21 March, 2018

Canons of Dordt, Conclusion—“not … in the same manner” (eodem modo)


The Reformed Churches not only do not acknowledge but even detest with their whole soul … [the notion] that in the same manner in which the election is the fountain and the cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety (Canons, Conclusion).


COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:
It has been claimed, by some defenders of common grace and the well-meant offer, that in the body of the Canons, the Reformed fathers erred in their teaching of reprobation, especially in Head I, Articles 6 and 15. In those two Articles, the fathers taught an eternal decree consigning men to hell, which decree God carries out by withholding faith and by hardening. But in the “Conclusion” the fathers, so it is claimed, saw the light and did a complete about-face. Election and reprobation are now completely different; reprobation is quite unlike election. Reprobation is not eternal, not sovereign, not efficacious, not even a decree! By the phrase, “not … in the same manner,” the fathers of Dordt meant to say that reprobation is not God’s eternal ordination of some men to perdition, as election is the ordination of some to life.


(I)

Prof. David J. Engelsma

[Source: The Standard Bearer, vol. 55, no. 11 (Mar 1, 1979), p. 256]

In the “Conclusion,” the Canons warn against certain misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the doctrine which they have just finished setting forth in the body of the Canons. One such misconception is that reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety “in the same manner” (Latin: eodem modo) in which election is the cause of faith and good works. This little phrase now is used to attack the doctrine of reprobation as presented in the body of the Canons. The Canons are used to refute the Canons—a clever trick if it can be brought off.

The argument goes like this: In the body of the Canons, the Reformed fathers erred in their teaching of reprobation, especially in I, 6 and I, 15. There, they taught an eternal decree consigning men to hell, which decree God carries out by withholding faith and by hardening. But in the “Conclusion” the fathers saw the light and did a complete about-face. Election and reprobation are now completely different; reprobation is quite unlike election. Reprobation is not eternal, not sovereign, not efficacious, not even a decree. By the phrase, “not … in the same manner,” the fathers of Dordt meant to say that reprobation is not God’s eternal ordination of some men to perdition, as election is the ordination of some to life.

It is odd, to say the very least, that the Canons, logical to a fault, to hear the foes of reprobation speak, so soon and so fatally forgot their logic, that at the end they contradicted everything they had just taught.

It is also passing strange that for more than 400 years the Arminians and Roman Catholics never noticed this chink in Dordt’s armor.

To tell the truth, it is to be wondered whether the learned critics of everything Reformed now appearing among us do not take us for a pack of ninnies.

The Canons did not commit such a blunder; “not … in the same manner” is not intended to deny that election and reprobation are the same in that both are decrees, both are eternal, both are sovereign and unconditional, and both are decisive for men’s everlasting destinies.

What the Canons intend, they make perfectly clear: reprobation is not the cause of unbelief in the same manner in which election is the cause of faith. Rightly seen, this is a strong statement, especially in light of the effort that the Arminian party was making to attach to the Reformed teaching the blasphemy that God is the author of sin. It is a strong statement because it does not deny that reprobation is the cause of unbelief in any sense whatever, only that it is the cause of unbelief in the same manner in which election is the cause of faith.

The explanation of the Canons’ statement is, first, that the sole blame for unbelief is the sinner’s, not at all God’s. Whereas all the praise for faith is God’s, all the guilt of unbelief is the sinner’s. The sinner fell in Adam; the sinner is conceived and born with a totally depraved, unbelieving nature—for which he is fully responsible; the sinner wickedly refuses to obey the call of the gospel. The doctrine of reprobation in no way whatsoever minimizes the responsibility and guilt of the unbeliever, much less transfers it to God.

Secondly, reprobation is not the cause of unbelief in the sense that God infuses unbelief into good men. In this manner, election is the fountain and cause of faith: God efficaciously works faith and good works into unbelieving and bad men. But in the case of the reprobate, God withholds the gift of faith and piety from wicked men and instead hardens them in their own unbelief. God does this, i.e., withholds faith, according to the determinative decree of reprobation. In this sense, reprobation is the cause of unbelief, as Jesus Himself expressly stated in John 10:26: “But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep …” He does not say that their not being of His sheep is caused by their not believing; but He says that their not believing is caused by their not being of His sheep, i.e., their being reprobate. God eternally decreed concerning them that He would not give them faith and conversion; according to this decree, He withholds faith from them in time. 


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(II)

Prof. Barry Gritters

[Source: The Standard Bearer, vol. 77, no. 5 (Dec 1, 2000), p. 113]

In the “Conclusion,” the fathers are rejecting and expressing a loathing of certain wrong inferences that were being drawn from their teaching. One of those inferences that the Reformed fathers “detest with their whole soul” was “that in the very same manner (Latin: eodem modo) in which the election is the fountain and cause of faith and good works, reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety.” At first glance, it may sound as though the Fathers here deny that reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety.
         
In fact, what the Canons are saying is this: “Election is the fountain and cause of faith! Reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety! But they are not so in the same manner! We deny that reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety in the same manner in which election is the fountain and cause of faith.” Right at this point we must guard carefully against a form of hyper-Calvinism.
         
According to the Reformed truth of election, God infuses faith into His people who are dead in sin. Election is the “fountain of every saving good; from which (election, BG) proceed faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation” (Canons I:9). God does not, however, infuse unbelief into the reprobate who are good men, or even neutral. According to His decree of reprobation, God withholds the gifts of faith and piety from the reprobate who are by their own fault evil and depraved. But in that sense, God’s decree of reprobation is the cause of their unbelief, as Jesus said to the unbelieving Pharisees in John 10:26: “Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep.”
         
In the end, how God sovereignly hardens some and withholds faith from them without being the Author of sin is incomprehensible. But He does. “And truly the Son of man goeth as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!” According to Scripture, the credit for faith goes to God (Eph. 2:8-10; Phil. 1:29; etc.), but the blame for unbelief is man’s. No Reformed believer may take away responsibility and the guