed, and therefore, the infused light or habit of faith cannot in any sense serve as its own object. Nor can this habit function as a “motive of assent”, which similarly needs to be some object the intellect can cognitively grasp. Rather, the infused habit is simply the power by which one believes, not an object in its own right. Indeed, it is the “efficient cause” of faith, he says, not the “formal object”, which must be the “obscurely revealed” authority of “first truth” or God alone.83 The parallels with Owen’s own formulation are too striking to pass by. With one eye attentive to the Catholic assault on the subjectivity of older Protestant accounts of “illumination”, it is quite likely that Owen, and certainly Baron before him, were drawn to these kind of nuances in shoring up their own doctrine from such attacks; something also manifest in the way they too associate spiritual illumination strictly with a habitual disposition, labouring to distinguish it as the “efficient cause” but not the “formal reason” of faith, which likewise, is the authority of “first truth” alone, objectively proposed.84 Furthermore, the later Reformed tendency to associate illumination with an infused intellectual habit may also represent an intentional refinement to earlier explanations of the interface between effectual grace and the will.85 Much of the controversy between the Arminians and the Reformed concerning the liberty of the will mirrored the internal Catholic debate between the Jesuit followers of Molina and the more Thomistically minded Dominicans at the turn of the seventeenth century.86 While the Reformed were attracted to some of the Dominican arguments, especially their commitment to God’s “physical premotion” of the will in conversion,87 it is equally true that the Dominicans remained highly critical of the Protestant treatment of grace insofar as they felt it entirely denied the freedom of the will.88 One of the criticisms they levelled 83 For a brief, but useful summary of Su‚rez’s understanding of faith, see, Dulles, Faith, 55–6. 84 Baron quite obviously draws upon this very point of Su‚rez in nuancing his own position on the Spirit’s internal work from various erroneous alternatives. See, especially, Baron, Apologia, 467–8; cf. 466–70. Baron explicitly quotes this section of Su‚rez’s De Fide in making his next point, distinguishing the scriptural revelation as the object of faith from the internal illumination as the “habit” or “power” by which faith assents to that object: Apologia, 468–9. 85 Van den Belt also hints at this as a possible cause: Henk van den Belt, “Herman Bavinck and his Reformed Sources on the Call to Grace: A Shift in Emphasis Towards the Internal Work of the Spirit”, Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 29 (2011). 86 See, Eef Dekker, “Was Arminius a Molinist?”, The Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996); Richard A. Muller, God, Creation, and Providence in the Thought of Jacob Arminius: Sources and Directions of Scholastic Protestantism in the Era of Early Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 154–66. 87 Owen, Works, III.297–337; Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.9; cf. VI.v. 88 See, e. g., Didaci Alvarez, De auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani arbitrii viribus, et libertate (Rome: Stephanus Paulinus, 1610), I.iii; XII.cxxi.9–11.

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against Luther and Calvin was that their construal of grace entailed God’s forced control of the will, precluding from its physical movement any “moral motion” of “suasion”.89 The Dominicans resisted the mere moral suasion of the Molinists, but were equally adamant that God’s efficacious grace must operate through the soul’s usual, natural functions, that is, through the lead of an intellect elevated by habitual grace, which perceives the divine truth in the moral proclamation and enables the will’s free assent. God still efficaciously moves the will, but it must be able to concur freely and rationally as a genuine secondary or proximate cause, without being relegated to the status of a merely passive instrument.90 Sensitive to the force of this critique, later Reformed thinkers certainly appear to have been drawn to some fundamental aspects of their formulation, as van Asselt and others have recently shown.91 It may be that in this setting, they also recognised the heuristic usefulness of habitual terminology. Incorporating the older notion of graciously infused habits had the advantage of allowing the Reformed to posit irresistible grace without necessarily threatening the usual, natural operations of the faculties, where the will is freed to follow the lead of an intellect actively enlightened by the proclaimed Word. So as Turretin carefully explains, the faculties may well be entirely passive recipients of God’s immediate gracious action when it comes to the habit and illumination itself. But since this infusion of habitual grace only supplies a disposition to the soul, the consequent response of faith to the gospel Word can still occur naturally with the faculties operating as they would normally : passive in the sense that every human action is predetermined by God, but also genuinely active inasmuch as the faculties operate in their created fashion as a proximate cause, where the will follows the lead of a mind which is only actually illumined by the proclaimed Word.92 In other words, framing the irresistible grace of illumination as an habitual elevation of existing internal capacities, which are only activated via the moral proclamation, helps cut the criticism of the less precise and sometimes blatantly deterministic language of their predecessors off at its roots: as Turretin concludes, “hence it appears that man is not like a log and a trunk in his regeneration, as our opponents falsely charge upon us.”93 Owen’s own account of the operations of grace at the moment of conversion shows a similar care to Turretin’s when it comes to describing its effect on the 89 Alvarez, De auxiliis, XII.cxxi.10. 90 De auxiliis, IX.lxxxiii.6–7; cf. IX.lxxxiii. 91 Willem van Asselt et al., Reformed Thought on Freedom: The Concept of Free Choice in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010). A key influence they identify is the Scotist pattern of synchronic contingency. See their conclusions in relation to earlier Protestant thought: van Asselt et al., eds, Freedom, 235–8. 92 Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.15–16. Similarly, Reynolds, Works, II.26–7. 93 Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.16.

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will.94 In Pneumatologia, Owen does not discuss the phenomenon of covenant children and their precise moment of regeneration. However, in the normal circumstance of adult conversion, although the will is logically first a passive recipient of infused grace before it can act in faith, Owen stresses that the infusion of grace and the “first act” of faith occur at the same instant.95 Regeneration does not merely cause a potentiality for faith, or “next power”, which has to be activated with the help of subsequent grace. Further divine premotions are certainly necessary for consequent acts of Christian obedience, but in regeneration, God infuses the habit and brings about the “first act” of faith in a seamless instant. This does not override the natural activity of the faculties as a “next cause” in faith, Owen says, or “proximate cause”, as Turretin puts it; rather, Owen is simply eager to rule out any threat of semi-Pelagianism. In other words, as he remarks in Causes, Ways, and Means, “at the same time that [God] infuseth a gracious ability into our minds, he proposeth the truth unto us whereon that ability is to be exercised.”96 These kinds of modifications to the Reformed doctrine of spiritual illumination eloquently underline the profound effect of time and polemics in generating a more precise and ecumenically informed articulation of Reformed convictions. Of course, in adopting the terminology of infused habits to explain the nature of regeneration and illumination, the Reformed carefully revised the traditional doctrine to suit their confessional soteriology. So, not only did someone like Owen erect a solid wall between forensic justification and sanctifying grace – as we have seen already ; true to a Protestant understanding of faith, Owen never entertains the notion of an “unformed” faith either, an idea which lingered on in Catholic thought. Rather, there is one regenerative gift of grace which supplies all the necessary virtues, including sufficient intellectual light for a true and saving faith. But the broad dependencies are clear. As far as Owen is concerned, of course, the necessity of spiritual illumination for faith is settled unambiguously by the teaching of scripture itself.97 Yet, with others, he clearly sees benefit in drawing upon an established Catholic theological heritage to clarify its role in providing the soul with a capacity to receive the Word of God rightly, and to locate it coherently within a narrative of regeneration which is more resilient to polemical attack.98

94 95 96 97

Owen, Works, III.319–37. For this, see, Works, III.320–2; cf. X.134–5. Works, IV.167. Some of the many scriptural texts Owen draws upon to support the necessity of illumination include Deut 29:4; Pss 119:18, 27, 34; Matt 11:25, 13:11; Luke 24:45; John 6:45; Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 2:14; 2 Cor 4:6; Eph 1:17–19, 3:16–9; 1 John 5:20. 98 Cf., Davenant, Justification, I.169; Turretin, Institutes, XV.iv.23–46, 50–2, 54; Johann Hein-

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A new “spiritual sense”: habitual grace, the will, affections and the internal “testimony” of the Spirit

Before drawing this discussion to a close, it is also vitally important to note that whatever priority illumination has in this new principle or habit of grace, it clearly does not exhaust the nature and effects of the gracious gift in regeneration. Owen sees this habitual grace touching the will and the affections as much as it affects the mind.99 Indeed, as we have seen, Owen interprets this one new principle of grace as the source of several gifts pertaining to the different dispositions created within the various parts of the soul. We observed in chapter two that it was typical among the majority of mediaeval scholastics – including more intellectualist thinkers like Aquinas – to attribute faith’s strength or vitality of assent to the will and its appetites, on the grounds that faith’s object always remains relatively obscure to the mind in this life, even with the help of illumination. And while some early Reformed thinkers seemingly did prefer to speak of faith as a purely intellectual act in an attempt to distinguish it from any volitional motions of charity which follow,100 the majority of the Reformed adhere to something like the traditional view, where faith is a composite habit or act, involving the intellect, will and affections.101 As Turretin remarks, faith entails a “fiducial and practical assent”, where the practical intellect not only determines the gospel is true, but judges that truth to be the soul’s highest good, and the object most worthy of our love and desire.102 Owen clearly follows the mainstream position.103 Accordingly, however much an enlightened mind retains the “leading function” in faith, he equally feels that if God did no otherwise work in us or upon us but by the communication of spiritual light unto our minds, enabling us to discern the evidences that are in the Scripture of its own divine original, we should often be shaken in our assent and moved from our stability : […] whilst we are here, we see things but darkly, as in a glass, all things believed having some sort of inevidence or obscurity attending them.104

99 100 101

102 103 104

rich Heidegger, Corpus theologiae christianae (Zürich: Ex officina Heideggeriana, 1732), XXI.88–92 (II.243a – 45a). For his discussion of the impact this habitual grace has on the faculties in Pneumatologia, see, Owen, Works, III.330–7. See, e. g., Peter Martyr Vermigli, The Common Places (London, 1583), III.60–1, 71–2, 74–7. Note Mastricht’s remarks on the different views in Reformed circles: Mastricht, Theologia, II.i.22 (54b – 55a). Turretin argues (against Bellarmine) that faith is a composite act of the whole soul, citing Bonaventure and Aquinas approvingly : Turretin, Institutes, XV.viii.12–14. Turretin, Institutes, XV.viii.7. See, e. g., Owen, Works, V.81; cf. III.326. Works, IV.64.

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Yet, for the will and affections to have any role in faith, they clearly need healing from their chronic aversion to the spiritual good, so they can freely and infallibly choose to adhere to the gospel truths proposed by the illuminated mind. First of all, then, Owen proposes that as part of the same regenerative gift of grace, the will is implanted with a principle of “spiritual life and holiness” or “faith and obedience”, renovating it as a rational, vital faculty, and freeing it from its obstinate resistance to the spiritual good. In speaking of a principle of “faith and obedience”, Owen is not suggesting that faith is somehow “formed” by a distinct operation of grace on the will. Protestants uniformly rejected the Catholic notion that something separate from the essence of faith – the purely volitional gift of charity – could somehow “form” or perfect the bare assent of faith, on the grounds of its fundamental incoherence, as well as the inevitable implication that loving obedience – not just faith – is somehow instrumental to justification. Rather, they sought to uphold faith’s distinctive integrity from love, dismissing “unformed” faith as a fiction, and arguing instead that both the will’s assent and its fiduciary adherence to the good proposed in the gospel are together essential to saving faith itself.105 In other words, the volitional quality of trust in God (credere in Deum) which was once associated purely with charity as the form of faith in the mediaeval tradition,106 is now bound up with faith itself, so that in effect, the order is reversed: faith becomes the form or “root” of love.107 Consequently, when Owen speaks of this distinct impression on the will, it is not to be seen as something which elicits or activates an otherwise unformed faith, but as a necessary compliment to the illumination of the mind, which together are essential for the primary assent to scriptural revelation, as well as the fiduciary, justifying adherence to those truths (and ultimately, to God himself). Even still, by describing this impression as a principle of “faith and 105 See, e. g., Calvin, Institutes (1559), III.ii.8–10; Turretin, Institutes, XV.vii-viii, x, xiii. 106 See, e. g., Lombard, Sent III d.23 q.4. 107 Owen, Works, V.104. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XV.xiii.3. On this important development in Luther’s theology and its impact on subsequent Protestant thought, see, Berndt Hamm, The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety, ed. Robert J. Bast (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 128–78. In discussing the three commonly accepted definitions of faith – notitia, assensus, and fiducia – Quenstedt notes it is only the regenerate who possess fiducia, which especially pertains to the will and the personal appropriation of the gracious promise and the merit of Christ. Nevertheless, fiducia assumes notitia and assensus, which pertain to the intellect’s acceptance of the Word of God. Furthermore, Quenstedt sees these three understandings of faith mirroring the old tripartite distinction of credere Deum, credere Deo, credere in Deum, which stretches back to Augustine and was readily carried over into mediaeval thought, where the latter, in particular, pertained to “formed faith”. The key difference is that this fiduciary apprehension is essential to justifying faith, not something “formed” by the distinct gift of charity : Johann Quenstedt, Theologica DidacticoPolemica (Leipzig: Fritsch, 1715), IV.xii.1 (II cc.1335–6, 1341, 1343). On the different uses of the term “faith” among Reformed scholastics, see, Muller, PRRD, II.285–94.

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obedience”, it may appear Owen is somehow conflating the two in a way that would concern a contemporary like Turretin, who wanted to keep the particular virtue or habit which produces saving faith distinct (if inseparable) from the habit which subsequently produces loving obedience.108 However, Owen makes it abundantly clear that by “obedience”, he has in mind something that springs from the trusting assent of faith, as an effect from a cause. It certainly seems that Owen does not see the need for a further, distinct “habit of love” on the will to produce the “works” of faith, but it is vital to recognise that Owen regards any Christian acts of love or obedience as things which flow out of the faithful adherence to divine truth as “the principle […] which moves us thereunto.”109 In that way, faith “sets love at work”.110 In addition to the regeneration of the will, Owen also refers to a “prevailing love” that is implanted within the affections, causing the soul to “cleave” to God with delight and “complacency”.111 Indeed, he calls this love the “instrument of our adherence” unto God.112 Closely related to this is Owen’s suggestion in Reason of Faith that God grants a new “spiritual sense” alongside the illumination of the mind, which is particularly crucial for establishing faith’s stability and assurance regarding its relatively obscure object, especially in the face of temptations and trials. This accompanying gift of spiritual sense is capable of “tasting”, “seeing”, and “feeling” the “divine wisdom, goodness, and authority of God” present in the truth of the gospel Word.113 When he discusses this gift of spiritual sense in his Hebrews commentary, he makes it clear that he is not referring to some new mysterious sense, but the habitual “exercise” through divine grace of the existing sense faculties present in everyone at birth – in particular, those which are suited to discerning spiritual things.114 Like the majority of scholastics, Owen regards the senses as an indispensable starting point for all knowledge, so long as the mind is united to a body. Indeed, he considers many of the mind’s judgments – certainly the most basic and particular ones like “this object is hot” – as being largely dependent on the veridical judgment of the senses.115 This does not mean the mind is ruled by the senses – in fact, quite the contrary. It is only when the senses are ruled by reason that they offer any use to the formation of reason’s judgments regarding 108 See, e. g., Turretin, Institutes, XV.xiii.6; cf. III.xx.8; XV.iv.18. 109 Owen, Works, XXII.163; cf. V.103–4. Bobick is, therefore, incorrect to suggest that “faith” and “obedience” are “paired” “in apposition” as “parallel” in Owen’s thought: Bobick, “Owen”, 43–5. 110 Owen, Works, XXI.252. 111 Works, III.334–5. 112 Works, I.150. 113 Works, IV.64; cf. XVI.327–8. 114 Works, XXI.598. 115 Cf., Works, IV.151. See further, Appendix.

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any given object. Things go awry when the sensory appetite begins to manipulate the intellect already darkened by sin, as we saw in chapter three. In other words, when the mind is under the grip of sensual lusts, the senses themselves are useless, if not deceptive aids to its judgments. Owen obviously regards the bodily senses as continuing to have some use after the Fall for certain “natural” judgments, such as the taste of food. So, for example, an infant at birth may not yet have their senses exercised to discern between certain foods, although in due time, as a certain habit is acquired, this ability will emerge. Moreover, the senses still appear to be of use in the discernment of the basic principles of natural light and the general truths concerning God’s existence and character which can be acquired from a rational reflection on creation. However, through the depraved habit of sin, and its impact on the affections, the senses are useless when it comes to discerning the truths of scripture and the gospel. In other words, they are not “exercised” towards spiritual things (cf., Heb 5:14).116 In the upright soul, Owen indicates that the affections were designed to follow the lead of the mind and will, which direct their love upwards to God as its proper object, not downwards to the world. Insofar as that soul had an affection for any sensible or created object, since that object revealed God’s goodness, it was able to function as a vehicle through which he could be known, loved and enjoyed.117 Indeed, before the Fall, Owen claims that the goodness of God known naturally, as he is creator, preserver and rewarder, was the sufficient adequate object of all love.118 In the upright soul, the restless intensity of this love was designed to perfect the union of the mind with its object, acquiescing in no less than the ecstasy of intimate fellowship with the living God. The picture, then, was one of harmonious order within the soul under the rule of the mind and its rational knowledge of God, not at all to the exclusion or detriment of the lower senses or passions, but with its knowledge mediated through them, and perfected by the powerful attraction they feel for their proper object (that is, God, as experienced through his created goodness). In other words, in its pre-Fall state, where the affections were under the rule of the enlightened mind, the spiritual sense could be of great use in the mind’s apprehension of spiritual truth through its experience of the natural world. Yet, the downward distortion of those affections in the Fall has disrupted this order, Owen says, distracting the mind from its role of directing the faculties to their proper objects, and filling it with a new fixation on sensual things which are now the terminus of the soul’s loves. 116 Works, XXI.244, 595–8. 117 Works, I.151. 118 Works, I.152.

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In this state, the only way the spiritual sense can now be “exercised” is when the “first principle or spring of spiritual light is infused by the Holy Ghost”, that is, through the new habit of grace.119 What Owen envisages is the supernatural re-ordering of the soul. So in Grace and Duty (1681), for example, Owen sets forth an outline of the Spirit’s work in healing the wayward passions and affections, where peace is restored to the soul through the illumination of the mind and the reorientation of the will and affections towards their proper objects. Consistent with his understanding of the spiritual sense as a pre-existing natural power, this renovation does not so much alter the actual essence or powers of the appetites, but permanently transforms their “properties, qualities, [and] inclinations”.120 Once this occurs, the affections “do fix themselves upon and cleave unto all spiritual things, in their proper places, and unto their proper ends.”121 A product of this renewal consists in a fresh capacity to “sense” the goodness and excellency of God, not just in the created order, but also specifically in the revealed truths of the gospel that the newly illuminated mind and will have perceived. That is to say, over and above the mind’s new perception of these truths, by restoring order and renewing the affections, God “raises up” or “exercises” the spiritual sense whereby it is now possible even to “taste” and “see” the “evidence” of “beauty”, “sweetness”, “truth”, “authority” and “power” in those doctrines.122 And it is through this “sense” that the stability or subjective certainty of faith is greatly helped or “established”.123 It is important to see that spiritual sense is something formally subordinate to the mind and will in faith itself. That is, spiritual sense only arises when the soul is under the rule of the spiritually enlightened mind and will, which occurs in faith. As we have seen, Owen associates the renewed affections with love for God, which, properly speaking, flows out of faith. Consequently, any experience of scripture’s goodness and suitableness to the soul cannot, therefore, be the formal reason of faith.124 Yet, by positing in Reason of Faith the necessity of a new “spiritual sense” alongside the illumination of the mind, his fundamental point is that just as illumination enables the mind and will to assent in faith to the unique evidence of scripture’s truth and authority, it is as the heightened spiritual sense and its associated appetites experience the goodness and authority of God in scripture that faith’s certainty is galvanised. In other words, through this spiritual sense, faith is furnished with that feeling of assurance or “certainty of adherence”, which matches the quality of the evidence in the formal testimony 119 120 121 122 123 124

Works, XXI.600. Works, VII.415; cf. VII.413–5; III.335. Works, VII.420. Works, VII.470; cf. IV.64, 152. Works, IV.63–4; cf. VII.479. Works, IV.53; cf. VII.445.

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it believes.125 “A believer”, he says, “will abide as firmly by his spiritual sense as any man can by his natural.”126 The Spirit’s role in creating this sense is how he defines the “internal subjective testimony” of the Spirit. It may not be the actual formal testimony upon which faith is based, but it is the “greatest corroborating testimony”, pertaining strictly to the stability and assurance of faith.127 “The spiritual sense of believers”, he observes, “well exercised in the word, is the best and most undeceiving help in judging of what is good or evil, what is true or false, that is proposed unto them.”128 At this point it is worth observing that where Owen discusses the metaphysics of cognition in his Hebrews commentary (see Appendix), he remarks that the certainty of truth, objectively speaking, only becomes an “affection” of the mind subjectively when the form of the mind exactly corresponds to, or is entirely adequated to the object in question.129 In the normal scientific processes of cognition, this occurs in the “understanding” of an object, where all doubt is eclipsed by knowledge. However, in the act of faith, where knowledge is less than perfect, the mind’s adequation to that truth and the corresponding state of certainty is reliant on the will’s command. Yet, by re-ordering the soul under its rule, a mind and will that has assented to gospel truth is able to “set love at work”, whose desires and affections are “greatly effectual to work an assimilation between the mind and its proper object”, Owen says, further enhancing a believer’s certainty. In other words, it is these spiritual affections which perpetually propel the mind’s attention towards spiritual things, filling it “continually with thoughtfulness about them and desires after them”, introducing “its idea into the mind, which will never depart from it.”130 In summary, then, like the great majority of other Puritan theologians, Owen regards any sense of assurance a Christian may experience – in this case the specific certainty regarding the saving truth and authority of scripture – as 125 Works, VI.458. 126 Works, VI.453; cf. IV.64. 127 Works, IV.64. Like “illumination”, Owen appears to relate this peculiar “internal testimony” to what he discusses elsewhere as the Spirit’s “unction” or “anointing”, “sealing”, and being an “earnest”: Works, IV.68; cf. IV.383–412. What becomes apparent in the latter discussion is that Owen does not regard any of these phenomena as discrete operations of the Spirit in the soul but different effects of the Spirit’s normal restoration and inhabitation of the soul common to every believer ; so, Joel R. Beeke, Assurance of Faith: Calvin, English Puritanism, and the Dutch Second Reformation (New York: Peter Lang, 1991), 258–60. This means that the special assurance of scripture’s truth and authority which comes via this “internal testimony” is not so much an additional act of the Spirit as an effect mediated through his normal gracious work and presence in the soul. 128 Owen, Works, XXI.604. 129 Works, XXI.247. 130 Works, XXI.252; cf. 252–3; VI.458–9.

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pertaining chiefly to the strength or vitality of faith’s actual adherence, bound up intimately with the very nature of faith itself, yet not in any way supplanting the authority that establishes faith and gives rise to that experience, which is solely the light of the gospel kindled in the mind.131 While Owen seems to regard some form of spiritual experience as indispensable for a true Christian believer,132 he clearly sees it fluctuating in degree and intensity in the life of most. Moreover, the Christian is still vulnerable to the disorientation of inordinate passions, even if these can never rule the soul in the manner they did before. Owen is frank about the trials of the Christian life and to make faith itself rest on the intensity of spiritual sense would at times be a recipe for despair.133 Consequently, under the watch of the Spirit’s on-going concursus in a Christian’s life, Owen urges his readers continually to “exercise” this new sense, much as one attains an “acquired” habit through the disciplines of instruction and studious personal meditation on scripture wherein these spiritual truths are encountered.134

4.4

Conclusion

This chapter has attempted to provide an outline of the subjective, regenerative aspect of the Spirit’s work which Owen feels is crucial to the formation of a properly “divine and supernatural faith” with its infallible apprehension of scriptural truth. Clearly, Owen’s theological convictions concerning this work are at odds with the substantially truncated alternative advanced by the contemporary champions of mere “moral certainty”. Given all the inadequacies he sees in their position, in Reason of Faith he simply sets this doctrine forth as a non-negotiable preamble to the evidence which provides the formal reason for the act of faith itself. And in this treatise, he describes two features of this internal work, namely, the supremely important illumination of the mind, and the concomitant gift of a new spiritual sense. These are themes he also develops elsewhere in his mature thought, not least within his extensive treatment of regeneration in Pneumatologia. Of integral significance within Owen’s understanding of regeneration is a new principle or habit of grace infused into the soul as an accidental quality, much as Adam was concreated with a quickening principle or “life”, enabling him to 131 On this general point in Puritan thought, see, Joel R. Beeke, “The Assurance Debate: Six Key Questions”, in Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, ed. Mark Jones and Michael A.G. Haykin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), esp., 265–7. 132 Owen, Works, I.243, 293, 302. 133 Works, VI.561–4. 134 Works, XXI.600ff.

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attain his supernatural end. What distinguishes a believer from Adam, however, is the way it is now a “measure” of Christ’s “life”, or the graces which filled his humanity, that are now received in regeneration, when Christ graciously unites himself to his elect. Furthermore, the peculiar effect of this new habit is to bring about faith in Christ and holy obedience to his commands. Far from representing a declension back into mediaeval soteriology, it appears later Reformed thinkers were attracted to adapting the traditional language of habitual grace in an effort to provide a stable foundation for the identity and eventual perseverance of the elect, especially in the wake of the Arminian controversy. As we have seen, the chief effect of habitual grace is to re-order the fallen soul under the light of the gospel. Just as Adam’s concreated life mirrored the implanted natural law, furnishing him with a “light”, or habitual inclination towards its principles and covenantal duties, so the habit of grace implanted within a believer mirrors the saving gospel Word, enlightening their minds so they can respond to its proclamation with faith and obedience. Whilst Owen’s insistence upon an internal illumination of the gospel plainly reflects his classical Protestant heritage and convictions, by casting this work in an habitual mould as the “efficient cause” of faith, Owen clearly shows the influence of an older Catholic tradition, shaped by Aquinas and others, which fused this doctrine inherited from Augustine to an adaptation of Aristotelian ethics and cognitive metaphysics. It is likely that this ecumenical solution offered more resilience in the face of mounting polemics against earlier Protestant accounts of the Spirit’s internal work. While preserving the Word’s effectual agency in regeneration, it averts any accusation that some secret divine afflatus might operate as the formal reason of faith, and allows for the external testimony of the Word itself to be received through the usual operation of the faculties without any forced coercion of the will. In that way, then, Owen can assert the fundamental necessity of spiritual illumination without rupturing the noetic value he seeks to attach to the Spirit’s objective testimony discussed in our next chapter, or the unique evidence which alone functions as the formal reason of faith. Finally, in addition to illuminating the mind, Owen believes the infusion of grace heals the will of its habitual aversion to the spiritual good, and implants a prevailing love in the affections. This enables a person to assent to the gospel in faith, and brings about a believer’s unique feeling of certainty or assurance regarding the relatively obscure truths they apprehend. This subjective experience is what Owen calls the new spiritual sense. In his mind, it is not so much the formal testimony upon which faith is based; rather, it supplies the greatest possible corroborating testimony, which is an effect of having the soul ordered under the light of the gospel. By experiencing its “power and reality”, these renewed appetites are indispensable for galvanising the soul’s adherence to the divine truth it believes.

5.

Scripture, evidence and the imago Dei

5.1

Introduction

Having examined the subjective spiritual work which Owen believes is essential for the soul’s apprehension of divine truth, we now come to what really is the central theme of his argument in Reason of Faith, namely, the “objective testimony” of the Spirit, or the “evidence” which operates as the formal reason of faith. As we began to see in chapter two, in many ways the true distinctiveness of Owen’s argument arises from its nuanced relationship to both the traditional scholastic understanding of faith and evidence, and the increasingly popular apologetic strategy adopted by many of his English contemporaries. While Owen swiftly denounces the novel quest to ground faith and its certainty in rational motives of credibility, he nonetheless makes what appears to be a striking stand against the older tradition by insisting that the certainty of faith’s adherence be exactly derived from the quality of evidence for the divine truth it believes. Our task in this chapter, then, is to uncover what Owen means when he claims that “revelation doth […] infallibly evidence itself to be divine or from God, without any external arguments to prove it so to be.”1 As we have already seen in chapter three, Owen sets his constructive argument for scripture’s infallible evidence against the backdrop of the evidence God has left of his existence and attributes within the created world, perceptible to the soul’s natural light. Consequently, we begin this chapter by exploring the function of this natural evidence as objective divine “revelation”, before turning to the specific evidence or “light” and “power” of scriptural truth which Owen regards as the “formal reason of faith”. By observing the cues he gives to the metaphysical assumptions that are woven into his theological understanding, we will see that for Owen, the soul acquires the infallible certainty of faith in a parallel, but not identical fashion to the way certainty is acquired in the ordinary natural processes of 1 Works, IV.89.

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cognition – through the concursus of empirical evidence and the mind’s internal light. That way, he attempts to explain the relationship between scriptural authority and faith in a fashion that is sensitive to the concerns of his contemporary intellectual context, whilst remaining true to the orthodox definition of faith as something which rests exclusively in authoritative divine testimony. While Owen’s argument in Reason of Faith is somewhat tersely focussed on furnishing a more robust account of scriptural authority than that of his contemporaries, the location of scripture within his wider, mature theological discourse must not be missed. Therefore, we will conclude this chapter by observing how for Owen, scripture’s redemptive “light” and “power” merges with the authority of Christ as the one in whom all “evidence” of truth ultimately coincides. As we shall see, scripture assumes a vital role in a majestic narrative of redemption by reflecting the glorious image of the ascended Christ to those who, by faith, will be transformed into his likeness.

5.2

Evidence and reason

Before outlining what he regards as the uniquely infallible evidence for the authority of scripture, Owen alerts his readers to those truths about God which are evident to the natural light of reason, even in its radically truncated post-Fall state. We have touched on these already in addressing the mind’s innate illumination and its relationship to the natural law in chapter three, and there is no need to repeat that discussion here. However, what is important to grasp at this point is how these truths – derived as they are from the natural order or law God has woven into creation – function objectively as “revelation” of God’s infinite and essentially invisible nature. After all, as we noticed in chapter three, beyond furnishing the basic principles of speculative and practical reason, a key function of the natural law was to direct Adam in his knowledge and worship of God. And in Reason of Faith, Owen claims that even after the Fall, there is sufficient “evidence” of God’s nature and being in the created order for the naturally illumined mind to discern some of these truths immediately and “infallibly”, much as the mind is “necessarily determined” to assent to the basic principles of speculative and practical reasoning. These self-evident truths include, as we have seen, aspects of God’s nature and authority.2 Other truths about God are only discovered through demonstration, or a “rational consideration of things externally proposed unto us.” “Herein”, Owen says, 2 Works, IV.82–87.

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the mind exerciseth its discursive faculty, gathering one thing out of another, and concluding one thing from another ; and herein is it able to assent unto what is proposed unto it in various degrees of certainty, according unto the nature and degree of the evidence it proceeds upon. Hence it hath a certain knowledge of some things; of others, an opinion or persuasion prevalent against the objections to the contrary, which it knows, and whose force it understands, which may be true or false.3

In other words, as the mind proceeds demonstratively from the first principles it knows about God to what it discovers from observing the external world, further aspects of God’s nature and purposes ought to become apparent. While the nature of demonstration may entail less certainty due to the greater contingency and obscurity of the truths it seeks to uncover, Owen believes there is sufficient evidence in the “greatness, order, beauty and use” of created things that the mind should “unavoidably” discover truths about the “nature, being and properties” of their creator. That is, there is still adequate evidence, and sufficient light in the mind, for a certain knowledge of these truths, free from any doubt or error, so much so that God can justifiably reproach anyone for “stupidity and brutishness where wanting therein.”4 When these claims are placed alongside the traditional metaphysical account of cognition which he readily assumes,5 what Owen is claiming, then, is that certain aspects of God’s eternal, invisible nature can be “seen” – that is to say, understood – by the intellect, through abstracting the truth or essence of the evidence that confronts the senses. Some things are visible and understood straight away. Or to put it technically, the mind is immediately and thoroughly conformed to these “proper objects” through their likeness (or species), which has been abstracted intellectually. Other truths require a more extensive application of the higher intellectual processes of composition and judgment (demonstration) to arrive at a full adequation, or union to their truth. Either way, the evidence is sufficient, Owen believes, for this state of knowledge to occur in any properly functioning human mind, even after the Fall. And with such knowledge, or the full adequation of the mind with the truth, comes the corresponding state of subjective certainty. For, as Owen puts it in his commentary on Hebrews 4:1–2, [s]o we say such a doctrine or proposition is certain, from that certainty which is an affection of the mind; and our apprehension of any thing to be true, from the truth of that which we do apprehend. This is that which we call knowledge; which is the relation, or rather the union, that is between the mind and truth, or the things that the mind apprehends as true. And where this is not, when men have only fluctuating conceptions 3 Works, IV.83. 4 Cf., Isa 46:5–8; 44:18–20: Works, IV.84–5, 87. 5 See Appendix.

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about things, their minds are filled with opinions, they have no true knowledge of any thing.6

But how can certain essential qualities of the invisible God be “seen” through an observation of the created order? Clearly, he is not saying that God is presently seen in his essence. Owen is entirely committed to the principle that God can only be known in this life through his created effects,7 which turns on the prospect of a certain “analogy of being”. The concept of an analogia entis has generated considerable interest and controversy in recent times, largely in the wake of Karl Barth’s debate with Erich Przywara and his notoriously provocative condemnation of it as an “invention of the antichrist”.8 Even if the lineaments of this discussion do not immediately concern us here, it has had the fortunate effect of spawning a host of historical examinations of this metaphysical idea as it surfaces more as an implicit assumption than an explicit doctrine in the teaching of Aquinas, the figure with whom it is most famously associated.9 Amongst recent interpreters of Aquinas, opinion is divided as to whether or not his actual use of analogical reasoning, classically evident in the discussion of God’s attributes, applies to ontology at all. According to some, it is purely a logical device, sanctioned by the nature of verbal revelation, which enables one to speak coherently about an unknown God.10 That is,11 on the grounds that revelation attaches certain predicates to 6 Owen, Works, XXI.247; cf. VI.458, XVII.I.iii.1. 7 E.g., Works, I.45, 65–7. 8 Quoted in John R. Betz, “After Barth: A New Introduction to Erich Przywara’s Analogia Entis”, in The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, ed. Thomas Joseph White (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 36. 9 See, Hampus Lyttkens, The Analogy between God and the World: An Investigation of Its Background and Interpretation of Its Use by Thomas of Aquino, trans. Alex Poignant (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1952); George Klubertanz, St. Thomas Aquinas on Analogy : ATextual Analysis and Systematic Synthesis (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1960); Rudi te Velde, Participation and Substantiality in Thomas Aquinas (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Ralph McInerny, Aquinas and Analogy (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1996); John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000); Gregory P. Rocca, Speaking the Incomprehensible God: Thomas Aquinas on the Interplay of Postive and Negative Theology (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004); Reinhard Hütter, “Attending to the Wisdom of God – from Effect to Cause, from Creation to God: A relecture of the Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas”, in The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, ed. Thomas Joseph White (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). 10 Ralph McInerny, “Analogy and Foundationalism in Thomas Aquinas”, in Rationality, Religious Belief, and Moral Commitment, ed. Robert Audi and G. Wainwright (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); McInerny, Aquinas and Analogy. 11 For the following, see, McInerny, “Analogy and Foundationalism”; and more recently, Bruce D. Marshall, “Christ the End of Analogy”, in The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, ed. Thomas Joseph White (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011).

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God, such as “love”, predication must at least be logically possible, provided we recognise that “love” is an analogical term that signifies different things when applied to different subjects, not least, God versus humanity. In other words, this semantic device allows us to say “God is love”, so long as it is recognised that by “love”, we primarily (per prius) signify “creaturely love” (since that is all human beings can ever understand), and that it only signifies God’s love derivatively (per posterius), or under the aspect of creaturely love (an “analogy of attribution”). The important thing to notice is that from a purely logical or linguistic perspective, this device does not claim any real or ontological likeness between human and divine love, let alone access to that love in its divine aspect (ratio), nor does it seek to. An analogia entis claims something more, however. It holds that there is, in fact, some real likeness between a creaturely perfection signified as “love” and the eternal nature of God, through an ontological relationship of effect to cause. Among interpreters of Aquinas, there is a consensus that his ontology represents an original adaptation of the exemplaristic Neoplatonic notion of “participation” to his essentially Aristotelian metaphysical outlook.12 And of these interpreters, a majority have held, from at least as far back as Sylvester of Ferrara, that the mature Aquinas does indeed presume a kind of analogia entis which reflects this metaphysical structure, and stands alongside any logical device of predication when it comes to our knowledge of God.13 So according to Hütter, for example, Aquinas had in his early writings referred to Aristotle’s depiction of an “analogy” which occurs across the horizontal plane of matter, substance and accidents, where there is a “proportional” unity across this plane, grounded in the causal ontological relationship that exists between them.14 However, over time, Hütter argues, Aquinas began to rest this horizontal analogy chiefly on a theory of ontological participation which in turn allowed him to find an analogy on the “transcendental” plane of uncreated and created being as well. Accord12 For this and the following, Hütter, “Relecture”. On the nature of this participation of created being in uncreated being, as Aquinas understands it, see especially, Cornelio Fabro, “The Intensive Hermeneutics of Thomistic Philosophy : The Notion of Participation”, Review of Metaphysics 27 (1974); John F. Wippel, “Thomas Aquinas and Participation”, in Studies in Medieval Philosophy, ed. John F. Wippel (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1987); W. Norris Clarke S.J., Explorations in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 65–101. 13 Hütter agrees that while Aquinas strictly speaking may not have settled on an “analogy of proportionality” (contra Cajetan), that does not mean his discussion of predication can be restricted to semantics: logic is grounded in metaphysics. See Hütter, “Relecture”, 228–9; similarly, Lawrence Dewan, Form and Being: Studies in Thomistic Metaphysics (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2006), 81–95. 14 Hütter, “Relecture”, 218–24, following Bernard Montagnes, The Doctrine of the Analogy of Being according to Thomas Aquinas, trans. E.M. Macierowski (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2004), 24–29.

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ingly, just as there is an analogical relationship between an accident and the substance in which that accident inheres, so too is there an analogy between created being and the uncreated being in which it participates by God’s free act. This is what Hütter calls a “transcendental analogy”.15 Whether or not it is more accurate exegetically to call this metaphysical structure an exemplaristic “ontology of participation”, as Marshall prefers,16 rather than an analogia entis is a debate we will leave to one side. What is vital to see, however, is that any analogia entis construed along these lines is, in fact, considerably more modest in its claims than is sometimes presumed. On this account, any actual analogy or likeness between God and creatures only works one way. It is never correct to speak of God and his creation as having something “in common”. Rather, creation is only like God insofar as its existence participates in him who is the true perfection of being. What the analogia entis does provide, though, is a way of grounding the purely logical “analogy of attribution” in reality, on the grounds that the creaturely perfection which “love” signifies does, in the very contingency of its participated essence, necessarily point to an uncreated, unparticipated divine perfection as its first cause.17 To speak of God as “good”, “loving” or “powerful” is not to land upon some essence we discover through our experience, in which both God and creatures participate, nor is it to suggest God merely possesses these qualities in larger, or indeed infinite quantities. Rather, the analogia entis stipulates that these attributes only apply properly and absolutely to the infinite essence of God, so that whatever we define as “good”, “loving”, or “powerful” from our own agreed experience can only ever be a creaturely analogue of God’s eternal nature.18 Consequently, a distinction between the order of being and the order of knowing is inalienably embedded within Aquinas’ analogia entis. Any likeness only flows one way from God’s being to his created effects. Conversely, our knowledge of God moves exclusively in the opposite direction, and indeed, never truly rises above the knowledge of those created perfections as effects of an unknown, perfect cause. That is to say, like the logical device of analogical predication, the analogia entis does not provide real access to these perfections in their divine mode of existence. While it saves us from absolute agnosticism or sheer nominalism, our knowledge of God can only draw nearer to God’s perfect essence via the ways of negation and eminence, adapted by Aquinas from the mysterious early church figure of Dionysius – that is, by taking the contingent perfections we grasp and stripping them of those features which pertain to their 15 Hütter, “Relecture”, 212–24, 228–40. 16 Bruce D. Marshall, “Christ the End of Analogy”, 292. 17 For this, see in particular Aquinas’ fourth demonstration for the existence of God, STh I q.2 a.3. 18 STh I q.13 a.6.

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creaturely mode of existence until we arrive at the apophatic darkness of pure adoration.19 From early on his writings, Owen thoroughly endorses a similar analogical relationship between infinite and finite being, which licenses true predication from creaturely perfections, finding it to be ubiquitous amongst post-Reformation thinkers no less than the mediaeval “schoolmen”.20 Certainly, Owen does not engage in the sort of technical reflection on late mediaeval discussions of this issue that you might find in the writings of someone like his contemporary, Baxter. Following Scotus, Baxter does allow for “being” (ens) to be univocally attributed to God and creatures in a purely logical sense, referring to God’s real existence alongside that of creatures.21 But like Owen, Baxter readily agrees that the predication of attributes to God proceeds via eminentiae from their creaturely analogue, on the basis of an ontological relationship of created effects to their cause.22 Owen even speaks of the “necessity” of “assigning to God (observing a just analogy) whatever perfections or excellencies are found among the creatures.”23 For, as he puts it in his late Meditations and Discourses (1684), all being and goodness being, as was said, in him alone, it was necessary that the first outward work and effect of the divine nature must be the communication of being and goodness unto other things […] which, being wrought by infinite power and wisdom, do represent unto us the glory of God in the creation of all things. Infinite being in selfsubsistence, which is necessary in the first cause and spring of all things, – infinite goodness to communicate the effect of this being unto that which was not, – and infinite wisdom and power in that communication, – are gloriously manifested therein.24

In a recent article, Muller has shown how a Thomistic analogia entis was, in fact, widely adopted by early modern Reformed thinkers.25 Yet, on this issue there has been a certain lack of clarity in other literature on Owen and post-Reformation scholasticism, it must be said.26 Muller and Rehnman rightly observe how the 19 STh I q.84 a.7 ad3. Cf., Hütter, “Relecture”, 240. 20 See his Dissertation on Divine Justice (1653), Owen, Works, X.497–8, 504, 543–4, 548, 558–9. 21 Richard Baxter, An End of Doctrinal Controversies which have lately troubled the churches by reconciling explication, without much disputing (London: John Salusbury, 1691), viii-ix. Cf. the discussion in Simon J.G. Burton, The Hallowing of Logic: The Trinitarian Method of Richard Baxter’s Methodus Theologiae (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 211–17. 22 Burton notes Baxter’s observation that for all the differences between Thomist and Scotist understandings of predication, there is considerable common ground: Hallowing, 212. Cf., Baxter, Methodus, I.31. Against Burton’s conclusion that Baxter is distinctively Scotist on this issue of predication, Muller argues that he is actually quite eclectic in his approach: Richard A. Muller, “Not Scotist: understandings of being, univocity, and analogy in early-modern Reformed thought”, Reformation & Renaissance Review 14, no. 2 (2012), 142–3. 23 Owen, Works, X.548. 24 Works, I.368–9. Cf. esp., III.583; VI.497; XX.349. 25 Muller, “Not Scotist”. 26 Compare, for instance, the contrary conclusions of Trueman and Rehnman: Trueman,

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Reformed eschewed the speculative excesses of scholastic metaphysics and natural theology, possibly suggesting what they call a “Scotist” turn, where the number of truths about God accessible to reason (or metaphysics) alone are significantly reduced, making us much more dependent on scriptural revelation.27 Moreover, there may well be a more voluntaristic tendency amongst some Reformed thinkers where the relationship between God’s ordained will in scripture and the eternal essence of God is viewed somewhat more equivocally than it is for Owen, as illustrated in differing views concerning the necessity of the atonement.28 However, it needs to be clear that properly speaking, the analogia entis, at least in Aquinas’ thought – or in its appropriation by Owen and his contemporaries, does not equate to the kind of metaphysic Muller had earlier portrayed as a straightforward ascent “by analogy from what is known here to a clear vision of God.”29 Quite the contrary : on its own, the “Thomistic” analogia entis is far more modest. Aquinas’ ontology is such that as Wolterstorff wryly remarks, “relatively little can be demonstrated about God.”30 Irrespective of whatever excesses in metaphysical speculation have been justified in its name, or however else the notion may have been understood in recent times, in itself, Aquinas’ analogia entis or “ontology of participation” is not a device allowing a rather unfettered, parallel natural route to God alongside gracious revelation. It is a relatively cautious metaphysical principal that does, to be sure, allow for the predication of creaturely perfections to God’s nature via eminentiae as a true indication of reality, but also properly undergirds everything knowable about God’s essence, whether naturally or by gracious revelation.31 In fact, it is the very metaphysical principle which regulates many

27

28 29 30

31

“Christocentric Scholasticism”, 99–100; Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 63. Intriguingly, Goris remarks (following McInerny) that for Zanchi, analogy is purely a matter of logic, as it was for Aquinas, but then goes on to observe that “[l]ike Aquinas, Zanchi bases the analogical meaning of divine names on the real order of causality of the creature to God”: Harm Goris, “Thomism in Zanchi’s Doctrine of God”, in Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise, ed. Willem van Asselt and Eef Dekker (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 128. This grounding of predication in metaphysics is, in fact, precisely what Hütter and others see in Aquinas against McInerny. Also, according to Muller, by the time of Scotus, what could be known of God naturally was regarded as “theology” proper, based on natural revelation, rather than metaphysics per se: Muller, PRRD, III.66. However, in Owen’s day, natural theology (via the light of nature) could still be defined as “metaphyiscs”: e. g., Barlow, Exercitationes, 120; Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, I.10 (I cc.70–1). See the discussion in, Trueman, “Christocentric Scholasticism”. So, Muller, PRRD, I.227; cf. 65, 109, 224, 234, 277. Nicholas Wolterstorff, “The Migration of the Theistic Arguments: From Natural Theology to Evidentialist Apologetics”, in Rationality, Religious Belief and Moral Commitment: New Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Robert Audi and William J. Wainwright (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 60. For a recent discussion of how Aquinas’ analogia entis is necessarily assumed within gra-

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Reformed discussions of God’s so-called “communicable” attributes.32 And, with his Reformed brethren, Owen is well aware of its guarded implications: “What we deny of God, we know in some measure – but what we affirm we know not; only we declare what we believe and adore.”33 It is worth adding too that while an analogia entis may appear to be a rather abstract and even arbitrary metaphysical principle, Trueman rightly observes that part of the reason Owen endorses this ontology is because he finds it taught in the scriptures.34 Yes, it is a principle he regards as self-evident from a reflection on all of God’s created effects – not just scriptural revelation; but as a Christian theologian (not merely a metaphysician), it is vital for him that its consistency with scripture be duly recognised. Consequently, when Owen speaks of God “evidencing” himself to the natural light of reason, he means that the pre-eminent perfections of God’s eternal nature are, through a certain analogy of being, perceptible in contingent, created being, in its perfections and order, or, in what he may elsewhere call the “law of nature”. Of course, as we saw in chapter three, it is very important to recall the cognitive precondition of natural illumination alongside any analogia entis. For Owen, as indeed for all classical Christian thinkers right up to his day, the possibility and reality of any knowledge, including our natural knowledge of God, depends not just on an analogia entis, or the objective evidence of God’s eternal being within created being, but also on the light God furnishes the mind. In Owen’s case, this equates to the concreated habitual capacity to grasp the prescriptions and truths revealed through the natural law God has woven into creation. Consequently, even natural knowledge of God is never an entirely bottom-up affair, but is always, at least to a certain extent, via gratia. Nevertheless, an analogia entis provides the empirical grounds for a “certainty of evidence” regarding God’s eternal, invisible nature, from what is analogically “visible” within created being and its God-given order. Not only does the analogical evidence of God’s being explain the “common consent” of the nations regarding God’s existence and his essential justice, it is cious revelation no less than natural theology, see, Thomas Joseph White, “‘Through him all things were made’ (John 1:3): The Analogy of the Word Incarnate according to St. Thomas Aquinas and Its Ontological Presuppositions”, in The Analogy of being: Invention of the Antichrist or the Wisdom of God?, ed. Thomas Joseph White (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). In many ways, White’s argument echoes the point both Muller and Rehnman make elsewhere concerning the important instrumental nature of philosophy and metaphysics in Reformed theology : Muller, After Calvin, 122–36; Sebastian Rehnman, “Alleged Rationalism: Francis Turretin on Reason”, Calvin Theological Journal 37 (2002); “Theistic Metaphysics and Biblical Exegesis: Francis Turretin on the Concept of God”, Religious Studies 38 (2002). 32 So, Muller, PRRD, III.223–6. 33 Owen, Works, I.66. 34 Cf., Trueman, “Christocentric Scholasticism”, 99–100.

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also the reason why “contemplative men” and the “wisest philosophers of old” have even regarded the love of God to be the “light, life, lustre and glory of the whole creation.” As he puts it in his Christologia (1679): Herein originally is God love: “For God is love,” 1 John iv. 8. This is the fountain and prototype of all love, as being eternal and necessary. All other acts of love are in God but emanations from hence, and effects of it. […] He is love eternally and necessarily in this love of the Son; and all other workings of love are but acts of his will, whereby somewhat of it is outwardly expressed. And all love in the creation was introduced from this fountain, to give a shadow and resemblance of it. […] And it was to express himself, that God made any thing without himself. He made the heavens and the earth to express his being, goodness, and power […] and he implanted love in our natures to express this eternal mutual love of the holy persons of the Trinity.

Even still, Owen insists, while we can (and ought) truly predicate this creaturely perfection of “love” to God via an analogia entis, “the original and pattern of it was always hid from the wisest philosophers of old”. In other words, when it comes to understanding this “love” under its divine aspect, “we must leave it under the veil of infinite incomprehensibleness; though admiration and adoration of it be not without the highest spiritual satisfaction.”35 Of course, it goes without saying that Owen is entirely in sympathy with his Reformed brethren regarding the effect of sin on natural theology.36 Even if there is sufficient evidence in creation of God’s eternal goodness for him to be properly adored and worshipped as the adequate “object” of our love, it is manifestly the case that no one actually does. Critically, however, Owen does not consider this to be a defect in evidence, but in the exercise of reason, and the corresponding weakness of its (post-Fall) natural light. Although the heathen philosophers of old did indeed attain unto “many true and great conceptions of God and the excellencies of his nature”, the Apostle Paul can equally reproach them for suppressing this knowledge and drawing conclusions “directly contrary” to the first principles of natural light and the “unavoidable notions which they had of the eternal being of God” therein (Cf., Rom 1:21–25).37 Consequently, as we observed in the last chapter, whereas the goodness of God manifested as “creator, preserver, and rewarder” was the adequate object of our love before the entrance of sin, the Fall has left us bereft of finding any “rest, complacency, and satisfaction” herein. In other words, although the character of God remains most undeniably evident in creation, it is no longer manifest to us in our present state in a way that can lead us in worshipful obedience towards our

35 Owen, Works, I.144–5. 36 So, Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 76–8. 37 Owen, Works, IV.85–6.

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eternal beatitude.38 Creation only supplies us with the knowledge of God as creator and a heightened sense of him as judge, thanks to the impact of sin on the lingering natural light of conscience. It knows nothing of him as redeemer.39

5.3

Evidence and faith

In addition to the evidence God has left of his nature in creation, there is, finally, the revelation that God makes uniquely “unto our faith”. When Owen uses the term “faith” in reference to the Christian life, very often he has the usual Reformed sense of a fiduciary act in mind. However, at this point in Reason of Faith, he describes it as “that power of our souls whereby we are able to assent unto the truth of what is proposed unto us upon testimony.”40 In fact, Owen considers this power of “assenting unto truth upon testimony”, as essential even to our everyday existence. It is “the principal and most noble faculty and power of our nature”, without par amongst the powers of any creature whatsoever. This description of faith plainly reflects the common scholastic definition, where faith is distinguished from scientific assent or opinion as an assent to a truth which is grounded upon the authority of another, who testifies to that truth. By applying the term “faith” to every area of life, it is true that Owen moves beyond the scholastic notion of faith as a peculiarly theological virtue, although the scholastics also readily saw an analogy between Christian faith, properly speaking, and the kind of “every-day” assent one makes to something based on someone else’s expertise or authority.41 Obviously, at this point in his argument, Owen chiefly has Christian faith in view. But the most important thing to notice here is the way he defines faith as a “power”. We have seen that Owen is careful not to depict regeneration as the mere provision of a “next power”, or capacity that is activated by a subsequent motion of grace. Rather, in regeneration, the capacity to believe and the “first act” of faith both occur at the same time in the one motion of grace. Nonetheless, he does grant a certain logical antecedence to the capacity, which is, as we saw, intimately bound up with the new “principle” of spiritual life or “habit of grace”. And while there is only one gracious “habit”, Owen believes, it can be differentiated according to its diverse effects on the soul, which include the illumi38 Works, I.152–3. 39 Muller discusses the impact of Calvin’s duplex cognitio Dei on later Reformed thought, noticing some important differences amidst fundamental similarities: Richard A. Muller, “Duplex Cognitio Dei in the Theology of Early Reformed Orthodoxy”, Sixteenth Century Journal 10 (1979); Muller, PRRD, I.288–93. 40 Owen, Works, IV.85. Cf., Works, V.94–102. 41 E.g., Aquinas, STh I q.1 a.2. Also, II–II q.4 a.8 ad2.

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nation of the mind, the regeneration of the will, and the new spiritual sense. That is, it is possible to discuss these aspects separately, provided their essential interrelationship is always kept in view. Not surprisingly, then, he also occasionally speaks of faith as a power, or indeed, a “habit”.42 And here in Reason of Faith, he defines Christian faith as an “elevation” of “the power of the mind to give assent upon testimony”, “by the divine supernatural work of the Holy Ghost, before described.”43 In other words, he directly refers the reader back to his previous discussion regarding the Spirit’s internal “illumination”, where the mind’s natural light is habitually elevated, strengthening it to perceive supernaturally revealed truths, and thereby enabling the regenerated will to establish actual faith through its adherence to what is revealed. All this merely describes different aspects of the one habit of grace. Owen’s claim, then, is like in the natural world, God has left a kind of evidence attesting to the truth and divine authority of scriptural testimony, upon which this power of faith is capable of enacting its assent. After all, why should God put better evidence in a lower species of revelation than in this very special and unique instrument by which souls can be saved? In his view, “[t]o say that God either could not or would not give such a power unto the revelation of himself by his word as to evidence itself to be so is exceedingly prejudicial unto his honour and glory.”44 As we observed in chapter two, Owen’s concern that the actual assent of faith be established by evidence was undoubtedly influenced by a climate of heightened sensitivity to issues surrounding the warrant for knowledge and claims to authority in late seventeenth-century England. In that context, it was widely regarded as “unreasonable” to insist that belief in scripture’s authority should be more certain than whatever certainty could be acquired through a rational examination of the evidence. Recognising that there is no watertight evidence for scripture’s authority sufficient to produce an assent which is certain beyond all possibility of being deceived (“infallible certainty”), many of Owen’s contemporaries were now satisfied that “moral certainty” is an adequate standard for faith. Owen finds this rationalistic move thoroughly intolerable, and in keeping with the tradition, resolutely insists that a graciously given power of faith is a non-negotiable pre-amble to any recognition of scripture’s divine authority. Nonetheless, he is sufficiently sensitive to the challenges of his intellectual context to agree that the quality of faith’s adherence should correlate exactly to

42 Owen, Works, XXI.247. As Muller points out in reference to van Mastricht, the term faith was readily applied by the Reformed to the “habitus by which we believe” (fides qua), as it was in older scholastic thought: Muller, PRRD, II.291. 43 Owen, Works, IV.90. 44 Works, IV.90–1.

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the quality of evidence; only, the kind of evidence he has in mind is clearly only visible to those with a spiritually elevated mind and associated spiritual sense. At first glance, Owen’s move here may seem somewhat at odds with the older scholastic pattern. The scholastics typically insisted that a believer possesses greater certainty in matters of faith than they do in their natural knowledge of any given thing, due to the pre-eminence, authority and infallibility of faith’s divine cause over and above the natural light of the intellect. With this Owen would heartily agree. Nevertheless, in an effort to distinguish faith from scientia, the scholastics also held that faith cannot possess the sort of “certainty of evidence” possible in ordinary knowledge, since its object can never be properly understood in this life. The intellect’s adequation to its object of belief – the “knowledge” of faith – is much more dependent on the will than in scientia, where the evidence of the object is sufficiently compelling on its own. Yet, as we saw in chapter two, that does not mean faith can occur entirely without some kind of evidence, since the will still needs the intellect to specify the “good” – in this case, the authoritative divine command – to which it shall then adhere. In a sense, Owen is claiming no more than that. By insisting that faith’s adherence correlate exactly to the quality of evidence upon which it is based, he is plainly not saying that a Christian’s spiritually enlightened mind arrives at scientia regarding scripture’s divine truth and authority, as if to push faith aside altogether. Indeed, he makes it clear that the evidence, which he will soon outline, is too obscure to produce full certainty of mind on its own, without the help of the will and the affections, even when the mind is spiritually enlightened.45 Faith is reliant on the will and affections to close the gap between what is only obscurely evident to the enlightened intellect and the full certainty of adherence. As he puts it in Christologia: “it is not necessary that the understanding do fully comprehend the whole nature of that which the will doth so adhere to. Where a discovery us made unto and by the mind of real goodness of amiableness, the will there can close with its affections.”46 Yet as even the most voluntaristic scholastic thinker would agree, Owen still insists the intellect must specify the will’s proper object: “Divine excellencies are a proper, adequate object of our love. The will, indeed, can adhere to nothing in love, but what the understanding apprehends as unto its truth and being.”47 Consequently, as we saw with Aquinas, it is not true that faith can lack evidence altogether. It may be that this evidence is not discernable to the intellect’s natural light, requiring its supernatural elevation by grace, but at least as far as Owen is concerned, it is still “evidence” nonetheless. 45 Works, IV.64. 46 Works, I.151. 47 Works, I.151; cf. III.281.

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Even so, Owen is not comfortable with the scholastic tendency to elevate the certainty of adherence above the certainty of evidence, no doubt because in his context, it raises a murky question concerning the formal, objective cause of faith’s “extra” certainty. The scholastics would say divine “authority” is that cause, but if that is the case, it must be recognisable as an objective, evident formal cause of faith, lest one is left exposed to the charge of voluntaristic “enthusiasm”. A Tridentine Catholic, influenced by the dominance of acquired faith in late mediaeval and Renaissance scholasticism, may say that since the church mediates divine authority, it supplies that infallible objective evidence, or “motive of credibility” he is after. But Owen will not have faith’s certainty mediated through a human authority any more than he will tolerate a moral certainty grounded in rational arguments. Consequently, he proceeds to set out a kind of evidence which appeals exclusively to the heightened intellectual light and the new spiritual sense. And it is the multiple appeal of this evidence that can uniquely and fully produce the certainty of faith, he feels. In scientia, the evidence appeals only to the mind. In faith, however, Owen thinks the evidence appeals to every faculty of the soul, not least the will and affections,48 which, as we saw in chapter four, are crucial to the strength of faith’s adherence and its sense of certainty. At every point, then, Owen is careful to ensure that his account of this evidence honours the orthodox integrity of Christian faith. Since only the power of faith can recognise it, the evidence is, as we saw in chapter two, a divine “testimony” in itself, befitting faith’s basic character. Owen calls it the “objective testimony” of the Spirit operating “in and by” scripture, and furnishing the sole external grounds for the act of Christian faith.49 Exactly how this evidence appeals to the power of faith, and specifically, the enlightened mind, will and spiritual sense, shall become apparent as we turn now to examine what this evidence actually is. Since originally mounting his case in Of the Divine Original (1659), it appears that some may have expressed their doubts regarding Owen’s position. However, until someone convincingly demonstrates his view to be erroneous, he feels as confident as ever to set it out again.50 In Of the Divine Original, Owen described this unique evidence in terms of scripture’s “selfevidencing” “light” and “power”. In Reason of Faith, the same distinction is clear, even if he does not express it in quite the same terms.51

48 49 50 51

Works, IV.101. Works, IV.91, 105, 111; cf. XVI.328. Works, IV.92. Works, IV.91–9.

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5.3.1 Scripture’s self-evidencing “light” The first feature of scripture’s infallible evidence is what he calls in Of the Divine Original its “self-evidencing” “light”. In Reason of Faith, he refers to certain “impressions” or “characters” of the “divine excellencies” or “properties of the divine nature”, implanted in scripture through its inspiration by the Holy Spirit.52 As Muller has rightly observed,53 Owen sees a natural parallel here to the tokens and impressions of “divine power, wisdom, and goodness” God has left in creation.54 In other words, Owen extends the analogia entis to the nature and essence of scriptural truth as an effect or “creation” of divine wisdom. There is nothing particularly startling in this, for as Muller points out elsewhere, the Reformed clearly did see an analogia entis between scriptural truth as a species of ectypal theology and the eternal, divine archetype,55 something readily reflected in Junius’ remark about the connection between the “interior” (intus) form or essence of scripture – divine truth – and its “external” (foris) written or accidental expression.56 “The whole essence of sacred scripture stands in relationship to the Word of which it is scripture”, he says. “That is to say, it is a visible instrument of the invisible Word”.57 What is particularly distinctive, however, is the way Owen characterises this analogous impression or “light” as “evidence” of scripture’s truth and authority, appealing exclusively to faith and the supernaturally illumined mind, and creating an assurance of its truth irrespective of a person’s native rational capacities.58 At a purely metaphorical level, the depiction of light as “evidence” is simple enough to grasp. Inasmuch as the sun’s existence is self-evident through its sensible rays, so too is scripture. But Owen intends more than a simple metaphor, as he refers to scripture’s light as something “spiritual” or “intellectual”, uniquely perceptible by the immaterial “mind”. For Owen, God has infused this intelligible “light” in “all that outwardly is of him”, “with all its mediums”, as a “participation” in the uncreated light of his 52 53 54 55 56

Works, IV.91–2; XVI.319–23. Muller, PRRD, II.267–9. Owen, Works, IV.91. Muller, PRRD, II.298. “Forma Sacrae Scripturae dupliciter consideratur intus & foris, ex quo internam & essentialem, aut exeternam & accidentalem dicimus.”: Junius, Theses Theologicae II.3 (Opuscula, 106). 57 Theses Theologicae II.1 (Opuscula, 106). Cf., too: “Interna Scripturae forma in relatione consistit. Scriptura enim, verbi enunciati Scriptura est: itaque quae est forma verbi ea etiam Scripturae secundum relationis formam censenda est. Verbi autem essentialis forma est divina veritas, totum subiectum & singulas eius partes informans”: Theses Theologicae II.3 (Opuscula, 106). 58 Owen, Works, IV.92.

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essence.59 Accordingly, scripture is a kind of “medium”, he says, conveying the light of uncreated divine truth, much like the air is said to be a “medium” which conveys the intelligible light of an object, provided we are clear that the light or truth revealed in scripture is only in itself an ectypal analogue or participation in essential divine truth.60 The gospel does not display the “divine glorious perfections” “substantially”, but only “accidentally”, Owen says.61 That is, scripture’s own essential features – its words, and the entities they properly signify – are only an accidental, formal representation of essential truth, which is God himself. A Christian believer never “sees” essential truth – even in faith – but only the accidental form of scripture and its significates. On the other hand, neither can the inherent light of scripture be reduced to the accidental words themselves, as if they can somehow be separated from the substantial truth they signify.62 To force such a separation would inevitably entail a failure to see its light.63 The crucial claim, then, is that there is some analogical relationship between essential divine truth and its accidental scriptural signification, insofar as scripture’s inherent, intelligible light is a “participation” in that uncreated divine light. Indeed, Owen can say that the light in scripture “is nothing but the beaming of the majesty, truth, holiness, and authority of God, given unto it and left upon it by its author, the Holy Ghost.”64 One of Owen’s favourite scriptural texts for supporting this claim, in connection with the gospel in particular, is 2 Corinthians 3:18. So in his On the Mortification of Sin (1656), he writes: The apostle, exalting to the utmost the glory of light above that of the law, manifesting that now the “vail” causing darkness is taken away, so that with “open” or uncovered “face we behold the glory of the Lord,” tells us how : “As in a glass”, 2 Cor. 3:18.

59 Works, XVI.320–1. 60 Works, XVI.320. In Christologia, Owen describes the gospel as the “[m]edium revelans”, or the “lumen deferens”, which is something of a technical scholastic term referring to that which illuminates the air or medium between the knower and the known. So, Albert the Great, De Sensu et sensato, t.1 c.7. Accordingly, Reformed thinkers sometimes spoke of scripture as a “lumen deferens” (versus the “lumen disponens” or “elevans” which is the Spirit’s internal illumination): Works, I.74–5. Cf., Richard Sibbes, The Complete Works (Edinburgh: J. Nichol, 1862–1864), II.460–1; Ames, Disceptatio scholastica, 26; Sidrach Simpson, Two books of Mr. Sydrach Simpson (London: P. Cole, 1658), 65. 61 Owen, Works, IV.169. 62 Cf., Baxter, Methodus, II.127–8. 63 Owen does indeed envisage a person who “understands” the words of scripture from a linguistic, grammatical, purely “speculative” perspective, but nevertheless does not see their light and consequently fails to apprehend their spiritual truth: Owen, Works, IV.155–8. Cf., Ames, Disceptatio scholastica, 25–7. 64 Owen, Works, XVI.322.

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Yet, once again, Owen clearly does not mean that the believer fully “sees” or apprehends this eternal truth through its representation, as in the case of scientia. Consequently, he cautions: how is that? Clearly, perfectly? Alas, no! He tells you how that is, 1 Cor 13:12, “We see through a glass, darkly,” saith he. It is not a telescope that helps us to see things afar off, concerning which the apostle speaks; and yet what poor helps are they! […] It is a looking-glass whereunto he alludes (where are only obscure species and images of things, and not the things themselves), and a sight therein that he compares our knowledge to.65

Indeed, shortly afterwards, he says that since we walk by faith we do “not have any express idea, image, or species of that which we believe.”66 He is not contradicting himself, as in his commentary on Hebrews 11:1 he makes it clear that faith does receive a “representation” of the “beauty” and “glory” of the truths believed, quoting 2 Corinthians 3:18 once again.67 His point is, since the gospel Word is only a relatively dim, accidental reflection of uncreated truth in all its eternal majestic beauty, the light or “evidence” upon which faith relies falls well short of that which could produce scientia.68 Faith’s apprehension of this light is reliant on the will, not its self-evidentness to the mind. Nevertheless, the implication is that scripture, as a species of divine truth, is sufficiently “evident” to the enlightened mind as a “good” to which the will can enact its faithful assent. Perhaps we can attain a further appreciation of exactly how Owen thinks scripture’s intelligible light functions as an evidence in establishing faith by taking note of a fascinating parallel he makes in his Hebrews commentary between faith and the ordinary processes of cognition. Owen’s reference to the specifically “intellectual” light of scripture, or indeed of any object, recalls the peripatetic cognitive tradition, where an object’s capacity to be understood depends entirely on its inherent “light” (lux) or essence that is formally communicated via its representational species (lumen), through the medium, to the senses, and abstracted by the mind itself.69 That Owen has not cast aside this traditional cognitive framework in his understanding of faith is abundantly clear in his commentary on Hebrews 4:1–2.70 Within this framework, certain 65 Works, VI.65. It is notable that later, in his Christologia, Owen does take the verb jatoptqif|lemoi in this verse to refer to a telescope or “optic tube” as opposed to a “mirror”, a reading which Goold finds objectionable: Works, I.222; cf. 376. 66 Owen, Works, VI.67. 67 Works, XXIV.9. 68 Cf., Works, IV.64. 69 On the importance of “light” in early influential theories of multiplication, see, Lindberg, Vision, 94–102; Tachau, Vision, 6–11. 70 For the following, see Owen’s extensive discussion, Owen, Works, XXI.246–52. Cf., Appendix.

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knowledge arises when the light or truth of an object is received through the senses as a phantasm, from which an intelligible species is abstracted by the naturally illumined mind, and thoroughly adequated to the mind through the creation of a concept identical to the form of the object. So too in faith: the power or habit of faith enables the mind to receive the “light” of scripture for what it is in its essence – namely truth revealed by God – causing it to be thoroughly adequated or united to that truth, and brought to the corresponding state of certainty. This is how Owen interprets a variety of scriptural texts which refer to the Word being “‘implanted’ or ‘ingrafted’ into the mind” through an “incorporation” or “mixing” of the Word with the soul (Jas 1:21, Jer 31:33, 2 Cor 3:3, Rom 12:2). Notably, where Paul speaks of the Christian obeying from the heart that “type” or “form” of doctrine (t}pom didaw/r) into which they have been delivered (Rom 6:17), Owen reads this as the “mould, type, image, or figure” of the Word implanted on the mind and transforming it into its likeness. In this way, then, is the “word of Christ” said to “dwell” or “inhabit” the believer (Col 3:16). To have a “form” of the Word implanted on the mind does not mean the Word is physically present in the mind, Owen says, any more than the mind’s conformity to an every-day object of knowledge does not entail the object’s substantial presence in the intellect. Indeed, the evolution of the peripatetic theory reveals a struggle to come to a consensus on how, exactly, to regard the conformity of intellect and object in the act of understanding.71 In Owen’s view, the conformity of the mind to the Word consists in the Word producing its intended “proper effects” of “love, joy, and obedience”.72 This does not necessarily imply that the type or image of the Word inhering in the mind is merely an “efficient cause” of the actual state of belief. Within the classic peripatetic model, the representational species of an object operates more like a “formal cause” of knowledge rather than an efficient cause,73 although as Spruit points out, some prominent later scholastic thinkers like Su‚rez did prefer to grant them a purely efficient role instead.74 While Owen’s outline is too sketchy 71 Pasnau remarks that it is unlikely any scholastic author had a fully coherent or consistent understanding of the role of “species” in understanding, partly because the relationship between “accidental form” (e. g., a species) and its “subject” (e. g., the intellect) proved to be quite elusive: Robert Pasnau, “Id Quo Cognoscimus”, in Theories of Perception in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy, ed. Simo Knuuttila and Pekka Kärkkäinen (New York: Springer, 2008). 72 Owen, Works, XXI.247–8. 73 According to Jacobs and Zeis, the notion of “formal causality” goes to the heart of the Aristotelian-Thomist theory of cognition: Jonathan Jacobs and John Zeis, “Form and Cognition: How to go out of your mind”, Monist 80 (1997). 74 Contra Pasnau: Spruit, Species (II), 294–307, 330, 335–7, 350. Cf., Pasnau, “Cognoscimus”, 146.

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in any metaphysical detail to state his understanding of this relationship with absolute precision, the notion of formal causality does seem to be on view : “[t]he meaning is this, that the doctrine of the gospel begets the form, figure, image, or likeness of itself in the hearts of them that believe, so that they are cast into the mould of it.”75 In other words, it is this formal likeness between the Word and the believer’s soul which then produces all its “proper effects”. What this suggests, then, is that Owen thinks the intelligible light or evidence of scripture produces the certainty of Christian faith in a fashion that parallels the normal processes of every-day cognition. Of course, Owen does not think scripture’s unique “objective” light has any ability to adequate the mind to its truth if a person has no capacity to receive it: “Light is not eyes”, he says.76 As in the case of natural cognition, where the intelligible light of an object can only actually be “seen” by a naturally illumined mind, so too in the case of scripture; only in this situation what is required is the special illumination of grace, or the logically antecedent “power” of faith. That is, the “objective” light of scripture relies on the “subjective” light of grace for it to be seen and understood.77 Yet, as we saw in the last chapter, there is an exact symmetry between these two “lights”. “[T]he habitual rectitude of our nature”, part of which consists in the mind’s subjective illumination, is, he says, “nothing but the word changed into grace in our hearts.”78 Or, as he puts it in his Theologoumena: “The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4) illuminates us. It is “light” (vytisl|r) in itself, and it “illumines” (arc\fei) our minds. The Holy Spirit sent Paul “to open the eyes” (!mo?nai avhaklo») of the gentiles, “to turn them from darkness to light” (Acts 26:18). The gospel truth itself is “light” (v_r); and “light” (v_r) is also imparted within the ones who will come to faith, to open their eyes so they may see that light [lucem]; “light in the light of God” (Psalm 36:9).79

Accordingly, when Hebrews describes faith as the “substance of the things hoped for” (1kpifol]mym rp|stasir; cf. 11:1), Owen reads this as referring chiefly to faith’s power to give subsistence to the truths of the gospel by bringing them into and making them present in the soul. Yet, he says, “[t]his effect is so far of the nature of it”, that the writer can make “use of it principally in that description which he gives of it.”80 In a sense, then, it is proper to speak of the “light” of truth existing substantially within the mind either as that subjective power which 75 76 77 78 79

Owen, Works, VI.456. See Works, XVI.321; cf. IV.170–71. Works, IV.170. Cf., Ames, Disceptatio scholastica, 28. Owen, Works, III.470; cf. 370–1, 476. Works, XVII.VI.vi.14. Cf., Alsted’s Ramist-like division of the Word of God into the “internal light” of illumination and the “external light” of the verbal Word: Johann Alsted, Theologia Didactica (Hanover : C. Eifridi, 1627), I.iii-iv (8–13). 80 Owen, Works, XXI.247–8; cf. XXIV.8.

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enables its objective manifestation in the Word to be received when proposed, or as the actual enlightenment and conformity that results when those truths are, in fact, believed. Once again, logical antecedence should not be equated with temporal priority ; but on the grounds that a person’s mind has been specially enlightened by grace, furnishing it with the capacity to believe, Owen is entirely confident that scripture’s own light, as an accidental manifestation of God’s divine majesty, truth and authority, is the evidence or the “formal reason” for the act of faith which then ensues.

5.3.2 Scripture’s self-evidencing “power” But Owen does not stop there. As we noted above, the mere presence of “light” in the mind is not sufficient on its own for the full certainty of faith. It may enable us to see, but only darkly, “as in a glass”. Consequently, he goes on to describe a second type of “evidence” which he calls the “power” of scripture. Unlike the “light” of scripture which is formally inherent in scripture as a species of essential truth, when he speaks of the “power” of scripture, he is not describing something physically present in the text; otherwise scripture would end up with a life of its own cut loose from the active power of God (recalling again that the “ultimate” “object” of faith is essential truth itself – God – not the accidental scriptural medium). Rather, he refers to the Word as the instrument of divine power, not just in the act of regeneration and conversion, but also in its achievement of every intended effect.81 Indeed, Owen sees the effect or evidence of this power being felt by believers and unbelievers alike. Even the most hardened enemy of God experiences the power of scripture in their inability to refuse or reject it absolutely, he says. Much like they treat God, “[t]hey hate it, wish it were not, hope it is not true; but are not by any means able to shake off a disquiet in the sense of its divine authority.” In other words, this powerful effect of scripture, especially through its re-publication of the moral law, works to awaken that lingering natural light which continues to testify to God’s reality and authority, whether we like it or not.82 But what exactly is the role of this “power” as an evidence in creating the certainty of faith? It is one thing to assert the power of scripture in creating faith, as a cause produces an effect, but how does it actually achieve this? Owen gives us a clue when he describes scripture’s power in the conviction of sin at conversion: 81 Owen, Works, IV.43, 94; cf. III.81–2. 82 Works, IV.98–9; III.345, 347–8. Cf., Calvin’s comments on Heb 4:12: Calvin, Hebrews, 101–2.

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in this work of conviction of sin, the word of God, the Scripture, entereth into the conscience of the sinner, takes possession of it, disposeth it unto peace or trouble, by its laws or rules, and no otherwise. […] When once it begins this work, conscience immediately owns a new rule, a new law, a new government, in order to the judgment of God upon it and all its actions.83

Here Owen ascribes to the Word an instrumental role in re-ordering the fallen soul under the rule of God. It causes, as he goes on to say, the “kindling” of “heavenly light” “in the mind”. This is entirely in accord with what we have seen already. As the “vehicula gratiae”, the Word is intimately bound up with the new principle or habit of grace that is the foundation of all its spiritual acts, beginning with faith and perfected by love. The principal work of the Spirit in this regeneration is illumination, or the restoration of the soul’s order through an impression of the gospel on its “leading faculty”, the mind. Once again, this needs to be understood in both its passive and active dimensions. From this preeminent work of grace in the mind do all others then follow – the restoration of the will, and the new spiritual sense – so that the soul now actually adheres to the Word in faith. But how does this powerful effect of the Word function as an evidence? What Owen appears to have in mind are the correlate effects of this intellectual illumination on the soul’s functions: it enables the understanding to apprehend or judge scripture’s truth and goodness, and causes the will to adhere to it in faith, so that the affections can sense the “power and reality of the things believed”, whereby faith’s certainty is “greatly established”:84 those who believe find by it a glorious, supernatural light introduced into their minds, whereby they who before saw nothing in a distinct, affecting manner in spirituals, do now clearly discern the truth, the glory, the beauty, and excellency of heavenly mysteries, and have their minds transformed into their image and likeness.85

It is as if, through its illumination by the Word, the soul’s leading faculty is possessed by the very rule, voice and vision of God, so that the subordinate faculties cannot but sense and yield to its authority : “it is contrary to the nature of conscience to take this upon itself, nor would it do so but that it sensibly finds God speaking and acting in and by it.”86 This, of course, echoes Calvin’s depiction of the Spirit enabling us to sense the irresistible power and voice of God in scripture.87 And in that way, the Word’s divine power functions as an evidence

83 84 85 86 87

Owen, Works, IV.96. Works, IV.64. Works, IV.98. Works, IV.96. “sed quia non dubiam vim numinis illic sentimus vigere ac spirare, qua ad parendum,

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fully establishing the firmness or certainty of faith. By actively enlightening the mind, the Word can then mediate its divine authority, compelling the faithful adherence of the will, and awaking the spiritual senses to their proper object, which, out of love for the goodness and beauty of the things revealed, cement the full certainty of faith. Here, then, is the crucial appeal of evidence not just to the mind, but also to the will and affections, which together bring about faith’s infallible certainty.88 As we saw in chapter four, Owen does concede that a truly regenerated believer may suffer decays in their spiritual sense, causing their faith to lack the assurance and subjective sense of certainty it once had. But when this sense is properly exercised by the Word, Owen could not be more emphatic about its powerful effect on the soul. As the Word’s power touches the renovated spiritual sense as an “evidence”, it generates a cleaving desire which galvanises the soul’s adequation or union to the truth, and in itself represents the believer’s full state of assurance. As he puts it in Causes, Ways, and Means: [T]here is an evidence in the things themselves, unto spiritual sense and judgment, Phil 1:9; Heb 5:14. This is that which gives the mind the highest assurance of the truth of what it doth believe that it is capable of in this world; for when it finds in itself the power and efficacy of the truth wherein it is instructed, that it worketh, effecteth, and implanteth the things themselves upon it, giving it and ascertaining unto it all the benefits and comforts which they promise or express, and is thereby united unto the soul, or hath a real, permanent, efficacious subsistence in it,—then, I say, hath the mind the utmost assurance in the truth of it which it doth or can desire in the things of this nature.89

Inasmuch as the mind “cannot but receive, believe, and comply with what it comprehends by its [natural] senses”, so too with “spiritual sense”. “A believer”, he says, “will abide as firmly by his spiritual sense as any man can by his natural.”90 In keeping with the nature of faith’s object, Owen is ultimately at a loss to understand the “ways and methods of the Spirit’s operations by the word”. But the power of its operations is sufficiently evident for any believer to say with the blind man whose sight Jesus restored (John 9): “One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”91 Indeed, it is impossible to overthrow the infallible effect of this evidence on any Christian believer, Owen says. Only believers actually

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scientes ac volentes, vividius tamen et efficacius quam pro humana aut voluntate aut scientia trahimur et accendimur”: Institutes (1559) I.vii.5, quoted in Works, IV.69. Cf., Works, IV.101. Works, IV.152. On the connection between adequation and assurance of scripture’s truth, see Owen’s comments on Col 2:2, Works, VI.458; cf. 458–9. Owen, Works, VI.453; cf. IV.64. Works, IV.98.

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possess this internal testimony, meaning it can only function as an “external” or rational argument in helping persuade others to believe; even so, of all such motives of credibility, Owen suggests, “there is none more prevalent nor cogent than this.”92

5.4

A spiritual “intuition”

The special importance of the senses in mediating cognitive certainty was only to become more acute in the late Middle Ages, especially in light of questions that emerged in the evolution of the cognitive tradition concerning the possibility of a “gap” between perception and reality which might be created by an image lingering in the mind after its object was no longer present, or indeed, in the event of an absolutely powerful God creating a vision of a non-existent object in the imagination.93 It is generally agreed that Scotus’ distinction between “intuitive” and “abstractive” cognition was an important milestone. Even if his own take on this terminology was somewhat embryonic and undeveloped, and not specifically coupled to the issue of cognitive certitude, many who followed considered it to be a critical distinction in establishing some level of cognitive certainty regarding an extra-mental object. The reason for this is Scotus had used the terminology to distinguish between knowledge caused by the immediate, present existence of the object itself (intuitive), versus knowledge of absent objects caused only by their species lingering in the mind (abstractive).94 Scotus left many details relatively opaque: Does intuitive knowledge entail the eradication of species? How long can an intuition last after an object is removed? Can God create intuitions of non-present, non-existent objects? Such are the questions that have perplexed interpreters ever since.95 However, one detail seems 92 Works, IV.95; XVI.324. 93 According to Perler, the presence of these questions should not be read as a revival of ancient scepticism, but as a selective use of sceptical methods by thinkers as they sought to advocate a particular theory of knowledge over and against another : Perler, “Skepticism”. 94 Cf., Scotus, Lect II d.3 p.2 q.2; Ord II d.3 p.2 q.2. Although the term “intuition” was used by Augustine, prior to Scotus it only appeared embryonically : Tachau, Vision, 70. 95 On the distinction between “intuitive” and “abstractive” knowledge in Scotus, see, Sebastian Day, Intuitive Cognition: A Key to the Significance of the Later Scholastics (St. Bonaventure, NY: Franciscan Institute Press, 1947); John Boler, “Intuitive and abstractive cognition”, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982); Tachau, Vision, 68–81; Stephen D. Dumont, “Theology as a Science and Duns Scotus’s Distinction between Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition”, Speculum 64 (1989); Allan B. Wolter, “Duns Scotus on Intuition, Memory, and Our Knowledge of Individuals”, in The Philosophical Theology of Duns Scotus, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); Allan B.

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clear among his followers and commentators: Scotus appeared to be claiming that intuitive perception, both at the level of the senses and possibly even the intellect, provides certitude or awareness of the object directly causing cognition through its presence before the eyes. Some later scholastics questioned whether or not an intellectual intuition was ever possible or necessary in this life, although according to Tachau, by the time of Ockham’s revision of Scotus’ theory, sensitive intuition was readily assumed at the very least, especially via the most noble faculty of sight, pointing again to the crucial role of the senses in mediating both the raw data of cognition and perceptions of certainty.96 Scotus’ theory of intuitive cognition did not necessarily discard the need for species either, at least in this life, where the intellect remains dependent upon the senses. Indeed, their on-going function is relatively uncontroversial amongst his followers, with the notable exception of Ockham. But it does mean the species – if there – are transparent, so there is no mistaking that the object itself is ultimately the present cause of cognition.97 The theory of intuitive cognition never entirely solved all questions of certitude nor did it close the door to epistemic scepticism, but that is not to discount its significant influence in late mediaeval and Renaissance thought. But with this intellectual context in view, it is, perhaps, striking that according to Owen, what the light and power of scripture provides the spiritually enlightened mind is a “direct intuitive insight and prospect into spiritual things.”98 While he uncontroversially denies the possibility of an intellectual intuition of God’s essence in this life, he does freely speak of an “intuition” of saving spiritual truths available to earthly pilgrims before then, which in some respects is foundational to Christian faith.99 By “intuition”, Owen is describing a “direct” or “immediate”

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Wolter and Marilyn McCord Adams, “Memory and Intuition: A Focal Debate in Fourteenth Century Cognitive Psychology”, Franciscan Studies 53 (1993); Douglas C. Langston, “Scotus’s Doctrine of Intuitive Cognition”, Synthese 96 (1993); Robert Pasnau, “Cognition”, in The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus, ed. Thomas Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 296–300; Dallas G. Denery II, Seeing and Being Seen in the Later Medieval World: Optics, Theology and Religious Life (Cambridge: Cambrige University Press, 2005), 124–8; Pini, “Object”; Peter King, “Thinking about Things: Singular Thought in the Middle”, in Intentionality, Cognition, and Representation in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Gyula Klima (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming). Tachau, Vision, 122–3. Cf., 174, 197, 222. According to Pini, Scotus does finally settle on the possibility of intellectual intuition (in via), but one that is somewhat dependent upon a sensible intuition. The intellect may be unable to grasp an individual thing in this life, but it is able to intuit the present existence of an individual thing, thanks to the intuition of the senses: Pini, “Object”: 311–15. Langston argues strongly for the presence of species and their transparency in Scotus’ mature version of intuitive knowledge: Langston, “Cognition”. Cf., Pasnau, who finds Scotus somewhat incoherent at this point: Pasnau, “Cognition”, 296–300. Owen, Works, III.238. For those places where Owen speaks of an “intuition” in this life, see, Works, I.402; III.238,

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“sight”. It is a “vision” of something directly present before the elevated senses and intellect which, importantly, is considered to be instrumental in creating “stability” of profession,100 or what we might call the certainty of faith. The power of faith, he says, provides a “representation” or “view” of invisible heavenly realities, so that a believer can “behold them as if they were present”.101 That is to say, Owen does explicitly bind intuition to certitude in a manner that echoes its function within the late scholastic philosophical tradition. But what exactly does Owen think can be seen of this spiritual truth, if it cannot be truth in its divine essence, or the invisible heavenly realities themselves? In particular, he suggests it is the “beauty, glory, and excellency of spiritual things” that is visible to the “eyes” of faith;102 in other words, it is precisely the same as that analogical “light” or “evidence” he regards as being inscribed in Scripture.103 In that way, to the elevated mind, the scriptural text becomes a kind of diaphanous medium or species, a “glass” as Owen prefers to call it (2 Cor 3:18), through which the light of divine glory may be glimpsed, albeit darkly and very partially – in its accidental “representation”, but as sufficiently present and evident for the establishment of a sure and certain faith. The same can be said for the divine power of scripture, wherein the Christian finds, through their new spiritual sense, “the divine wisdom, goodness and authority of God so present unto them as that they need neither argument, nor motive, nor any thing else, to persuade them unto or confirm them in believing.”104 In other words, we can safely posit that as a result of the mind’s illumination and the concomitant new spiritual sense, a believer has an “intuition” of divine “light” and “power” in scripture, together establishing the certainty of faith which incorporates an assurance of scripture’s divine origin. This is how Owen construes Hebrew’s depiction of faith, not just as the “substance” of things hoped for – which we saw above – but as the “evidence” of things unseen (Heb 11:1). Here he follows an interpretative tradition that takes “evidence” (5kecwor; cf., argumentum, Vg.) to be a “convincing” “demonstration”, even a “revelation” which entails a subjective state of certainty regarding the object believed.

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584; IV.323; VII.21, 105; IX.377; XX.519; XXI.251; XXI.76, 343. For the places where he speaks of the heavenly intellectual “intuition”, see, Works, I.65, 148, 304, 378; VII.337. Owen, Works, VII.105. It is “fixed” and “constant”: Works, XXI.252. It is “direct” and “steady” as opposed to something “transient”: Works, VII.21. Note also, his description of intuition in the heavenly vision as a view of the glorious Christ himself “continually with us, [and] before us”; that is, as present as opposed to having an image or representation: Works, I.378–9; cf. I.239. See his discussion of rp|stasir in this verse, Owen, Works, XXIV.8–10. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XV.x.11. Owen, Works, VII.21. Cf., Works, IV.91–2. Works, IV.64; cf. XXIV.9.

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It arises from the “mixing” and “incorporation”, or the “present subsistence” of the truth with the mind – that is to say, its adequation – causing the certainty of truth itself to become a property of the mind. Yet where the scholastics had taken “things unseen” (Oq bkepol]mym) to refer to the lack of “scientific” evidence (evidentia) within the object itself, Owen again insists that this “assent of faith is accompanied with a satisfactory evidence of the things themselves”, pointing his readers back to Of the Divine Original.105 To be sure, the things hoped for are “unseen” in their essence, but it is the “present sense”, “experience”, or indeed, intuition of their “first-fruits”; the accidental “representation” that the power of faith affords – a “view of their glory” which “gives an assurance unto the mind, though not of the same nature, yet more excellent than that of any scientific demonstration.”106

5.5

The imago Dei and the authority of scripture

In chapter seven we will consider exactly how Owen thinks the “beauty”, “goodness” and “excellencies” of the divine nature are analogically represented in scripture such that they function as the “material” object or cause of Christian faith. This takes us directly to the heart of Owen’s theological hermeneutic. So far, we have simply been considering how scripture is the evident cause of faith under its “formal” aspect as authoritative divine truth, which supplies the faculties with their respective proper objects. As we have seen throughout this discussion of scripture’s evidence, Owen leaves the detail of many of his metaphysical assumptions relatively opaque, even if they are tantalisingly apparent at crucial points in his theological discourse. Whatever the precise detail of Owen’s metaphysical framework, it is vital for him that it only ever be a servant and never a master in his reading of the authoritative text. Indeed, this chiefly instrumental usefulness of the peripatetic cognitive tradition comes into full view when we grasp how Owen locates the authority of scripture and its interface with the Christian life within a biblical-theological narrative focussed upon the “image of God”, a key feature of his thought which we have deliberately left aside until now. In the section of Owen’s Hebrews commentary to which we have frequently referred, it seems that the semantics of everyday cognition provide a plausible heuristic for interpreting the fundamental relationship between God and his creatures in terms of a union of the mind and its proper object – truth – through the “image” of that truth formed and subsisting in the soul. Here is how Owen 105 Works, XXIV.12. Cf., Aquinas, Ad Hebraeos XI.i.557–60. 106 Owen, Works, XXIV.7–12.

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explains the “meditation” (jatoptq_feshai) of faith in 4:1, appealing again to one of his favourite leitmotifs, 2 Corinthians 3:18. It is to behold steadfastly the glory of God in Jesus Christ, expressed in the gospel as in a glass, 2 Cor. 3:18; for the meditation of faith is an intuition into the things that are believed, which works the assimilation mentioned, or our being “changed into the same image,” which is but another expression of the incorporation insisted on. As when a man hath an idea or projection of any thing in his mind that he will produce or effect, he casteth the image framed in his mind upon his work, that it shall exactly answer it in all things; so, on the other side, when a man doth diligently contemplate on that which is without him, it begets an idea of it in his mind, or casts it into the same image. And this meditation which faith worketh by, for to complete the mixture or composition intended, is to be fixed, intuitive, constant, looking into the nature of the things believed.107

There is no question that the imago Dei emerges as a highly significant theme for Owen, especially in his later writings.108 Indeed, he quite explicitly frames his entire exposition of the person and work of Christ in his Christologia around Irenaeus’ famous motif of recapitulation, where the image of God once lost by Adam is restored to humanity by Christ, the image of God par excellence.109 And if we expand beyond the specific focus of Owen’s discussion of evidence in Reason of Faith, the metaphysical and, more importantly, broader theological narrative undergirding his understanding of scriptural authority comes into sharper focus. For, as he puts it in his Causes, Ways, and Means, to experience the “power” of scripture is no less than to have the “image and likeness” of its truths formed in the minds of men. “This is the first end of all divine revelations”, he claims.110 Consequently, while it is not feasible to trace out Owen’s exposition of the imago in comprehensive detail here, it is certainly worth exploring some broad features of the narrative, and to notice how he locates scripture within that theological context. It is well known that there is a formidable theological tradition stretching back at least as far as Augustine which has understood the imago to signify both substantive and dynamic elements of created human nature. The substantive, structural imago is classically expressed by the mature Augustine in the way the immortal, rational human mind (mens) – consisting of the intellect, memory 107 Works, XXI.251–2. 108 Rightly, Suzanne McDonald, “The Pneumatology of the ‘Lost’ Image in John Owen”, Westminster Theological Journal 71 (2009). For other explorations of the imago in Owen see Griffiths, Sin, 29–44; Kapic, Communion, 37–45, 56–65. Neither of these draws attention to the semantics of Owen’s immediate scholastic context, which we will attempt to do. 109 Note Owen’s preface to this work, where he outlines various sources, mostly Patristic, with Irenaeus most highly esteemed amongst them: Owen, Works, I.3–27. 110 Works, IV.205. See also his comments relating to scripture’s power in Reason of Faith, Works, IV.95, 98.

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and will – uniquely reflects the eternal spiritual nature of the Triune God.111 Nevertheless, as Sullivan points out, the rational soul’s participation in God’s essence was never a static concept for Augustine, and he always struggled to hold the structural notion of the soul’s participation in God’s nature alongside the designed, dynamic tendency of created being actively to seek after its creator.112 Indeed, prior to the Pelagian controversy, Heijke has argued that for Augustine, the Fall entirely vitiated the imago on the grounds that this dynamic God-ward inclination was lost.113 Nevertheless, it is likely that in view of the Pelagian propensity to collapse grace back into the soul’s natural ability to know God, Augustine went on in De Trinitate to draw a clear distinction between the “natural” imago and the imago restored by grace.114 The former consists in the structural likeness of the rational soul, which does, indeed, possess some innate Godward bent, not entirely vitiated by the Fall, insofar as the “law of God” is indelibly inscribed on the soul.115 It is this vestigial, natural image which allows the soul to be the recipient of Christ’s grace. Gradually restoring, elevating and perfecting the Godward tendency of the natural image, grace then activates the soul in knowledge and love of Christ, who is the true exemplar of the divine image.116 The same basic distinction between a natural, structural imago and a dynamic principle activated by grace is evident in Aquinas, although as Sullivan observes, he introduces a sharper distinction between the natural and supernatural orders than Augustine ever envisaged.117 Like Augustine, Aquinas regards the natural image to consist in the soul’s rational nature, which has an inbuilt capacity to understand and love God. Nevertheless, this is not the same as the habitual disposition of the soul actually to know and love God, let alone the perfection of that knowledge and love which is restricted to the saints in glory.118 Both of these higher expressions of the image are exclusively the product of grace, while the purely natural capacity applies as much to Adam before as after the Fall. In unfallen Adam, the higher, habitual tendency to know and love God is 111 See, Augustine, De Trinitate IX–XII [PL 42 cc.959–1012]. 112 John E. Sullivan, The Image of God: the Doctrine of St. Augustine and its Influence (Dubuque: Priory Press, 1963), 11–25, 38–69; Bernard McGinn, “The Human Person as Image of God: Western Christianity”, in Christian Spirituality : Origins to the Twelfth Century, Vol. I, ed. Bernard McGinn and John Meyendorff (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986), 316–21. 113 Joseph Heijke, “The Image of God according to St. Augustine”, Classical Folia 10 (1956). 114 Sullivan, Image, 43. 115 Augustine, De Spiritu et Littera XXVIII.48 [PL 44 c.230]; De Trinitate XIV.iv.6 [PL 42 c.927]. 116 Augustine, De Trinitate XIV.viii.11 [PL 42 c.1044]. On this, Sullivan, Image, 49–53. 117 Image, 235. 118 Aquinas, STh I q.93 a.4.

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closely associated with the concept of “original righteousness” (cf., Eccl 7:29), which Aquinas explicitly regards as a gift of grace, or a further God-given accidental quality over and above nature itself and the purely natural gifts.119 That is to say, in addition to his possession of various natural gifts, such as the light of nature and the natural virtues, Adam was graciously furnished with a rectitude of the faculties under the rule of reason, together with the peculiar “theological” virtues, not least the special light of grace which enabled him to discern the route to his supernatural end.120 Unlike some later Catholics, Aquinas believes this donum superadditum was concreated with Adam’s nature.121 In other words, Adam was born possessing both the natural and gracious imago; and it is the latter aspect alone which was lost in his Fall, only to be restored again by a further act of grace, and fully perfected in glory. However, this bifurcation between Adam’s natural and supernatural states was widened by sixteenth-century Catholics, who increasingly sought to distinguish between a state of integrity and a state of “pure nature”. According to de Lubac,122 mediaeval scholastics had always been prepared to consider Adam’s nature apart from its various accidental gifts, or theological virtues, as it merely consisted in its essential powers.123 However, it was generally only discussed in the abstract. And when it was proposed as a concrete description of Adam’s first creation,124 it was not done in a way that might suggest that Adam was created for anything other than a supernatural end, which would only arise with the help of the gifts and graces he immediately received after his creation. Nonetheless, by the late sixteenth century, “pure nature” grew in prominence as a hypothetical or even real state, possessing its own natural end, in which God, by his absolute power, could well have left unfallen Adam. As Bartolom¦ de Medina defines it, this state was understood to entail a strictly natural conflict (pugnam) between 119 120 121 122

STh I q.95 a.1. STh I q.94 a.1, a.3, a.4; q.95 a.1, a.3. STh I q.95 a.1. See Henri de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, trans. Lancelot Sheppard (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1969), 240–62; passim. 123 However, de Lubac argues that some, like the mature Aquinas, steered away from the discussion altogether : de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, 243–4. De Lubac’s reading of Aquinas has been somewhat controversial, it must be said. While all agree that according to Aquinas, Adam was created in grace for a supernatural end, against de Lubac, a number of modern commentators are convinced that Aquinas clearly distinguishes between his “purely natural” end and the supernatural end he acquires only by grace: e. g., Mulcahy, Pure Nature, 49–122; Stephen A. Long, Natura Pura: On the Recovery of Nature in the Doctrine of Grace (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), 10–51. For a nuanced assessment of the discussion, see Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt, Thomas Aquinas: Faith, Reason, and Following Christ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 128–34. 124 E.g., by Alexander of Hales: de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, 248; cf., Turretin, Institutes, V.ix.4.

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the rational faculties and the sensible, bodily appetites.125 And that would have been Adam’s lot, should he not have received sanctifying grace, including the gift of original righteousness, which brought order to his soul and stipulated a supernatural end.126 Indeed, this distinction between the state of pure nature and the state of grace is how someone like Bellarmine would understand the difference between “image” and “likeness”. From the perspective of the soul’s natural essence alone, Adam was created in God’s “image”. But God’s “likeness” or “original righteousness” was immediately given to augment his nature, neutralising any conflict between the faculties, and furnishing him with the gifts and graces needed to reach his supernatural beatitude.127 The Reformed orthodox understanding of the imago needs to be read against this Catholic development. While the Reformed agree that pura naturalia could be considered strictly in the abstract, analytical sense in which essential nature is distinguished from its accidental gifts and graces, they strongly resisted even the hypothetical possibility that our first parents might have been created in such a state.128 This aversion did not necessarily arise from a philosophical discomfort with “Neoplatonic” ontologies of nature and grace, as Bavinck seems to stress,129 but from several more fundamental reasons.130 First, they felt it would inevitably dilute the depravity of the “fallen” nature inherited by Adam’s descendants. Indeed, there is no essential difference between “pure nature” and “fallen nature”, they argued; only, whereas concupiscence is a mere natural deficiency (defectus) in the first instance, after the Fall it becomes a moral culpability worthy of punishment.131 In other words, Adam’s sin could not be said to have 125 Bartolom¦ de Medina, Expositio in primam secundae […] D. Thomae Aquinatis (Salamanca: Typis haeredum Mathiae Gastij, 1582), q.109 (971b – 972a); cf., Luis de Molina, Concordia liberi arbitrii (Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1876), 16. 126 According to de Lubac, where there had traditionally been a single state of integrity, the state of pure nature was widely added to the discussion of Adam’s pre-Fall condition: de Lubac, Augustinianism and Modern Theology, 249–55. Medina actually considers Adam’s pre-Fall condition in three states: in puris naturalibus, naturae integrae (ordered to a natural end), iustitiae originalis (ordered to a supernatural end by grace): Medina, Expositio, q.109 (972a). 127 Citing numerous Patristic sources, Bellarmine, Opera, IV.18–20; Cf., 23–9. On the older mediaeval distinction between “image” and “likeness”, see, McGinn, “Image”, 326. 128 Turretin, Institutes, V.ix.3. However, Turretin does note that some Augustinians defined pura naturalia rather differently, as a state free from any defect and also including the gift of original righteousness. Turretin points to Jansen, for example: Cornelius Jansen, Augustinus: seu doctrina sancti Augustini de humanae naturae sanitate (Paris: sumptibus Michaelis Soly, 1641), I–III (288ff). Cf., Turretin, Institutes, V.ix.4; Medina, Expositio, q.109 a.2 (989b). 129 So, Bavinck, RD, II.539-54. 130 For the following reasons, see, Turretin, Institutes, V.ix; V.xi. Cf., Owen, Works, X.85–7; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.43 (383b – 384a). 131 Cf., Medina, Expositio, q.85 a.3 (770a, b).

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deprived his nature of something it ever naturally possessed (that is, original righteousness). Secondly, since the Fall cannot be read as the privation of a naturally concreated quality of righteousness, there is the implication that Adam might have been created naturally lawless or disordered. Aside from this being an impossibility, it would inevitably entail the suggestion that God is the author of sin. Finally, it goes against the testimony of scripture which provides ample support for Adam’s concreated original righteousness as the natural and just means for attaining his equally natural end of supernatural blessedness. To insinuate that Adam was not (or may not have been) originally furnished with what he needed to attain this end only further impugns God’s integrity. As Turretin points out, the notion of pura naturalia had also begun to surface in Protestant circles, chiefly in Arminian and Socinian thought,132 with the latter even holding that Adam’s creation in the image of God consisted only in his natural capacity for dominion rather than in any further gift of righteousness. Consequently, Turretin is typical amongst Reformed scholastics in defining the imago both in terms of the soul’s natural essence and formal powers – whether its intellectual and volitional faculties, or its spiritual and intrinsically incorruptible, immortal essence – and its concreated, accidental gifts, chiefly, its original righteousness.133 The Reformed scholastics saw no difficulty in following the Aristotelian paradigm of distinguishing the soul’s essence, powers, and the various qualities and habits which were accidental to the soul’s natural state. Echoing traditional scholasticism, then, they could in a restricted sense rightly call these accidental qualities “gifts” or “graces” added to nature rather than flowing from it, provided they were held to have been naturally concreated with that essence.134 It was the whole soul, therefore, both in its substance and accidents, that was 132 Note, for example, Corvinus’ definition of original righteousness: Johannes Arnoldi Corvinus, Petri Molinaei novi anatomici mala encheiresis (Frankfurt: Erasmus Kempffer, 1622), 119. Cf., Owen, Works, X.84–7. 133 Turretin, Institutes, V.x.6–8. 134 Recently, Baschera has shown how some Reformed writers (e. g., Calvin, Daneau, Kekkermann, and Wollebius) were comfortable describing “original righteousness” as a “supernatural” gift (as the Catholics did), even if they would insist – with all the Reformed – that it was basic to Adam’s original integrity. Others, like Polanus, Bucanus, and Turretin preferred to describe it as a “natural” gift, lest it be understood as some mere donum supperadditum to “pure nature”. Even still, these latter writers would readily distinguish original righteousness as a “concreated”, “accidental” (rather than “substantial”) quality. Either way, all the Reformed were conscious of the Catholic accusation (levelled particularly at the Lutherans) that the deprivation of original righteousness upon sin would turn human nature into something substantially evil. See, Luca Baschera, “Total Depravity? The Consequences of Original Sin in John Calvin and Later Reformed Theology”, in Calvin clarissimus theologus: Papers of the Tenth International Congress on Calvin Research, ed. Herman J. Selderhuis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012).

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the single pre-Fall “image of God” for the Reformed.135 Consequently, some Reformed thinkers explicitly eschewed any neat distinction between “image” and “likeness”, such as was advocated by Bellarmine.136 Even so, most seem happy to set apart that concreated “gift” of original righteousness and holiness as the pre-eminent aspect of the imago.137 Some appear to associate this righteousness specifically with Adam’s volitional integrity, while others see it as an expression of the general rectitude of the soul.138 Either way, this gift of integrity was intimately bound up with the ordering of Adam’s soul under the mind’s habitual “light” which we have discussed extensively already, furnishing him with an inclination to follow the implanted natural law and its annexed covenantal dimensions, thereby finding his beatitude in the vision of God.139 It is worth noting too that in contrast to the Socinians, many of the Reformed considered the notion of “dominion” to be a corporeal effect of the image and original righteousness, or even as a further consequential gift, rather than something necessary to that image.140 Indeed, with an uncontroversial commitment to male headship, Zanchi very clearly restricts “dominion” as image to the body, where he does grant a difference between the sexes, insofar as Adam was created with a particular kind of authority over Eve (1 Cor 11:7), above the general dominion over creation shared by each. However, dominion is not a 135 Zanchi, Operum, t.III cc.683–86; Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, V.34, (I cc.2121–2); James Ussher, A Body of Divinity, ed. Hastings Robinson (London: Seeley and Burnside, 1841), 127–8; Johannes Wollebius, Compendium theologiae christianae (Amstelodami: Aegidium Janssonium Valckenier, 1655), I.viii.7–10 (48); Reynolds, Works, VI.250–78; Leigh, Systeme, III.8 (288–91); Howe, Works, III.53–6; Antonius Walaeus, Opera omnia (Leiden: ex officina F. Hackii, 1643), I.205b; Gomarus, Disputationes Theologicae XV.i.22–7; Maccovius, Loci, XLV (381a – 89a); Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man (Edinburgh: Thomas Turnbull, 1803), I.53; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.29–35 (379b – 81a). For a helpful discussion of the Reformed understanding of the imago as held by Voetius, Mastricht and Driessen, see, Goudriaan, Orthodoxy, 259–66. 136 Leigh, Systeme, III.8 (288); Howe, Works, III.53; Walaeus, Opera, I.205a; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.28 (378b – 379a). 137 Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. George Washington Willard (Columbus: Scott, 1852), 32; Robert Rollock, A Treatise of Gods Effectual Calling, trans. Henry Holland (London: Felix Kyngston, 1603), 135–8; John Flavel, The Whole Works (London: W. Baynes and Son, 1820), II.149; V.529; Davenant, Justification, I.99–100; Howe, Works, III.53–6; Reynolds, Works, II.363; VI.277; Gomarus, Disputationes Theologicae XV.i.27; Turretin, Institutes, V.x.7; IX.viii.3; Witsius, Economy, I.50; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.38 (382a). 138 Cf., e. g., Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, V.34 (I c.2122); Walaeus, Opera, I.206a. 139 As Zanchi remarks, “Hoc lumen intellectus agentis, hoc est, animae nostrae, non minima pars est imaginis Dei, in qua creati sumus.”: Zanchi, Operum, t.III c.596; cf. cc.684–5. Cf., Walaeus, Opera, I.206a. 140 So Owen, Works, I.182; XII.162. Owen is likely to have the Socinians in his sights when he remarks rather tersely, “So fond is their imagination, who would have the image of God to consist solely in these things.”: Works, I.182.

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feature of the soul, where the image resides equally between men and women.141 On that note, it is important to see that a good number of Reformed thinkers, with Owen amongst them, departed from the older mediaeval consensus and extended the imago to the body, to which the soul is inseparably united – not so much with reference to its material essence, but in its instrumental capacity to manifest externally the original righteousness of the essentially invisible soul.142 There is a universal consensus among the Reformed that Adam lost this gift of original righteousness in the Fall. Replacing this habitual righteousness was the habit of sin, which in its thoroughgoing depravity does a considerably better job of imaging the Devil than it does God.143 However, that does not mean all other gifts or qualities were obliterated from the soul. As Turretin remarks, it is not absurd to say “that the image should be said to be partly lost and partly conserved and of the Devil in different respects […]. The former indeed, in the essence of the soul and in the gifts remaining after the fall; the latter, however, in depravity and pollution.”144 Some of those lingering qualities would no doubt include the habits of knowledge and dominion which continue to reflect God’s eternal wisdom and power, and most especially, the enduring, albeit radically truncated light of the law which remains implanted on the soul, and continues to deliver an immediate awareness of its truths and prescriptions.145 Owen’s understanding of the imago sits squarely within this Reformed consensus, with the one important exception that he only obliquely, if ever, speaks of the imago in terms of the soul’s natural substance. On the odd occasion, Owen does hint that the soul’s natural perfections are part of the image: 141 Zanchi, Operum, t.III cc.689–90; cf. cc.681–2. 142 So, Operum, t.III cc.681–3, 686–91; Leigh, Systeme, III.8 (289, 291); Sibbes, Works, V.13; Reynolds, Works, I.289, VI.263; Maccovius, Loci, XLV.iii (386a-b); Owen, Works, III.417–8; Andr¦ Rivet et al., Synopsis purioris theologiae, ed. Herman Bavinck (Leiden: Didericum Donner, 1881), 107, 112. Charnock, on the other hand, does not regard the body as part of the image, although he expects that the likeness of God will spill over into the affections: Charnock, Works, I.271. Polanus is similar : Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, V.34 (I c.2121). Interestingly, Owen appeared to change his view on this, since in his earlier antiSocinian tract, Vindiciae Evangelicae (1655), he had restricted the imago to the rational powers: Owen, Works, XII.102. 143 The idea that fallen man is in the image of the Devil is common, especially in Puritan sources: Ursinus, Heidelberg, 31; Leigh, Systeme, III.8 (306); Flavel, Works, II.539; V.417; Reynolds, Works, II.168; Sibbes, Works, IV.261; Charnock, Works, II.250; IV.169; V.489, 512. 144 Turretin, Institutes, V.x.7. Cf., Mastricht’s remark, “Imago Dei quam diximus, nec plane periit per peccatum; nec plane superest a peccato.”: Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.38 (381b). 145 See, e. g., Zanchi, Operum, t.III c.596; Ursinus, Heidelberg, 31–2; Reynolds, Works, V.302; VI.269–277; Charnock, Works, I.185; Sibbes, Works, III.274; Maccovius, Loci, XLV.iii (386a); Turretin, Institutes, V.xi.8; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.38 (381b – 382a); Voetius, Disputationem, IV.41. Voetius also remarks that the image of God was destroyed (perdita) as to supernatural knowledge, but that knowledge of natural and civil matters was merely wounded (laesa): Voetius, Disputationem, III.714.

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We were created in the image of God. Whatever was good or comely in us was a part of that image; especially the ornaments of our minds, the perfections of our souls. These things had in them a resemblance of, and a correspondency unto, some excellencies in God, whereunto, by the way of analogy, they may be reduced.146

In that sense, Owen readily admits that some “relic” of the image remains after the Fall.147 Nevertheless, when describing the imago, Owen overwhelmingly prefers to emphasise “original righteousness”, or Adam’s concreated habitual light, wherein he was given the right of dominion over creation.148 And because this righteousness was vitiated in the Fall, Owen almost ubiquitously speaks of the image as “lost”, so that in our lapsed condition the right of dominion is withdrawn (even if humanity still “scrambles” for it “with craft and violence”), reducing us to the status of beasts,149 wherein we are now most aptly crowned as the imago Diaboli rather than the imago Dei.150 As we saw in chapter three, Owen does agree that the fallen soul retains some habitual light, but it is only a very poor shadow of what Adam originally possessed as the imago Dei. In some ways, Owen’s decision to accent heavily the habitual, qualitative aspect of the imago reflects the Lutheran orthodox position more than the Reformed, although his occasional inclusion of the soul’s natural perfections needs to be kept in mind.151 Moreover, as noted above, it was commonplace amongst the Reformed to regard the quality of original righteousness as the chief dignity of the image, and accordingly, many freely speak of the image “lost”.152 146 147 148 149

From his Exposition on Psalm 130 (1668): Owen, Works, VI.497. Cf., XI.512; XII.102. Works, VI.497. Cf., XI.512; III.580. Works, I.145, 181–3, 196, 276; III.101–2, 169, 222, 285, 417, 430, 515; X.84; XIX.34–5, 405. Works, III.580. Cf., I.170–1, 182, 184, 186, 188, 208, 276; III.414, 418, 488, 573. Owen even challenges the suggestion that Gen 9:6 and Jas 3:9 are proofs that the imago remains after the Fall: Works, XII.161. 150 Rightly, McDonald, “Image”. McDonald also rightly corrects Kapic’s tendency to define Owen’s “image” primarily in terms of humanity’s structural, facultative resemblance to God, which remains after the Fall, and “likeness” in terms of the actual moral resemblance which does not. Owen does not apply this old distinction this way (as we saw with Bellarmine). She correctly observes that all the references Kapic cites where Owen does appear to contrast “image” and “likeness” refer exclusively to the Christian in whom the image – strictly defined as a quality or habit of grace – is now restored. See, Kapic, Communion, 38–42. 151 Bavinck points to the way the Lutherans (notably Flacius) defined the imago purely in terms of original righteousness: Bavinck, RD, II.553–4. Zanchi surely had them in mind when refuting this position, which he traces back to Origen, regarding it as “very absurd” (perabsurdum est): Zanchi, Operum, t.III cc.680–1. On some important developments and variations in the Lutheran position vis-—-vis original righteousness, see Baschera, “Total Depravity?”, 43–7. 152 As Ursinus remarks, “Those things which we have lost of the image of God are by far the greatest and most important benefits”: Ursinus, Heidelberg, 32. Interestingly, Goudriaan finds Voetius accenting the “narrow definition” of the imago, albeit not denying the wider aspect. In this respect he appears to be quite similar to Owen: Goudriaan, Orthodoxy, 260–3.

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What may lie behind Owen’s tendency to underline the qualitative dimension of the imago is his special interest in its restoration by Christ. Indeed, Owen’s Christologia portrays the entirety of redemptive, covenantal history as the restoration of the image lost in the person and work of Christ.153 According to Owen, Adam’s creation in the image of God was not about the nature of humanity in the abstract. Rather, it was the pre-eminent means by which God’s nature was analogically “represented” in creation so that he could be known, enjoyed and glorified.154 It is worth noting here that Owen is not alone amongst Reformed thinkers in accenting the representative function of the image. Zanchi, for example, remarks that after creating the world, God established a “visible image” (visibilem imaginem) in it, so that as a kind of “vicar of God” (Dei vicarius), humanity might mediate God’s dominion and be the means by which he could be obeyed and loved. Indeed, the visible human body (along with its inseparably united soul) was to function as “the most excellent mirror of all” (speculo omnium excellentissimo), by which the shining majesty of the invisible God may be seen and known.155 Owen believes a crisis of cosmic proportions ensued when Adam fell and besmirched the very dignity of the God he was designed to represent. Left with this thoroughly intolerable situation, God in his infinite wisdom planned to represent his glory once again, only this time in the most intimate, complete, eminent and indestructible fashion ever conceivable – through a union of his nature to ours in the one person of his Son. Owen stops short of saying that redemption was somehow necessary ; nonetheless, in view of its historical actuality at the very least, he can safely say that God’s salvific manifestation in the flesh was clearly “becoming” to his infinite wisdom.156 Accordingly, Owen distinguishes between Christ as the “essential” image of God in his divine person, and as the “representative” image through his incarnation.157 The Son is the essential image of God, not so much in his eternal divine nature or essence absolutely considered, but as he receives that essence and his distinct personality from the Father.158 Given the nature of these eternal processions, Owen considers the Son to be uniquely suited to making an external representation of that nature, not in the invisible nature itself, but through union 153 Owen, Works, I.27. In his Pneumatologia he remarks, “The renovation of the image of God was one principal design of Christ and his coming.”: Works, III.629. 154 Owen, Works, I.181–3; cf. 61. 155 Zanchi, Operum, t.III cc690–3. 156 The distinction between what is “necessary” versus what is “becoming” is crucial in this section of Christologia: Owen, Works, I.183–205. 157 Works, I.71–2, 78, 79–80; cf. I.65–79, 293–309. For this distinction, compare, Junius, Opuscula, 80–1; Zanchi, Operum, t.I cc.73–4; Turretin, Institutes, III.xxix.17. 158 Owen, Works, I.71–2.

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to a nature like ours. Indeed, Owen frequently insists it is the whole person, God and Man who is the “representative” image of God. Nevertheless, because of this union, Christ is the most eminent expression of the divine excellencies in the entire created order.159 If one is to locate the definitive instantiation of any invisible divine perfection, the search must terminate with the historical contours of the incarnate Son, beginning with his birth, and extending right through to his heavenly exaltation: it is humanity no less than divinity that must ultimately be defined by the one place where finite and infinite perfections meet, hypostatically, in the singular person of the Son. Owen illustrates this with “love” in the section mentioned above. Since the eternal love of God proceeds from the Father and terminates in the Son, it is in the incarnation that one will find the most perfect manifestation or resemblance of that divine love in the created order, that is, in the love of the eternal Father for the incarnate Son.160 Owen could never be accused, then, of having a theology that is insufficiently “christocentric”. Yet clearly, Christ’s role as the representative image of God is not to be understood in some self-enclosed vacuum, but is located within his redemptive mission as the mediator between God and fallen humanity. On the one hand, the graces which fill his humanity are the pattern or “exemplar” for the restoration of the image in the elect. Indeed, whatever else has been said about Owen’s “Spirit christology”, the Spirit’s role in fashioning an analogical exemplification of the divine nature within the Son’s mediatorial humanity must surely count as one of its chief features.161 Consequently, what marks out the Son’s humanity from ours is not so much a substantial difference, but an unsurpassed qualitative difference, resting on both the hypostatic union and his special office as mediator. And it is this difference, emerging as it does from his christology, that surely goes some way to explaining his special interest in the dynamic, qualitative aspect of the imago Dei as its primary characteristic, over and against any substantial dimensions he may tacitly assume. On the other hand, because the incarnate Christ is also the divine Son, or the “essential” image of God, he is effectually able to represent that “exemplar” or image to humanity, truly communicating its glorious pattern to the elect, and thereby transforming them into its likeness. Consequently, in company with the Reformed, Owen ties the restoration of the image chiefly to the infusion of Christ’s “life”, or the habit of grace and its supernatural light infused into the

159 Works, I.69. 160 Works, I.144–6. 161 So, Alan Spence, Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (London: T& T Clark, 2007), 18–26, 116–9. Cf., Owen, Works, III.183, 186–8.

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soul at regeneration (cf., Eph 4:24), as Cleveland rightly points out.162 Just as Adam’s image was his habit of “original righteousness”, coupled with the unspoiled light of the implanted natural law, so a Christian’s image consists in Christ’s life, together with the infused light of grace. But herein lies the crucial connection for Owen between Christ and scripture to which others have hinted before.163 Given the way Owen identifies this infused life of Christ as a habitual form of the gospel Word – as we saw in the last chapter – it is not surprising that he also believes the gospel itself is an accidental “representation” or reflection of Christ, who is the substantial image of God.164 Moreover, just as in regeneration, this image is restored potentially through the implanting of this representative Word, so is it restored actively when the power of faith “sees” the reflected image of Christ in the pages of scripture. Indeed, along with many other Reformed thinkers, Owen takes 2 Corinthians 3:18 as his cue for deeming the gospel Word as a “glass” (speculum) in which a visible image of Christ is reflected, and through which anyone who catches a view of that image by faith might also be transformed into his likeness.165 When this account of the image and its restoration is set alongside Owen’s claims regarding the divine “light” and “power” of scripture, it is easy to see how this christological narrative underwrites the authority of scripture. For inasmuch as the person of Christ is the “sacred repository and treasury” of all truth, the true glory of that truth – which he also styles in Christologia as its “light” and “power” –“derive[s] from this relation unto Christ.”166 Consequently, “[a]ll the evidence of divine spiritual truth, and all the foundation of our real interest in the things whereof it is a declaration – as to the benefit, advantage, and comfort – [also] depend on their relation unto Christ.”167 In other words, the “light” and “power” of divine truth in scripture – the authoritative “evidence” upon which faith is based – is strictly derived from one source, namely, “the glory of God in the face of Christ”: 162 Cleveland, “Thomism”, 160–2. Note, Owen, Works, XIX.35; cf. III.215–22, 386, 468–70, 476, 523–4, 620. Cf., Charnock, Works, III.86–88, 94, 124–9; IV.34; Davenant, Justification, I.99–100; Gomarus, Opera, I.115b, 124b, 572a. 163 Both Trueman and Rehnman point to the important relationship of scripture to Christ in Owen’s thought: Trueman, Claims, 68–71, 73–4, 172; Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 67–8. 164 Owen, Works, IV.169. 165 John Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, trans. John Pringle, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1848), II.186–8; Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.xv.4; Junius, Opuscula, 80–1, 95, 147; Zanchi, Operum, t.I c.167, c.327; Rollock, Treatise, 192–4; Charnock, Works, II.60–1, 211; III.80–1, 157–8, 315, 318–9; Howe, Works, I.204–5, 221, 242, 358; Reynolds, Works, II.125, 165–9, 174; Sibbes, Works, IV.268–9; Goodwin, Works, X.162–6; Gomarus, Disputationes Theologicae XIV.i.45; Mastricht, Theologia, III.ix.49 (388a). 166 Owen, Works, I.79–81. 167 Works, I.82. Cf., his commentary on Hebrews 4:12: Works, XXI.351-62.

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whereas all the life and power of these truths, all their beauty, symmetry, and harmony in their union and conjunction, which is expressive of divine wisdom, is all from him, who, as a living spirit diffused through the whole system [of scripture], both acts and animates it – all the treasures of truth, wisdom, and knowledge, may be well said to be hid in him.168

To behold an image of Christ in scripture is “not a work of fancy or imagination”, then, but simply the exercise of faith “on divine revelations”.169 Herein lies the reason for the great blasphemy Owen sees in religious iconography, as Kay rightly points out: we must not create any “image” of God because God has given us his.170 What this means is that there is a formal parallel between what is represented of God in Christ, and what is represented and evidenced in scripture. If someone cannot “see” the “light” of Christ as he uniquely and supremely represents God through his incarnate life, it is simply because the divine Christ has not yet “powerfully” infused that identical image as a habit within their soul. In Owen’s mind, however, this is no different from saying that a person will never see Christ’s light in scripture, nor experience its transforming effects, until Christ powerfully communicates that light into the soul “in and by” the scriptures themselves. In other words, the authority of scripture in Owen’s thought cannot be properly viewed apart from the mediatorial authority of Christ. Any inherent light it contains, or instrumental power it wields, is none other than a spiritual communication of the “light” and “power” that finds its terminus in his person and natures alone. The following passage from Owen’s Exposition on Psalm 130 (1668) captures succinctly the fundamental role of the scriptural Word as it animates the interface between the Triune God and the Christian life, a theological foundation which pervades all of his mature discourses. It is worth quoting at length: [W]e are said to “see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ;” because he being his image, the love, grace, and truth of the Father are represented and made conspicuous in him. […] And how do we behold his glory? In a glass,—“As in a glass;” that is, in the gospel, which hath the image and likeness of Christ, who is the image of God, re-fleeted upon it and communicated unto it. So have we traced truth and grace from the person of the Father unto the Son as mediator, and thence transfused into the word. […] But doth it abide there? No; God by the word of the gospel “shines in our hearts,” 2 Cor 4:6. 168 Owen, Works, I.83; cf. I.69, 74–5, 79–85; 156–61, 261, 275, 314–7, 348, 358, 408–9. 169 Works, I.314; cf. 346. 170 Brian K. Kay, Trinitarian Spirituality : John Owen and the Doctrine of God in Western Devotion (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), 77–9. For a recent and helpful outline of Owen’s attitude towards imagery in Christian worship, see, McGraw, Heavenly Directory, 220–31.

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He irradiates our minds with a saving light into it and apprehension of it. And what thence ensues? The soul of a believer is “changed into the same image” by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost, chap. 3:18; that is, the likeness of Christ implanted on the word is impressed on the soul itself, whereby it is renewed into the image of God, whereunto it was at first created.171

If we take a wider selection surrounding this quotation, it then becomes apparent how, for Owen, the metaphysics of cognition offers a heuristic to explain the manner in which this image is restored. Referring again to Romans 6:17, I know not how in so few words to express that which is emphatically here insinuated by the Holy Ghost. The meaning is, that the doctrine of the gospel begets the form, figure, image, or likeness of itself in the hearts of them that believe, so they are cast into the mould of it. As is the one, so is the other. The principle of grace in the heart and that in the word are as children of the same parent, completely resembling and representing one another. Grace is a living word, and the word is figured, limned grace. As is regeneration, so is a regenerate heart; as is the doctrine of faith, so is a believer.

And it is the adequation of this truth to the soul via the “image” of the Word that causes the corresponding state of certainty – just as in scientia, only more so, given the higher power of faith and the greater dignity of its subject: And this gives great evidence unto and assurance of the things that are believed: “As we have heard, so we have seen and found it.” Such a soul can produce the duplicate of the word, and so adjust all things thereby. […] This brings all into a perfect harmony. There is not, where gospel truth is effectually received and experienced in the soul, only a consonancy merely between the soul and the word, but between the soul and Christ by the word, and the soul and God by Christ. And this gives assured establishment unto the soul in the things that it doth believe […] “That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life, we know to be true”.172

To summarise, then, Owen sees the adequation of the Christian soul to the truth of divine revelation, whether in the habitual sense where the power of faith is created in the soul, or in the actual adherence of faith to that truth, as identical to the restoration of the divine image lost by the Fall. And the reason for this is that the scriptural Word is a manifestation of Christ, the imago Dei par excellence. But it is only an accidental manifestation. Scripture is a pale substitute for the glory of the full heavenly vision to come, when all believers will finally see the “substantial”, “real” representation of God in all the naked divine-human glory of the ascended Christ. That sight will affect a further transformation into his image that is presently well beyond our reach. Yet scripture is perfectly suited to the state of the viator. At present, no one can see God and live. Without the further, 171 Owen, Works, VI.456. 172 Works, VI.456.

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transformative illumination of the “light of glory”, we are confined to seeing Christ according to his “back parts”, via the “dark glass” of scripture, Owen says – in the shadows of all its creaturely, analogical forms and expressions. Consequently, there is no once-for-all vision of Christ this side of eternity. It is only a foretaste of that vision which we may attain, where we come to see an accidental representation of Christ by gathering things, “as it were, one by one, in several parts and parcels, out of the Scripture; and comparing them together in our minds”, so that “they become the object of our present sight, – which is our spiritual comprehension of the things themselves.”173 Yet however provisional it may be, Owen clearly does envisage that some kind of scripturally reflected vision of Christ is foundational to an authentically Christian faith: “This is the distinguishing property and character of saving faith – it beholds the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; – it makes us to discern the manifestation of the glory of God in Christ, as declared in the gospel.”174 In that way, a Christian’s faithful response to scripture’s divine authority merges seamlessly with this vision. Indeed, we have seen how Owen can distinguish between the undifferentiated, absolute veracity of God as the “ultimate formal object of faith”, and the scriptural revelation through which that truth is channelled, or the “immediate formal object of faith”. But equally, he can say that the divine nature of Christ, common to all three persons, is the only “proper formal object” of faith, while it is the “entire person of Christ, as God and man”, who is the “immediate object of our faith”.175 That is, just as the “accidental” medium of scripture is not itself the ultimate cause or reason of faith, but the veracity of God therein, neither is the “representative” hypostatic union, but only Christ’s divine nature, in which his humanity personally subsists.176 Importantly, however, what makes a person’s faith “peculiar” or distinctively Christian is its immediate convergence at once upon the “light of the Gospel” and the “glory of Christ”, which the Word uniquely and exclusively displays (2 Cor 4:4).

5.6

Conclusion

Using Owen’s treatise Reason of Faith as a central point of reference, the past four chapters have attempted to provide a detailed sketch of how he understands scripture to be the formal, authoritative “reason of faith”. As we have seen, Owen is ultimately convinced that scripture receives its authority from its unique 173 174 175 176

Works, I.408; cf. 408–9. Works, I.243. Works, I.131. Cf., Works, I.130–2.

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capacity to mediate the divine truth and rule of Christ which is the basis of a properly “divine and supernatural faith”. Yet, for pastoral reasons above any other, Owen is driven to defend this essentially confessional proposition in the midst of an increasingly bewildering religious context, brimming with rival explanations for the authority which causes and establishes faith. In this setting, it is vital that every Christian knows the reason they believe stems from none other than the authority of God mediated through the text of scripture – not from the church, nor from an entirely subjective afflatus or experience, and certainly not from a set of rational proofs or evidences that offer a pretty good (if not entirely fail-safe) excuse to adopt the Christian faith. It is equally critical, of course, that Owen’s defence of this proposition is itself coherent, and does not in any way undermine its central claim. Consequently, he sets out to show that faith’s infallibly certain assent is acquired in a parallel fashion to the way assent occurs in the ordinary, empirical process of cognition; that is, through “evidence” which adequates the mind to its object and creates the corresponding state of certainty. If every piece of knowledge is accompanied by some empirical evidence or grounds, why should it be any different with the “knowledge of faith”, which is acquired solely through the text of scripture? If anything, the evidence that grounds faith ought to be that much more compelling, Owen maintains.177 Yet, so that he does not undermine the integrity of faith, Owen is always careful to distinguish the “knowledge of faith” from scientia, insofar as it does not arise purely from the sheer evidentness of an object to the intellect, but relies on the special, commanding assent of the will. That is why the unique evidence which grounds faith must operate as a “testimony”, appealing to the whole soul – mind, will and affections alike. Owen goes as far as to claim that this evidence – which he identifies as a reflection of divine “light” and the instrumental divine “power” of scripture – is sufficient to “oblige” anyone to believe, “on pain of [God’s] displeasure.”178 In that way, he agrees with his apologist contemporaries: God will never compel someone to believe without giving them sufficient evidence. Critically for Owen, however, the “ought” does not imply “can”. A person may be blind to scripture’s light, and may never experience its power in a saving fashion. That does not make scripture any less “authoritative”.179 But what it does mean is that behind the selective efficiency of this evidence in inspiring faith and certainty lie the inscrutable decrees of redemption and the special, internal work of the Holy Spirit. Owen would prefer this scenario “ten thousand times” than to suspend 177 Works, IV.17, 90. 178 Works, IV.106; cf. XVI.306. 179 Works, XVI.308–9.

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the authority of scripture from a “natural assent […] upon rational arguments.”180 In other words, the evidence which establishes faith and its concomitant infallible certainty cannot be something visible to the naked eye of reason, even in an unfallen state. Belief in God via scripture is neither a work of natural reason, nor is it simply the theology of unfallen Adam redivivus.181 Consequently, the soul’s native powers need the healing and strengthening power of the Spirit’s regeneration before they can perceive the evidence and form the assent of faith. This is what Owen would call, in Of the Divine Original, the “subjective” dimension of the Spirit’s testimony. Yet as we have seen, this inner illumination and restoration of the soul is none other than an impression of the proclaimed Word itself, habitually implanted on the soul as a creative act, comparable to the concreation of natural light when our souls were first formed. Accordingly, as in natural knowledge, there is in faith an exact symmetry between what is objectively proposed and the subjective capacity to grasp it. And if someone should still object to this appeal to the necessary inner work of the Spirit, Owen would simply point to the weight of orthodox, Catholic testimony as a more than ample endorsement of an entirely uncontroversial truth. The genius of his proposal, then, lies in the way he can account for a perception of scripture’s divine authority that rises above the fallible “opinion” of moral certainty and forms the basis of a genuine Christian faith in God, whilst avoiding the sceptical quagmire that besets Catholic claims to papal authority and the alternative Protestant appeals to the Spirit’s secret inner testimony. Of course, it is important to grant that Owen’s general approach to evidence and faith does not appear to have been entirely unique. As we have seen, Owen notably claims he is saying no more or less than Calvin had done over a century before. Moreover, as we alluded in chapter two, whatever theological and personal differences they had, there are some noteworthy parallels between Owen’s account and Baxter’s slightly later treatment of faith in his Methodus. While Baxter has sometimes been accused of harbouring a more rationalistic account of faith, similar to his Establishment contemporaries,182 in his mature Methodus, he very clearly distinguishes a unique kind of “evidence” in scripture: an “objective light” or impression of divine “goodness”, “truth” and “power”, only perceptible by the faculties when the intellect is subjectively illuminated with 180 Works, IV.106. On this general issue of the selective efficiency of scripture and its relationship to the decree in Reformed theology, note, Muller, PRRD, II.339–40. In accord with Muller’s general remarks, Owen does not make much of the “mechanics of the execution of the decree”, as if it were a Centraldogma, but overwhelmingly emphasises the power of the Word in affecting grace. 181 Note Owen’s remarks: Owen, Works, IV.137–8. 182 So, Wallace, Shapers, 195; similarly, Lamont, Faith, 82.

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exactly the same impression or “image” contained in scripture itself. And it is this evidence which he sees as crucial to the establishment of supernatural, saving faith. Accordingly, like Owen, Baxter believes that as soon as the intellect is illuminated by this “constitutive” evidence of scripture’s authority, the will and affections are then able to yield to that authority with infallible certainty.183 Somewhat differently to Owen, Baxter maintains that, on its own, this “illumination” strictly speaking causes a prior “knowledge” of scripture’s truthfulness that enables faith proper in the truth its contains; nevertheless, Baxter readily concedes that both these aspects rightly belong within a wider definition of supernatural faith.184 One of the most striking things about Owen’s approach is the distinctively metaphysical hue that lingers close to the surface of his theological apologetic, through the incorporation of a peripatetic theory of cognition, widely adopted in scholastic thought well into the seventeenth century. It is true that many aspects of this theory were both controversial and opaque in their detail, and were widely becoming the subject of ridicule within the more enlightened, lay philosophical circles of the late seventeenth century. Be that as it may, the dismantling of the scholastic metaphysical edifice was by no means a swift and entirely decisive event, with aspects of its structure continuing to intrigue philosophers and metaphysicians throughout the seventeenth century (and, it might be said, even to this day). Therefore, however much Owen’s dependence on such a theory may have been labelled old-fashioned as the century drew to a close, he cannot be accused of lacking intellectual credibility by resorting to modes and techniques that had entirely faded from view. The fact that Owen readily assumes a traditional theory of cognition within his explication of faith, evidence, and certainty clearly illustrates the instrumental importance of philosophical or metaphysical tools in making sense of scriptural data, and providing coherent defences of confessional claims like this. Reformed theologians certainly tended to eschew metaphysical speculation and sought to accent the principle of sola scriptura in their theology, more so, perhaps, than their mediaeval predecessors. But this must never be taken to mean that any instrumental use of well-worn explanatory devices and assumptions was somehow dismissed tout court.185 It is true that in this case at least, Owen conceals from his readers much of the precise details of his method. For him, metaphysical concerns are never primary.186 In fact, as Rehnman has 183 Baxter, Methodus, II.123–6. Cf., Burton, Hallowing, 74–8. 184 Baxter, Methodus, II.126. Cf., perhaps, Turretin, Institutes II.iv.13. 185 On this issue, see, Goudriaan, Orthodoxy, 31–83; Rehnman, “Alleged Rationalism”; “Theistic Metaphysics”. 186 Note Owen’s comments in one of his posthumously published sermons: Owen, Works, IX.20–1.

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observed in his study of Theologoumena, Owen at times reserved a good deal of pungent criticism for scholastic metaphysical enterprise, even to the point of censuring its instrumental use in theology. Rehnman postulates that this could well have been a function of Owen’s psychological state when he wrote this particular treatise on the cusp of the Restoration. Faced with the collapse of the Commonwealth, and the accelerating decay of Aristotelian science, alongside an ascending spirit of enlightened tolerance and rational confidence, it may not be such a surprise that Owen’s instincts steer him away from “the philosophical manner of teaching spiritual things” typified in scholasticism, towards a purer, more ancient manner of formulation that closely follows the cadences of scripture itself and, in his view, better serves his pastoral ends.187 In spite of this rhetoric, however, Owen’s Theologoumena still readily adopts various metaphysical commitments redolent of the scholastic tradition – not least on this very matter of cognition.188 And even if Owen harboured a general ambivalence towards the scholastic method of theological disputation well into his maturity,189 Rehnman rightly observes that his cynicism towards the instrumental role of logic and reason in theology is less pronounced in the great treatises he wrote after the 1660s.190 In fact, we can safely say that if Owen were to have jettisoned such frameworks entirely, his very theological enterprise – even if uniquely dominated by the themes of scripture – would have fallen in a heap. We might even go as far as to suggest that if the superior light of grace must somehow overturn the light of nature, then it would inevitably lead to the rather incoherent, almost positivistic requirement of a precise, one-to-one correspondence between all theological discourse and the text of scripture. Yet, as Owen himself acknowledges in one of the last major treatises of his maturity, there is nothing in scripture that leads him to think this should be so. On the contrary : far from overturning the light of nature, it is the light of grace that properly perfects it,191 and as a consequence, licenses the measured, instrumental contribution of its tools (like metaphysics) to the exegetical and dogmatic exercise.192 This interplay between the final authority of scripture and the instrumental, explanatory authority of metaphysics is only further illustrated in the way 187 188 189 190 191 192

Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 123–8. Cf., Owen, Works, XVII.465. See, e. g., Owen, Works, XVII.I.iii.1. See, e. g., Works, IV.187–90. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 120, 127–8. Owen, Works, I.382–3. In Reason of Faith, Owen also remarks that all means of divine revelation harmonize with each other. Consequently, any purported “revelations by faith” which do not agree with “sense and reason, in their proper exercise about their proper objects” – like the doctrine of transubstantiation – may be safely rejected: Works, IV.86.

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Owen’s apologetic for scriptural authority is properly located within a grand, biblical-theological narrative depicting the restoration of the fallen imago Dei. Although this theme is not so explicit in his relatively focussed Reason of Faith, the inter-connections within his mature thought must always be kept in view. And this theme is, arguably, among the most central for Owen. In his view, scripture’s truth and authority derives its theological rationale from its location within a Western economic matrix of redemption that regards the Father as the “fount”, or “origin” of truth, the Son as the expression or “great treasurer of heavenly things”, and the Spirit as the one who “actually communicates” those life-giving truths to the Christian heart.193 Within that economy, the incarnate Son takes centre stage as the substantial “representative” image of God, the highest manifestation of essentially invisible, uncreated glory in the entire creaturely realm. Taking his cue from the apostle Paul, it is the “vision” of that glorious image, reflected in the “glass” of the gospel Word which possesses the transformative power to heal the fallen soul (2 Cor 3:18). As we have seen, Owen interprets that text through the realist metaphysical tradition where vision is esteemed as the most noble of faculties, both as the means by which the soul is adequated to the truth of the external world, and as a metaphor for that subjective certainty of understanding which ensues. Yet, within Owen’s theological narrative, the text fundamentally illustrates the crucial role of the scriptures in mediating the authority of the absent Christ before the glorious visio Dei, when the Christian soul will be utterly transformed into his image, only then through a direct intuition of his uncreated essence and glorified humanity.194 In a sense, then, what scripture provides is a prolepsis of that vision, beginning the process of transformation that only the vision itself will finally complete.195 By comparison to that vision, it is “dark” and “obscure”, pointing to things “far off”. But what can be seen of that glory in the pages of scripture is, nevertheless, very powerful indeed. Why Owen landed on the imago Dei, and particularly 2 Corinthians 3:18–4:6, as such a central theological motif is a matter of speculation. Certainly, the scholastics were quick to incorporate the significance of “vision” within the older philosophical cognitive traditions into a theological narrative which climaxes in the visio Dei. And for the great mystics like Bernard, a present foretaste of that vision marked the summit of all spiritual yearning, resulting in the highest union with God that is conceivable in this life. As a number of scholars 193 For this refrain, see, Works, III.199. 194 Owen concludes his Meditations and Discourses with a lengthy comparison between the present vision of faith and the final visio Dei: Works, I.374–415. 195 Note especially Owen’s comments, Works, I.51–2, 285–93.

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have observed, there is no doubt that the Reformed, including Owen, read Bernard with much fondness.196 It is likely, then, that Owen found within the scholastic and mystical tradition numerous antecedents and hints for his own constructive development of this theme.197 Moreover, among his Reformed brethren, Owen clearly was not alone. Randall Zachman has recently drawn attention to the centrality of the imago and its relationship to the Word in Calvin’s thought,198 and there are certainly indications that a number of Owen’s nearer contemporaries were similarly inclined to accent the transforming visibility of Christ to the eyes of faith, drawing upon the same metaphysical tradition to explain how this occurs.199 What, perhaps, is finally distinctive about Owen’s argument for evidence, then, is the way he has managed to provide an apologetic for scripture’s authority which does not evade, but specifically addresses the concerns of his contemporaries regarding the nature of certainty and objective foundations for belief, and at the same time neatly and coherently harmonises with a majestic, recapitulatory narrative of redemption. This kind of synthesis merely highlights those formidable systematic capacities for which Owen was renowned. But it needs to be remembered that Owen chiefly saw himself as a pastor. In writing Reason of Faith, his primary concern was to ensure that no believer should ever be inclined to fear the imposing challenges that were mounting towards all claims for authority – not least biblical authority – as the seventeenth century drew to a close. Why should a believer regard the scriptures as divine? Not because of some rational “opinion”, as if that is the best one can or should ever expect, nor because of some inner afflatus or secret testimony. It is simply because in them, by faith, they “see” its “light” and “experience” its “power”, which is no less than the “glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

196 See, e. g., Chan, “Meditative”; Dennis E. Tamburello, Union with Christ: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St. Bernard (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994); Arie de Reuver, Sweet Communion: Trajectories of Spirituality from the Middle Ages through the Further Reformation, trans. James A. de Jong (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). 197 Owen uses Bernard’s oft-quoted refrain, “rara hora, brevis mora” at least twice in Meditations and Discourses: Owen, Works, I.293, 378. 198 Randall C. Zachman, Image and Word in the Theology of John Calvin (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 199 See especially, Goodwin, Works, X.161–66; and, Works, I.378–80; IV.233–5; 335–37. Cf., too, Sibbes, Works, II.464ff; IV.250–279; Howe, Works, I.202–5, 221, 242, 358; Reynolds, Works, I.231–2, 370; II.16ff; 125, 145–70; III.19; VI.278–94.

6.

From Christ to scripture: the origin and inspiration of scripture

6.1

Introduction

In the latter part of the previous chapter, we saw how Owen’s understanding of scripture’s authority, or its light and power, which operates as the formal reason of faith, is properly enveloped within a comprehensive narrative of redemption, propelled by the rule of Christ as the representative image of God. For Owen, to arrive at an infallible recognition of scripture’s authority is seamless with faith in Christ himself, wherein as risen Lord he transforms a believer into his image through the reflection of that image in the pages of the text. But if this is what ultimately gives scripture its “formal” authority – its connection to the redemptive rule of Christ – it is only now in our final two chapters that we shift perspectives to consider how Owen accounts for the actual historical existence of scripture, and the manner in which the company of faithful believers are called to respond to its authority. The order is deliberate. We have intentionally chosen not to discuss Owen’s description of scripture’s “inspiration”, for example, without first recognising the nature of its authoritative divine light and power which establishes Christian belief. That is because, since Owen is a believer himself, any theological conclusions he makes about scripture, whether in explaining its authority, origin, inspiration, inherent qualities or use, must be interpreted as proceeding from a faith wherein he himself claims to have “seen” and “felt” its rule, a posteriori. And as we have witnessed already, it should be clear that when Owen comes to address these subjects, he sets about doing so in a fashion which strives to honour that fundamental confession. In other words, irrespective of what order or method Owen has chosen to approach these topics, together with the various factors that have driven him to put pen to paper, there is a theological “logic” embedded in his construal of scriptural authority dictating that any successful or coherent explanation of scripture’s particular features needs to give way to its actual authority. Inasmuch as Kepler was alleged to have described his study of a breathtaking and complex universe as “thinking God’s thoughts after him”, so too

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Owen’s various statements on scripture need to be read as the humble attempt of a Christian theologian to give a faithful and coherent explanation for what he and every other believer has first experienced “in and by” scripture itself – namely, an unforgettable, penetrating and ultimately matchless vision of Christ’s divine rule and glory. This theological foundation needs to be kept in view as we now turn to evaluate Owen’s treatment of scripture’s origin and inspiration, especially as there is, perhaps, no context which has been said to subvert the confessional nature of scriptural authority more than the doctrine of inspiration which emerged in the decades following the Reformation. Indeed, much nineteenthand twentieth-century scholarship has generated the perception that post-Reformation accounts of inspiration typically abstracted scripture from the history of salvation, divorcing its status and authority as the “Word of God” from the life of faith, and causing it to rest rather spuriously on a dogmatic theory instead of the revelatory acts of God. In the body of this chapter, we shall concentrate our attention on the way Owen locates the gradual evolution of the written Word in a biblical and covenantal history centring upon the incarnate manifestation of the mediator, or the “representative” image of God. Following this, we shall then examine Owen’s specific statements on inspiration and discover how Owen draws upon a wellestablished and uncontroversial account of prophecy adapted from Augustine by mediaeval authors like Aquinas. At the outset, however, it is worth surveying some of the older, critical assessments of the early modern Reformed doctrine of inspiration. Not surprisingly, Owen himself has been directly implicated in this prevailing narrative. Therefore, it will be useful, then, to draw attention to its more recent reappraisal by Richard Muller (amongst others), to provide what is arguably a more constructive vantage point from which we can proceed to analyse Owen’s account of the origin and inspiration of scripture.

6.2

Excursus: the problem of “inspiration” in the historiography of Early Modern Protestantism

Undoubtedly a key moment in the evolution of a generally negative appraisal of the notion of “inspiration” as it is found in post-Reformation writings, was Heinrich Heppe’s mid-nineteenth-century assertion that it was only in this postReformation period that “Holy Scripture” came to be identified with the “Word of God”. Heppe’s central assumption is that the Reformers only spoke of “inspiration” in relation to the “revelations” or oracles God made to particular

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prophets and apostles, and not their subsequent oral or written transmission.1 So for Calvin and his early contemporaries, this meant that the authority of the biblical record rested not so much on its inspiration, but in its accurate witness to the acts of inspired revelation which occurred at various points in history. Consequently, he claims, it was only ever the “content” within scripture – that is, its faithful expression of previously revealed truth – and not its “form” which could ever claim divine origin. In Heppe’s view, the ascription of inspiration to the verbal form of scripture was an invention of late sixteenth-century dogmaticians, so that by the seventeenth century, the Word of God had become equated to holy scripture without remainder. This had the deleterious effect, he feels, of divorcing scripture from the history of revelation so that its authority came to rest rather statically on a theory spelling out the inspired manner in which it was recorded, rather than in its participation in the historical acts of God.2 In other words, rather than viewing inspiration as a doctrine which emerges from a confessional recognition and experience of scripture’s authority, Heppe sees it in the exact reverse: it is the very principle or doctrinal explanation upon which scripture’s claim to authority is said to rest. It is well known that Heppe’s assessment of Reformed scholasticism has carried considerable weight in much historiography throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and even up until quite recently. At the very least, the impact of his claims can be felt in just how much subsequent scholarship has treated the doctrine of inspiration as the yardstick of transition between the Reformers and the generations that followed. More tellingly still, a large number of historians and theologians have clearly followed his lead in adopting the thesis that seventeenth-century dogmaticians grounded the authority of scripture on the fact of its inspiration, repeating the assertion that the Reformers’ more precise bifurcation between inspired content and uninspired form was lost on a subsequent generation who simply identified the two.3 1 Heppe, Dogmatics, 14–8. 2 Dogmatics, 18. 3 Assumptions about alleged distinctions between uninspired “form” and inspired “content” appear in the work of, I.A. Dorner, History of Protestant Theology : Particularly in Germany : Viewed According to its Fundamental Movement and in Connection with the Religious, Moral, and Intellectual Life, two vols. (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1871), II.121–33, 244; Frederic W. Farrar, History of Interpretation: Eight Lectures Preached before the University of Oxford in the year MDCCCLXXXV on the Foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton (London: Macmillan, 1886), 339–41; Wilhelm Niesel, The Theology of Calvin (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1956), 33–6; J.K.S. Reid, The Authority of Scripture: A Study of the Reformation and postReformation understanding of the Bible (London: Methuen, 1957), 44, 80–4; John T. McNeill, “The Significance of the Word of God for Calvin”, Church History 28 (1959), 141–2; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 75–9, 87–8, 96–100, 106–14, 125–7, 147–88, 200–23; David W. Lotz, “Sola Scriptura: Luther on Authority”, Interpretation 35 (1981), 267–9; Philip Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed: a Social History of Calvinism (New Haven: Yale University Press,

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A further factor that has influenced this dominant perception of the doctrine is the more recent theological contention over the nature of divine revelation itself. There can be little doubt that a discomfort with some modern versions of inerrancy, as well as any notion that divine revelation could be contained absolutely and objectively within a finite and potentially fallible medium such as the human words of scripture,4 has cast considerable sway in evaluating sixteenth and seventeenth-century views of inspiration. Frequently, those who prefer to think of revelation as a divine encounter or “event” that transcends a written text have found an ally in Heppe’s preference for a doctrine of scripture that distinguishes between the inspired “content” versus the uninspired “form”, and build upon his view that the earlier Reformers did a better job of this than those who followed. Consequently, theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been widely praised or condemned for the degree to which they tie revelation to the literal words of scripture. Not surprisingly, the stronger emphasis upon inspiration found in seventeenth-century Lutheran and Reformed writings has found little support. Assessments about Calvin and Luther differ markedly, however. So, for instance, according to some, Luther never espoused a doctrine of verbal inspiration, and preferred to regard the scriptures as a witness to the incarnate Word, a human vehicle through which a spiritual encounter with that transcendent Word may occur.5 Others are more prepared to concede that Luther did speak of the literal words of scriptures as the inspired Word of God, while claiming that he managed to maintain a pre-eminent stress on Christ’s real presence as the “acting subject” who ensures the “inner effectiveness and authority” of the spoken or written Word.6 2002), 301. On the derivation of “authority” from the theory of inspiration, see, e. g., Dorner, History, II.133; Farrar, History, 365–60; John Clifford, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, Second ed. (London: J.Clarke & Co., 1895), 106–9; Kemper Fullerton, Prophecy and Authority : a Study in the History of the Doctrine and Interpretation of Scripture (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1919), 165–6; Reid, Authority, 72–92; Hermann Diem, Dogmatics (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959), 201, 227; Robert C. Johnson, Authority in Protestant Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), 59; Donald K. McKim, “John Owen’s Doctrine of Scripture in Historical Perspective”, Evangelical Quarterly 45 (1973), 198; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 180–81; Lotz, “Sola Scriptura”, 267–9. 4 E.g., Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics Volume 1 (London: Lutterworth Press, 1949), 15–19. 5 E.g., Revelation and Reason: the Christian Doctrine of Faith and Knowledge (London: SCM, 1947), 125, 127, 145; Philip S. Watson, Let God be God!: an Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (London: Epworth Press, 1947), 174; Reid, Authority, 63ff; Wilhelm Pauck, The Heritage of the Reformation, Revised ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 35, 207–8. 6 Brian A. Gerrish, “Biblical Authority and the Continental Reformation”, Scottish Journal of Theology 10 (1957), 348. Cf., Johnson, Authority, 21–41; Lotz, “Sola Scriptura”, 267–8; Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Thomas F. Torrance, four vols. (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1956–1969), I/2.520. Julius Köstlin defends verbal inspiration in Luther, but argues that his account was flexible enough to allow for the possibility of minor

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The same pattern is evident in Calvin scholarship. On the one hand, Niesel can assert that Calvin’s doctrine of inspiration applies to the way the Spirit may use the words of scripture to point to Christ while never penetrating that text itself “as to be identical with it.”7 T.F. Torrance is similar. He claims that under the influence of John Major, Calvin radically adapted the Scotist idea of “intuitive cognition” as a paradigm for revelation in general. Practically speaking, this means that the words of scripture are essentially equivocal or “opaque” in their relationship to divine truth unless the Spirit uses them subjectively to point to those truths which lie beyond the text itself.8 Both Niesel and Torrance claim that Calvin’s nuanced position was irretrievably distorted by the generation that followed. On the other hand, scholars like Dakin, Dowey, Gerrish, Barth, Brunner, Wallace, Battles, Parker, Forstman and Johnson all to varying degrees admit that Calvin did equate the formal text of Scripture with the divine Word via a doctrine of inspiration,9 although for many of them this creates something of a tension. Dowey, for example, thinks that Calvin’s defence of scripture as the infallible, objective and external authority over and against his Catholic and errors on “secondary” matters: Julius Köstlin, The Theology of Luther in its Historical Development and Inner Harmony, trans. Charles E. Hay, two vols. (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1897), II.223–23, 252–56. For more unqualified defences of verbal inspiration in Luther, see, M. Reu, Luther and the Scriptures (Columbus: The Wartburg Press, 1944); Eugene F. Klug, From Luther to Chemnitz: on Scripture and the Word (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971); Robert D. Preus, “Luther and Biblical Infallibility”, in Inerrancy and the Church, ed. John D. Hannah (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984); Mark D. Thompson, A Sure Ground on Which to Stand: The Relation of Authority and Interpretive Method in Luther’s Approach to Scripture (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004), 47–146. 7 Niesel, Calvin, 32. Wendel is similar, see, FranÅois Wendel, Calvin: the Origins and Development of his Religious Thought (London: Collins, 1965), 156–60. 8 E.g., T.F. Torrance, “Knowledge of God and Speech About Him According to John Calvin”, Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 44 (1964), 409, 415–21; “Intuitive and Abstractive Knowledge: from Duns Scotus to John Calvin”, in De Doctrina Ioannis Duns Scoti: Acts Congressus Scotistice Internationalis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966–68), IV.303–5; The Hermeneutics of John Calvin (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1988), 86, 92–5, 146. Iain Paul seems to follow Torrance along these lines: Iain Paul, Knowledge of God: Calvin, Einstein and Polanyi (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987), 23–38. For a critique of the alleged influence of John Major on Calvin, see, A.N.S. Lane, John Calvin: Student of the Church Fathers (Edinburgh: T& T Clark, 1999), 8–10, 17–25. Cf., Alexandre Ganoczy, The Young Calvin (Philadelphia: Wesminster Press, 1987). See Reid and McNeill for similar reservations about verbal inspiration in Calvin, Reid, Authority, 44–5, cf. 29–55; McNeill, “Word of God”, 140–44. 9 Arthur Dakin, Calvinism (London: Duckworth, 1940), 189–90; Brunner, Revelation, 127–8, 131; T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, second ed. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1969), 73, 76; Gerrish, “Authority”, 353; Johnson, Authority, 42–60; Ronald S. Wallace, Calvin’s Doctrine of the Word and Sacrament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1953), 107–8; H. Jackson Forstman, Word and Spirit: Calvin’s Doctrine of Biblical Authority (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 50–63; Dowey Jr, Knowledge, 101–5; Ford Lewis Battles, “God was Accommodating Himself to Human Capacity”, Interpretation 31 (1977), 34; Karl Barth, The Theology of John Calvin (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1995), 286–7.

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Anabaptist adversaries, risks fracturing the object of authority (scripture) from the object of faith (Christ).10 Gerrish similarly fears that Calvin did not sufficiently integrate the authority of scripture in its “witness to Christ”.11 In other words, while these scholars acknowledge the presence of verbal inspiration in the teaching of Calvin, the idea is seen to jar somewhat with Christ as the preeminent Word of God, to the point where some mute its emphasis in Calvin,12 while others are more willing to associate his position with the more “hardened” and “abstract” versions of inspiration that followed.13 The prevailing impression created in the scholarship influenced by these factors is that the phenomenon of a verbally inspired, inerrant text to have emerged from within Reformed and Lutheran scholastic theology is an essentially negative one. The equation of the literal text of scripture with the Word of God allegedly creates an external authority abstracted from the historical acts of God; a “paper pope” or a “divinised” human text which obscures, if not replaces the living presence of the Word made flesh, paving the way for a logically pristine but essentially sterile theology based on propositions, rather than a dynamic, personal relationship with the Triune God.14 More recently, Richard Muller has convincingly challenged this consensus at many levels. There is no doubt, Muller admits, that later treatments of scripture were forged in the heat of intense polemical encounter, and emerged with considerably more elaborate detail than what can be found in the writings of the Reformers. Nonetheless, against Heppe, he concurs with those who maintain that the notion of a verbally inspired, inerrant canon of scripture was commonplace and hardly contentious throughout the entire period spanning the Middle Ages right through until the late seventeenth century, when only then, under the weight of a burgeoning rationalism, did the situation begin to change. Once this is understood, the allegedly later equation between inspired “content” and what was previously regarded as uninspired “form” becomes a much more problematic thesis to maintain. Moreover, against Heppe’s contention that later Reformed writers collapsed 10 Dowey Jr, Knowledge, 159–63. 11 Gerrish, “Authority”, 353–59. 12 Wallace describes the scriptures as “an imperfect and inappropriate instrument at its very best” for manifesting the presence of Christ: Wallace, Word and Sacrament, 113; cf. 107–13. See also, Johnson, Authority, 42–60; Justo L. Gonz‚lez, A History of Christian Thought (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970–1975), III.270; Paul, Calvin, 29; Barth, Calvin, 167, 286–7. 13 Forstman describes Calvin’s view of scripture as “superstitious”: Forstman, Word and Spirit, 60. See also Brunner, Revelation, 127–8, 131. 14 Cragg’s quip that Calvinism “had become an abstract Scriptural dogmatism” in seventeenthcentury England is typical: Gerald R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason: a Study of Changes in Religious Thought within the Church of England, 1660 to 1700 (Cambridge: University Press, 1950), 60.

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all revelation into an inspired text, Muller points out that the multivalent concept of the “Word” detected by scholars in the writings of Luther and Calvin was no less present in later writers.15 Seventeenth-century theologians had no difficulty distinguishing between the verbum agraphon and the verbum engraphon and were equally capable of recognising that the written Word, which they regarded as a species of “ectypal” theology, was derived from the Incarnate Word, and specifically the theologia unionis, or the body of truth communicated by the Father, through the Son to his human nature.16 As a result, it is hard to argue that the authority of scripture came to rest on a theory of inspiration, and even less that it opened the door to a rationally grounded apologetic.17 Nor can the characterisation of scripture as a static body of propositions displacing personal trust with dogmatic assent stand either. Muller points out that later writers were able to identify Christ not only as the origin of scripture, but also, by corollary, the thematic scope of scripture (scopus scripturae). This ensured a finely tuned balance between recognising God as the ultimate, “formal object” of faith (the principium essendi) and the scriptures as the “material object” of faith (the principium cognoscendi), on the grounds that God’s revelation of himself in Christ is the material subject of all scripture.18 In that way, the Reformed writers did in fact place an accent on the meaning (res) or “content” of scripture, without in any way straining their commitment to its inspired form.19 Finally, Muller suggests that modern equivocation over the nature of revelation has generated serious inaccuracies in the historiography. He is sharply critical of the kind of anachronistic “cherry-picking” that selectively marshals bits and pieces from the tradition to provide a thinly veiled justification for some modern theological agenda.20 Muller rightly points out that the entire Western tradition from Augustine up until the late seventeenth century comfortably assumed that “revelation” consists of what God freely discloses of his infinite self within the finite forms of creation, and more specifically, the human nature of Christ, and the oral or written Word. Therefore, as jarring as it may sound to modern ears, the tradition has always accepted that there is an essential hidd15 Muller, PRRD, II.185–206, 239–42. Cf., Robert D. Preus, The Inspiration of Scripture: a Study in the Theology of the Seventeenth Century Lutheran Dogmaticians (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1955), 29–33. 16 Richard A. Muller, “Christ – the Revelation or the Revealer? Brunner and Reformed Orthodoxy on the Doctrine of the Word of God”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 26 (1983), 311–15. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.185–206. 17 Muller, PRRD, II.185. 18 On Christ as the “scope” of scripture, see, PRRD, II.206–23. On faith and scripture, PRRD, II.285–94. 19 Muller, PRRD, II.263, 269. 20 See, e. g., his critique of T.F. Torrance, Richard A. Muller, “The Barth Legacy : New Athanasius or Origen Redivivus? A Response to T.F. Torrance”, The Thomist 54 (1990).

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enness to God – a deus absconditus behind the deus revelatus.21 These are principles equally enshrined in Calvin’s so called extra calvinisticum and his doctrine of accommodation as they are in the later adaptation of the scholastic distinctions between archetypal and ectypal theology widely found in seventeenth-century Protestant thought.22 In other words, the equation of revelation with accommodated verbal content would have entailed no theological difficulty for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers any more than it did for those who preceded them, and allegations of erecting a merely “external” authority, or of “bibliolatry”, or “divinising” a finite text are patently anachronistic when the context of their thought is properly understood. Similarly, it is no less anachronistic to attempt to recast their positions by imposing on them categories foreign to their own, such as defining accommodation around an artificial bifurcation of inspired content and uninspired form, or overstating any distinction between the words of scripture and the intuitively perceived truth they “point to”. Owen’s understanding of scriptural inspiration was no more or less than a creature of his seventeenth-century Reformed context, and so it is not surprising, perhaps, that it too has been tarred with the brush of mid-twentieth-century disapproval. Stover, for example, begins his McGill doctoral thesis on Owen’s pneumatology by explicitly endorsing a “dynamic”, “existential” – but essentially neo-orthodox – understanding of revelation that refuses to see any permanent identification of the “objective” “Word” or “revelation” with any “subjective” form such as a verbally inspired text.23 Accordingly, via the work of Krusche, Stover essentially repeats Heppe’s claim that Calvin restricted “revelation” to the “historical” “event” of prophecy, so that any subsequent “inspiration” of scripture acts as no more than a “witness” to that event. Later “Calvinists” identify the two so that in a figure like Owen, “revelation” has become “a matter of mental concepts, rather than historical events.” That is to 21 Muller, “Legacy”, 685–92. Cf., PRRD, I.229–38. Gerrish also notes the modern tendency to place more emphasis on Luther’s God hidden in revelation as opposed to the God hidden behind revelation, even though Luther taught both: Brian A. Gerrish, “To the Unknown God: Luther and Calvin on the Hiddenness of God”, Journal of Religion 53 (1973). 22 On “archetypal” and “ectypal” theology, see, Muller, “Brunner”; van Asselt, “Fundamental Meaning”. On Calvin’s doctrine of accommodation, see, Dirk W. Jellema, “God’s ‘Baby Talk’: Calvin and the ‘Errors’ of the Bible”, Reformed Journal 30 (1970); Battles, “Accommodating”; David F. Wright, “Calvin’s Pentateuchal Criticism: Equity, Hardness of Heart, and Divine Accommodation in the Mosaic Harmony Commentary”, Calvin Theological Journal 21 (1986); “Calvin’s Accommodating God”, in Calvinus Sincerioris Religionis Vindex: Calvin as Protector of the Purer Religion, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1997); Stephen R. Holmes, “Calvin on Scripture”, in Calvin, Barth, and Reformed Orthodoxy, ed. Neil B. MacDonald and Carl R. Trueman (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008); Helm, Calvin’s Ideas, 184–208. 23 Stover, “Pneumatology”, 3–11.

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say, “[t]he identity between human thought and divine word would be direct.”24 Consequently, Stover concludes, [r]evelation and enlightenment continually threaten to coalesce in a subjective mental experience. The activity of prophesying and writing of Scripture have a low level of human ingredient, which seems largely divorced from historical contexts. What is transmitted is more in the dimension of timeless truth than real happenings.25

This assessment merely buttresses an even more devastating claim that for Owen, scriptural revelation is little more than an elevated, highly subjective and ahistorical “rational” theology granted to an inspired few ;26 a substitute “incarnation” which wrests faith away from Christ and the historia salutis, and turns it into a purely mental act of comprehension, helped along by the Spirit’s special illumination. For Stover, Owen’s theology of revelation and faith is nothing short of “gnosticism” redivivus. In light of Muller’s reappraisals, Stover’s somewhat anachronistic presuppositions may now appear sufficiently evident that extensive comment is unnecessary. But a couple of observations should be made, at the very least to show that Owen’s understanding of scriptural inspiration is built upon theological foundations which are much more closely tied to the person and work of Christ than Stover suggests. First, consistent with his understanding of scriptural authority, Owen very clearly sets apart the Son as the k|cor oqsi~dgr, or “the essential Word of God” in his eternal deity, and scripture as the k|cor pqovoqij¹r, or “the external word spoken by him”. Scripture, therefore, cannot be either the essential or representative “image of God”, “but it is the revelation and declaration of it unto us, without which we can know nothing of it.”27 As we shall see, it is true that Owen regards scripture as the inspired “Word of God”, not just in its content but also its form,28 yet his confessional commitment to the supreme authority of Christ as the essential Word of God is by no means ruptured by this dogmatic claim. As mentioned in Chapter five, Owen applies a substance and accident distinction to the relationship between Christ and the gospel Word: “[i]n his person absolutely, as the Son of God” are all the divine perfections “essentially”; “in his person as God-man, as vested with his offices, they are substantially […]; and in the glass of the gospel they are accidentally, by revelation, – really, but not substantially, for Christ himself is the body, the substance of all.”29 24 25 26 27 28 29

“Pneumatology”, 105. “Pneumatology”, 108; cf. 123–39. “Pneumatology”, 28–90. Owen, Works, I.74; XXI.349. Works, XVI.305. Works, IV.169.

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Secondly, then, there is absolutely no sense that Owen’s dogmatic statements about scripture somehow prise “revelation” apart from its historical manifestation in the incarnate vocation of the saviour. Quite the contrary, it is only the one in whom humanity is personally united to the Godhead who can properly be called the “substantial” manifestation of divine truth, or the “representative image of God”. As he puts it in his commentary on Hebrews 8:5, “[God] gave a substantial representation of the eternal idea of his wisdom in the incarnation of the Son, in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwelt substantially in the discharge of his work of mediation.” Accordingly, every other manifestation of Christ, in the types and shadows of the Old Testament, and in the gospel itself, can only be “accidental representations” – truly and really the “Word of God” no doubt – but only the means through which faith comes to receive and rest “in Christ himself”.30 These sort of foundational distinctions are readily found in all the Reformed prolegomena – as Muller rightly points out – before they even come to address the doctrine of scripture in its specific locus. And this connection between the loci must not be missed. Most importantly, however, these kinds of statements clearly intend to honour the nature of faith’s confession, that a believer has, in fact, reliably and truthfully experienced the rule or authority of Christ through the medium of scripture. And so for Owen, as much as for any of his Reformed contemporaries, it is simply untrue that faith in the incarnate Son has somehow been supplanted by faith in an incarnate text. Indeed, Heppe’s claim must be turned on its head. For Owen, scriptural authority is not at all based on a theory of inspiration; rather, any conclusions he seeks to draw about the nature of the text itself – whether they regard its origin, inspiration, inherent qualities, or even the nature of its interpretation – must be understood to proceed from the standpoint of a faith that professes the authority of that text, primarily because it is the single instrument by which it has encountered the authority of Christ. Therefore, as we observed at the beginning of this chapter, the actual coherence or otherwise of Owen’s doctrine of inspiration can only be properly evaluated once it is recognised that for him, scripture’s authority is an a posteriori confessional matter ; not something that can be established or shored-up through doctrinal formulation, a priori.

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The origin of scripture

Owen’s desire to honour the instrumental role he gives scripture in mediating the authority of Christ to faith can be witnessed in the way he seeks to explain the 30 Works, XXIII.48.

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origin of the inspired text in a fashion that both respects the pre-eminent rule of Christ, and at the same time seeks to resemble the historical shape dictated by that very authoritative text itself, wherein he has come to learn of Christ. More succinctly and explicitly than anywhere else, it is in his late christological masterpiece, Christologia, that Owen locates the phenomenon of scripture within a christological and historical or covenantal frame. Written in 1679, Owen provides no clues regarding the specific context of the treatise, other than pointing to the “woful contests” which have latterly arisen among those who have “made profession of the Christian religion”.31 It is not hard to imagine the scenario. As Snobelen points out, in the mid-to-late seventeenth century, increasing religious toleration in the Low Countries, and especially the Netherlands, allowed for the rapid advancement of anti-Trinitarian ideas from communities newly expelled from Poland where they had once been largely confined.32 And the significant impact of these ideas – often pejoratively labelled as “Socinian” – in the seventeenth-century English scene is widely understood.33 In view of this, Owen regards it as his highest duty not only to adhere to the truth concerning the person of Christ, but also “to declare his excellency, to plead the cause of his glory, to vindicate his honour, and to witness him the only rest and reward of the souls of men.”34 For this reason, “and no other”, he sets about writing this lengthy apology for the orthodox christological confession. Beginning with Peter’s profession in Matthew 16:16 – “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” – the treatise is effectively a methodical attempt at explaining how this confession is rightly the “sum and substance of that faith” to which all the Apostles would eventually testify. Indeed, if the entire apostolic kerygma can be distilled into such a dense epithet, it is apparent, then, “that all divine truths have such a concatenation among themselves, and do all of them so centre in the person of Christ – as vested with his offices towards the church – that they are all virtually comprised in this confession.”35 At one level, this is a purely theological conclusion that emerges from the nature of faith itself, but 31 Owen, Works, I.4. 32 Stephen D. Snobelen, “‘To us there is but one God, the Father’: Antitrinitarian Textual Criticism in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth- Century England”, in Scripture and Scholarship in Early Modern England, ed. Nicholas Keene and Ariel Hessayon (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 121. 33 See, e. g., H. John McLachlan, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1951); and recently, Sarah Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution: The Challenge of Socinianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Paul C.H. Lim, Mystery Unveiled: The Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). In this vein, Owen explicitly refers to Socinian teaching at numerous points throughout the treatise: Owen, Works, I.39, 41, 83–4, 92, 95–6, 112, 123, 133, 136. 34 Owen, Works, I.5. 35 Works, I.30; cf. 29–35.

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exactly how Owen accounts for it, and what he thinks it means for the evolution of scriptural revelation, is worth some exploration. We have seen in previous chapters that for Owen, the creation of our first parents in the image of God – with their concreated gift of original righteousness – furnished them with the requisite capacity to know, worship and enjoy God through the implanted law and the visible created effects of his wisdom. Not only that, it endowed God with the pre-eminent creaturely representation of his holiness and righteousness, providing both a vehicle through which other creatures might glorify him, and an expression of that very glory itself.36 With their innate, natural illumination, Adam and Eve were entirely capable of discerning what they needed to know of God’s nature, fulfilling the stipulations of the covenant, and entering, eventually, into their reward of promised blessedness. In this state their theology was 1mdi\hetor (“internal”) and 5lvutor (“innate”).37 Indeed, apart from the special “sacramental precept” regarding the tree (Gen 2:15), and the hallowing of the seventh day as the Sabbath (Gen 2:3), it is possible that Adam and Eve did not hear any external, spoken “voice” or “word” of God until their fall from grace (cf., Gen 3:9).38 At the very least, Owen is quite clear that the k|cor pqovoqij¹r (“external Word”), properly called, is to be associated exclusively with the “supernatural” revelation consequent to the Fall.39 The innate light of the implanted law was fully sufficient to deliver both a foundational knowledge of God and his precepts, and a capacity to augment that knowledge through a reflection on the works of nature.40 Consequently, it is fair to say that prior to the Fall, and within the matrix of the original covenant of nature, the manifestation of God’s wisdom in creation was not primarily contingent on some verbal form, but upon the very obedience of Adam itself. As he puts it in Theologoumena, “the obedience of the first man would have been, therefore, a universal and express exemplar of the image of God to all.”41 Yet, for all the glory of this original manifestation, Owen insists it still fell short of representing every essential divine perfection. While God had certainly revealed his “power, wisdom and goodness” in the first creation, apart from that famous triad there are also his “love, grace, and mercy”, which are “no less essential properties of the divine nature.” “[N]one” of these, he says, were “manifested in the works of creation.”42 Even divine goodness had not been

36 37 38 39 40 41 42

Works, I.61, 182–3. Works, XVII.I.iv.3. Works, XVIII.217, 219. Works, XIII.465ff; XVII.I.iv.1. Works, XVII.I.iv.2. Works, XVII.I.iv.7. Works, I.191. Actually, elsewhere in Christologia, he does say “love” was implanted in

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exerted “perfectly” or “to the uttermost”. Nevertheless, “it belongs unto” the “perfection” of divine goodness “to act itself unto the uttermost.” What is more, it is “incumbent” on divine wisdom “to provide for the manifestation of all the other properties of God’s nature.”43 He is even happy to speak of its “necessity”.44 In other words, Owen makes the very real suggestion that the revelation of the divine nature secured through the original righteousness of our first parents could not have been a full-stop to God’s self-glorifying disclosure. Owen never speculates as to what that further revelation may have looked like had Adam not sinned. There is no talk of a prelapsarian decree of incarnation, as Trueman rightly points out.45 The only thing Owen does set down, as we have seen already, is the prospect of Adam’s future covenantal reward (praemium), had he continued in obedience. And in company with other Reformed thinkers like Turretin, Owen thinks there is no reason to believe that apart from some intensification, this reward would have been substantially different from the full revelation of God believers can expect in the visio Dei.46 However, in saying that it was “necessary” for these further attributes of God to be revealed, Owen does not mean that redemption itself was necessary in the event of Adam’s actual sin.47 Redemption is purely an act of God’s free will. What he does say is that whereas it was right and reasonable for fallen angels to be eternally condemned for their part in the cosmic rebellion, the restoration of at least a portion of humanity is, by contrast, something that could be “justly expected”.48 In good Thomist fashion, he speaks of it “becoming” God’s wisdom to seize the opportunity afforded by the Fall to provide that more perfect, comprehensive and stable manifestation of his perfections in the way of salvation and deliverance.49 It is obviously fair to say that salvation “became” divine wisdom in light of its actual eventuality and manifestation in scripture. Yet, Owen is clear that this is a conclusion that can even be inferred from creation and providence itself: “The glorious properties of the nature of God, whose manifestation and exaltation in all the works that outwardly are of him he designeth, do require that there should be salvation for sinners.”50 Again, Owen resists any less than edifying conjectures regarding the order of decrees.51 Nevertheless,

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

creation as a reflection of Triune love. What he probably means here, then, is the kind of love that entails grace and mercy : Works, I.144. Owen, Works, I.191; cf. XVIII.159–60. Works, XVIII.160. Works, XVII.I.iv.7. Cf., Trueman, Claims, 63. Owen, Works, XVII.I.iv.7. Works, I.190; XVIII.156. Works, XVIII.160. Cf., 156–9; I.188–9. Works, I.188-205. Here he is specifically speaking about creation: Works, XVIII.159. Works, I.62. Trueman rightly notes that Owen never proposes a supralapsarian decree of

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what ought to be apparent, at least, is the way he eschews any radical voluntarism when it comes to the possibility of redemption. Indeed, he practically goes as far as saying that while God could have, absolutely speaking, chosen not to redeem sinners in the event of their Fall, having decreed a world such as he did, it is fair to assume that this would have been a virtual impossibility, unbecoming to the nature of divine wisdom. That is to say, the decision to create this world seems to “require” redemption in the event of God permitting sin.52 For all that, however, Owen remains pessimistic about the capacity to discern that expectation sheerly through the innate light of nature that remains after the Fall. When Adam’s eyes were opened to his sin, no “revelation that God had then made of himself, either by the works of his power and wisdom, or by any inbred impressions on the souls of men concreated with them [would] give encouragement unto them that had sinned against him to expect relief.” Quite the contrary, the light of nature only induces the terror of punishment.53 In other words, however much the nature of creation seems to require the redemption of fallen human beings, without any further, special revelation beyond the light of nature, we are at a complete loss when it comes to fathoming out how or if this could actually occur. And Owen thinks it is important to feel the weight of this conclusion, lest his readers fail to appreciate their utter dependence on a further, glorious, and gracious manifestation of inscrutable divine wisdom, if the hope and plan of redemption is ever to be known.54 It was “[i]n this state of things”, then, that “infinite Wisdom did interpose itself”, Owen says, solving “all difficulties” “in that glorious, ineffable contrivance of the person of Christ – or of the divine nature in the eternal Son of God and of ours in the same individual person.”55 That is to say, in the infinite wisdom and providence of God, it is the occasion of sin and the consequent act of redemption which, in Owen’s view, has afforded the highest manifestation of

52

53

54 55

election – at least explicitly – in the way Thomas Goodwin does, for example: Trueman, Claims, 127–8. Notwithstanding Trueman’s remark (n.51), Owen does hint that the creation of this world somehow requires the Fall as the means by which God could make the necessary manifestation of his gracious love, tipping things somewhat in a supralapsarian direction: “Had never any stood in need of grace and mercy, or, doing so, had never been made partakers of them, it could not have been known that there was that kind of goodness in his nature, which yet is his design principally to glorify himself in.”: Owen, Works, XVIII.160; cf. I.188–9. Works, XVIII.156. For the alternative view, see, Samuel Rutherford, The covenant of life opened (Edinburgh: Andro Anderson, 1655), 6–7. In Hebrews, Owen suggests that any worship of God after the Fall – including false worship – is a function of the expectation or rumour of redemption having been ignited by the special promise of Gen 3:15, and not, therefore, from the light of nature, which only induces fear of punishment: Owen, Works, XVIII.176–7. Owen, Works, I.195, 197, 199, 205. Works, I.205; cf. 204.

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divine excellencies in the entire created order. What was only ever partially disclosed in the works of creation and the original righteousness of Adam, is now comprehensively and uniquely revealed in the person and historical vocation of the incarnate mediator : In the constitution of his person – of two natures, so infinitely distinct and separate in themselves – and in the work it was designed unto, the wisdom, power, goodness, love, grace, mercy, holiness, and faithfulness of God, are manifested unto us. This is the one blessed “image of the invisible God,” wherein we may learn, wherein we may contemplate and adore, all his divine perfections.56

The truly extraordinary and glorious thing is, this outcome has occurred not just in spite of, but even through the wreck of human sinfulness. Indeed, it is this peerless manifestation of divine wisdom in the historical contours of Christ’s redemptive work that animates the entirety of his Christologia. And in this respect, Stover’s complaint that Owen’s Christ only serves an epistemological function entirely divorced from soteriology could not be further from the truth.57 For Owen, the two are bound inextricably together in the person and work of the incarnate mediator. What is more, it may come as no surprise that Owen seeks to ground this historical, incarnate display of God’s wisdom in the eternal decrees of God. Prior to his incarnation, indeed, prior to the foundation of the world, Owen claims that the person of the Son “was ‘set up from everlasting,’ as the foundation of the counsels of God, for the salvation of the church.”58 Here he is referring to Proverbs 8:22–3, which speaks of “wisdom” as the first of God’s works, formed before the foundation of the world. What he has in mind is the so-called pactum salutis, so common in Reformed theology, or the eternal covenant between the Father and the Son for the salvation of the church, and the latter’s glorification therein.59 As Trueman illustrates with reference to the work of Gillespie and Owen, the notion of a pactum salutis is hardly a piece of abstruse speculation, but represents a careful synthesis of biblical exegesis and a dogmatic concern to integrate the history of salvation with orthodox, Trinitarian confessional statements.60 According to Owen, it is this intratrinitarian voluntary agreement, 56 Works, I.73. Cf., Owen’s second digression in his earlier Communion with God (1657), Works, II.79–117. 57 Stover, “Pneumatology”, 77–89. 58 For the following, see Owen, Works, I.54–64. 59 On the development of this theme in seventeenth-century English Reformed theology, see Trueman, Owen, 80–3. 60 Owen, 83–7; also, Carl R. Trueman, “The Harvest of Reformation Mythology? Patrick Gillespie and the Covenant of Redemption”, in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honour of Willem J. van Asselt, ed. Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Willem van Asselt, “Covenant Theology as Relational Theology : The Contributions of

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wherein the Son assumed the office of mediator, that provides the eternal foundation for his eventual incarnation. As in other places, Owen is very careful to distinguish the Son’s official or mediatorial “setting up” as God’s “provisional” wisdom from his consubstantiality with the Father, wherein he is “essential” wisdom. Trueman is right that the Son must be seen to be on both sides of this decree: on one side, he voluntarily assumes this task as the eternal Son, without any trace of subordination; flowing from this on the other side, there is then a subordination strictly coupled to the work of redemption.61 And this dialectic is reflected in the distinct works of creation and redemption: while the creation of the world is a product of the eternal Son as God’s essential wisdom, his historical manifestation in the flesh is entirely bound to his expression of provisional wisdom flowing from the decree of redemption. Owen elsewhere leans on this qualification to fend off the typical Socinian subordinationist claims.62 The genius of this essential-provisional wisdom distinction is that it enables him to maintain seamlessly the Western order of processions in creation and redemption, whilst preserving the important “extra” and the essential deity of the Son. If a pactum salutis results in the Son’s incarnate manifestation as the supreme instantiation of divine wisdom in the created order, it can never be said to exhaust his status as the essential wisdom of God. Yet there is more to notice here. By isolating the office of the mediator from the “first creation”, Owen is claiming that through the Son’s incarnation, the infinite wisdom of God has, in a sense, broken into the old order or “first creation” as something genuinely new : “[I]nfinite Wisdom did interpose itself”, he says.63 At one level, Owen is simply reaffirming the standard Reformed commitment to a duplex cognitio Dei. Moreover, in binding together the history of Christ incarnate with the eternal – albeit provisional – wisdom of God, Owen has provided a covenantal foundation for his conviction that only the incarnate Son can rightly be called the substantial “Word” of God. Yet, the obvious conundrum with such a claim is it appears to exclude all access to that redemptive wisdom from those who have not been directly acquainted with the historical Christ. That may seem like a rather facile remark, but it does point directly to the logic that in Owen’s mind undergirds the phenomenon of a k|cor pqovoqij¹r, or an external, “verbal” Word of God. In the first creation, there was, properly speaking, no k|cor pqovoqij¹r. As we Johannes Cocceius (1603–1669) and John Owen (1616–1683) to a Living Reformed Theology”, in The Ashgate Research Companion to John Owen’s Theology, ed. Kelly M. Kapic and Mark Jones (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); McGraw, Heavenly Directory, 155–66; Edwin E.M. Tay, The Priesthood of Christ: Atonement in the Theology of John Owen (1616–1683) (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2014), ch. 3. 61 Trueman, Claims, 134. 62 Claims, 160–4. 63 Owen, Works, I.204–5.

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have seen, apart from the “positive” decrees, Owen sees the natural theology of the first creation as being overwhelmingly an “internal” (1mdi\hetor) and “innate” (5lvutor) Word, regulated by the concreated light of nature. Yet clearly, God’s first intelligible utterance to human creatures after the Fall well pre-dated God’s new wisdom that broke in with the historical advent of Christ. The first words God spoke after the Fall – at least as they are recorded in scripture – occurred immediately afterwards to a shame-ridden Adam hiding in the Garden: “where are you?” (Gen 3:9). In Owen’s view, the progression of God’s k|cor pqovoqij¹r, or “vocal revelation” as he calls it in his ecclesiological treatise, Truth and Innocence Vindicated (1669),64 begins with God’s various “occasional” utterances stretching back to the “first promise unto Adam” (cf., Gen 3:15) and continues in that ad hoc fashion until the formal, stated institution of the law.65 Indeed, following the historical cues given in scripture itself, Owen outlines in his commentary on Hebrews 1:1–2 four “principal parts and degrees” to that revelation which continued up “until the coming of Christ in his forerunner, John the Baptist.” First, there is the promise made to Adam concerning the “seed” (Gen 3:15), “which was the principle of faith and obedience to the fathers before the flood.” All other occasional pre-diluvian revelations were subservient to this, he says. The second was to Noah after the flood, “in the renewal of the covenant and establishing of the church in his family”, which encompassed all revelation up until the third epoch wherein God spoke to Abraham and restricted the promise to his seed. Finally, there is the Mosaic era, which not only includes the giving of the law, but all the Solomonic wisdom and the so-called former and latter prophets.66 Owen exhaustively charts out this four-fold progression of “supernatural revelation” in Theologoumena (especially Books II–V). And as Rehnman has shown, this kind of scheme clearly reflects Owen’s pedigree as an advocate of Reformed Federalism, which reached its zenith in the seventeenth century. Since the development and expression of covenantal theology was by no means monolithic, it is not surprising, perhaps, that Rehnman finds Owen’s adaptation of a covenantal scheme to a “progressive” development of revelation to be somewhat distinctive, possibly shaped, he suggests, by the influence of Cameron, Ball and Cocceius.67 But what is the status of this new vocal “revelation” from God, if it does not seem to correspond neatly to the old order, nor to the new wisdom inaugurated 64 Here Owen distinguishes the two forms of revelation, 1mdi\hetor and pqovoqij|r, the former pertaining to the “con-created light which is in all men concerning him and his will” and the latter the “vocal revelation” beginning with God’s post-Fall utterance to Adam: Works, XIII.465ff. 65 Also, Works, IV.8. 66 Works, XX.17–8. 67 Rehnman, Divine Discourse, 162–74. Cf., van Asselt, “Covenant Theology”.

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by the advent of Christ? What is vital to see is how Owen attributes the progressive history of this new divine utterance or k|cor pqovoqij¹r directly to the person of the Son, and specifically, his eternally secured role as mediator. “I take it for granted”, he says, “that, from the beginning, from the first promise, the Son of God did, in an especial manner, undertake the care of the church – as unto all the ends of the wisdom, will, and grace of God. […] It evidently followeth on the eternal compact between the Father and him unto this end.”68 That is, even prior to the incarnation, the Son exercised his prophetic office for the instruction of the church. In his pre-incarnate state, the Son discharged his prophetic office in four ways, Owen suggests.69 First, it was discharged “[b]y personal appearances in the likeness of human nature, in the shape of a man, as an indication of his future incarnation.” Secondly, he exercised it through the ministry of angels: insofar as any instruction was delivered via angels – the obvious example is the written law – Owen nevertheless insists it was “immediately” from the Son as the great prophet of the church. The third manifestation of the office came “[b]y sending his Holy Spirit to inspire, act, and guide the prophets, by whom God would reveal himself […] ‘which have been since the world began.’” Finally, by the ministry of those “holy” penmen of scripture, he “gave forth the word that was written for an everlasting rule of faith and obedience unto the church.” It ought to be said too that although Owen does not explicitly include it in this list, he also clearly regards the internal “saving illumination” accompanying faith to be a part of Christ’s prophetic role.70 Owen is clear, then, that ultimately the author of “all the theology of sinners” is God the Son.71 In his mind, the gradual evolution of God’s k|cor pqovoqij¹r before the historical advent of Christ needs to be interpreted as an extension of the “theology” of the mediator that “interposes” itself upon the old order with a new, definitive and saving expression of divine wisdom. It is none other than the means by which God in Christ shapes and administers the history of a new, redemptive “covenant of grace” that is revealed progressively in accordance with

68 69 70 71

Owen, Works, I.88. For this, see, Works, I.89–90. Works, I.88. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XIV.vii.12, 14. Owen points out that properly speaking it is only the “particular administration” of the incarnate Son that is “evangelical theology”, of which he is the immediate and primary “author”. Yet, there is a sense in which all “theology of sinners” prior to his incarnation is also “evangelical theology”: “Auctor ideo theologiae evangelicae immediatus est ipse Jesus Christus, Filius Dei unigenitus. Concessimus quidem superius, omnem peccatorum theologiam aliquo sensu dici posse evangelicam. Etiam ejus utcunque administratae auctor primarius erat ipse Dei Filius […]”: Owen, Works, XVII.VI.i.2; cf. XX.21–3. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XIV.vii.12.

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the “various states and conditions of the church.”72 Indeed, this strong christological underpinning of Old Testament revelation is a Reformed characteristic that reflects their so-called dichotomous understanding of redemptive history,73 and dictates their distinctively unified approach to scripture’s interpretation, over and against the Socinians and Arminians for whom the relationship between Christ and the Old Testament was far more equivocal.74 Of course, the same christological principle applies as much to the evolution of New Testament verbal revelation as it does to that of the Old. Indeed, Owen explains the gradual progress from the ancient ad hoc utterances to the eventual formation of a complete scriptural canon in terms of the Son’s providential care of one, catholic church. Although the original, occasional revelations had been sufficient to guide and direct people in their knowledge of God for faith and obedience, “[t]his way of instruction”, Owen remarks in Reason of Faith, was “in itself imperfect”. Through the “weakness, negligence, and wickedness of men, it proved insufficient to retain the knowledge of God in the world.”75 As he demonstrates at great length in Theologoumena, the ephemeral nature of this revelation was incapable of restraining widespread apostasy and the seductive power of satanic delusion. Consequently, God hath gathered up into the Scripture all divine revelations given out by himself from the beginning of the world, and all that ever shall be so […] that it [the church] may be thoroughly instructed in the whole mind and will of God, and directed in all that worship of him and obedience unto him which is necessary to give us acceptance with him here, and to bring us unto the eternal enjoyment of him hereafter.76

At this point, Owen does not enter into any discussion regarding the final extent (or recognition) of the scriptural canon.77 Rather the point he wishes to em72 Owen, Works, IV.189. 73 For a recent, careful defence of Owen’s nuanced, but essentially “dichotomous” understanding of redemptive history, see, Mark Jones, “The ‘Old’ Covenant”, in Drawn into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates Within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism, ed. Mark Jones and Michael A.G. Haykin (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011); Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 279–303. See, also, the discussion in McGraw, Heavenly Directory, 167–74. 74 For the Socinians, Christ’s prophetic office did not begin until the redemptive will of God was revealed to him in an ecstatic rapture prior to his baptism: Thomas Rees, ed. The Racovian Catechism (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1818), 168–73. Arminian theology similarly tended to exclude the mediatorial office of Christ from Old Testament promises and faith. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XII.v.1–45; XIV.vii.1–20. 75 Owen, Works, IV.10. 76 Works, IV.11. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, II.ii.1–13. 77 It is worth noting here that in discussing the canonical status of the Epistle to the Hebrews, consistent with what we have seen already, Owen regards its authoritative, self-evidencing effect in believers equipped with an “exercised” spiritual sense as the most decisive factor : Owen, Works, XVIII.56–8.

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phasise is that behind the formation of that canon lies the hand of a sovereign God who is chiefly concerned for the welfare of his church. Moreover, with this providential closure of the canon comes the distinct implication that scripture is now the exclusive, complete and sufficient means by which the living God is known, worshipped and enjoyed.78 Even still, Owen is very careful to ensure this final, scriptural k|cor pqovoqij¹r is subordinated not only to the eternal decree of redemption, but also to the eventual historical manifestation of divine wisdom in the incarnate Christ. For Owen, the accidental expression of divine wisdom in scripture never supplants its substantial manifestation in the incarnate Christ as the “representative image of God”. Consequently, not only do all pre-incarnate, Old Testament prophetic utterances compare to Christ himself as a “candle” to the “sun”,79 but every doctrinal manifestation in scripture – Old or New Testament – is “built on this foundation, or proceeds on this supposition – that there is a real representation of the divine nature unto us, which it declares and describes.” This real representation terminates, of course, in the person and work of the incarnate Christ.80 As we have hinted already, what Owen is claiming here is entirely consistent with the common pattern in Reformed prolegomena to subordinate all ectypal theology, including scripture, to the “theology of union”. Ectypal theology is the category reserved for that subset of God’s infinite archetypal self-knowledge communicable to creatures.81 As Muller points out, the Reformed tended to distinguish between ectypal theology in se, which is the “accommodated form or mode of the archetype readied in the mind of God”, and the realisation of that theology in various subjects.82 The Reformed also recognised that the highest actual realisation of ectypal theology would terminate in the humanity of the incarnate Christ (the theologia unionis), so that all other expressions of creaturely theology, even scripture, would be subordinated to this.83 When this somewhat abstract stratification is given its early classic expression in Reformed thought by Junius, for instance, it is no less carefully set within a Trinitarian economy.84 Owen follows a similar pattern. So, in his exegesis of Hebrews 1:1–2, he insists that whatever God has made known through

78 79 80 81

Works, IV.12. Works, IV.9–10. Works, I.69–70. See, e. g., Junius, Opuscula, 53. On this generally, see, van Asselt, “Fundamental Meaning”; Muller, PRRD, I.225–38, 248–69. 82 Muller, PRRD, I.235. 83 Junius speaks of it as the “mother” of the rest of ectypal theology : Junius, Opuscula, 59. 84 See especially, Opuscula, 58–9.

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the prophets and eventually in the Son properly originates with the Father.85 The eternally begotten Son was a “partaker with him in this counsel” as he received his essence from the Father, and in a special sense through his voluntary submission to the decree of redemption. Yet, although Christ is the prophet of the church in his whole person – God and man – it was “in and by his human nature” that he actually discharged this office, as the “‘principium quod’ of all his mediatory actings”.86 When Owen defines the nature of Christ’s human wisdom, he is careful to distinguish it from Lutheran, Catholic and Socinian understandings.87 On the one hand, this body of revealed wisdom is strictly ectypal or a finite – albeit infallible – analogy of archetypal wisdom, as befits his true humanity and role as our servant.88 According to the Reformed, the communicatio idiomatum is suspended entirely from Christ’s single hypostasis and must not be understood as the infusion of divine attributes into Christ’s humanity.89 Furthermore, in company with other Reformed thinkers, Owen considered unbiblical the Catholic tendency to regard Christ as always a comprehensor, possessing a human knowledge that was in a state of fully actualised perfection right from the womb.90 On the other hand, he equally dismissed the Socinian claim that Christ’s wisdom was acquired purely through some ecstatic rapture.91 As part of that habitual grace that enabled him to fulfil his duty to God, Owen believes that Christ was filled from the womb “with a perfection of gracious light and knowledge of God and his will”, yet not in a state of “actual exercise”, since he would grow in wisdom and stature (cf. Luke 2:52) like any other human being. This possession was acquired sheerly through the Son’s immediate sanctification (via the Spirit) of that human nature which he “took into subsistence with himself”.92 However, in an effort to preserve the Father’s distinctive role in redemption and in the communication of saving truth to the church, Owen – perhaps more deliberately than some of his Reformed brethren – distinguishes this theologia unionis, which is a privilege that issues purely from the grace of 85 86 87 88 89

Owen, Works, XX.34ff. Works, XX.30. Works, XX.28–9. Cf., Junius, Opuscula, 56–7. E.g., Turretin, Institutes, XIII.viii.1–42. On the Lutheran understanding, see, Robert D. Preus, The Theology of Post-Reformation Lutheranism: A Study of Theological Prolegomena, Volume I (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1970), 167–3. 90 Cf., Walaeus, Opera, I.115a; Turretin, Institutes, XIII.xiii.1–16. 91 Cf., John Biddle, Twofold Catechism (London: J. Cottrel, 1654), 43–4; Rees, ed. Racovian Catechism, 170–2; pace, Trueman, Claims, 170n. 92 Owen remarks, “[h]e had it by his union, and therefore immediately from the person of the Son, sanctifying that nature by the Holy Ghost, which he took into subsistence with himself.”: Owen, Works, XX.28. Cf., III.168–70. As Trueman points out, this endowment reflects Owen’s Thomistic anthropology, and is parallel to the concreated grace given to Adam: Trueman, Owen, 94–5.

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union, from the peculiar endowment of wisdom that forms the foundation of his prophetic office.93 In the latter, he is said to receive that ectypal wisdom not simply through the hypostatic union, but particularly through the Father’s special gift of the Spirit that was without measure (cf. John 3:34), first received in the womb, and then fully at his baptism. In that respect, Owen presents a slightly modified picture of the typical Reformed position, drawing a sharper distinction between the theologia unionis, properly speaking, and the special theologia mediatoris.94 And through this peculiar gift, perfected at his baptism, Christ certainly was a comprehensor, at least in respect of the redemptive decrees: “[a]ll the mysteries of the counsel between the Father and the eternal Word for the salvation of the elect, with all the way whereby it was to be accomplished, through his own blood, were known unto him […]. [H]e himself dwelt in the midst of those treasures, seeing to the bottom of them.”95 Accordingly, Owen regards this christological reservoir of special prophetic wisdom as the “foundation of the Father’s speaking in the Son as incarnate.”96 And it is this foundation that enables him to account for the historical evolution of the written Word of God in a fashion that strives to resemble the teaching of scripture itself, while at the same time guarding the pre-eminently christological authority and content undergirding all Christian belief. On the one hand, every prophetic utterance and inspired word prior to the Son’s incarnation derives its occasion, authority and content directly from his prophetic office which was “set up” from eternity, and only finally and fully disclosed through his eventual 93 Following texts like John 7:16, 10:18, 12:49 and 14:31, Owen believes the commissioning of the Son’s prophetic capacity always emerges from a special work of the Father, and not immediately from the Son or sheerly through the hypostatic union: Owen, Works, XX.28–31; cf. III.170–4. In Theologoumena, he speaks of that theology which he had via personal union and that which he had via revelations from the Father : Works, XVII.I.iii.6. This modification may be a function of his distinctive concern to appropriate the sanctification of his flesh properly to the Son (via the Spirit), which would thereby exclude the Father’s immediate role in anointing the Son’s humanity for his mediatorial work. Cf., Trueman, Claims, 175–6; Spence, Incarnation, 57, 116–7. Cf., also, Goodwin, Works, VI.11–12. 94 The theologia unionis is often simply defined as a theology which emerges from the hypostatic union. See, e. g., Walaeus, Opera, I.114b – 115a; Turretin, Institutes, I.ii.6 Although Junius casts the theologia unionis in the same Trinitarian (and Johannine) frame of the Father sending the Son and endowing him “without measure”, unlike Owen, he does not make a distinction between this knowledge as a gift flowing purely from the so called “grace of union” versus a discrete, special gift of the Spirit pertaining to the prophetic office: Junius, Opuscula, 58; cf., Alsted, Praecognitorum, I.vi (24–7). Turretin certainly does think Christ received particular spiritual anointings of wisdom at intervals throughout his earthly life, beginning in the womb. But when speaking of the habitual graces given to Christ’s humanity – of which his wisdom was a part – he remarks that they are “ex vi Unionis hypostaticae”: Turretin, Institutes, XVIII.xii.1; cf. XVIII.xiii.8, 9. 95 Owen, Works, XX.31–2. 96 Works, XX.31.

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manifestation in the flesh. On the other hand, Owen sees the New Testament canon as having arisen in the context of the ascended Christ now directly leading the church “into all truth”. In fulfilment of his promise, Christ has gradually taken what is his and made it known to us (cf., John 16:12–15): first “unto the apostles by his inspirations, enabling them infallibly to receive, understand, and declare the whole counsel of God in Christ”, and now “by the word as written and preached.”97 In other words, the entirety of verbal revelation that has ended in an inspired “canon of scripture” is a direct function of the Son’s prophetic authority over a church which spans the grand sweep of biblical history. And in keeping with those New Testament texts which prescribe a particular Trinitarian economy in the work of redemption, Owen is always careful to ground Christ’s mediatorial, prophetic authority in the providential will of the Father, who has covenantally undertaken to redeem an elect through the office assumed by his Son.

6.4

The inspiration of scripture

Given this christological integration of scripture with the theologia mediatoris, it ought to be no surprise that Owen extends this principle, as we have already seen, to the actual inspiration of all verbal and written revelation by attributing it specifically to the “Spirit of Christ”.98 As he points out in Pneumatologia, the “Spirit” may either be denominated absolutely in respect to his person, or in connection with his properties – such as the “Spirit of truth” or “holiness”, or in relationship to other divine persons, such as the “Spirit of the Son” or the “Spirit of Christ”.99 Accordingly, when the scriptures refer to the “Spirit of Christ”, such as in 1 Peter 1:11, Owen interprets this in a classically Western orthodox fashion by seeing here both a reference to his “precession” (sic) from the Son, and a “relation” unto his “work and operations”.100 Indeed, he will not countenance any Socinian reading of this particular text that seeks to pacify a subordinationist agenda by excluding the subjective genitive, and rendering Christ as the mere “object of the Spirit’s teaching, and not the author of his sending!”101 Rather, those Old Testament prophetic utterances must be attributed to the same Spirit, belonging to the same Christ who after his incarnation, death and resurrection would spiritually reveal his truth to the disciples for the instruction of the church. In other words, it is not simply the Spirit, absolutely speaking, who is 97 98 99 100 101

Works, III.197; cf. XX.31. Works, I.102; III.126–34; XXIV.30. Works, III.54. Works, III.63–4. Works, III.62; cf. XII.247–8.

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“the immediate author of all divine revelations”, but specifically in his economic relationship to the person and work of the Son.102 This important attribution recalls the covenantal origin of scripture and adds a further challenge to the wellworn misconception that after Calvin, the authority of scripture came to rest on some theory of inspiration divorced from the authority of Christ. Be that as it may, Owen directly addresses the actual process of verbal inspiration in two places, namely, in Of the Divine Original, and in his later Pneumatologia. In the earlier treatise, his analysis is focussed primarily on the inspiration of written scripture itself, whereas the later treatment forms part of his general discussion regarding the work of the Holy Spirit before the historical advent of Christ or “preparatory to the new creation”. Here he begins with an exposition of the nature of prophecy in general, and follows it with a specific treatment of different forms of prophetic revelation. This discussion of prophecy is invaluable insofar as it serves as an illuminating prelude to what Owen then sets out regarding the inspiration of the written text itself, which he describes as a “distinct species or kind of prophecy”.103 After all, as we have seen, the written Word of scripture needs to be understood within a covenantal history of prophecy, having its origin in ad hoc oral utterances, and ending in an inspired text. Consequently, we will concentrate on the statements in Pneumatologia and begin by mapping out some of Owen’s remarks about the nature of prophecy, before turning to scripture itself.

6.4.1 Prophecy By “prophecy”, Owen has in mind a specific Old Testament gift of the Spirit, “which had the most direct and immediate respect unto Jesus Christ”, for the chief and principal end hereof in the church was to foresignify him, his sufferings, and the glory that should ensue, or to appoint such things to be observed in divine worship as might be types and representations of him.104

Consequently, Owen believes the communication of this gift continued from the beginning of the world up until the advent of Christ, who is the “end of all prophecies”.105 As to its general nature, however, “it consisted in inspiration”, following the cue of 2 Timothy 3:16.106 It is called “inspiration” (heopmeust_a) in this verse on two accounts, Owen believes: first, in view of its “name and nature” 102 103 104 105 106

Works, III.197; cf. 192, 195–7. Works, III.143. Works, III.126. Works, III.128. Works, III.130.

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as the “breath of God” infused into a particular prophet; and secondly, in accordance with the “meekness, gentleness and facility” of all the Spirit’s operations. That is, even if the content of the prophet’s revelation was occasionally somewhat less than “gentle and placid”, the actual inspiration always was.107 Owen then turns to discuss the precise effects of that inspiration itself, as any given prophet was “moved” or “acted” “by the Holy Ghost” (cf. 2 Pet 1:21). At the outset, what is vitally important to notice is how Owen understands this operation as concurring completely with the normal, natural process of cognition which we have seen before. As he explains when he goes on to illustrate the particular forms of prophetic inspiration, there are “three ways whereby we come to know any thing”: first, “[b]y our external senses”; secondly, “[b]y impressions on the fantasy or imagination”; thirdly, “[b]y pure acts of the understanding”. “So”, he says, “God by three ways revealed his will unto the prophets.”108 Straightaway that should signal how inspiration is, for Owen, as much a natural as it is a supernatural affair. However much the Spirit may be miraculously at work in the formation of prophetic revelation, there is no suspension of the prophet’s normal cognitive processes – a point which is often lost in the caricatures of so-called “dictation” theories of inspiration. Rather, what Owen envisages is a special concurrence of divine providence with the natural faculties to produce an authoritative, infallibly truthful revelation. Specifically, there are two aspects to this prophetic event: the prophet’s inspiration and the divine concursus with the prophetic act.

6.4.1.1 Prophetic inspiration When Owen explains the different types of prophetic revelation, he explicitly follows Aquinas’ lead by suggesting that there are three modes God uses which correspond exactly to the different levels of cognition: first, “[b]y objects of their senses, as by audible voices”; secondly, “[b]y impressions on the imagination in dreams and vision”; thirdly, “[b]y illustration or enlightening of their minds”.109 That is to say, God may deliver a prophetic revelation through an articulate voice, such as Moses heard on the mountain, whether as sensible words immediately created by God, or formed and pronounced via the ministry of angels.110 Alternatively, he may use a dream. Although Owen admits that divinely 107 Works, III.131. 108 Works, III.135. 109 Works, III.135 Cf., Aquinas, STh II–II q.174 a.1 ad3. It is worth noting that other seventeenth-century writers set out to describe these modes of prophetic inspiration in considerable detail. E.g., Herman Witsius, Miscellaneorum sacrorum (Utrecht: F. Halmam, 1692), I.ii-xiii. 110 Owen, Works, III.135.

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inspired dreams occurred on various occasions in the New Testament (e. g., Acts 16:10), they were more frequent in the Old. So, “Daniel ‘heard the voice of the words’ of him that spoke unto him ‘when he was in a deep sleep’” (cf., Dan 10:9). Unlike natural dreams, these were deliberately sent by God to “represent the image of things unto their imaginations”.111 Similarly, “God revealed himself in and by visions or representations”.112 Such a representation might be visible to the outward senses of the prophet, as with the burning bush (Exod 3:2), or the men who appeared to Abraham (Gen 18:1–2). On other occasions, a representation was made only to the inward senses of the mind. These impressions may occur through the “visive faculty” as literal, specific visions impressed on the imagination or “fantasy”, as in the instance of Peter’s vision of the sheet (Acts 10:10), or the various representations of God’s throne (cf., 1 Kings 22:19–22; Isa 6; Ezra 1).113 Like Aquinas, Owen points out that for the prophet to receive such an impression, they may have been “deprived” of the use of their “bodily senses” “for a season”.114 Finally, the inward vision may simply refer to the “evidence of the things revealed unto [the prophet], which were cleared as fully to his mind as if he had had an ocular inspection of them.”115 Here he seems to thinking of “vision” in a broader sense, in the way the entire prophecies of Isaiah, Amos, Nahum or Obadiah were called “visions” (cf., Isa 1:1; Amos 1:1; Nah 1:1; Obad 1).116 Perhaps he intends something like what Aquinas describes as the direct impression of an intelligible species upon the prophet’s mind that gives them a certain evident understanding,117 or as Augustine puts it in a passage Owen quotes, a “third kind of vision” – apart from those occurring through bodily senses or the imagination alone – “which is according to the intuition of the mind, by whose understanding, truth and wisdom are seen.”118 In Owen’s words, this kind of revelation occurs through “some more internal species, without any outward sensible appearance; which for the most part, was the Lord’s way of proceeding with the prophets; – which transient light, or discovery of things before unknown, they called a vision.”119 All these different forms of revelation are equally authoritative, Owen says. In explicit opposition to some Jewish commentators, Owen insists that any inspired 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119

Works, III.136. Works, III.136. Works, III.137–8. Works, III.138. Cf., Aquinas, STh II–II q.173 a.3. Works, III.137. Cf., Works, VIII.7. Aquinas, STh II–II q.173 a.2. Owen, Works, III.137n. See Augustine, Contra Adimantum, XVIII [PL 42 c.171]. Referring, here, to Amos 1:1, Nah 1:1, Obad 1: Works, VIII.7. Interestingly, Baron claims all scholastics believe the supernatural infusion of intelligible species is indispensable for internal prophetic inspiration, quoting Su‚rez: Baron, Apologia, 469.

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prophecy is equally authoritative regardless of the mode of inspiration.120 Indeed, this may also set his position apart from Aquinas, who likewise saw degrees of perfection within the various modes of prophecy.121 Owen is undoubtedly trying to avoid a scenario where different weight is given to certain parts of the scriptural canon depending on the particular mode of prophetic inspiration. As Owen is quick to point out, however, it is not enough that a prophet merely receives some kind of impression from God. In addition to the actual revelation, it is necessary that the minds of the prophets be “acted, guided, and raised in a due manner by the Holy Spirit for the receiving of them.”122 Insofar as God has “put those characters of divine truth, holiness, and power” in the scriptural Word, rendering it !ni|pistom, so too is there an “evidence in it unto them who enjoyed its original inspiration”, only more so.123 Yet, for the prophet as much as for any believer, the subjective state of certainty regarding the truthfulness of that revelation requires the Spirit’s concomitant internal elevation of the mind, enabling a perception of its truth. Such an elevation did not give the prophet “a distinct understanding and full comprehension of all the things themselves”, any more than a believer has scientia of scriptural truth. In fact, it is fair to say that all Old Testament prophets had an inferior understanding to even the “meanest believer” after the coming of Christ (cf., 1 Pet 1:10, 11).124 What it did provide the prophet, however, was an “infallible assurance that it was [the Holy Spirit] alone by whom they were acted.”125 In other words, what Owen is describing here is entirely consistent with his general understanding of illumination we have encountered already. Inasmuch as all knowledge requires a concurrence of some input (evidence) and the capacity to perceive that input (illumination), it is no different in the case of prophecy. Only, given its esoteric, supernatural character, the intellect’s natural light is clearly unable to discern the divine origin and truthfulness of a special divine impression without some further illumination. This is not the habitual, saving illumination all believers possess (capable of producing faith, hope and love), but something transient and unique to the prophetic gift.126 But the intellectual assurance it provides distinguishes prophetic inspiration from satanic delusion, enthusiasm, or even mere “prophetic instinct”, where someone may 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

Owen, Works, XVIII.125. Aquinas, STh II–II q.174 a.3, a.4. Owen, Works, III.138. Works, III.133–4. Works, III.132. Works III.133. Works, III.141; cf. XX.32. Cf., Quenstedt, Theologica, I.iv.2 q.3 (I c.100); John Weemse, Exercitations Divine (London: T. Cotes, 1632), 67–8; Witsius, Miscellaneorum, I.ii.10 (15).

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receive a divine revelation without the special capacity to apprehend its origin or nature. That is why, as Aquinas says, figures like Nebuchadnezzar or Balshazzar, who both received dreams from God, could not truly be called “prophets” as they were devoid of any internal light sufficient to judge of their truth.127 The inspired prophet, however, is always the recipient of both. Consequently, while the immediate “illustration or enlightening” of a prophet’s mind may refer to one mode of prophecy through the infusion of some “internal species” or understanding (as we saw above), Owen is also quick to say that illumination must, in another respect, be a condition for all kinds of prophecy, at least in terms of the capacity it provides to perceive the truthfulness and retain the memory of whatever impression is received.128 Only, in the case where a prophet is inspired immediately without any literal voice, dream or vision, the illumination and revelation effectively seem to coincide, putting the prophet’s mind into a state of actualised perception. This divine inspiration of the prophet’s mind is, then, the first indispensable condition for any kind of prophetic event. The twin dimensions of this internal prophetic inspiration – revelation and illumination – not only preserve a basic consistency between inspiration and the way Owen understands the normal processes of cognition, but also clearly locate him within a basically Thomist (and Augustinian) tradition on this theme. It is true that the precise nature of this internal inspiration was subject to different understandings amongst mediaeval interpreters. As we might expect, Scotus, for example, tends to eschew any talk of a special illumination that would somehow augment or “elevate” the intellect’s natural power or light. Instead, he anticipates that the prophet’s state of certainty regarding a particular divine revelation might arise through an immediate activation of their possible intellect by a supernatural agent, as if God were “speaking interiorly” to the prophet.129 Yet, the difference from the older model is subtle, and it stems from Scotus’ desire to keep supernatural agency and the natural capacities of the soul distinct and intact rather than from any substantial disagreement,130 reinforcing Muller’s point that the history of this doctrine throughout the Middle Ages up until the time of the Reformation is marked by 127 Aquinas, STh II–II q.173 a.2. 128 Owen, Works, III.135. Note Augustine’s remark regarding this “third kind of vision” in the passage noted above: “sine quo genere illa duo quae prius posui vel infuctuosa sunt vel etiam in errorem mittunt. Cum enim ea, quae sive corporeis sensibus, sive illi parti animae quae corporalium rerum imagines capit, divinitus demonstrantur, non solum sentiuntur his modis, sed etiam mente intelliguntur, tunc est perfecta revelatio”, Contra Adimantum, XVIII [PL 42 c.171]. 129 See, Scotus, Rep I prol. q.2. 130 So, Stephen P. Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance: Science and the Knowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, Volume Two, God at the Core of Cognition (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 413–4.

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subtle developments like this rather than any significant controversy.131 Indeed, according to Muller, the internal illumination or illustration of the prophet’s mind as an essential dimension of the prophetic event is not only ubiquitous in mediaeval thought, but also passes over “virtually untouched by revision, into the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”132 Owen certainly bears testimony to that claim. 6.4.1.2 Divine concursus The second aspect of the prophetic event wherein the prophet is “moved by the Holy Ghost” can be stated much more briefly. In addition to inspiration, Owen maintains that the Spirit also acts and guides the prophet “as to the very organs of their bodies” through which they communicate “the revelation which they had received by inspiration from him.”133 Owen has in mind a special kind of divine concursus, where the Spirit guides the prophet’s tongues and hands in the oral and written declaration of the prophecy. Once again, this claim is not remarkable. As Aquinas had observed, “in prophetic revelation the prophet’s mind is moved by the Holy Spirit as a defective instrument by its principal agent. Now, the prophet’s mind is moved not only to apprehend something, but also to speaking or doing something.”134 In other words, the Spirit’s principal agency in prophecy does not stop merely with the inspiration of the prophet, leaving them to their own normal devices in the actual communication of that revelation, whether by word or, sometimes, deed.135 For Owen, this would introduce the intolerable possibility of some corruption occurring through the “frailties or infirmities” of the prophet. Rather, the Spirit extends a special concursus over and above the general movements of providence, ensuring the revelation is delivered through the prophet without any corruption, much like water is conveyed through a pipe.136

6.4.2 Scripture Having set out these two general characteristics of the prophetic event, along with the particular modes of inspiration, Owen can then describe the actual 131 Muller also refers to Bonaventure’s different understanding of prophetic illumination: Muller, PRRD, II.42. 132 PRRD, II.61. 133 Owen, Works, III.134. 134 Aquinas, STh II–II q.173 a.4. 135 For Owen’s discussion of prophetic, inspired deeds, see, Owen, Works, III.138–9. 136 Works, III.134.

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process of writing scripture as a “distinct species or kind of prophecy”.137 Accordingly, while its human authors may be communicating historical information or commonly known facts, Owen is still happy to extend to them the title “prophet”, insofar as they are similarly inspired and guided by the Spirit.138 In Owen’s view, there are three things that concurred in the formation of scripture. First, there is the “inspiration of the minds of these prophets with the knowledge and apprehension of the things communicated unto them.” At this point, Owen does not postulate what form this inspiration may have taken, whether it was by a voice, vision or some “more internal species”. Presumably he can envisage all modes of inspiration, depending on the particular author and genre in question. Moses, for example, received much of his inspiration from an articulate voice,139 whereas Ezekiel experienced a sequence of visions, including a representation of the temple wherein the Spirit implanted and preserved “the idea presented unto him on his mind” and enabled “him accurately and infallibly to declare it”.140 Moreover, many writers evidently received no literal voice or vision at all. What is clear, however, is that one way or another, everything actually written in scripture had its origin in a special revelation to the writer of the original autograph, even in the case where it may have pertained to facts or historical details they already knew.141 It is true that here Owen may be presenting a slightly stricter view of inspiration than some. As Muller observes, some Reformed thinkers appear willing to concede that no special suggestion of the Spirit was required for the scriptural communication of matters a writer already knew or could discover from other sources, even if the Spirit still superintended and inspired the actual process of writing to prevent any possibility of any error.142 Owen simply regards his position to be a corollary of 1 Peter 1:10–11, although, like other Protestants, he may have been conscious of the way certain Catholics had adopted the looser approach with undesirable consequences.143 Furthermore, aside from the actual revelation they received, the

137 138 139 140 141 142

Works, III.143. Works, III.143–4. Works, III.135. Works, III.138. Works, III.144; cf. XVI.298. E.g., Weemse, Exercitations, 72–3. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.248–50; noting, Johannes Cocceius, Opera omnia theologica, third ed. (Amsterdam: P & J Blaev, 1701), VII.146a; B¦n¦dict Pictet, Theologia Christiana (Edinburgh: T. Inkersley, 1820), I.vii.3 (24). 143 Bellarmine, for instance, uses the argument that a writer’s historical recollection may not be inspired (even if the actual writing of their thoughts was), to defend the canonical status of 2 Maccabees, where the author explicitly seeks a “pardon” (veniam) for any error in his recollection of events (15:39): Bellarmine, Opera, I.47a-b. Against this view, Preus observes that the orthodox Lutherans insisted that everything in scripture, even factual details otherwise known or knowable, must be divinely revealed to the writers to prevent every

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scriptural writers were, of course, “under that full assurance of divine inspiration which we before described”, like any other prophet. In other words, Owen sees the inspiration of the writer’s mind as being exactly parallel to all forms of prophecy, consisting in both an illumination or elevation of the mind, and the actual revelation itself. In addition to the inspiration of the writers themselves, Owen mentions two other conditions required for the composition of the text: the “suggestion of words unto them to express what their minds conceived”, and finally, the “guidance of their hands in setting down the words suggested.” Here Owen distinguishes his position from those who restrict the Spirit’s inspiration to the illumination of the prophet’s mind with the revelation, leaving the words and expression to “themselves and their own abilities”. This latter position had been advanced by the early Renaissance Spanish exegete, Tostatus (1400–55).144 While Tostatus believes the Spirit prevented the prophets from all error,145 beyond actually illuminating their minds, he does not think there was any special spiritual concursus over the formation of the mental word which the prophet then expresses in actual words, or over their organs of speech. This, he suggests, is what gives prophecy all its stylistic variety and distinguishes it from the forceful possession of a demon.146 Owen on the other hand simply repeats his previous point that the Spirit’s special concursus in the process of cognition must be understood to extend to the very words declared, even down to the last “tittle and Q_ta” lest they be contaminated by “human imperfection”. For otherwise, how could scripture be in every way “divine and infallible”?147 Owen does not touch on any alleged discrepancies or errors within the written canon or attempt to reconcile them in the way others do, but there is no doubt that Owen would view the originally inspired autographs as being without any error.148 He does address what he considers to be minor variations between extant copies of the lost originals, although, of course, like other Reformed writers, Owen believes God has overwhelmingly preserved the originals in the extant copies, as a function of his providential care for his church.149 But in regards to the originals themselves,

144 145 146 147 148

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possibility of human error corrupting the text: Preus, Post-Reformation Lutheranism (I), 278–81. Cf., e. g., Quenstedt, Theologica, I.vi.2 q.3 (I cc.100–1). Owen was obviously familiar with Tostatus: Owen, Works, III.142. Alfonso Tostatus, Opera Omnia (Venetiis: ex Typographica Balleoniana, 1728), XVIII.3a. Tostatus, Opera, XX.411b. Cf., Muller, PRRD, II.46–7. Owen, Works, III.144; cf. XVI.303. Works, III.144; XVI.305. Some seventeenth-century writers like Weemse could make strong statements of inerrancy whilst recognising this applies primarily to its “doctrine” and does not necessarily extend to every factual detail pertaining to their “purposes externall”, as, for instance, with Paul’s unfulfilled promise to come to Spain (Rom 15:24). This was merely an extension of divine accommodation: Weemse, Exercitations, 68–71. Owen, Works, XVI.349–50. Due to limitations in space, we have refrained from making anything more than tangential remarks regarding the providential preservation of the

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it is clear that it is “[n]ot only the doctrine they taught” that was the “word of truth”, but also “the words whereby they taught it”.150 Even still, it is inconceivable that Owen would view this concursus as akin to demonic possession, where the writer’s faculties are somehow violently seized from their control, even less as a crude form of divine dictation. According to Owen, the Spirit chose words that suited the style, vocabulary and familiar expressions of particular writers. Not only that, he sees the Spirit’s special concursus as having operated through the normal cognitive processes whereby a person lands upon appropriate words to signify a particular mental concept or idea: “[w]e may also grant, and do, that they used their own abilities of mind and understanding in the choice of words and expressions”. Only, “the Holy Spirit, who is more intimate unto the minds and skill of men than they are themselves, did so guide, act, and operate in them, as that the words they fixed upon were as directly and certainly from him as if they had been spoken to them by an audible voice.”151 In other words, even if other Reformed writers were able to state the dual agency of the Spirit and the writers somewhat more trenchantly,152 Owen clearly does not view the biblical authors as mere “stenographers” whose mental agency and faculties were largely bypassed in the process of inscripturation.153 Rather, as Trueman suggests, it is much better to view the Spirit’s special concursus here as being consistent with how Owen understands God’s normal providential concursus with secondary causes.154 In that way, Owen can equally affirm the Spirit’s special interest and ultimate sovereignty over the formation of the text, and the genuine mental and bodily agency of those through whom that text is actually produced.

6.4.3 Summary and evaluation To summarise, then, it is clear that Owen’s account of scriptural inspiration is situated squarely within an uncontroversial understanding of the prophetic gift stretching back at least as far as Aquinas, who himself readily adapted it from Patristic sources into his own metaphysical explanation of cognition. Owen’s adoption of this scheme clearly exhibits both a desire to uphold faithfully scripture’s own self-attestation as “God-breathed”, alongside a concern to ex-

150 151 152 153 154

original in extant copies, which is an important part of Owen’s argument in his Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew and Greek Text (1659), and something which could be expanded further elsewhere. Works, XVI.305. Works, III.145. Cf., 144; XVI.305. Cf., e. g., Witsius, Miscellaneorum, I.xi.11, 14 (84–5, 86–7); I.xxii.19 (337). Contra, Stover, “Pneumatology”, 95–6, 101–2. Trueman, Claims, 71–3.

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plain this process in a fashion that plausibly reflects the variety of scriptural genres, and gives due credence to the agency and natural cognitive processes of the human authors involved. In this respect, Owen’s doctrine of inspiration can hardly be accused of introducing a new level of sterile rigidity. In company with many of his Reformed brethren, he draws deeply upon a traditional approach to the issue, and in doing so, is able to show a degree of biblical sensitivity and metaphysical sophistication which has rarely been acknowledged. It is, of course, a creature of its time. Owen’s account of the text’s composition would undoubtedly seem quaintly naive in the light of much modern biblical scholarship, with the elusive notion of “original autographs”, and the like. Even in his own day, some of his assumptions were controversial. As is well known, Owen, along with many of his Reformed contemporaries, insisted upon the antiquity and inspiration of the Hebrew vowel points. In contrast to the Catholics, and a number of Protestants – especially those influenced by the work of Cappellus and Walton – Owen felt it was simply inconceivable that the vowels were not originally inspired.155 Notably, Owen did not regard the vowel points as part of the original prophetic inspiration, following the elder Buxtorf in attributing their final addition to the spiritually inspired work of the great synagogue called by Ezra.156 Yet, for Owen, along with a number of other prominent Protestant thinkers, their inspired antiquity had become an issue of doctrinal importance. The very perspicuity (and, therefore, authority) of scripture was at stake. Without vowels, consonants are entirely opaque – simply “dead and immovable”, he says.157 And for that reason, too, Owen feels that their material, accurate reproduction in all extant copies of the original must fall within the general presumption of God’s providential preservation of the text for the ongoing welfare of his church (cf., Matt 5:18). To suggest otherwise is to “countenance the atheistical notion that God hath no especial regard to his word and worship in the world.”158 Muller has already addressed this general development with characteristic

155 See his Of the Integrity and Purity, Owen, Works, XVI.345–421. 156 Works, XVI.371. Cf., Johann Buxtorf Sr, Tiberias sive commentarius Masoreticus triplex (Basel: J.J. Deckeri, 1665), 109–10; cf. 86–88, 96–116. Owen notes that other (Protestants) regard the vowel points as “coevous” with the original consonants. While he takes a different view, he certainly does not “oppose them”. Cf., e. g., Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, I.37 (I c.486). 157 Especially, Owen, Works, XVI.373. Cf., e. g., Antoine Rudolphe Chevalier, Rudimenta hebraicae linguae (Geneva: F. Le Preux, 1590), 21; Buxtorf Sr, Tiberias, 86–7; Johann Gerhard, Loci theologici (Tübingen: G. Cottae, 1762–80), I.xv (I.268a-b, 270b – 271b); Franciscus D. Junius, Opera Theologica (Geneva: Caldorianus, 1607), II.448; Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, I.37 (I cc.486–90). 158 Owen, Works, IV.232; cf. 213.

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precision, and it is not our intention to cover it in any detail here.159 However, as we draw this section on inspiration to a close, it is worth making a few brief observations on this specific issue of the vowel points. Although it is true, as Muller points out, that earlier Reformed thinkers were considerably more ambivalent about their origin, there is no doubt that the uncompromising stance adopted by Owen and others was heavily influenced by the Catholic polemic against sola scriptura. The Catholics used the late addition of vowel points as a trigger for suggesting a gradual Jewish corruption of the original text, and for the consequent necessity of amending or correcting the extant Hebrew text via the papally sealed authority of the Vulgate.160 Owen feared the incursion of a similar sentiment into Protestant circles with the (admittedly guarded) recommendations in Walton’s new Polyglot Bible (1657) for using older translations to correct the extant text.161 In Owen’s mind, to deny the inspiration of the vowel points was the thin end of a wedge. That is why the debate over the origin of the vowel points was bound up intimately with questions of the text’s accurate preservation under the providential care of the Spirit rather than the institutional care of the church (or its scholars). Whether or not Owen would have (or should have) arrived at a different conclusion in the presence – or, indeed, absence – of such polemic is not for us to decide. And it is certainly unfair and anachronistic for a historian to condemn Owen from the “enlightened” vantage point of modern criticism and its findings, let alone to dictate how those findings ought to have been answered by someone writing several centuries ago.162 Nevertheless, as Muller observes, it is true that other late seventeenth-century Reformed scholastics like Turretin and Heidegger did not tie the perspicuity of scripture to the outcome of the debate over the vowel points (whether it be their inspiration or accurate preservation) in quite the same fashion as Owen, even if they too held to their inspired antiquity. These thinkers employed a subtle distinction between the “sound” or “power” of the points, which must have been inspired with the consonants (since every arrangement of consonants and ordering of words necessarily implies certain vowels), and the actual “figure” or

159 Muller, After Calvin, 146–55. Muller does not address Owen’s position particularly, although to varying degrees, others have touched on this point in Owen already : Theodore P. Letis, “John Owen Versus Brian Walton: A Reformed Response to the Birth of Text Criticism”, in The Majority Text: Essays and Reviews in the Continuing Debate, ed. Theodore P. Letis (Grand Rapids: The Institute for Biblical Textual Studies, 1987); Knapp, “Understanding”, 189–200; Trueman, Claims, 66–7. 160 See Owen’s list of references in his preface, Owen, Works, XVI.285; cf. 283–93. 161 Works, XVI.283–93, 302, 348, 353, 372–3. 162 This is the problem with comments by some scholars who condemn Owen’s stance without remembering that in his day, the status of the vowel points was not yet a given: Stover, “Pneumatology”, 112; Rogers and McKim, Authority, 222; cf. 186.

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“form” of the points themselves which could have been added later.163 Consequently, even if the precise form of the original autographs was inspired – with or without the vowel points – these later writers joined earlier Reformed thinkers in refusing to suspend the doctrinal perspicuity of scripture so strictly from the literal figures of the vowels and their exact preservation in the extant copies. Indeed, Muller points to a reference from Heidegger’s Corpus theologiae which shows a clear capacity to recognise that authoritative scripture is ultimately conveyed in the true sense (sensu) of the words rather than the precise “characters and signs”.164 Even Owen saw that in scripture there were “things or words of less importance”, which is why he was ultimately untroubled by small differences in the extant texts and the various keri and ketib which could easily be resolved through the “analogy of faith”.165 Moreover, it also needs to be said that however much Owen doggedly sees the vowel points as integral to scripture’s perspicuity, he too readily admits a distinction between the “internum formale sacrum” or “sacred sense” of scripture and the externum formale or the “written signs” which the Spirit has inspired to convey that sense. Consequently, while he feels the original – right down to its last “jot and tittle” – retains a unique “energy, to intimate and insinuate the sense of the Holy Ghost unto the minds of men”, his position is not so unworkably rigid that he finds himself unable to refer to an accurate, albeit uninspired translation of the original as the “word of God”.166 While other Reformed writers may have been able to couple greater doctrinal flexibility than Owen on this issue with a more measured attitude towards the critical recommendations of the Polyglot, a final observation is vital. It needs to be said that however much Owen feels the clarity of scripture is at stake in this debate, ultimately his account of its authority and perspicuity does not stand or fall theologically on its outcome. Rather, as we shall see in the next chapter, for Owen, scripture’s perspicuity (as with its authority) needs to be understood as a direct corollary of its self-evidencing light and power, or its capacity to mediate the authority of Christ, inspire Christian faith and transform people into the image of God. In other words, as we emphasised at the beginning of this chapter, Owen’s version of scripture’s inspiration – along with his account of its origin – must be viewed as proceeding chiefly from a confessional standpoint, arising from scripture’s actual divine authority over him, and every other illuminated be163 Turretin, Institutes, II.xi.12; Johann Heinrich Heidegger (et al.), Formula Consensus Ecclesiarum Helveticarum (Zürich: [s.n.], 1675), can2 (3). Cf., Prideaux, Opera, 163–4, 173, 175. For this, Muller, After Calvin, 154. 164 Muller, After Calvin, 155 (n59). 165 Owen, Works, XVI.363, 402; cf. 301. 166 Works, IV.213–4, 216. Contra, Bobick, “Owen”, 144–50.

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liever. This authority is none other than that of the “representative Word”, or the person of Christ who has assumed the office of mediator for the salvation of his elect. So, while Owen does from time to time argue from the fact of the prophet’s spiritual inspiration to the infallibility of their utterances,167 that does not mean he is, in a quasi-rationalistic fashion, somehow grounding their authority in a particular “theory” of inspiration.168 Instead, it needs to be read as a believer’s attempt at explaining how the Spirit of Christ has, in fact, formed (and preserved) a text which is – irrespective of any explanation – sufficiently authoritative and perspicuous to generate Christian faith.169 Certainly, that explanation was, at points, forged in an intense polemical environment, and it may well be open to correction and revision: in view of the historical probabilities regarding the origin of the vowel points, someone may well challenge Owen’s conviction that their inspired origin is absolutely critical for scripture’s perspicuity. But the point is, even if Owen is wrong on the vowel points, this need not necessarily undermine what is for him the fundamentally theological and confessional character of scripture’s authority, or, indeed, its perspicuity, as the unique instrument by which Christ exercises his mediatorial rule over his church.

6.5

Conclusion

In this chapter, we have attempted to show how Owen’s explanation for the origin and inspiration of scripture chiefly seeks to honour a fundamental theological and confessional commitment to the mediatorial authority of Christ, who conveys that rule to elect believers through the instrumental medium of his written Word. In that way, far from explaining scripture’s inspired status as the “Word of God” in a fashion that somehow rivals the unique revelation of the Word made flesh – as some older scholarship has maintained – Owen has clearly made every effort to honour a belief that beyond the theology of nature, there is only the theology of grace, which has broken into the old order supremely and definitively in the incarnate Son. Consequently, every divine Word after the Fall, from its first utterance through to its final canonisation is, in his view, the one prophetic Word of Christ, whose historical manifestation in the flesh represents the highest display of divine excellencies in the created order. Behind the gradual evolution of this completed scriptural canon, Owen sees the Father’s providential care for his church – the Father having ensured that through this written 167 E.g., Owen, Works, XVIII.129. 168 As per Heppe’s famous assessment of the seventeenth-century doctrine, Heppe, Dogmatics, 14–18. 169 Muller makes a similar point: Muller, PRRD, II.243.

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Word alone, he may be sufficiently and reliably known, worshipped and enjoyed. This, of course, has profound implications for the way scripture is to be read and received, as we shall see in the next chapter. In regards to inspiration itself, Owen clearly does not introduce some novel rationalistic theory that somehow serves to ground scriptural authority a priori, but instead, draws upon a well-established metaphysical and dogmatic tradition to give expression to the way he sees the “Spirit of Christ” at work in the prophetic event. These subtle and careful explanations belie the usual caricatures by accounting for the prophet’s agency in a fashion that seamlessly parallels the normal natural (and gracious) processes of cognition with the help of God’s special concursus, and strives to honour the cues provided by the text itself. It is true that Owen’s dogmatic commitment to inspired vowel points would prove to be unworkable. However, in assessing his position, the polemical context must not be forgotten. Beneath Owen’s position was a confessional devotion to the inherent perspicuity of scripture, both in the original, and in its extant copies, reflecting God’s faithfulness and providential care of his church. In his view, the evolving permissiveness towards critical emendations of the text simply clashed with this commitment, and could not be tolerated any more than the Catholic tendency to elevate the Vulgate. Whether or not Owen needed to tie perspicuity so rigidly to the vowel points is another matter, and on this development there appears to have been some latitude among the Reformed. Nevertheless, whatever its on-going dogmatic value, from an historical perspective, Owen’s account needs to be recognised as an attempt to explain the phenomenon of scripture in an increasingly complex intellectual environment, drawing upon a traditional set of tools, but proceeding ultimately from a settled theological conviction that scripture itself is the very authoritative “reason” for his faith. It is an attempt; and like all attempts, it may be open to objection and disagreement at various points. But our primary intention is not to cast judgment; it is simply to see it for what it is: for in the rush to make corrections, it is quite possible that its careful subtleties and internal theological coherence might be overlooked.

7.

From scripture to Christ: authority, perspicuity and the life of faith

7.1

Introduction

In this final chapter, we turn our attention to examining the on-going role of scripture in shaping and regulating the life of faith. That is to say, if scripture operates as the formal reason of faith by mediating the rule of Christ, our final task is to see how Owen thinks this authority should extend itself across a believer’s Christian life. Naturally enough, this question touches on the character of scriptural interpretation, which is a topic that could occupy several studies on its own. Our intention is considerably more modest: it is simply to focus upon the coherent connection Owen makes between the authority and interpretation of scripture, and what that implies for a believer’s actual understanding of God, their relationship to the church, and the duty to deepen their knowledge of God through the conjunction of scripture and various means. In Owen’s mind, so long as a believer is in the world, the “principal work” of their faith is to “behold” the glory of God, “as so represented unto us in Christ”. But if the scriptures are the accidental reflection of that image, the question is, what exactly does Owen think a believer actually comes to see of Christ in the pages of scripture? And how, or by what means, does a believer exercise their faith therein? These are the primary questions for consideration in this final chapter of our study.

7.2

The perspicuity of scripture

Perhaps the most obvious place to begin addressing these questions is by turning to Owen’s sequel to Reason of Faith, which specifically examines the impact of spiritual illumination on a believer’s understanding of scripture, together with the tools and disciplines required in using scripture to deepen their knowledge of God. If Reason of Faith sets out to defend the self-authenticating nature of scriptural authority as the “first fundamental principle of supernatural

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religion”, Causes, Ways, and Means (1678) focuses upon the privileged access to divine mysteries scripture provides any believer, an access which sufficiently establishes and guides the life of faith in preparation for a person’s eternal beatitude. As ever, his concerns are chiefly pastoral. Owen craves to reassure believers whose confidence in scripture is being thrown by spiritually unsettling questions such as, “how do you know the Scriptures to be the word of God?”, or “what assurance have you that you understand any thing contained in them, seeing all sorts of persons are divided about their sense and meaning, nor do you pretend unto any immediate inspiration to give you assurance?” And he makes no secret of identifying whom he thinks is the major nemesis to their confidence, pointing directly to the “Church of Rome” which has capitalised on the “great contests” of the age by vehemently pretending “unto the sole infallible conduct in these things.”1 While we cannot give as extensive an analysis of Causes, Ways, and Means as we did Reason of Faith, its central claim is worthy of some attention inasmuch as it establishes the important, inseparable connection between the self-evidencing authority of scripture and its interpretation by those who have experienced its authority in the irresistible call to faith.

7.2.1 Illumination and the “unction” of the Spirit Taking his cue from numerous scriptural texts,2 Owen’s primary aim in Causes, Ways, and Means is to defend the importance of spiritual illumination as the means by which a saving understanding of scripture is secured by any believer. And it is this illumination which establishes the necessary bridge between the divine authority of scripture as the formal reason of faith, and a believer’s reliable apprehension of its material contents, without dependence upon another authority such as the church’s teaching ministry, or the natural capacities of reason. In other words, just as the illumination of the Spirit causes someone to perceive and acknowledge scripture’s self-attesting divine authority without the aid of any other endorsing testimony – as we saw in chapter four – so too does the same infusion of divine grace cause an essentially unmediated, saving understanding of its material contents. It is no less than a “translation out of darkness into light” (Col 1:13; Eph 5:8; 1 Pet 2:9).3 In defending the necessity of this illumination, Owen may initially surprise us by claiming at points that the material contents of scripture, especially the 1 Owen, Works, IV.120; cf. 121–7. 2 In chapters two and three of the treatise, Owen references a large number of texts, including Job 36:22; Ps 119:18; Isa 25:7; Hos 14:9; Luke 24:44–5; John 6:45, 16:13; 2 Cor 3:13–18; Eph 1:17–9, 4:14; 1 John 2:20, 27. 3 Owen, Works, IV.163.

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central propositions of faith (even the most complex ones concerning God’s triune nature and the like) are so plainly and evidently accommodated to the mind’s natural understanding without any special illumination, “that it is the fault and sin of all men endued with rational abilities if they perceive them not, and assent not unto them upon the evidence of their truth, or of the mind of God in those places of Scripture wherein they are declared.”4 His claim here is, of course, chiefly limited to the “words and terms” of the written medium with their literal grammatical sense.5 Owen will not capitulate to the well-worn Catholic assault upon this claim, which presses the fundamental obscurity of the text, and the concomitant necessary reliance on the church’s authoritative interpretation. Neither will Owen surrender to any suggestion that a need for spiritual illumination to arrive at a full understanding of scripture’s truth somehow vitiates the use of natural reason, or the diligent use of means – whether disciplinary or ecclesiastical – in the understanding of the text. God is no more interested in over-riding our natural and collective capacities in this task than he is in destroying any person’s liberty of the will in regeneration, Owen says.6 Here Owen is no doubt keenly aware that recourse to the necessity of personal illumination raises the ugly spectre of “private interpretations” and irrational enthusiasm, as his adversaries readily pointed out in defending their own positions.7 Accordingly, like Calvin before him, Owen believes that the main doctrines of scripture are made sufficiently “plain” unto the “meanest capacity”, perhaps even to the point where they may seem “most obvious and most exposed unto vulgar apprehension” to the “most wise and learned”.8 That way, without illumination or the authoritative voice of the church, the essential propositions of faith are open and accessible to public scrutiny and comprehension by anyone furnished with a right mind. In this respect, then, is scripture rightly said to be “perspicuous”.9 And as Muller points out, this conviction was a key stake in the ground for the Reformed in their bitter clashes with both the Catholic polem-

4 5 6 7

Works, IV.230. Works, IV.156, 195. Cf., Leigh, Systeme, VII.vii (99). Owen, Works, IV.162. Works, IV.161–2. The Catholics, of course, used this argument in defending the authority of the magisterium. See, e. g., Bellarmine, Opera, I.102–12. Yet, it was also commonly used against the traditional Protestant position by the more critically minded figures of the pre-Enlightenment. See, e. g., Lodewijk Meyer, Philosophia s. scripturae interpres (Halae Magdeburgicae: J.C. Hendel II, 1776), 137–45. Cf., Wilson’s Appendix to the following work, where he responds to Meyer and this particular charge (amongst others): John Wilson, The Scriptures genuine interpreter asserted (London: T.N. for R. Boulter), 1678). 8 Owen, Works, IV.193; cf. 156, 230. Cf., Calvin, Institutes (1559), I.xiii.1; Rollock, Treatise, 58. 9 Owen, Works, IV.230.

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icists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the more critically minded rationalists who emerged in the decades that followed.10 Yet, as we might expect, in discussing this theme of perspicuity, Owen carefully nuances his claim in at least three critical ways. First, behind the clarity of scripture’s written delivery Owen insists there is an infinite abyss of divine wisdom in the truths conveyed by those words. The accommodation God makes to a simplicity of expression certainly does not extend equally to the truth or meaning it enshrines.11 Everything in scripture may be sufficiently plain for the “meanest believer” to understand what pertains to his duty or happiness, he says; yet nothing is “so plain but that the wisest […] have reason to adore the depths and stores of wisdom in it.” For “[i]n those very fords and appearing shallows of this river of God where the lamb may wade, the elephant may swim.”12 Secondly, whatever scripture’s verbal clarity, Owen equally asserts the necessity of the Spirit’s illumination to arrive at a proper, saving perception of the wisdom it contains: “[w]ithout this the clearest revelations of divine supernatural things will appear as wrapped up in darkness and obscurity : not for want of light in them, but for want of light in us.”13 It may well be possible to engage with scripture purely as someone would in an “artificial science”, and even to become sufficiently skilled to “drive a trade” with it, Owen readily admits. Nonetheless, without illumination, it is impossible to grasp its true divine wisdom, or experience its “power and efficacy”, where it “transforms the soul and all its affections into it”, and furnishes the mind with that “full assurance of understanding” (cf., Col 2:2).14 Finally, even with the aid of illumination, Owen recognises with all the Reformed, that there are some mysteries in scripture which will always exceed the capacities of the created mind. In this respect he rebukes the Socinians for their ironically irrational demand that all doctrines be thoroughly accommodated to reason, where the being of God is universally acknowledged as fundamentally incomprehensible.15 Furthermore, there is no pretending that for all scripture’s verbal clarity, it contains many passages where the literal grammatical sense is so evidently obscure, even to an enlightened mind. Like his fellow Reformed, Owen 10 Muller, PRRD, II.325–30. 11 Cf., Turretin, Institutes, II.xvii.3. As Turretin observes in his prolegomena, “[t]here is a difference between knowing the meaning of a proposition and knowing its truth.”: Institutes, I.ix.8. 12 Owen, Works, IV.193. 13 Works, IV.194. Cf., Rollock, Treatise, 59; Turretin, Institutes, II.xvii.2, 13–4; Pictet, Theologia, I.xiii.3, obs.4 (39–40); Leonhard Ryssen, Summa theologiae didactico-elencticae (Bern: Tschiffeli, 1703), II.xiv (35–6). 14 Owen, Works, IV.156–7. 15 Works, IV.194–6.

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refuses to concede that this genuinely introduces the possibility of real spiritual confusion or impugns the scriptures with internal incoherence or contradiction: “whatever is so delivered in any place, if it be of importance for us to know and believe, as unto the ends of divine revelation, it is in some other place or places unveiled and plainly declared.”16 Instead, such passages, he suggests, reflect either the provisional state of revelation prior to Christ, a divine intention to promote humility and dependence in the interpreter, or prophetic prefigurements of matters yet to unfold. They may even serve to harden some in their unbelief.17 This last qualification, in particular, points to the on-going dependence of a Christian reader upon the aid of the Spirit in their interpretation of scripture. It also gives license to the use of various disciplinary aids, including knowledge of ancient languages, commentaries, and not least, the teaching ministry of the church;18 and we shall come to these “means” shortly. What is important to grasp for now, however, is the way in which scripture’s perspicuity seemingly operates for Owen at essentially two distinct levels: without special grace (only so-called common grace),19 or with that spiritual illumination which permits a view of its true saving clarity. Other Protestant writers like John Wilson make this point quite explicitly : [W]e must distinguish of a twofold understanding of Scripture. There is a natural and merely grammatical perception of the truth of scripture propositions, which a man, destitute of the Spirit of grace, may attain by common assistance in the use of ordinary means. And there is a spiritual apprehension of the things themselves contain’d in those propositions, (which includes in it a hearty believing and embracing them) that is not attain’d without the sanctifying work of the Spirit, renewing the mind by enduing it with an heavenly, supernatural light.20

Be that as it may, whatever else may be said about this theme, Owen’s primary interest in this treatise is plainly with the special clarity scripture has to the graciously enlightened mind. But if that is the case, what exactly is it that a spiritually enlightened believer comes to understand so clearly within the pages of scripture? Towards the beginning of the treatise, Owen answers this question with ref16 Works, IV.196. As Muller points out, the logic of this point is clear enough: “it rests on the nature of God and of God’s intention for believers.” To concede any fundamental lack of clarity would be to “offer insult to the Spirit”: Muller, PRRD, II.328, 331. Cf., Turretin, Institutes, II.xvii.11, 16. 17 Owen, Works, IV.196–8. Cf., Pictet, Theologia, I.xiii.3 (39–40). 18 Owen, Works, IV.199–234. Cf., Pictet’s summary of this point: Pictet, Theologia, I.xiii.3, obs.7 (40). 19 Owen is clear that even an unregenerate person’s understanding of scripture is dependent upon the guidance of the Spirit: Owen, Works, IV.230. 20 Following Reynolds, Wilson, Scriptures, “Appendix”, 3. Cf., Reynolds, Works, I.103; Ferguson, Interest, 144–5; Ryssen, Summa, II.xiv (35).

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erence to the New Testament’s promise of a spiritual “unction” that occurs immediately without dependence on an external teacher (1 John 2:20, 27).21 Where the Apostle claims that “ye know all things”, Owen interprets “all things” with reference to both the general and special ends proposed in the chapter of John’s letter. In terms of the express general end of “our abiding in Christ” (1 John 2:24), “the all things here mentioned are all things necessary unto our ingrafting into and continuance in Christ.” These are all the fundamental truths of the gospel, he says. A believer may, of course, be mistaken or ignorant in certain doctrines, but “in all those things and truths which are necessary that they may believe unto righteousness and make confession unto salvation”, they are sufficiently enlightened. He also readily acknowledges that believers are enlightened to different degrees or “measures” (cf., Eph 4:7).22 In terms of the special end proposed by the context of 1 John, the unction is also designed to preserve believers from error and the seduction of false teachers by enervating them with an assuring spiritual sense of what they come to understand.23 What Owen is saying here is consistent, of course, with the high Reformed prolegomenous discussion of the “fundamental articles”; namely, those doctrines which are considered necessary to believe for salvation.24 But the important thing to notice is that according to Owen, explicit belief in these doctrines is secured immediately by the Spirit when he brings someone to saving faith. In other words, recalling what we have already noticed in relation to this spiritual illumination in chapter four, Owen envisages that the gift of habitual grace in regeneration brings with it a certain impression of divine truth upon the mind, and a re-ordering of the soul. This enables it not only to perceive the authority of the scriptural medium wherein that truth is objectively contained, but also to recognise within it the key doctrines which bring about faith and necessarily pertain to the life of Christian obedience. As Owen remarks in Pneumatologia, “[t]his abiding unction is no other but that habitual inherent grace which we plead for”.25 And therefore, it is no less part of what it means to be regenerated and transformed into the image of Christ wherein his truth is in21 For another discussion of this unction, see his companion pneumatological treatise, On the Holy Spirit as a Comforter : Owen, Works, IV.389–99. 22 Works, IV.142–3; cf. III.493–4. 23 Works, IV.146; cf. 149–52, 397. Here Owen calls this assuring sense a “secret witness” of the Spirit (cf. 1 John 5:6), which ties in directly with that “corroborating” testimony of the Spirit we encountered in Reason of Faith (see chapter four), pertaining to the spiritual sense of scripture’s authority : Works, IV.64, 68 24 See, e. g., Turretin, Institutes, I.xiv.1–27. Cf., Muller, PRRD, I.411–14. 25 Owen, Works, III.494. Cf., 493–4; IV.161–73. While Beeke correctly describes Owen’s unction as an effect of the Spirit’s presence within the soul, Owen does not so much identify the unction with the Spirit himself (as he does the “seal”), but with the infused habit, where the soul is re-ordered under the lead of supernatural light: Beeke, Assurance, 260.

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corporated within the soul26 – not as an afflatus or immediate, enthusiastic inspiration of actual understanding, but strictly as a “power” and “ability” which enables its objective manifestation in scripture to be seized and understood with “full assurance” and “stability of faith”.27 And just as this renewed image of God is impressed on all believers equally yet in some more evidently than others,28 so too are all believers equally suffused with ample light to grasp whatever truth is needed for salvation and the Christian life, but to different measures according to the sovereign wisdom of the Spirit.

7.2.2 The “proper” object and motive of faith, love and obedience A further insight into the precise content of this spiritual unction might be gained by considering what Owen regards as the “proper” object or motive of faith, love and obedience. This is something he explores at length in Christologia. The first half of the treatise essentially defends the proposition that the person of Christ in both natures is the foundation upon which the church is built, and the only cause of “true religion” in the world. Amongst other things, it is here more than anywhere that Owen rigorously outlines the christological logic which, as we have already seen, permeates his understanding of prophetic revelation and scripture. However, from chapter nine onwards, Owen specifically intends to consider the nature and causes of the “divine honour that is due unto the person of Christ”.29 And very soon into this discussion he turns to examine the motives and effects of what he regards as the “principal and spring” of this honour, which is “faith in him”. Indeed, it is this faith, he confidently asserts, that has been “the foundation of all acceptable religion in the world since the entrance of sin.”30 Earlier in our study, we noticed that while Owen points to the truthful essence and authority of God shared by all three persons as the “ultimate” formal reason of faith, it is not an unmediated or unaccommodated authority through which people are irresistibly summoned to believe. Consequently, as we have seen, Owen identifies both the person of Christ in his two natures alongside the written Word as the “immediate formal object of faith”.31 Furthermore, in keeping with the accommodated nature of divine authority through the specific media of Christ and his Word, the Reformed did not shy away from also identifying particular “material” causes or “motives” in that revelation, which dis26 27 28 29 30 31

Owen, Works, IV.394; cf. IV.230. Works, IV.164–5, 167. Works, III.215. Works, I.20. Works, I.120. Works, I.130; IV.19.

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tinguish truly “evangelical faith” from “faith in God in general”. That is to say, while it is the truthfulness and authority of revelation itself which is properly the formal cause of faith – as opposed to the material doctrines themselves – the Reformed could still point to the material features of that revelation which peculiarly affect us and give faith its distinctively Christian, fiduciary shape. Accordingly, Owen maintains that it is the mercies or benefits proceeding from Christ’s mediatorial work which are the unique means by which faith ascends to God. Indeed, it is a “due apprehension of the love of Christ”, and especially the effect of this love in his atoning work of redemption that is the pre-eminent motive of faith.32 In Owen’s view, the fiduciary response to this particular motive (i. e., Christ’s love) is what distinguishes a naked assent to the authority of scripture (mere notitia and assensus) – which may not necessarily require a special work of grace, as illustrated classically by the so-called “faith of demons” (Jas 2:19) – from faith “divine and supernatural”, wherein a person is justified and saved.33 As we saw in chapter four, the Protestant revision of “faith” extended it beyond mere intellectual assent to scriptural truth and authority, to include the peculiar fiducial adherence to that truth as the soul’s ultimate good and the terminus of its loves. The Catholics claimed this act of the will belonged to love rather than faith per se, which gives the bare assent of faith its proper form. By assigning this volitional dimension to faith’s essence, Protestants were in effect claiming that the motive of faith’s adherence is not just the naked authority of the Word, but also the goodness of that authority, even if the ultimate formal reason it rests in that truth lies with the sheer fact that God spoke it. Yet, following the advent of sin, the only way divine goodness can make any appeal to the will’s trusting apprehension is in the shape of mercy. Whereas the revelation God makes of himself through the light of nature as “creator, preserver, and rewarder” had once been sufficient to satisfy the soul of his goodness and adequacy as the ultimate object of all love, Owen believes it is now impossible to attain any “comfortable, refreshing thoughts of God” aside from his special manifestation in the gracious works and effects of redemption.34 Without mercy, a naked, undifferentiated display of divine authority – however much it may encapsulate the good – only induces terror within the sinner. So although the whole Word of God without distinction is the “common” object of faith, as Turretin puts it, obliging everyone to believe it on the sheer strength of its divine authority and origin, Owen follows the Protestant pattern 32 Works, I.132; cf. 130–4. Cf., Goodwin, Works, VIII.3–255; Turretin, Institutes, XV.vii.4; viii.5–14; x.1–15; xi.1–21; xii.1–20; Leigh, Systeme, VII.iv (500–09). 33 Owen, of course, sees no distinction between “saving” and “justifying” faith: Owen, Works, V.122. 34 Works, I.152, 134.

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of identifying the “mercy of God in Christ”, and “thereby the forgiveness of our own sins” as the “proper” or “special” object of justifying faith.35 In Owen’s mind, that means “faith principally regards Christ in the discharge of his sacerdotal office.” In saying this, he certainly does not intend to exclude a consideration of his kingly and prophetic offices. However, in his view, they are only “formally” contained in this proper object of faith inasmuch as they contribute to the work of a sinner’s pardon.36 Having brought someone to faith, this same motive then “sets love at work” as its immediate fruit. Once again, just as faith is ultimately called to believe everything in the Word of God, so too are all the divine excellencies the adequate object of the soul’s love. Indeed, Owen says, the very purpose God created us with this “ruling affection” was for it to be fixed ultimately on himself.37 Yet, in the state of sin, where the will’s supreme degeneracy consists in its tendency to love and seek satisfaction in “other things”, it is only the divine goodness as manifest in his “mercy, grace, and bounty” which can be the “proper” object of our love.38 Consequently, although a believer finally comes to love Christ’s person “principally and ultimately for what he is” in himself, it is “[w]hat he did for us” that is “first proposed unto us, and […] is that which our souls are first affected withal.”39 After all, the very nature of desire is to seek some “blessedness” which it currently does not enjoy. And in any believer, Owen says, this affection is first kindled by the prospect of an eternal blessedness on offer specifically through the priestly work of Christ, leading “immediately unto the consideration of what he is in himself.”40 Indeed, in Owen’s mind, this peculiar motive will perpetually operate as the means by which a Christian’s love for Christ’s whole person is galvanised, even into eternity.41 In other words, what Owen envisages is a sequence beginning with Christ’s priestly work of atonement and intercession as the motivation of faith, followed by our love, which in turn becomes the foundation for that loving obedience which must ultimately respect the divine Christ in all his offices.42 Accordingly, 35 Works, V.84 Cf., Turretin, Institutes, XV.xi.13–15; Leigh, Systeme, VII.iv (501). 36 Owen, Works, I.133; cf. V.116–7, 122–3. Evidently, this specific question was something which arose relatively recently. Owen recognises a certain amount of latitude, as no position was codified in the Reformed confessions. Accordingly, someone like Mastricht, for example, can point to all three offices equally as the object of faith, insofar as the whole mediator is presented in the gospel promises under the aspect of the soul’s good: Mastricht, Theologia, II.i.12, 14–6 (52b, 53a-b). 37 Owen, Works, I.150–1. 38 Works, I.151–2. 39 Works, I.162. 40 Works, I.162. 41 Works, I.162, 167. 42 Works, I.137–8, 139–40, 163.

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Owen sees a regard for Christ’s kingly and prophetic offices “in their especial exercise” as belonging chiefly to sanctification and Christian obedience rather than justification and faith.43 When speaking of this peculiar motive of faith, love and obedience, Owen does not mean that scripture makes a revelation of God’s mercy or forgiveness to any individual sinner as the basis of their belief, as if to suggest there is a revelation of God’s hidden decree, or even to reverse the logical order between faith and justification. In his later writings, Owen is quite explicit on this point,44 perhaps reflecting a heightened sensitivity to charges of antinomianism or “eternal justification” after he had his fingers burnt on this issue many years earlier.45 Unlike the advocates of so-called “free justification”, such as Eaton, Traske and Crisp, Owen firmly retains the instrumentality of faith in forgiveness and justification, with the result that assurance of salvation and divine election (“spiritual sense”) – however much it is rightly desired and expected – can only be an outcome of faith rather than its basis.46 In other words, the only proper motive of faith that is revealed in scripture is strictly the promise of forgiveness and justification for anyone who believes, but not for anyone in particular.47 If we now put this discussion regarding the special motives of faith, love and obedience alongside the perspicuity of scripture to an illuminated believer, we can get a better picture of what precisely is entailed in the Spirit’s unction. Owen’s claim is that to the illuminated mind, it is not simply scripture’s authority as divine truth, or the formal reason of faith, that becomes transparent; it is also the peculiar benefits of Christ’s mediatorial work, whether that be the prospect of forgiveness and justification, or the future blessedness of eternal life. This in turn motivates the will’s adherence to God as the soul’s supreme good, stimulates the cleaving sense of the affections, and fuels the love for Christ’s whole person as the foundation of all godly obedience. Of course, the unction itself extends beyond this proper object or motive to include all the essential 43 Works, V.118. 44 Works, III.596; V.83–4, 102; cf. V.215–8. 45 As Trueman notes, Baxter seized on an unfortunate illustration Owen used in his Death of Death (1648) as evidence of an alleged antinomian tendency : Trueman, Owen, 116; cf. 113–8. Cf., Owen, Works, X.268; Richard Baxter, Aphorismes of Justification (London: for Francis Tyton, 1649), “appendix”, 155–7. On the protracted controversy between Baxter and Owen regarding this issue more generally, see, Cooper, Formation, 74–83, 94–8, 202–26. 46 William K.B. Stoever, “A Faire and Easie Way to Heaven”: Covenant Theology and Antinomianism in Early Massachusetts (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1978), 138–47. On the English antinomian controversy see David R. Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in pre-Civil-War England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004); also, Theodore D. Bozeman, The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion & Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638 (Chapell Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 186–210. 47 Turretin, Institutes, XV.xii.3.

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private and public duties of Christian obedience as well. But the point is, this proper motive is clearly central to the unction, for as Owen explains, one of its chief designs is “to give withal an approbation of and love unto the things that are taught.” And why is that so important? Because such “love” is the “next principle and cause of practice, or the doing of the things that we know”. In other words, when this Holy Spirit doth, in and by his teaching, breathe into our hearts a holy, divine love unto and complacency in the things we are taught; when he enables us to taste how gracious the Lord is in them, rendering them sweeter unto us than the honey or the honey-comb; when he makes them our delight and joy, exciting and quickening the practical principles of our minds unto a compliance with them in holy obedience, – then have we that unction from the Holy One which will both sanctify and secure our souls unto the end.48

What is critical to notice is that all of this is the sheer effect of the Spirit’s sovereign power in regeneration. Clearly, that does not deny the agency of the Word, as we have been stressing all along. The illumination itself is no more or less than a habitual impression of the truth objectively expressed in the written text. Moreover, Owen frequently maintains that the Spirit normally performs this ineffable physical work through the usual means of outward proclamation.49 And of course, the habitual capacity it provides is activated by the moral or external address. Consequently, he says, “at the same time that he infuseth a gracious ability into our minds, he proposeth the truth unto us whereon that ability is to be exercised.”50 But the vital point is that the infusion of the capacity to understand, or the unction itself, is performed by the power and authority of the Spirit alone. Not only that, the actual perception which then arises as the Word is proclaimed leans not just on the mind and will, but on an effectual concursus of the Spirit, so that every believer can properly conclude they have been “taught of God”.

7.2.3 Spiritual unction and the church The sovereign work of grace in administering a measure of spiritual understanding spells out an immediate and obvious implication for a believer’s relationship to the church and its teaching office. To whatever extent the Spirit may use a preacher in the illumination of his elect, the actual understanding that ensues rests not with the rhetorical power, effectiveness, coherence – or lack 48 Owen, Works, IV.397. 49 Note especially his discussion in Pneumatologia concerning the “outward means” of conversion, Works, III.362–6; cf. IV.168, 395–6. 50 Works, IV.167.

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thereof – in the proclamation, but with the will and authority of God. In that way, as Owen frequently points out, “[n]o men can be lords of our faith”, however much they are “helpers of our joy” (cf., 2 Cor 1:24).51 As we shall see further shortly, the illuminated perspicuity of scripture does not exclude the church’s teaching ministry as a major means by which believers are either edified by the exposition of non-essential truths, or enriched in their understanding of those that are essential. But that basic measure of perception common to all believers rests entirely with the Spirit and scripture alone, so that the church’s ministry must always give way as something “subservient”.52 The Reformed saw this conjunction of a perspicuous Word with spiritual illumination and understanding as an important corollary of scripture’s ultimate authority. It is, of course, key to the distinctively Protestant affirmation of sola scriptura, carried over from the Reformers into the precise formulations of the century that followed. As Muller points out, this aligns with their allegiance to Oberman’s socalled “Tradition I”, where traditional teachings and churchly interpretation – however important they may be – ultimately must yield to the authority of the written Word.53 But for Owen, there is quite possibly more at stake here than the principles regulating the right interpretation of scripture. Although it is well beyond our present means to make anything more than a suggestion, it is arguable that Owen’s own distinctive approach to ecclesiology and governance also takes its cue from this basic conviction that all believers are “taught of God”. This can be briefly illustrated by reference to his late treatise, An Inquiry into the Original, Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches (1681), which forms the first part of his mature statement of ecclesiology, The True Nature of a Gospel Church, published posthumously in 1689. Of special interest is his argument in the first three chapters of the treatise, where he discusses the causes and means for the origin, and continuation of the “churchstate”. Living in the wake of the Restoration, Owen is, of course, acutely conscious of the consequences this unwanted event has entailed for dissenting Puritans such as himself. Among the principal assertions he wishes to defend in this context is the exclusive supremacy of Christ’s immediate authority over the origin and organisation of the church.54 So, while he believes the obligation to gather for worship, together with various general injunctions, such as the requirement of decency and order, are spelt out by the light of nature, the specifically Christian gathering derives its mandate and peculiar shape from Christ 51 52 53 54

Works, IV.19, 123, 148; XVI.35. Works, IV.146–7, 190. Muller, PRRD, II.332. The points in this paragraph are drawn principally from chapter two of this treatise: Owen, Works, XV.230–47.

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alone. And that mandate is a perpetual one, he feels, extending to the rules of governance, appointment of officers and the contents of its various gatherings. Practically speaking, what it forbids, then, is the assumption of an illegitimate legislative power by the church’s leaders or the magistrate. Only Christ, through the medium of scripture, has the authority to bind the consciences of believing worshippers.55 And as Lim has recently observed, this principle of protecting a believer’s conscience from what he felt were the arbitrary legislative incursions of others – most notably the imposition of episcopacy and the Prayer Book – was a key plank in Owen’s tireless efforts to promote religious toleration during these years.56 However, the theological rationale and implications of Owen’s point must not be lost. These become especially apparent when he discusses the causes and means for the continuance of this church-state in the world. Here Owen’s interests are only in the “de jure” legitimacy of the church, not the “de facto” actuality.57 And in his view, the ultimate reason or cause for the church’s ongoing legitimacy is the Father’s perpetual grant of a kingdom to Christ, which is made up “fundamentally and materially” of spiritually regenerated subjects, who are impelled to exercise their faith and love in visible gatherings where they edify one another in that faith, and express their subjugation to Christ in the acts and duties of worship prescribed by the scriptures. It is these regenerate believers, then, who are the “means” whereby the visible church continues to exist in the world. In other words, for the church’s perpetual existence, there must always be regenerated subjects of Christ who have: first, a “due sense of their duty”, finding themselves “indispensably obliged unto all those things which are necessary unto the continuation of this state”; second, “[t]he instinct of the new creature” for the “joint and mutual exercise of those graces of the Spirit, which are the same, as unto the essence of them, in them all”; and, third, “the open evidence” that they cannot fulfil certain gospel duties without forming a gathering.58 The second point is particularly revealing. Consistent with what we have seen above regarding the spiritual unction, whereby a believer accesses an immediate perception of everything essential to faith and obedience, Owen expands on his point here by claiming that the peculiar “laws of Christ in and unto his church, as unto all outward obedience, are suited unto those inward principles and inclinations which, by his Spirit and grace, he hath implanted in the hearts of them that believe.”59 That is to say, there is a crucial symmetry between the Word 55 56 57 58 59

Works, XV.246. Lim, “Toleration”. Owen, Works, XV.251. Works, XV.255–6. Works, XV.255.

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habitually implanted by grace and the directions Christ spells out in scripture for the organisation of the church. And this results in an irresistible inward impulse to gather in societies for edification and the increase of that grace, according to the specific command of Christ, which gives direction as to “how and in what ways it is to be attained and exercised”, and “binds and obliges them unto the continuation of this state”.60 This effectively means the conscience of an enlightened believer is the subjective medium through which Christ forms, rules and advances his church. The objective medium is the Word. But it is the grace within a believer which gives them transparent access to Christ’s directions for gathering and worship as expressed in scripture. In other words, what Owen is claiming is the existence of an immediate interface – a “perspicuous” relationship of sorts – between the authority of Christ, his kingdom subjects, and the written Word. And this relationship is not just an individualistic thing, pertaining merely to matters of personal salvation and obedience; it also creates the obligation to gather, and even regulates the very nature of that gathering. Consequently, no arbitrary rule or authority must ever be allowed to stand in the way of this relationship, artificially and illegitimately binding the consciences of believers who are ruled directly by Christ and his Word. Consistent with this immediate, authoritative relationship between Christ and his people, Owen maintains that the “power” for the evolution of a local church begins with “[e]very individual believer”, who has a “power or right given unto him, upon his believing, to become a son of God” (cf., John 1:12).61 “Herein lies the foundation of all right unto church-power”, he says. Of course, the power is limited to what scripture prescribes as its end or purpose, namely, for gathering with others in accordance with the special rules of worship. When “two or three” (“the smallest number”) then actually agree to gather in mutual profession of faith and in accordance with the guidance set out in scripture, there is a power granted to them to meet in the name of Christ for their mutual edification. Finally, when the “number of believers is increased” sufficiently to “observe and perform” all prescribed church duties, thereby establishing a “church-state”, it then has the “power” to do all that Christ intends for his church. According to Owen, this is the church “essential and homogeneal”. Of course, that does not preclude the appointment of specially gifted officers who, according to the mandate of Christ, are to make decisions and enforce order within any given gathering.62 Yet, the “essential power” to be a church is never alienated from an individual congregation as a whole. Consequently, the right to 60 Works, XV.255–6. 61 For the following, see The True Nature of a Gospel Church: Works, XVI.36–7. 62 Owen is actually quite opposed to a “democratical” form of Congregationalism: Works, XVI.112, 131; cf. XIII.223.

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call and ordain elders always rests with the congregation.63 Part of this essential power also consists in the right to grant or withdraw the “privileges” of membership.64 It is true that Owen seems to believe it is only the legitimately appointed elders who are given “organical” powers by Christ for the actual formal admission and exclusion of members, as well as for various other ministerial tasks within the body (even if the performance of these functions still requires the church’s willing consent).65 And as Beeke and Jones note (with Ryan Kelly), it may be a little hard to decipher the exact distinction Owen is getting at here between the “essential” power given to the church at large versus that “organical” power which is peculiarly granted to its elders via ministerial appointment. Nonetheless, they rightly conclude that there is nothing here which contradicts his fundamental commitment to a distinctively Congregational polity, even if it represents a “slightly less democratic model” than some.66 As is well known, it was in the late 1640s that Owen moved away from his earlier Presbyterian convictions to Congregationalism, largely on the strength of reading John Cotton’s Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven (1644).67 While Owen himself does not single out any particularly persuasive features of Cotton’s argument, Beeke and Jones rightly suggest that the central contention between Congregationalists, like Cotton and Owen, and their Presbyterian brethren concerns the legitimate possession of church power, or the “keys” (Matt 16:19).68 Whereas the Presbyterians held that Christ dispenses church authority directly to a visible institution, and specifically its elders, Congregationalists insisted that the power for the formation and organisation of a church is given “immediately” by Christ to “particular societies or churches”, as classically expressed in the Savoy Declaration of the Institution of Churches (1658).69 While further research would be required to establish this claim, it certainly seems that the principle of perspicuity – or the immediate interface Owen sees between the rule of Christ, his Word, and the consciences of his believing subjects – may have been one key theological factor informing Owen’s settled allegiance to a Congregational ecclesiology. Indeed, it is surely an illegitimate incursion upon this immediate relationship that is behind his opposition to Episcopal and Presbyterian forms of church government, where in one way or another, the rule of 63 64 65 66 67

Works, XVI.37; cf. 54–74. Works, XVI.136; cf. 64–5. Works, XVI.64–5, 67–8, 89, 131–2, 136–7, 151; XV.499–501. Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 633–9. See, e. g., Owen’s, An Answer to a Late Treatise of Mr Cawdrey (1658): Owen, Works, XIII.277–302. 68 On this, see, Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 628–39. 69 Articles I–V: A.G. Matthews, ed. The Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order 1658 (London: Independent Press, 1959), 121–2. Cf., Puritan Theology, 633.

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those not actually appointed by a local congregation is arbitrarily imposed upon the members of those gatherings without their voluntary consent.70

7.2.4 Summary To summarise, then, while Owen believes the core doctrines of Christianity are sufficiently perspicuous for any rational person to grasp their literal grammatical sense, the true signification of these words necessary for a believer’s salvation, obedience and ultimate glorification is established and secured solely through the habitual impression of these truths upon the mind by the Spirit in conversion. This gift of understanding must be seen as an extension of a believer’s perception of scripture’s divine authority, both arising through the one gift of illumination granted with the regenerative infusion of grace. In other words, not only does this conjunction of the Spirit’s work “in and by” the written Word provide the formal reason of faith, it also furnishes those peculiar, material motives which give the Christian life of faith, love and obedience its distinctive shape as that which springs from a fiduciary trust in the priestly work of Christ. As we have seen, this immediate interface between the Spirit, the written Word, and a believer’s understanding spells out important implications for their relationship with the church. However much this saving perception may coincide with the church’s proclamation of the Word, it is ultimately a spiritual work that secures the final, unmediated authority of the Word in a believer’s life. As Owen puts it: [A]lthough ordinary believers are obliged to make diligent and conscientious use of the ministry of the church […]; yet is not their understanding of the truth, their apprehension of it and faith in it, to rest upon or to be resolved into their authority, who are not appointed of God to be lords of their faith, but helpers of their joy. And thereon depends all our interest in that great promise, that we shall be all taught of God.71

Ever one for theological consistency, it is even quite possible and reasonable to expect that Owen allowed this conviction to shape his settled commitment to a Congregational ecclesiology, where the mandate to gather is ultimately regulated by the immediate, perspicuous rule of Christ over the consciences of his spiritual subjects. As a result, the “essential power” of any visible gathering to be a “church” with a particular shape and form befitting the will of God must never be imposed arbitrarily upon or snatched away from its believing members who 70 See, for instance, Owen’s comments on the means by which the church is continued, Owen, Works, XV.257–61; or on the exercise of discipline, Works, XV.268–77. 71 Owen, Works, IV.123.

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each have felt directly obliged by Christ and his Word to congregate for the public duties of worship.

7.3

The proper object of faith: a hermeneutical principle?

A further vital corollary of the Spirit’s unction, and its revelation of faith’s proper object, is its impact on the way the scriptures are to be read and interpreted by a believer throughout their Christian walk. To recall what we have seen already, if the undifferentiated glory and authority of God is the ultimate formal reason of faith, it is chiefly his attribute of love, manifested towards sinners in the priestly work of Christ, that enables faith to have its distinctively Christian, fiduciary shape, adhering to God as the soul’s greatest good, free from any omen of judgment. Indeed, Owen can go as far as saying it is “the glory of divine love” wherein “the chief brightness of glory doth consist.” Why? Because “[t]here is nothing of dread or terror accompanying it; – nothing but what is amiable and infinitely refreshing.”72 It is, then, the scriptural revelation of that love in the glorious face of Christ which is “the great means of conveying all the effects of divine wisdom and grace unto the church”: it is the “glass” in “which God chose to represent himself and all his goodness in and unto believers”, or the “mirror wherein the holy angels and blessed saints shall forever contemplate the divine excellencies in their suitable operations”.73 In other words, what is it that the Spirit of God causes a person to “see” and “experience” first in the pages of scripture as the proper motive or object of faith, love and obedience? It is none other than a representation of that love of God in the face of Christ. This is the distinctive manner in which the authority and perspicuity of scripture affects a person at the foundation of Christian faith – so much so, that Owen can claim a person knows “nothing of the life and power of the gospel, nothing of the reality of the grace of God, nor do they believe aright one article of the Christian faith” when they are not “sensible of the love of Christ herein”.74 What this saving effect of the Word does, though, is establish a hermeneutical principle regulating the way scripture is to be read. The “constant method of the Scripture”, Owen says, is “first” to propose “unto us what the Lord Christ hath done for us, especially in the discharge of his sacerdotal office, in his oblation and intercession, with the benefits which we receive thereby.” Only then does it lead “us unto his person, and presseth the consideration of all other things to

72 Works, I.333. 73 Works, I.166. 74 Works, I.166–7; cf. 301–2.

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engage our love unto him.”75 In other words, to ingenerate our faith and love, Christ is chiefly represented throughout the Bible, both Old Testament and New, as “altogether lovely” (cf., Cant 5:16). And in his last great pastoral treatise, Meditations and Discourses (1684), Owen effectively charts how he believes this glorious christological expression of divine wisdom and love is manifested throughout the entirety of biblical history, hoping to direct and excite the affections of believers therein. Indeed, a further study might give special attention to the way Owen reads salvation history through this interpretive lens, from Christ’s personal, pre-incarnate appearances to the patriarchs, the typological representation of his priestly work in the Old Testament sacrificial system, and the various promises and prophecies of his future incarnation, through the nature of the incarnation itself, his earthly discharge of the mediatorial office, his exaltation, and his communion with the church, to ultimately, the recapitulation of all things. Such an emphasis on the pre-eminence of God’s grace and love in biblical history is also reflected in the covenantal structure which undoubtedly gives expression to the way Owen reads and understands the scriptures.76 As we suggested in the last chapter, Owen has an essentially dichotomous understanding of biblical history, which views the gradual evolution of a spoken and written Word from the first promise in Genesis 3:15 through to the final canon of scripture as an articulation of the theologia mediatoris, interposing itself on the original created order as a new expression of divine wisdom, hitherto unknown by the light of nature. In other words, from a Federal perspective, however much the scriptures record God’s original covenant with Adam that was abolished as soon as he sinned, they are properly regarded as the final document or revelation of the new “covenant of grace”, which was first announced in the protoeuangelium of Genesis 3:15.77 And when expositing the nature of the “better promises” upon which this second covenant was founded (cf., Heb 8:6), Owen sets out the essentially merciful nature of this covenant with crystal clarity. It is not that there was no grace in the “covenant of works”; as we saw in chapter three, Owen believes there is “infinite grace in every divine covenant”, inasmuch as they are “established on promises”.78 Similarly, it is not that there is no requirement of obedience in the “covenant of grace”. Both covenants obligate 75 Works, I.162. 76 As van Asselt remarks of Cocceius and Owen, “their covenant concept can be viewed as a constitutive structure and the controlling idea of their whole theological enterprise”: van Asselt, “Covenant Theology”, 82–3. 77 Although the (natural) law of the first covenant remains as an indelible feature of the divinehuman relationship, its peculiar incorporation into a covenant did not remain after the entrance of sin: Owen, Works, XXIII.61–2, 67–8. 78 Works, XXIII.68.

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obedience to the natural law which indelibly regulates all divine-human relationships.79 Not only that, the gospel prescribes various additional duties “which the law knows nothing of”, such as the “mortification of sin, godly sorrow, daily cleansing of our hearts and minds; – not to mention the more sublime and spiritual acts of communion with God by Christ.” “[A]lthough these things may be contained in the law radically”, Owen says, insofar “as it requires universal obedience unto God”, “yet are they not so formally.”80 However, there are two primary ways the covenant of grace differs from the covenant of works. First, the outstanding debts of punishment and obedience that the natural law demands after the incursion of sin are cancelled by the perfect obedience of the covenantal “Surety” or mediator. And secondly, any requirement or condition under the new covenant is “efficaciously” assumed into the promise itself. In other words, where the covenant of works required obedience as an antecedent condition for the reward of eternal blessedness, the promise of the new covenant not only includes the pardon of sin, justification and eternal life, but the effectual fulfilment of any duties or requirements prescribed by the covenant, notably, faith and obedience. As Owen puts it, “those promises, namely, of the pardon of sin and writing of the law in our hearts, which the apostle expressly insisteth upon as the peculiar promises of this covenant, do take place and are effectual antecedently unto our covenant obedience.” So, “although faith be required in order of nature antecedently unto our actual receiving of the pardon of sin”, he adds, “yet is that faith itself wrought in us by the grace of the promise”. That is, the instrumentality of faith in our pardon only respects the order in which God has designed to communicate the benefits of the covenant and in no way suggests the pardon of sin is a reward for faith.81 Whatever conditions there may be “in” this covenant, then, the promise of pardon and eternal life upon which it is founded is antecedent to all conditions, and in that sense, unconditional.82 It is necessary to underline this point, especially in view of the fact that even quite recently, Owen’s covenant theology has been accused of undermining the Reformational “priority of grace”. So, for example, taking his cue from a passage in Owen’s Hebrews commentary, Bobick claims Owen placed an excessive reli79 In Christologia, Owen clarifies that the gospel/new covenant does not materially alter the moral demands of the natural law. The difference is, new covenant obedience to the law issues exclusively from the power and authority of Christ as mediator (as opposed to obedience which springs purely from the original authority of the natural law): Works, I.134–9. 80 Works, III.508. 81 Works, XXIII.68–9. 82 As Jones rightly observes, it is only in this strict sense that the covenant of grace is understood by the Reformed as both “monopleuric” and “dipleuric”: Jones, “Covenant”, 183–4. Cf., Muller, DLGTT, 120.

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ance on both a contractual understanding of covenant and a Ramist methodology.83 This led him to bifurcate an “absolute concept” of covenant into equal but opposite pairs of “promise” and “threat”, giving them virtually co-ordinate status within his thought, to the point where it is not possible for Owen to retain an absolute priority of grace over works or “conditions”. There are several serious problems with this thesis, however. Consistent with what others have shown in relation to J.B. Torrance’s older critique of Federal theology,84 there is never a suggestion in Owen’s explication of the divine-human covenants of anything like a “commercial contract”. It may be possible to describe the covenant of redemption as a “contract”,85 but Owen never uses that term in relation to either divine-human covenant.86 In any event, on close examination, they bear no resemblance to a commercial contract. There is nothing “absolute” or essential about them whatsoever : they are both products of God’s infinite grace, and any benefits or blessings they entail for humans far exceed those conditions God has freely chosen to assume into their terms. Secondly, as we have shown, it is patently clear that Owen distinguishes the covenant of grace from the covenant of works precisely at the point where Bobick’s whole thesis hangs. Owen may well have been influenced by Ramist methodology at points, as a great many seventeenth-century theologians were, but it is questionable that it exerted any significant influence on the “Reformational” content of his theology any more than it did on those whose systems show a far greater debt to Ramism than Owen’s. Certainly, Owen does not view the “covenant of grace” as a “new phase” in the “covenant of works”,87 and where he speaks of conditional “threatenings” within the new covenant (cf., Heb 4:3), he quite explicitly clarifies, yet again, that these conditions are effectually fulfilled in elect believers by the grace of the covenant.88 In other words, the “threatenings” are not dangled before believers as laws that must be kept to secure an eternal reward; rather, they are to be seen as a very means by which God’s grace effectually enables believers to persevere in their covenantal obe83 84 85 86

Bobick, “Owen”, passim. See chapter three, n.57. Owen, Works, IX.533. Actually, Owen explicitly distinguishes the divine-human covenants from commercial contracts: Works, IV.408; XXIII.339 . 87 Here Bobick’s claim rests on a somewhat misleading translation of Owen’s Theologoumena. Cf., John Owen, Biblical Theology, trans. Stephen P. Westcott (Pittsburgh, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1994), 170. The Latin actually reads, “cum ideo Deum foedus novum cum Adamo lapso iniisse dicimus, novam obedientiae praescriptionem, promissionibus gratiosis munitam intelligimus”, pointing again to the priority of the promise over any covenantal obedience, as Owen then explicitly elaborates: Owen, Works, XVII.II.i.3. Cf., Bobick, “Owen”, 55, 71. 88 See Owen, Works, XXI.268–70.

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dience, by warning them of the alternative awaiting those outside the covenant. That is why he sees them emerging from exactly the same, fundamentally gracious “spring” as the promises. There should be no doubt, then, that Owen intends scripture and the salvation history it records to be read through the lens of a covenantal matrix, whose chief accent falls upon the unconditional grace and mercy promised within the new covenant. And our central point is simply to highlight the way this hermeneutical approach to biblical history mirrors the nature of the unction each believer receives in their regeneration, pointing them first to the mercies and benefits freely offered by Christ as the proper object of faith, and the foundation of that consequent love and obedience to his whole person. It is true that unlike the mainstream Federal position, Owen’s exegesis of scripture leads him to conclude that the Sinaitic covenant, or “old covenant”, is not a mere administration of the covenant of grace,89 raising the obvious conundrum of how the two consistently relate to each other when interpreting biblical history. If Owen has a dichotomous understanding of salvation history (pre versus post Genesis 3:15), how does the Sinaitic covenant fit into this scheme, if it is not an administration of the new covenant? As Jones has recently shown,90 Owen’s nuanced understanding of the Sinaitic administration stems from a strict application of the term “covenant” or “testament” (diah^jg). Properly speaking, a “testament” requires a death (cf., Heb 9:16).91 So, although the covenant of grace was initiated as a “promise” in Genesis 3:15, it did not become a “testament” in the strict sense until Christ died as its surety.92 However, because the Sinaitic administration, or the “old covenant” had its own system of sacrifices, it was a “testament” all on its own, quite distinct from the covenant of grace, which at that point had not yet become a “testament”. So what was the purpose of the “old covenant”? Owen is emphatic that it does not overturn or contradict the prior promise of the covenant of grace, as if to re-establish the covenant of works for salvation.93 The elect in Old Testament times were saved in exactly the same way as those in the New ; by believing the promise, first hinted in Genesis 3:15, and finally fulfilled in Christ’s 89 See his explanation of the different views in his exposition of Hebrews 8:6, Works, XXIII.72–5. 90 Jones, “Covenant”, 199–202; also, Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 293–303. Jones is attempting to nuance and modify the earlier conclusions of Rehnman. Cf., Sebastian Rehnman, “Is the Narrative of Redemptive History Trichotomous or Dichotomous? A Problem for Federal Theology”, Nederlandsch archief voor kerkgeschiedenis 80 (2000). 91 Owen, Works, XXIII.61. 92 Works, XXIII.63, 74–5. 93 Works, XXIII.62–3, 78–9, 82. Jones also points to a place in Owen’s Justification where he explicitly states that the law is only re-established “declaratively” at Sinai and not “as a covenant a second time”: Jones, “Covenant”, 200 (n.93). Cf., Owen, Works, V.244.

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priestly work of atonement.94 Rather, the “old covenant” was a superadded covenant that had no business in eternal salvation,95 but acted as a guardian of the people chosen to bear the Messiah. In the interim, it facilitated the public worship of God in a fashion that prefigured the work of the coming Messiah; it subdued pride and lust through a re-publication of the natural law, its curses, and the further onerous, ceremonial regulations; and through the conviction of sin, it led people to the promise and the coming Messiah as the only means of attaining righteousness.96 All these functions ceased, of course, when the covenant of grace was eventually established as a “testament”, fully announcing in the “Gospel” what had only been partially revealed before, and instituting a new manner of public worship entirely eclipsing the old.97 Therefore, however much the “old covenant” revives the natural law and its covenantal promises and curses, Bobick is incorrect to suggest Owen regards the Sinaitic administration as a straightforward “revival” of the Adamic covenant, as if to inflict a “retrogression” upon redemptive history.98 Whatever the complexity in Owen’s position on Sinai, in no way does its special function disrupt the essential interpretive unity Owen sees in biblical history from the first promise until its culmination in Christ.

7.4

The perspicuity of scripture and the use of “means”

If the gift of illumination brings the core doctrines of Christian faith and obedience into transparent view, Owen equally recognises important limits to the understanding it brings. As we have noticed already, the unction bequeaths a sufficient, but by no means exhaustive knowledge of the requisite truths. There are also more obscure parts of scripture where the principle of perspicuity does not so straightforwardly apply. Moreover, the unction itself is received in different measures, according to the sovereign will of God. So while the Spirit gives every believer sufficient “initial” instruction in all necessary truths such that there is “no need that any man should teach them”, the possibility of attaining a greater “degree” of understanding depends in good measure upon the exercise of spiritual discipline and the church’s teaching ministry. Scripture also contains “many other things” beyond the necessary truths of the unction, which are nonetheless useful for a believer’s edification.99 94 95 96 97 98 99

Owen, Works, XXIII.71, 74. Works, XXIII.85. Works, XXIII.78–85. Cf., Beeke and Jones, Puritan Theology, 299–302. Owen, Works, XXIII.64, 94. Bobick, “Owen”, 57–61, 72. Owen, Works, IV.147.

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What Owen envisages here aligns with the more general expectation that a believer’s stock of regenerative grace must be exercised and deepened throughout their Christian life, a point he explores at length in Pneumatologia. It is true, as Chan repeatedly insists, that Owen places a considerable accent upon the Spirit’s sovereignty in a believer’s spiritual progress.100 Even still, Owen would strenuously resist the charge, sometimes levelled against him, that this disincentivizes spiritual discipline and the instrumental use of various means to enhance one’s growth.101 Contrary to Chan’s rather wooden portrait, where Owen’s emphasis on the Spirit’s sovereignty is such that the duties of Christian religion operate more as “evidences” than true “means of grace”, Owen actually shows a good deal more subtlety.102 We have already seen that however much the infusion of regenerative grace rests upon the Spirit’s power and authority alone, it does not occur to the exclusion of the Word’s instrumental agency, let alone cast aside the role of the will in responding to the actual gospel proclamation. Furthermore, when Owen outlines in general terms the Spirit’s role in sanctification, he readily distinguishes between the situations where the Spirit might work apart from means, and where means are clearly instrumental. So, on the one hand, the Spirit may immediately awaken a person’s spiritual sense or administer some consoling experience, rekindling a person’s affections and that upward yearning for the true object of their love.103 He may also cause an actual increase in the infused graces, inasmuch as he placed them there to begin with.104 Nonetheless, Owen clearly envisages that a person’s own exercise of infused grace is a critical means to their growth. Just as any natural habit thrives by its use, so do the infused habits of faith and love. Of course it is true that the Spirit must graciously concur with that act, much as he providentially concurs with any natural act, but that does not subtract from the act’s genuine instrumentality.105 Towards the end of Causes, Ways, and Means, Owen outlines the means believers should use “for the right understanding and interpretation of the Scripture”. It is worth setting them out at this late point in our study, even if we cannot elaborate on them exhaustively. There are two broad categories of means, he suggests: those which are “general and absolutely necessary”, and those which “consist in the due improvement thereof.”106 Yet, as we shall see, within this classification, Owen sees a further bifurcation between those helps which are 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

See Chan, “Meditative”, 204–15. Owen, Works, III.394–5. Chan, “Meditative”, 207. Owen, Works, III.390–1. Works, III.391. Works, III.389–90. Works, IV.199.

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spiritual duties, or true “means of grace”, and the secondary aids providing important, but limited further assistance to one’s understanding of the scriptures. Under the category of absolutely necessary means, Owen mentions the “frequent” and “diligent reading of the Scripture, with a sedate, rational consideration of what we read.” This is the duty most frequently commended by scripture, and all other means are directed towards this end. He lists six benefits that ensue: a “general acquaintance” with the nature of the scriptures; a distinct understanding of particular books and passages, and the various biblical genres; an acquaintance with “heavenly things” and a “holy converse with God”; a proper knowledge of God and spiritual things, as well as an awareness of self and one’s own condition; an opening for God to use particular exhortations or instructions to influence their souls; and the exercise of spiritual sense to sharpen one’s discernment.107 Owen believes a “diligent reading” of scripture must show proper deference to the interpretive tools readily accepted by the Reformed; namely, the “analogy of faith”, the “scope of the place”, and a “diligent observation of antecedents and consequents”.108 Far from representing some traditional incursion upon the principle of sola scriptura, Tucker has shown that the analogia fidei, or the rule dictating that a passage be interpreted according to the “whole import and general sense of scripture”,109 is a principle directly derived from the confessional commitment to the unity and perspicuity of scripture’s core teachings, as illuminated by the Spirit.110 The same may be said for the scopus, whether this refers to the broader belief that the whole scripture is representative of Christ,111 or the more limited conviction that each passage has a particular intended meaning.112 As Muller shows, that does not necessarily rule out every figurative or allegorical interpretation, such as is classically illustrated in the widespread christological reading of Song of Songs, provided it actually forms part of the one true sense conveyed to the reader by the Spirit’s illumination.113 But together, these safeguards ensure scripture is interpreted along the lines dictated by the 107 Works, IV.199–200. 108 Works, IV.201. 109 Tucker, “Owen”, 47. Tucker’s study focuses upon the historical evolution of the term, as well as its use by Owen (and other Reformed thinkers). 110 See also Muller, PRRD, II.493–7. 111 PRRD, II.492–3. 112 Note, especially, PRRD, II.475–7. 113 According to Muller, the Reformed tended to reclaim legitimate figurative interpretations as part of the single true sense of scripture, where the Catholics had distinguished them, adhering to a far more reductionistic definition of the literal sense as the pure grammatical signification divorced from its surrounding context: PRRD, II.472–82. Cf., e. g., Leigh, Systeme, I.ix (105–7); Ryssen, Summa, II.xxiii (64–7).

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spiritual unction. They are designed to protect a reader from fanciful and arbitrary inventions, and provide a reliable rule for interpreting more obscure passages in line with the truth clearly discernible elsewhere in the particular passage, book, or the scriptures at large. Nevertheless, Owen clearly does not think this engagement with the text is to occur in some sealed vacuum. And under the second category of means, he points to the ways this reading of scripture may be “improved”. Chiefly, there are the “spiritual” means. Here he has in mind several things, starting with prayer. Given our general understanding of scripture is dependent upon the Spirit’s illumination, Owen feels every believer should be daily engaged in prayer, which humbly calls upon the Spirit to lead them into all truth. Since this itself is an exercise of inherent grace, Owen fully anticipates that if a person is sincere in this duty, they will experience the transforming and assuring power of the truth, with “the communication of farther light, and increases in the degrees of knowledge.”114 Beyond general prayers for guidance, there is also a need for special prayers that seek understanding of particular passages. Expositors are especially dependent upon this means, which flows from a conviction that scripture’s mine of divine wisdom has not, and never will be thoroughly exhausted by its long line of interpreters.115 After prayer, Owen then lists a “readiness to receive impressions from divine truths as revealed unto us”. Because the “first end” of scriptural revelation is “to beget the image and likeness of [itself]” in our minds, the reader ought to be longing for the transforming power of scripture, and not mere “notions” of truth. This is the proper posture for engaging with the text.116 Related to this are the duties of obeying the scriptures, and thereby finding that full assurance of understanding which comes with doing the will of God (cf., John 7:17), and living with the expectation of a continually growing knowledge and experience of the truth.117 Finally, there are the “sundry ordinances of spiritual worship”, by which he undoubtedly means regular attendance in congregational gatherings where the scriptures are taught by its specially gifted teachers, discipline is exercised, and the sacraments duly administered.118 Together, the discipline of reading scripture and the spiritual ways of improvement constitute scripturally mandated means of grace. As he puts it in Pneumatologia, the “one principal advantage” of attending to the Word “in a due manner” is that “by presenting those spiritual truths which are the object of our 114 115 116 117 118

Owen, Works, IV.202–4. Works, IV.204–5. Works, IV.205–6. Works, IV.206–7. Works, IV.206; cf. III.389.

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faith unto our minds, and those spiritual good things which are the object of our love unto our affections, both these graces are drawn forth into frequent actual exercise.” Neglect in this duty, or a mere reliance upon what is retained “in our memories” inevitably causes a person’s graces to “decay and wither”.119 That is why Owen himself invested considerable effort in helping believers engage in what he regards as faith’s “principal work”, which is to behold the “glory of God, as so represented unto us in Christ.”120 Indeed, as we have mentioned already, his Meditations and Discourses is chiefly designed to fan into flame that christological vision each believer receives in their spiritual unction, by exhorting them to meditate on Christ’s mediatorial love as showcased throughout biblical history in all its kaleidoscopic variety. In other words, one of faith’s principal tasks is to employ the means of meditation, which include all the duties outlined above,121 seeking an “intuitive” view of Christ’s inexhaustible glories as depicted in their “outward” scriptural representation.122 That way, it “sets love at work”, as it were, enflaming the desire of the renewed will and affections, which, in turn, enlarge the mind’s spiritual understanding, accelerate the soul’s union and conformity to Christ’s image, and prepare it for the beatific vision to come.123 Indeed, in Owen’s mind, a person’s actual conformity to Christ is directly correlated to their actual view of Christ. It ought to be noted, of course, that such seemingly high spiritual aspirations are mixed with a healthy dose of pastoral realism. On the one hand, Owen is no less aware than the great mystics of the past that the relative obscurity of scripture’s reflected light and the inherent weakness of faith means those actual intuitions are frustratingly brief and infrequent.124 Moreover, Owen even countenances the possibility that Christ may occasionally hide his face behind the clouds, as it were, so that for a season, a believer’s vision is obscured in darkness. Owen is not saying that the objective light of scripture somehow fades in and out: the light impressed in scripture is always there. But it may be that its instrumental power and blessing is not always felt. After all, even if one possesses habitual grace, any well-intentioned desire on a believer’s part still requires Christ’s gracious concursus to turn it into a properly affective act of faith and obedience. And Owen envisages that perhaps in an effort to awaken a distracted 119 120 121 122

Works, III.389. Works, I.241. See e. g., Works, I.306–7, 316–322. Works, I.316. For a relatively recent study on the Puritan meditative tradition, touching on the writings of Owen, see Jean D. Williams, “An Analysis of the Theological and Devotional Writings of Puritans in Seventeenth Century England” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Melbourne, 1997); also, Kay, Spirituality. 123 Owen, Works, XXI.252–3; cf. I.275, 287–8, 293, 301, 303, 305. 124 Works, XXI.251–2; cf. I.292, 374–78, 389–408.

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Christian from their slumber, Christ may not immediately and efficiently concur with their longings to recover the actual “vision” they have lost. Nevertheless, in any elect believer, the memory of that vision lost is as indelible as the imago and habitual grace implanted within the soul, and so throughout Meditations and Discourses, Owen urges his readers to persist in the means of meditation, to kindle those longings into a real search for Christ, with the assurance that in time he will graciously concur with that search.125 In other words, Owen clearly sees a more subtle, dialectical interaction between a Christian’s duty and Christ’s powerful, gracious concursus than Chan gives him credit. Returning to Causes, Ways, and Means, Owen moves on from these “spiritual” means of improvement, and turns next to certain “disciplinarian” aids for improving our reading of scripture. Here he lists: first, the knowledge and skill in the scripture’s original languages;126 second, a familiarity with the historical details recorded in scripture, which may incorporate the judicious use of “foreign testimonies” or records to help make sense of more obscure details in scripture;127 and, third, the instrumental use of reason, in common with other arts and sciences.128 In outlining these means, Owen is acutely conscious of their potential abuse, and he very clearly distinguishes them from the spiritual means, on the grounds that they are neither biblically prescribed duties, nor do they exercise one’s stock of habitual grace. They are purely natural skills, and their use, then, can expect no further divine blessing than what God would grant in natural affairs.129 Consequently, they are strictly subservient to the spiritual means of arriving at the true material sense of scripture. Nonetheless, provided they are exercised in that frame, these disciplines are useful instrumental aids, especially for expositors. Even if they do not allow access to the true spiritual sense of the text, they relieve some rational hindrances to grasping the lexical and grammatical meaning of its words and propositions. Or, as Owen colourfully puts it, they help unlock the cabinet wherein the “jewel of truth lies hid”.130 Finally, Owen refers to the “ecclesiastical” helps for understanding scripture, by which he means “the ministry of the church in all ages.”131 Here he sets aside any pretensions to some authoritative universal or “catholic tradition”, or the special weight of patristic commentators, and limits his claim to the historical writings of those spiritually gifted in the proclamation of the gospel, citing a range of Greek and Latin sources, and not least, eminent figures of the Refor125 126 127 128 129 130 131

Works, I.318–9, 391, 400. Works, IV.210–19. Works, IV.219–23. Works, IV.223–6. Works, IV.218–9, 225–6. Works, IV.215. Works, IV.226.

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mation.132 Although Owen does not claim this is a prescribed spiritual duty as such, he seems to regard it as a genuine means of grace, insofar as it offers “the same kind of advantage” as the church’s viva voce preaching ministry, provided it is used with “sobriety, judgment, and a due examination of all by the text itself.”133 In other words, like all the Reformed, Owen readily points to what Muller calls a “living exegetical tradition”, which does not so much supplant the final authority of the text, as it tended to do in established Catholic teaching, but offers a vital source “of advice and precedent”.134

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Conclusion

Rather than delivering a comprehensive appraisal of Owen’s approach to scriptural interpretation, this chapter has concentrated on highlighting the coherent connection Owen sees between the divine authority of the text and the way it is to be received and understood by any professing Christian. The Reformed readily saw that an indispensable corollary of scripture’s formal divine authority as the grounds of faith is its fundamental perspicuity to the believer, ensuring its essential material content can be apprehended without the mediation of some human authority, such as the Roman Papacy. And like others, Owen establishes this connection through the Spirit’s work of illumination at the foundation of the Christian life. Just as the habit of grace allows a believer to perceive the ultimate divine truthfulness of scripture, so too does it secure a grasp of those core doctrines which give Christian faith its distinguishing characteristic as a trust in the mercies of Christ. This “unction”, as Owen calls it, not only conveys every material doctrine necessary for the Christian life, but also regulates the way scripture is to be understood, accenting the unconditional promises of grace as the proper object of faith, and as the foundation of that love which finally terminates upon Christ’s whole person and directs the entire course of Christian obedience. Furthermore, it is this immediate interface between the scriptural text and the illuminated believer which may have contributed to Owen’s refashioning of ecclesiology along Congregational lines, where the essential being and power of the church resides strictly with its members, who have felt the impulse to gather and appoint its officers solely through a Spirit-led apprehension of their Christian duty. Finally, if this unction remains indelibly secure throughout a believer’s life through the measure of habitual grace furnished at their conversion, its limitation to the necessary 132 Works, IV.226–9. 133 Works, IV.228. 134 Muller, PRRD, II.481–2.

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doctrines of faith leaves scope for the exercise of that grace through prayerful reading of and meditation upon the scriptures, both privately and in conjunction with the church’s teaching ministry. Together with the Spirit’s further, immediate supplies of grace, as well as his actual concursus, these means are critical to the deepening conformity of a believer to the image of Christ they behold in scripture.

8.

Conclusion

By the time Owen first comes to address the issue of scriptural authority in the late 1650s, the debate which had raged for nearly a century between Catholics and Protestants over this contested issue had largely run its course. Yet, in seventeenth-century England, the “rule of faith” controversy had not so much disappeared as evolved, with its ramifications continuing to be felt well after the Restoration. Wearied by the instability of the previous twenty years, the Establishment ascendency was not only anxious to suppress any lingering threat of Catholic or fanatical sedition, but was also increasingly confronted by a newly critical stance towards scripture, emanating from influential lay circles, and posing radical challenges to the traditional, harmonious relationship between faith and reason as accepted for centuries. Indeed, a number of prominent Churchmen were compelled to defend the “reasonableness” of Protestant belief, relying heavily on a strategy Chillingworth had shrewdly adopted against his Catholic opponents earlier in the century. Ruling out any reliance on some potentially fanatical internal spiritual testimony, it is not necessary, nor reasonable, they argued, for a believer to possess an infallible certainty of scripture’s final authority ; moral certainty, or a firm – if not entirely fool-proof – rational conviction, built on solid, demonstrable evidences or motives, is an entirely sufficient foundation for Christian belief. In this study, we have attempted to analyse Owen’s understanding of scriptural authority with an eye to these contextual developments, and the significant intellectual influences upon his thought. Much of our study has concentrated on Owen’s final, mature statement on scripture – Reason of Faith – wherein he adds his own well-respected voice to this debate as it had evolved in the English scene. Sharing with his contemporaries a disdain for Catholicism and fanatical enthusiasm, and in many ways endorsing their apologetic intent, Owen is nonetheless concerned that this increasingly popular way of proceeding surrenders rather too much to the final authority of natural reason, preventing faith from resting on the divine Word alone. What he offers instead is in many ways a restatement of the traditional Reformed position, where Christian faith can only

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truly arise through the irresistible persuasion of God’s authoritative Word, however much rational arguments may offer apologetic support to its claims. Certainly, that is how Owen sees things himself. In this respect, John Lamont is entirely correct to notice Owen’s concern to protect the integrity of divine faith by ensuring the veracity and truthfulness of God alone is understood to be its sole, objective, “formal reason”. Indeed, for whatever else may be said about the apparent early developments in the Reformed understanding of the Spirit’s testimonium internum, Owen is unlikely to approve of Jeffrey Mallinson’s desire to locate faith’s objective cause or foundation in the rationally discernable objective evidences, however much Mallinson admits that discernment needs the supernatural aid of the Spirit’s internal work. With Lamont – and Calvin before him – Owen is cautious to avoid speaking of faith in God as a two-step affair, as if it somehow proceeds from a prior inference about scripture’s divine authority, drawn entirely from an apologetic set of “proofs”. To believe in God is no more or less than to trust his revealed testimony, on the grounds of God alone, who is the ultimate source of infallible truth. Nonetheless, Owen is not at all blind to the difficulties that arise with such a claim. It is all well and good to insist that faith is grounded in God’s truthfulness alone rather than some inference of Spirit-aided human reason, but how can a person be sure this frail vessel – scripture – truly is the authoritative voice or testimony of the Almighty? The traditional appeal to the Spirit’s own testimonium internum is undoubtedly critical here, as Owen readily admits, but he is equally sensitive to the charges of irrationalism and subjectivism which had frequently been levelled against it, gently distancing himself from the way “learned men” have sometimes explained it as an internal and ineffable divine persuasion. Instead, his own argument shows a level of refinement which attempts to ground a believer’s infallible assurance of scripture’s authority in a unique kind of objective evidence that is communicated “in and by” the inspired text itself. For Owen, no less than his apologist contemporaries, the certainty of faith’s adherence must merge with a certainty of evidence. Arguably, this is the critical move Lamont fails to grasp in Owen’s account. Lamont knows full well that to believe God’s voice in scripture first requires us to recognise that it is his authoritative voice. But he wants to avoid saying that the factors which cause us to recognise God’s voice in scripture somehow enter the reason for our belief, for fear of turning faith into something which launches off some prior inference about scripture’s divine authority.1 In a sense, Owen shares this concern – as we have said. But the difference is, unlike Lamont, Owen considers the “recognition” of God’s authority in scripture through its “evi1 So, Lamont, Faith, 198.

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dence” as no less than faith in God himself. It not a first step that leads to faith, but part and parcel of faith itself. Indeed, for Owen, the “evidence” is not merely “the effect of God’s utterance upon a hearer that enables the hearer to recognize that it is being spoken by God”2 ; rather, the “evidence” is the very “divine testimony” on which faith is based. In this respect, a large part of our study has been devoted to showing how Owen consciously attempts to engage the concerns of his opponents – to ground faith in objective evidence – whilst remaining faithful to a confessionally Reformed view, which ties a perception of scripture’s authority seamlessly to Christian faith itself. The distinctiveness of Owen’s argument in Reason of Faith is best grasped, we have suggested, by observing the clues he gives to the way he understands the mind’s cognitive processes. Like so many Early Modern Reformed thinkers, Owen was no stranger to the scholastic metaphysical heritage, and cautiously incorporates its conclusions into his constructive dogmatic agenda where they can serve an instrumental end. And in keeping with the peripatetic tradition, Owen regards an act of understanding to consist in a union or adequation between the mind and its proper object – the truth of any given thing – via an “image” or species of that truth formally implanted on the mind. It is this correspondence between the mind and its object which causes the “affection” of certainty that accompanies understanding. Consequently, the more a particular truth is evident to the mind, the greater the certainty. Owen does not enter into a technical elaboration or defence of this theory in the way some of his more philosophically minded Reformed brethren do. Nonetheless, his adoption of the general theory is telling, not least for the way it carries over into his explanation for the certainty of faith. Of course, as Owen writes in the late 1600s, Aristotelian science was rapidly giving way to a new materialism which would offer a more physiological, less realist account of cognition. Yet, the older theory had not altogether lost its institutional appeal, even as the century drew to a close. However, for all the empirical realism of this framework, it is also clear that Owen does not take cognition to be an autonomous, entirely objective process, but something equally dependent upon a subjective “light” God has furnished upon the mind. Pre-Enlightenment thinkers classically turned to a doctrine of divine illumination as a means of underwriting the soul’s cognitive access to truth, whether speculative or practical (moral). The evolution of this Augustinian theme is complex and eclectic. But like other Reformed orthodox thinkers, Owen appears to regard this “light” as a concreated habit, providing the mind with a capacity to assent to certain truths which can virtually be regarded as “innate”, and enabling it to proceed demonstratively to a knowledge of more complex truths. Rather than espousing a version of nativism, Owen’s doctrine 2 Faith, 198.

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evinces the sort of Thomist influence which has been detected in his thought before. Similar to Aquinas, Owen interprets this habitual light in terms of the natural law, which itself is an analogical participation in God’s unalterable essence, and allows a person’s intended end to become intelligible through their experience of the created world. Even still, Owen adapts this natural illumination to a Reformed Federal scheme, where Adam originally possessed sufficient light to discern the natural law, as well as its annexed covenantal promises, enabling him to reach eternal beatitude on condition of his obedience. While the Fall ended this original covenant, and severely darkened his original light, Owen believes Adam’s descendants continue to possess enough natural light to discern certain speculative and practical truths instinctively and infallibly, not least, analogical “evidence” of God’s existence and nature embedded within the created world. And in outlining his own constructive position on scriptural authority, this is where he begins, arguing that this natural evidence is sufficiently perspicuous that a denial of it, or lack of certainty thereof, represents a culpable failure in a person’s rational powers. In our study, we have argued that this concursus of evidence and natural light is consistently paralleled in Owen’s apologia for scripture’s divine origin. Gospel truth will always remain non-evident to the fallen mind, Owen believes, without a healing and elevation of its powers, enabling it to assent to the divine testimony of scripture with saving faith. Consequently, just as there is a natural illumination, which consists of a habitual inclination to detect the revelation God has implanted within nature and its teleological order, so there is, by grace, a spiritual illumination consisting of a habitual inclination to perceive the truths of the gospel. Likewise, such an illumination is not so much an irresistible secret persuasion or internal afflatus, but a habitual impression of the Word itself upon the mind. In other words, Owen reframes this doctrine, which had been so crucial to Reformed accounts of scriptural authority, along recognisably Thomist lines, where this spiritual light is intimately associated with a new habit, infused into the soul by grace. For Owen, the “habit of grace” is a single supernatural principle or “quality” which does not simply illuminate the mind, but restores the will and affections to the spiritual good under the direction of this new light, enabling them to adhere to their proper objects with faith, love and obedience. Owen does not seem to be alone in fashioning illumination along the lines of infused grace, and is considerably less coy about this clear mediaeval dependency than some later interpreters of Reformed theology have been. In fact, the reemergence of habitual terminology within Reformed thought appears to have furnished several advantages, not least as the orthodox sought to defend the final perseverance of the elect against the Arminians around the turn of the sev-

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enteenth century. In our context too, it perhaps enabled them to explain the nature of illumination without problematic recourse to some “secret” internal “testimony”, and in a fashion that honours the natural operation of the faculties in their irresistible response to the gospel call. Undoubtedly, polemics played a large part in this “ecumenical” refinement: it is likely that Owen and others were drawn to aspects of the traditional Catholic formulation in an effort to shore up their own doctrinal position from attack. It is this regenerative work, then, that enables a person to receive the scriptures with faith as the saving Word of God. Specifically, in Reason of Faith, Owen envisages that the habitual power of faith uniquely enables a person to perceive the evidence of its authority, or what he calls its “light” and “power”. If all creation furnishes evidence of its maker and his designs in the form of natural law, it is reasonable to expect that the pre-eminent work of God – the Word of grace – would offer the brightest evidence of all. Consequently, he argues that the “light” of scripture consists in certain analogical, accidental “impressions” of uncreated divine excellencies “evident” within the text itself. Its “power” is related to its instrumental role in regeneration, where its truth is impressed upon the mind, and the faculties are re-ordered under its guiding light. Together, then, this light and power is, “formally” speaking, the Spirit’s own divine objective testimony upon which faith is built, operating “in and by” scripture itself, and making its appeal to the mind and will alike, which in their proper relationship are both critical to the single act of faith. In other words, Owen’s claim is that the concursus of this evidence with the soul causes an infallibly certain, faithful adherence to scripture as the divine Word of God. In some ways, Owen’s formulation comes into even sharper focus when it is examined alongside another crucial theme in his mature thought, namely, the imago Dei. Like many Reformed thinkers, Owen associates the image both with the soul’s essential structure and, especially, the concreated habitual qualities Adam possessed before the Fall, commonly expressed as his “original righteousness”. With these latter qualities now lost, they are restored when a person “beholds” the representative image of the glorious, ascended Christ, which is “accidentally” reflected in the pages of scripture. Owen interprets this transformation through the lens of peripatetic optical theory. Just as the divine image resides substantially in Christ’s person, so is it reflected in scripture as in a “glass”, and it comes to inhere within a believer when they “see” that image, causing it to be implanted on the soul, and uniting it to its proper object. And it is this union which causes a believer’s corresponding state of certainty, just as in natural knowledge, where certainty of understanding results from an adequation between the soul and its object. The connection he makes here between Christ and divine revelation must not be missed. Although he develops these christological themes largely outside the polemically focussed Reason of Faith, it is

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important to observe these links if we are to arrive at a more thorough understanding of his position. Indeed, elsewhere he is adamant that Christ is the one in whom all “evidence” of truth ultimately converges. Consequently, to see and feel the light and power of scripture as the basis of faith is, for Owen, nothing other than to experience a powerful “intuition” of Christ – a prolepsis of the beatific visio Dei – which reforms the soul into his image. That is why he can speak seamlessly of scripture and Christ as the “formal reason” of faith. This intriguing and creative metaphysical and dogmatic synthesis is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it allows Owen to offer a plausible explanation for a believer’s certain perception of the Word’s divine truth in terms that parallel the natural processes of cognition, while fully accounting for the proper effects of grace. Consequently, it enables him to respond to the concerns of his contemporaries in their quest to ground faith and its certainty in some objective, evident foundation, even as all certain natural knowledge is built on evidence that appeals to the intellect through experience. For Owen, the certainty of faith’s adherence is no more or less than a certainty derived from evidence appealing to the renewed mind, will and affections alike. At the same time, however, Owen’s Reformed convictions regarding the nature of Christian faith and its superiority over reason remain fully intact. In no way does Owen permit faith’s integrity to be shipwrecked on the epistemic terrain of purely natural reason, as he fears his contemporaries have done, emaciating Christian assurance to the level of mere moral certainty. Indeed, for Owen – as for all the Reformed – a perception of scripture’s final authority must fundamentally remain a confessional matter. It is inseparably bound up with a believer’s faith in Christ, wherein they recognise scripture to be the instrument of his salvific, mediatorial rule. Owen has certainly followed the pattern set by other Reformed orthodox thinkers in drawing deeply upon an established, albeit somewhat eclectic dogmatic and metaphysical tradition to give sophisticated and robust expression to that confession in a way that responds intelligently to the concerns of his own late seventeenthcentury context. Yet, these tools serve a strictly subordinate function, and never dominate his exposition. For Owen, the authority of scripture is something arising ultimately from its critical location within a grand economy of redemption, which follows the cues of scripture itself, and centres upon the person and work of Christ in calling sinners to himself. Indeed, the confessional foundation for scripture’s authority is something Owen attempts to honour in explaining the origin of the written text, and the basic principles of its interpretation, as we saw in our final two chapters. Accordingly, Owen frames the gradual evolution of written scripture within the historical progression of the new covenant, from the first promise made to Adam after the Fall in Genesis 3:15, to the closed scriptural canon. All scripture flows directly from the prophetic office of Christ established in the pactum salutis, and

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the pre-eminent expression of ectypal theology in the Word made flesh. In describing the Spirit’s actual inspiration of the text, Owen once again relies on the heuristic tools of scholastic metaphysics. This traditional theory belies common caricatures by attempting to explain how this miracle occurs through, rather than in spite of, the normal processes of cognition. Yet, irrespective of how later interpreters may assess this theory, Owen never employs it in a way that somehow grounds scripture’s authority, as if to rival a believer’s confessional recognition of its divine light and power as the living Word of Christ. Finally, Owen believes the immediacy of Christ’s authority over each believer via his Word spells out important implications for scripture’s perspicuity and their relationship to the church. Not only is scripture’s formal authority apparent to the illuminated believer ; so too is its key material content. The essential nature of Christian faith as a fiduciary trust in the mercies of Christ flows out of this perspicuity, and regulates the nature of scripture’s interpretation as a document of the new covenant, whose accent falls upon divine grace extended to sinners in its unconditional promises. This immediate interface between scripture and an illuminated believer ensures Christ’s direct rule over his church can never be usurped by some alien authority, and perhaps offers some theological insight into Owen’s settled commitment to Congregational ecclesiology. Yet, by asserting scriptural perspicuity, Owen does not mean to denigrate the church’s teaching ministry, let alone the private disciplines of devotion, which are crucial to the exercise and growth of that habitual grace each believer receives in conversion, strengthening their love for and conformity to Christ, and his image reflected in scripture. There should be no question, then, that Owen’s theologically rich, coherent and rigorously integrated account of scripture’s authoritative role in the Christian life bears eloquent testimony to his settled and formidable reputation as an original, yet deeply traditional voice within seventeenth-century orthodox Reformed thought. Of course, the degree to which his sophisticated synthesis managed to persuade his contemporaries, or influence his descendants, is a question for another day, as is its on-going constructive value. Owen himself would probably judge its success chiefly by its pastoral outcome in assuring a believer of the proper foundation for their faith. However, in his own intellectual context, it is likely to have faced several challenges. The late seventeenth century was undoubtedly a time of dramatic intellectual upheaval. The rapid decline of the broadly Aristotelian metaphysical edifice in favour of a revived materialism was part of a larger project aiming at dismantling the harmonious Augustinian hegemony of faith over reason. And in the decades that followed, Reformed thinkers would have to adapt their confessional commitments to these developments. The difficulty of this task meant that it would become increasingly harder to find consensus, and with it, an identifiable “orthodoxy”. Indeed, on

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this very matter of scriptural authority, the fragmentation already witnessed in the radically different approaches of Owen and his Establishment contemporaries would only deepen in the century to come. In certain quarters, the strategy greatly feared by Owen would become the new orthodoxy, as is readily apparent in the writings of someone like the Franeker theologian, Hermann Venema. Yet, with Owen, there would be others, such as Philip Doddridge, who would remain convinced as ever that whatever the apologetic value of rational arguments for the authority of scripture, “there is no proof in the world so satisfactory to the true Christian, as to have felt the transforming power of the gospel on his own soul.”3

3 Philip Doddridge, The Evidences of Christianity Briefly Stated (Derby : Henry Mozley, 1816), 10; cf. 10–12, 27. Cf., Robert Strivens, “The Thought of Philip Doddridge in the Context of Early Eighteenth-Century Dissent” (Unpublished Ph.D., University of Stirling, 2011), 76–9.

Appendix: Owen and the rudiments of cognition

Owen’s indebtedness to the traditional peripatetic framework of cognition, dominant in mediaeval scholasticism, is evident in various places throughout his corpus. The clearest piece of evidence is a section of his commentary on Hebrews 4:1–2, referring specifically to the writer’s remark that the gospel did not profit (oqj ¡v]kgsem) the Israelites, since their hearing was not united with faith (lµ sucjejeqasl]mour t0 p_stei to?r !jo}sasim).1 Owen starts with a broad observation that “the great mystery of useful and profitable believing consists in the mixing or incorporating of truth and faith in the souls or minds of believers.”2 In explaining what he means, he begins by setting down a universal principle of peripatetic cognitive theory ; namely, that “there is a great respect, relation, and union, between the faculties of the soul and their proper objects”.3 According to Owen, the proper object of the mind – the “leading” faculty of the soul – is “truth”. Amongst scholastic thinkers, it was common to speak of the intellect’s proper object as the unindividuated “essence” or “quiddity” of a thing (quod quid est), as opposed to the accidental features that it has by virtue of its material individuation. Beyond this, there were a variety of different ways of expressing what was meant by “quiddity”, and in an echo of Augustine’s lingering influence, one of these was to see it as an equivalent to “truth”.4 What exactly Aristotle meant by this union is a little uncertain, as sometimes he speaks of a union of action, and other times, some kind of formal, albeit not absolute, identity between the soul and its cognized object.5 However, it was the latter notion of formal identity which was fundamental to the dominant account of cognition that emerged from the thirteenth century onwards. Crucial to this formal identity between the “knower” and the “known” is the multiplication of species 1 2 3 4

See the section, Owen, Works, XXI.246–53. Works, XXI.246. For the Aristotelian origin of this principle, see, Aristotle, De Anima iii.4. Aquinas, STh I q.20 a.1; q.54 a.2; I–II q.3 a.7; Henry of Ghent, SQO a.2 q.6; a.24 q.8. Cf., “nam verum mihi videtur esse id quod est”: Augustine, Soliloquiorum II.v.8 [PL 32 c.889]. 5 Pasnau, Cognition, 295–6.

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that extends from the object, through the “medium”, into the senses, and terminating with the abstracted “intelligible species” in the intellect. Of course this does not mean the object itself is physically transported in those species so that it actually ends up in the mind.6 Rather, it means that the same object formally exists in a variety of different modes, from the object itself through to its essential representational likeness – the intelligible species in the mind – and finally, in the cognitive act or intention. The precise nature and degree of this “formal identity” between the object’s essence and the intellect was a matter of considerable contention amongst mediaeval thinkers and continues to be among their modern commentators.7 But since an object’s universal essence could never be accessed directly by the mind apart from its material and sensible instantiation, the need for a sequence of species to mediate knowledge within this fundamentally realist framework was practically a given (with the notable exception of Ockham, who dismissed them altogether). And Owen assumes their role too:8 For truth and the understanding are, as it were, of the same nature, and being orderly brought together do absolutely incorporate. Truth being received into the understanding doth no way affect it nor alter it, but only strengthen, improve, enlarge, direct, and confirm it, in its proper actings. Only it implants a type and figure of itself upon the mind; and hence those things or adjuncts that belong unto one of these are often ascribed unto the other.9 6 Although, as Pasnau notes, William Crathorn (c. 1330) infamously held a view along these lines: Cognition, 89–101. Elsewhere Pasnau cautions against overstating what is entailed in this common claim, as if to say the scholastics somehow naively believed perception exactly corresponded to reality when they did not: Metaphysical Themes, 494–5. 7 See, e. g., Pasnau, Cognition, 86–124, 295–305; Claude Panaccio, “Aquinas on Intellectual Representation”, in Ancient and Medieval Theories of Intentionality, ed. Dominik Perler (Leiden: Brill, 2001); Peter King, “Rethinking Representation in the Middle Ages”, in Representation and Objects of Thought in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); Susan C. Brower-Toland and Jeffrey E. Brower, “Aquinas on Mental Representation: Intentionality and Concepts”, The Philosophical Review 117 (2008); King, “Things”; Giorgio Pini, “Two Models of Thinking: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus”, in Intentionality, Cognition and Representation in the Middle Ages, ed. Gyula Klima (New York: Fordham University Press, forthcoming). 8 In this section of the Hebrews Commentary, Owen does not use the word “species”, but various synonyms including, “mould”, “type”, “image”, “figure” or “idea”. Contrary to common perception, the term “idea” did not originate with the philosophy of Descartes, but as Ariew argues, had a scholastic origin where it was closely associated with “exemplars” or the intellectual species/image of cognitive theory : Roger Ariew, Descartes and the Last Scholastics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 58–76; also, David Clemenson, Descartes’ Theory of Ideas (London: Continuum, 2007), 30–3. For some places where Owen uses the technical term “species” in a range of contexts, see, Owen, Works, VI.65, 66, 67; VIII.7; XI.346; XII.101; XIII.30, 242; XIV.444, XVII.V.vi.6; XXI.94. 9 Owen, Works, XXI.247; cf. XVII.I.iii.1. Similarly, “As when a man hath an idea or projection of any thing in his mind that he will produce or effect, he casteth the image framed in his mind

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A corollary of this union of faculty and proper object, and another fundamental feature of the metaphysical framework, is the infallible reliability or indefectibility of the faculties in regards to their proper objects. Just as the senses are infallible in their perception of the sensible species of, say, the colour red, so is the mind in its reception of the species of “reddness”, abstracted from the sensible data. Referring to the external senses, Owen is confident that they “will not deceive”. The mind, he says, “cannot but receive, believe, and comply with what it comprehends by its senses; as what it sees, hears, and feels.”10 Moreover, when the mind is then confronted by its proper object – truth – through the indefectible operation of the senses, “it embraceth and cleaveth unto [it] necessarily and unavoidably.”11 As it stands, this principle seems somewhat confusing and not least implausible. First, there is the question of the senses and their basic reliability. As we observe in chapter two, this became an increasingly tenuous claim for many thinkers as the seventeenth century progressed. Whether or not Owen’s disinterest in this question represents a certain metaphysical ambivalence, or even naivety, is hard to say. Either way, he undoubtedly recognised the centrality of the assumption to this deeply realist, albeit traditional, account of cognition.12 Without the veridical operation of the senses, and their communication of vital information about an object to the mind, the foundations of the theory soon begin to crumble, and the possibility of attaining certain knowledge of the material world becomes rather more problematic to say the least. For that likely reason, then, Owen simply assumes the traditional position and takes their reliability as a given. Secondly, even if the indefectibility of the senses is granted, there is still the glaringly obvious problem of explaining intellectual error and deception. How can it be said that the mind “unavoidably” and “necessarily” embraces truth? Clearly, traditional advocates of the peripatetic theory were not so absurdly gullible to allege some kind of absolute intellectual infallibility. Rather, the claim is limited to the raw, inchoate data that forms the rudimentary building blocks for cognition to occur. As Kretzmann shows in relation to Aquinas, the principle entails no expectation for infallible cognition of an object in a comprehensive sense, which might include every judgment the mind makes regarding that object from what is perceived in the senses, or initially abstracted by the mind. upon his work, that it shall exactly answer it in all things; so, on the other side, when a man doth diligently contemplate on that which is without him, it begets an idea of it in his mind, or casts it into the same image.”: Works, XXI.251–2. 10 Owen, Works, IV.151. 11 Works, XXI.247. 12 For the Aristotelian principle regarding the reliability of the senses, see, Aristotle, De Anima III.3.

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Here there is clearly scope for ignorance or falsity. So on the one hand, the mind for various reasons may remain ignorant of a truth whose essence or intelligible species has been reliably, but subconsciously abstracted by the “agent” intellect. Alternatively, the inordinate influence of sensible passions or affections may introduce falsehood or deception to the mind’s judgments about that truth. Either way, it is prevented from arriving at truthful knowledge of its object.13 Nonetheless, it is vital to see that the integrity of the peripatetic theory relies on both the accuracy of the senses, and the indefectible capacity of the intellect to abstract everything it needs from the material world it encounters, so that the process of understanding can begin. And unless the faculties have been damaged in some way, such an operation is natural, and in that sense, infallible, even after the Fall. It is valid to conclude from this principle that the simpler the object of knowledge, the less likely the possibility for error in cognition. There are certain cognitions which peripatetic thinkers like Aquinas regarded as virtually axiomatic and “self-evident”, not necessarily because they were somehow implanted in the mind at birth, akin to the Platonic sense of innate ideas, but because they are the kinds of cognitions which are closest to the basic data produced by the very natural operation of the faculties themselves.14 These are what Owen seems to have in mind when speaking of the “first dictates of reason” (see discussion in chapter three).15 Apart from these, however, the mind in its native state is naturally “indifferent” and “undetermined” as to the truth or falsehood of anything until it receives some sensible “evidence” which enables the process of judgment and cognition to begin.16 Once this happens, the least opportunity for deception occurs in the simplest judgments formed as close as possible to the infallible data abstracted from the senses. As Owen says, it “cannot but comply” with the things it “sees, hears, and feels.”17 In other words, through the indefectible operation of the senses and their passions, it may be some accidental features of an object such as its colour, taste, or temperature which the mind immediately and most reliably grasps. It is then through “compounding” and “dividing” these basic propositions that the mind achieves a more thorough and extensive knowledge of an object, a process which Owen would call “demonstration”. And clearly, the 13 For an extensive discussion of this in Aquinas’ teaching, see, Kretzmann, “Infallibility”; John I. Jenkins, “Aquinas on the Veracity of the Intellect”, The Journal of Philosophy 88 (1991); Jenkins, Knowledge, 101–23. Note also, Pasnau, Human Nature, 324–9; cf. 234–64. 14 See, Pasnau, Human Nature, 307–10, 325–6. Cf., Aquinas, STh I q.17 a.3 ad2; q.117 a.1. 15 Owen, Works, IV.82–3, 84, 86–7. 16 “The mind of man is in itself indifferent and undetermined unto any thing, as true or false (unless it be in its first notions of the common principles of reason) beyond the evidence that is proposed to it”: Works, IV.151. 17 Works, IV.151.

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more complex or spiritual the cognitive judgment, the greater the likelihood of error and deception, through what Owen might class as the sinful corruption of the mind in relation to its “proper object, term and end”.18 The process of the mind being conformed to the likeness or image of the truth of the object (or proposition) was commonly called “adequation”. Owen describes it in terms of a “union”. With the most basic elements of knowledge, the process of adequation is virtually immediate. However, with more complex objects of knowledge which require the higher powers of judgment and demonstration, the process is only complete when the mind arrives at the subjective certainty that mirrors the certainty of the truth itself. That is why Owen sees knowledge and intellectual certainty as being co-ordinate. Where there is doubt or opinion – “fluctuating conceptions about things” – the object is not yet properly known, which is to say, the mind is not fully adequated or united to its truth.19 Indeed, it is worth mentioning here Aquinas’ older distinction between the “intelligible species” and the “concept” or “mental word”. The intelligible species is the immediate likeness the agent intellect subconsciously abstracts from the sensible data, and this begins the conscious process of intellection. The concept represents the completion or terminus ad quem of intellection following the process of judgment. As Panaccio points out, in different ways, both are regarded by Aquinas as likenesses of the external object.20 This means that in the case of doubt, for instance, the mind may well have abstracted an “intelligible species” representing the object, although in another respect it has not yet been conformed to the object by the way of a concept. There is not yet full understanding. As Aquinas puts it, “we know a house in a confused way before we distinguish its individual parts”, and it is the process of judgment which perfects the act of knowing.21 Since Owen equates “union” with “knowledge”, it seems that here at least, when he speaks of truth implanting a type and figure of itself on the mind, it is not so much a mere representational likeness that is on view, but full conformity ; that which arises at the completion of understanding when the mind is fully adequated to its object, rather than the beginning.22 Of course, it is worth adding that this process of moving from objects through their species up to higher levels of understanding, which relies upon the signifying potential of language and propositions, is a complex, and at points controversial metaphysical issue that received a variety of elaborate treatments in 18 Owen remarks, “[The mind] is corrupted not so much in the root and principle of its actings, as with respect unto their proper object, term, and end.”: Works, III.331. 19 Works, XXI.247. 20 Panaccio, “Representation”, 188–92. See, Aquinas, DV q.4 a.2; SCG I q.53; IV q.11. 21 STh I q.85 a.3, a.5. 22 As Spruit points out, this relationship between the intelligible species and the mental act or intention was often blurred in later discussions: Spruit, Species (II), 258–61, 262–4, 537.

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the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in particular. Some of the most contentious issues included the balance of “activity” and “passivity” of the intellect in arriving at knowledge, the precise formal and ontological connection between an object and its species, and the implications when species of non-existent objects appear in the mind, such as in dreams, or even through divine intervention. Moreover, it is likely that no single account of the general theory was capable of ironing-out every vexing complexity in its particular details.23 Owen does not enter this kind of discussion, but it is important to recognise that he clearly inhabits this philosophical world and adopts some framework of this sort, even if it is not entirely apparent to his readers in all its metaphysical detail. As the seventeenth century progressed, the eclectic scholastic theory of cognition was subjected to increasingly sustained criticism and even ridicule by prominent Early Modern philosophers like Hobbes, Descartes and Gassendi. Instead of a sequence of species, these philosophers proposed the notion of a mental “idea” with some representational content, sparked off by a physiological response to the external world. In late seventeenth-century England, a variety of cognitive psychologies emerged as alternatives to the older scholastic theory, the most notable being those of Charleton, Hooke, Cudworth, Newton and Locke. Amidst their differences, perhaps the most consistent and decisive departure entailed the radical erosion and inversion of one of the most attractive features of the peripatetic theory, namely the formally causal relationship between an object, its interaction with the senses, and the actual perceptual content of the mental idea.24 Nevertheless, as Schmitt has cautioned, while it is true that Aristotelian science was dramatically and irretrievably undermined in the late seventeenth century, the point has frequently been overstated. The Aristotelian world-view continued – albeit in an eclectic form – as a formidable force throughout the seventeenth century, thanks largely to the influence of the textbook tradition of learning within the universities. Although its demise was accelerated later in the century, the process of dismantling its key metaphysical assumptions was a complex, gradual, and not entirely decisive affair that began well before the

23 For a survey of these later developments, see, Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes, especially, 491–518; also, Spruit, Species (II). 24 On this, see, Spruit, Species (II), 544–5; cf. 352–545; also, Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes, 496–518. On the eclectic range of views concerning cognition in the Renaissance more generally, see, Eckhard Kessler, “The Intellective Soul”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, and Eckhard Kessler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Richard Popkin, “Theores of Knowledge”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, and Eckhard Kessler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Spruit, Species (II), 223–351; Ayers, “Knowledge”.

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Renaissance.25 Indeed, the newer cognitive theories themselves contained significant conceptual dependencies, and in many ways simply mirrored the minority censures that the peripatetic theory received throughout the Middle Ages.26 Moreover, in line with the enduring impact of the late sixteenth-century revival in Aristotelianism at Oxford, along with the admiration older scholastics like Aquinas continued to receive in England throughout the seventeenth century,27 it is not surprising to find defenders of the traditional view even as the century drew to a close.28 Of course, it is equally true that the doctrines of Aristotle in general, and Aquinas in particular, were mediated and to some extent diluted through the influence of important commentators such as Su‚rez, and the textbooks which absorbed a range of ideas from outside the Aristotelian tradition. Even still, a consistent commitment to the causal theory of cognition, which typically incorporated intelligible species, is readily discernible amongst 25 Charles B. Schmitt, “Towards a Reassessment of Renaissance Aristotelianism”, History of Science 11 (1973). Cf., Patricia Reif, “The Textbook Tradition in Natural Philosophy”, Journal of the History of Ideas 30 (1969); Paul Oskar Kristeller, Renaissance Thought and its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 32–49; James McConica, “Humanism and Aristotle in Tudor Oxford”, The English Historical Review 94 (1979); Charles B. Schmitt, “The rise of the philosophical textbook”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt, Quentin Skinner, and Eckhard Kessler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Christia Mercer, “The Vitality and Importance of Early Modern Aristotelianism”, in The Rise of Modern Philosophy : The Tension between the New and Traditional Philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, ed. Tom Sorrell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Roger Ariew, “Modernity”, in The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); essays in, Constance Blackwell and Sachiko Kusukawa, eds, Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries: Conversations with Aristotle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999). For the importance of a lingering, eclectic Aristotelian tradition in seventeenth-century Reformed scholasticism, see, Richard A. Muller, “Reformation, Orthodoxy, ‘Christian Aristotelianism’, and the Eclecticism of Early Modern Philosophy”, Nederlandsch archief voor kerkgeschiedenis 81 (2001). 26 E.g., see the conclusions of Spruit at the end of his two-volume history of cognitive psychology from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, Spruit, Species (II), 534–45; cf., Species (I). Note too, Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes, 3. 27 On the revival of Aristotelianism in the Oxford curriculum, see, McConica, “Humanism”. For a variety of different responses to Aquinas from a diverse selection of seventeenth-century English Protestants, see, John K. Ryan, The Reputation of St. Thomas Aquinas among English Protestant Thinkers of the Seventeenth Century (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1948). 28 The best-known late defence of the Aristotelian theory came from the English Catholic, John Sergeant (1622–1707). Cf., John Sergeant, Solid philosophy asserted, against the fancies of the ideists: or, the method to science farther illustrated (London: for Roger Clavil et al., 1697). See, John W. Yolton, “Locke’s Unpublished Marginal Replies to John Sergeant”, Journal of the History of Ideas 12 (1951), 546–55; Pauline Phemister, “Locke, Sergeant, and Scientific Method”, in The Rise of Modern Philosophy : The Tension between the New and Traditional Philosophies from Machiavelli to Leibniz, ed. Tom Sorrell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Dorothea Krook, John Sergeant and His Circle: A Study of Three Seventeenth Century English Aristotelians (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 67–95; Spruit, Species (II), 518–522.

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neo-scholastics, including Reformed writers, and remained influential well into the seventeenth century.29 And no doubt Owen would have come across this theory in many contexts, not least through his tutelage at Oxford under the neoscholastic Thomist, Thomas Barlow.30

29 Spruit, Species (II), 267–351. For some seventeenth-century Reformed writers who readily seem to assume some form of the traditional peripatetic theory, see, Polanus von Polansdorf, Syntagma, V.11 (I cc.1801–2); Zanchi, Operum, t.II c.209, cc.211–2; t.III cc.111–2, 114, cc.593–597; Flavel, Works, III.34–5; Howe, Works, I.199–200; Goodwin, Works, VI.490–1; Reynolds, Works, VI.278ff; Walaeus, Opera, I.525b – 26a; Maccovius, Loci, XXXIX.vi (352a); Turretin, Institutes, IV.i.8-9; Mastricht, Theologia, II.xiii.5 (144b). 30 On the relationship between Barlow and Owen, see, Rehnman, “Owen”.

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Names Index

Albert the Great 38, 52, 120, 150 Alsted, Johann 78, 84, 90f, 93, 153, 202 Alvarez, Didaci 123f Ames, William 108, 117f, 150, 153 Aristotle 45, 69, 75f, 88f, 115, 139, 257, 259, 263 Arminius, James 114, 123

B‚Çez, Dominico 40, 122 Barlow, Thomas 79, 96, 101, 142, 264 Baron, Robert 51f, 54, 63, 119, 123, 206 Barth, Karl 138, 184–188 Bates, William 16, 30, 57, 62 Bavinck, Herman 106, 109f, 123, 164, 167f Baxter, Richard 9, 14, 16, 30, 55f, 62, 141, 150, 176f, 228 Beach, J. Mark 81f, 95, 106 Beeke, Joel R. 17, 81, 85, 92, 131f, 199, 224, 233, 239f Bellarmine, Robert 22, 50, 126, 164, 166, 168, 210, 221 Biddle, John 201 Bobick, Michael W. 82, 128, 215, 237f, 240 Bonaventure 38, 72f, 75–78, 120, 126, 157, 209 Boring, Wendy Petersen 73–76 Bozeman, Theodore D. 228 Brunner, Emil 184–188 Burton, Simon J.G. 9, 56, 141, 177 Buxtorf Sr, Johann 213 Bychkov, Oleg 41

Cajetan, Thomas 40f, 122, 139 Calvin, John 15, 21f, 24–31, 34, 42, 46, 54, 57f, 61, 67f, 78, 80, 82, 93, 97, 110–113, 124, 127, 131, 143, 145, 154f, 165, 171, 176, 180, 183–188, 204, 214f, 221, 250 Capreolus, John 122 Chalmers, Thomas 16 Chan, Simon K.H. 116, 180, 241, 245 Charnock, Stephen 109, 167, 171 Chillingworth, William 43–48, 60, 63, 249 Clark, Scott R. 16, 24, 31, 94, 139, 170, 183–185 Cleveland, Christopher H. 33f, 108, 113–115, 117, 171 Cocceius, Johannes 81, 196f, 210, 236 Cooper, Tim 13f, 228 Cross, Richard 108, 110 Davenant, John 108, 125, 166, 171 de Lubac, Henri 90, 163f Dekker, Eef 15, 17, 24, 123, 142 Descartes, Ren¦ 76f, 79, 89f, 258, 262 Dowey Jr, Edward A. 27, 185f Dulles, Avery 121, 123 Dumont, Stephen D. 157 Evans, William B. 108, 111f Ferguson, Robert 62–64, 79, 91, 223 Ferguson, Sinclair B. 82 Fesko, J.V. 111, 113 Flavel, John 166f, 264

294 Fowler, Edward 60 Frost, Ronald Norman

Names Index

108, 111, 114

Gerhard, Johann 213 Gerrish, Brian A. 184–186, 188 Gilson, Êtienne 39f, 71 Glanvill, Joseph 58 Gleason, Randall C. 112 Godfrey, Robert W. 17, 30 Gomarus, Franciscus 110, 166, 171 Goodwin, Thomas 85, 95, 109f, 114, 171, 180, 194, 202, 226, 264 Goris, Harm 142 Goudriaan, Aza 78, 166, 168, 177 Greene, Robert A. 77f Griffin Jr, Martin I.J. 23, 45, 47f, 60 Griffiths, Steve 14, 99f, 161 Hale, Matthew 48, 64, 120, 163 Hamm, Berndt 127 Heidegger, Johann Heinrich 126, 214f Helm, Paul 27, 54, 188 Henry of Ghent 72f, 77, 257 Heppe, Heinrich 26, 182–184, 186, 188, 190, 216 Horton, Michael S. 83, 108–113, 116f Howe, John 30, 61f, 64, 166, 171, 180, 264 Hütter, Reinhard 138–142 Jansen, Cornelius 164 Jenkins, John I. 40f, 260 John Duns Scotus 38, 41, 73–77, 83, 85, 92, 122, 141f, 157f, 208, 258 Jones, Mark 17, 81, 85, 92, 95, 199, 233, 237, 239f Junius, Franciscus 25, 30, 52, 62, 64, 149, 169, 171, 200–202, 213 Kapic, Kelly M. 97, 117, 161, 168, 196 Kay, Brian K. 172, 244 Kelly, Ryan 14, 233 Kendall, R.T. 42 Kent, Bonnie 42, 69, 97–99 King, Peter 71, 108, 114, 158, 206, 258 Klauber, Martin I. 31 Knapp, Henry M. 15, 214

Kretzmann, Norman 69, 71, 97, 157, 259f Kristeller, Paul Oskar 263 Lamont, John R.T. 15f, 40, 54–56, 119, 176, 250 Lane, A.N.S 15, 185 Langston, Douglas C. 78, 158 Ledsham, Cal 84, 92 Leff, Gordon 38, 122 Leigh, Edward 109, 166f, 221, 226f, 242 Lim, Paul C.H. 14, 191, 231 Locke, John 77, 79, 101, 262f Lombard, Peter 127 Luther, Martin 78, 93, 108, 111, 124, 127, 183–185, 187f Maccovius, Johannis 108, 112, 166f, 264 Mallinson, Jeffrey 24–28, 30, 61, 250 Marrone, Stephen P. 73–75, 208 Marshall, Bruce D. 138, 140 Mastricht, Petrus van 30, 126, 146, 164, 166f, 171, 227, 264 McCormack, Bruce 111f McDonald, Suzanne 161, 168 McGinn, Bernard 162, 164 McGrath, Alister E. 108 McGraw, Ryan M. 17, 172, 196, 199 McInerny, Ralph 138, 142 McKim, Donald K. 17, 26f, 30, 94, 183f, 214 Medina, Bartolom¦ de 163f Möhle, Hannes 83, 92 Mohler, James A. 39, 41, 119f Molina, Luis de 122f, 164 More, Henry 16, 20, 62, 79f, 94, 111, 117, 122, 183, 186, 191 Mortimer, Sarah 191 Muller, Richard A. 9, 15, 17f, 20–26, 28–32, 34f, 42, 81, 85, 91, 97f, 108f, 111, 117, 123, 127, 141–143, 145f, 149, 176, 182, 186–190, 200, 208–211, 213–216, 221–224, 230, 237, 242, 246, 263 Niesel, Wilhelm 183, 185 Noone, Timothy 69, 73

295

Names Index

Oberman, Heiko 20, 41f, 122, 230 Oh, Changlok 111f Owen, John 9, 13–19, 22, 27, 31–35, 37–39, 42f, 49–65, 67–71, 76, 78–88, 90–103, 105–119, 121–133, 135–138, 141–161, 164–182, 184, 188–217, 219–246, 249–262, 264 Packer, J.I. 17 Panaccio, Claude 69, 258, 261 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 21 Pasnau, Robert 44f, 48, 69, 72–75, 90, 99, 108, 152, 158, 257f, 260, 262f Pegis, Anton C. 71f Perkins, William 24, 114 Perler, Dominik 44f, 70, 157, 258 Pictet, B¦n¦dict 210, 222f Pini, Giorgio 69, 158, 258 Platt, John E. 94 Polanus von Polansdorf, Amandus 52, 142, 166f, 213, 264 Popkin, Richard 21, 24, 45, 47, 53, 262 Preus, Robert D. 185, 187, 201, 210f Prideaux, John 109f, 215 Quenstedt, Johann

127, 207, 211

Reedy, Gerard 23, 47 Rehnman, Sebastian 17–19, 34, 39, 43, 49–51, 69, 84f, 91f, 96, 141–144, 171, 177f, 197, 239, 264 Reid, J.K.S. 183–185 Reynolds, Edward 78, 109, 124, 166f, 171, 180, 223, 264 Rogers, Jack B. 17, 26-7, 30, 94, 183f, 214 Rollock, Robert 166, 171, 221f Rosental, Creighton 41, 119 Rushworth, William 46 Rutherford, Samuel 194 Ryssen, Leonhard 222f, 242 Schmitt, Charles B. 262f Schneewind, J.B. 93, 101 Schumacher, Lydia 71, 73, 75f Schüssler, Rudolf 44f

Sergeant, John 47f Shapiro, Barbara J. 23, 45, 47 Sibbes, Richard 108, 111, 114, 150, 167, 171, 180 Simpson, Sidrach 150 Skinner, Quentin 15, 262f Snobelen, Stephen D. 191 South, Robert 58 Spence, Alan D. 170, 202 Spruit, Leen 69, 76, 79, 90, 152, 261–264 Spurr, John 23, 47f Stapleton, Thomas 21–23, 50 Stillingfleet, Edward 48, 57f Stoever, William K.B. 228 Stover, Dale A. 16f, 112, 188f, 195, 212, 214 Stump, Eleonore 71 Su‚rez, Francisco 54, 63, 76, 122f, 152, 206, 263 Sullivan, John E. 162 Sunshine, Glenn S. 31 Sylvestris, Francis de 40 Tachau, Katherine H. 38, 69, 73, 151, 157f Talbot, Peter 47f, 55 Tamburello, Dennis E. 180 Tay, Edwin E.M. 196 te Velde, Roelf 138 Thomas Aquinas 33, 38–41, 45, 51, 69, 73–80, 83, 85, 88–90, 92, 94, 97–99, 101, 103, 108–110, 114, 119, 120–122, 126, 133, 138–140, 142f, 145, 147, 160, 162f, 182, 205–209, 212, 252, 257–261, 263 Thompson, Mark D. 185 Tillotson, John 48-9, 57, 59–61, 63-4 Toon, Peter 13, 43, 53 Torrance, J.B 82, 238 Torrance, T.F. 184f, 187 Tostatus, Alfonso 211 Trueman, Carl R. 9, 15, 17–19, 24, 30, 34, 82, 84, 93f, 110, 141–143, 171, 188, 193–196, 201f, 212, 214, 228 Tucker, Thomas J. 15, 242 Turretin, Francis 25f, 29f, 58, 78–81, 83–85, 91, 93f, 97, 109f, 112–114, 117, 123–128, 143, 159, 163–167, 169, 177,

296 193, 198f, 201f, 214f, 222–224, 226–228, 264 Twisse, William 114 Ursinus, Zacharias 166–168 Ussher, James 166 van Asselt, Willem 9, 15, 17f, 24, 81, 124, 142, 188, 195, 197, 200, 236 van den Belt, Henk 25–28, 30, 54, 61f, 84, 123 van Leeuwen, Henry G. 23, 43, 45 VanDrunen, David 80, 93 Venema, Hermann 31, 60, 256 Vermigli, Peter Martyr 126 Voetius, Gisbertus 109, 166–168 Walaeus, Antonius 25, 166, 201f, 264 Wallace, Dewey D. 30, 61f, 176, 185f

Names Index

Warfield, B.B. 24f Webster, John B. 16, 32 Weemse, John 207, 210f Whitaker, William 22, 25, 52, 62 White, Thomas 46–48, 55f, 122, 138, 143 Wilkins, John 48, 51 William of Auxerre 120 William of Ockham 38 Wilson, John 53, 221, 223 Wisse, Maarten 24, 109f, 114f, 195 Witsius, Herman 34, 166, 205, 207, 212 Wollebius, Johannes 165f Wolter, Allan B. 74, 157f Yolton, John W.

78f, 94, 263

Zachman, Randall C. 180 Zanchi, Girolamo 88, 142, 166–169, 171, 264

Subject Index

accommodation, doctrine of 54, 188, 211, 222 Adam; Adam and Eve 80–103, 107–116, 132f, 162–169, 171, 192–195, 197, 252–254 – covenant of nature or works 80–82, 84, 86, 88, 90–92, 95f, 107f, 192f, 237f, 252 – created in the image of God (imago Dei) 95, 161–169 – his concreated life 82–91, 107f, 132f – his fall; effects of, 95f, 98–100, 167–169 – his law of operation (lex operationis) 80–84, 86, 88 – his natural theology 84f, 87, 91, 197 – original righteousness 85, 163–168, 171, 192f, 195, 253 – the light of nature; natural light 67f, 70, 80f, 85–88, 90f, 94–98, 100–103, 116–121, 143–147, 163, 178, 194, 197, 226, 230, 236, 252 affections 97–99, 106, 126–131, 133, 147f, 155–157, 167, 175, 177, 222, 228, 236, 241, 244, 252, 254, 260 analogy of being (analogia entis) 138–44, 149 archetypal theology (theologia archetypa) 18, 188, 200 Arminian controversy 114, 122f, 133 atonement, doctrine of 93, 142, 226, 240 authority of scripture 15–31, 32–35, 46, 48–51, 53–55, 57f, 60f, 64, 118, 130–132, 136, 146f, 149, 155f, 159, 160f, 171f, 174,

176–180, 181–190, 204, 213, 215–217, 219f, 226, 228, 230, 232, 234f, 246, 249–256 Bible (see “scripture”) Catholic(s); Catholicism 15, 17, 19–22, 24, 43, 46f, 50, 52, 55f, 61, 64, 82, 109f, 112, 114, 121–123, 125, 127, 133, 148, 163f, 176, 185, 201, 210, 213f, 217, 221, 226, 249, 253 certainty 23, 27–29, 32, 34, 38f, 41–51, 53–54, 56–59, 62, 65, 77–78, 105, 120f, 130–133, 135, 137, 143, 146–148, 152–160, 173, 175–177, 179f, 207f, 249–254, 261 – moral 34, 42, 44–46, 48, 51, 56–59, 61f, 65, 105, 132, 138, 146, 148, 176, 249, 254 – of adherence 38–42, 44, 46, 53, 65, 130, 147f – of evidence 38–42, 46, 53, 65, 143, 147f, 250 – of faith 39, 43f, 46, 50, 120f, 130, 135, 148, 154–156, 159, 250f, 254 Christ 18, 33, 37, 55, 93, 107f, 110–113, 115f, 118, 127, 133, 136, 152f, 159, 161f, 169–175, 179–182, 184–187, 189–191, 194–204, 215–217, 219, 223–228, 230–237, 239f, 242, 244–247, 253–255 – a believer’s union with 111–113 – and evidence of scripture’s authority 171–174, 179f, 253f – and his mediatorial office 33, 113, 170,

298 172, 182, 195f, 198f, 201–203, 216, 226, 228, 236f, 244, 254 – and scripture 18, 171–174, 179f, 189f, 197–200, 202f, 203f, 216f, 235f, 246f, 253f – and the church 229–235, 255 – and the habit of grace 107f, 111f, 132f, 172 – and theology of union (theologia unionis) 187, 200–202 – as divine Word; verbum agraphon 184–186, 187, 189–190 – as the image of God 33, 95, 161f, 169–174, 253 christology (see “Christ”) church 21–23, 35, 47, 53, 60, 148, 175, 191, 195, 197–201, 203f, 211, 213f, 216f, 219–221, 223, 225, 229–235, 240, 245–247, 255 cognition, nature or theory of 34, 69f, 71–77, 89f, 94f, 131, 133, 135f, 137, 151–153, 157–160, 173, 175, 177–179, 205, 208, 211f, 217, 251, 254f, 257–264 – and illumination 71–77, 88–91, 120f, 151–154 Congregational ecclesiology 14, 233f, 246, 255 conversion 42, 97, 106f, 110, 116, 123–125, 154, 229, 234, 246, 255 covenant 81–84, 90, 92, 95f, 107f, 110, 113f, 125, 192, 195, 197f, 236–240, 252, 254f – covenant of grace 198, 236–240 – covenant of nature or works 80–82, 84, 86, 88, 90–92, 95f, 107f, 192f, 237f, 252 – covenant of redemption (pactum salutis) 113, 195f, 238, 254 – Sinai covenant; “Old covenant” 239f creation 18, 70–72, 81, 84, 86–88, 94f, 102, 118, 129, 136, 140f, 143–145, 149, 163, 166, 168f, 187, 192–197, 253 divine illumination 16, 21, 27, 29–30, 32, 40–42, 67f, 71–80, 85–91, 94f, 97, 102f, 105–107, 115–133, 153–155, 159, 174,

Subject Index

176f, 189, 192, 198, 207–209, 219–225, 229f, 234, 242f, 246, 251–253 – light of grace; supernatural illumination 115–125, 131f, 152–155, 163, 170f, 178, 220–225, 252f – light of nature; natural illumination 69–80, 85–91, 94f, 96f, 100, 102f, 117f, 251f ectypal theology (theologia ectypa) 18, 149, 187f, 200, 255 evidence 18f, 23, 25, 32–34, 37–39, 41, 46, 48–65, 67f, 70, 91, 102f, 105f, 126, 130, 132f, 135–137, 143–149, 151, 153–156, 159f, 171, 173, 175–177, 180, 206f, 221, 249–254, 260 – and faith 56, 63, 135, 145–157, 176, 253 – and reason 136–138, 143–145 faith 15f, 18f, 21–35, 37–48, 50–52, 54–65, 67f, 71, 97, 102, 105f, 108, 110–114, 118–123, 125–128, 130–133, 135f, 145–156, 158–161, 163, 171, 174–178, 180f, 187, 189–191, 198f, 207, 215–217, 219f, 224–228, 230f, 234–237, 240, 244, 246, 249–255, 257 – formal reason, object, or cause 52, 54, 58f, 63, 68, 106, 119, 122f, 130, 132f, 135, 148, 154, 174, 181, 187, 219, 220, 225f, 228, 234f, 250, 254 – infallible faith 34, 47, 51–56, 57f, 60, 68, 70 – material object 51f, 58, 98, 119, 160, 187, 225, 234 – proper object or motive 225–228 Federal theology 81f, 90, 197, 236–40 God – and archetypal theology 18, 149, 187, 200 – and truth 18, 39f, 44, 52, 54f, 118–21, 149f, 160 – glory of 103, 117, 141, 161, 171–174, 180, 219, 244

299

Subject Index

– his holiness and the unchanging natural law 92f – his attributes and their relationship to evidence 136–138, 141–145, 149f, 155f gospel 97f, 100, 116–119, 124, 126–133, 150f, 153, 155, 161, 171–174, 179, 189f, 224, 227, 230f, 235, 237, 240, 252f, 256 grace 23, 33f, 40f, 83, 85, 105–133, 145–147, 153–155, 162–165, 170–173, 178, 192, 198, 216, 220, 223f, 231f, 234, 235–240, 252–255 means of 240–246 habit(s) – and the light of grace or special illumination 115–26, 153f, 166, 171 – and the light of nature or natural illumination 87–91, 168f, 171 – habit of faith 40f, 110, 117, 119–123, 152 – habit of grace; habitual grace 107–126, 130, 132f, 145f, 155, 170, 201f, 224, 244–246, 252, 255 – habit of sin; habitual sin 96f, 100, 109, 115, 129, 167 Hebrew vowel points 53, 213–217 Holy Spirit 18, 21–31, 32, 40, 43, 46–51, 52f, 55, 57, 59–65, 67f, 96f, 105f, 109, 111, 117f, 130–133, 146, 148–150, 153, 155f, 170, 175f, 179, 185, 201–205, 209–212, 214–217, 220, 222–225, 228f, 231, 234f, 240–243, 246f, 250, 253, 255 – internal testimony of (testimonium internum Spiritus Sancti) 21–29, 43, 46, 48, 52, 60–65, 67f, 131, 176, 180, 249f, 253 illumination (see “divine illumination”) image of God (imago Dei) 33f, 95, 160–74, 179, 181f, 189f, 192, 200, 215, 225 intellect, mind 28–30, 38–42, 69, 72–76, 83f, 88–90, 94, 97–99, 101f, 118–126, 129, 137, 147, 152, 158f, 161, 175–177, 207f, 254, 257–262

justification

111–113, 125, 127, 228, 237

law – moral law 93, 116, 154 – natural law 34, 77–96, 100–103, 116, 118, 133, 136, 143, 166, 171, 237, 240, 252f – operational law (lex operationis) 80–84, 86, 88 mind (see “intellect”) motives of credibility 46, 48f, 51, 56–64, 67, 122, 135, 157 obedience 108, 125, 127f, 152, 192, 225–229, 236–240 object of faith (see “faith”) original righteousness 85, 163–168, 171, 192f, 195, 253 prayer

231, 243

Quaker ; Quakerism

17, 53

regeneration 33, 34, 97, 99, 106–133, 145f, 154f, 171, 173, 176, 221, 224, 229, 239, 253 revelation 16, 18, 21, 44, 51f, 55, 58f, 84f, 91f, 108, 118–123, 135f, 145f, 159, 172–174, 182–190, 192–194, 197, 203–211, 216, 222–224, 226, 236, 243, 252f “Rule of faith” controversy 19, 43 sanctification 106f, 112, 115, 228, 241 scholastic(s); scholasticism 17–19, 38, 44–46, 49f, 64f, 69-80, 93f, 108–111, 142, 145, 147f, 158–160, 163, 165, 177–180, 251, 255, 257, 262–264 scripture – authority of 15, 19, 21–31, 54–65, 130–154, 160f, 171–190, 204, 215–217, 219, 225–229, 230, 234, 249–256 – inspiration of 26, 33, 35, 149, 181–190, 203f, 209–216, 217, 255

300 – interpretation of 15, 18, 22, 35, 69, 199, 219f, 223, 230, 235–247 perspicuity of 35, 213–215, 217, 219–225, 228, 230, 235, 240, 242, 255 and prophecy 182, 188, 204–211 self-evidencing light of 33, 149–154, 171f, 175, 253 self-evidencing power of 33, 154–157, 171f, 175, 253 sin 95–100, 106, 109f, 114–116, 129, 144f, 164f, 167, 193f, 208, 221, 225–227, 236f, 240 Socinian(s); socinianism 59, 93f, 115, 165f, 191, 196, 199, 201, 203, 222 soul 69–72, 76, 82–86, 88f, 91, 94f, 98–100, 102, 105–107, 109–112, 115–117, 120, 124–126, 128–133, 152f,

Subject Index

155f, 162, 164–169, 172f, 175f, 179, 222, 224–229, 251–254, 262 the Devil 167 the Fall 18, 22, 68, 80, 85, 87, 95–103, 107, 117, 129, 133, 136f, 144, 162, 164f, 167f, 173, 192–194, 197, 216, 252–254 Trinity ; Trinitarian 144, 195, 200, 202f union with Christ (see “Christ”) will 38–42, 97–100, 106f, 120f, 124–132, 146–148, 151, 155f, 175, 177, 226–228, 252 the Word (see “scripture”, “Christ”, “gospel”)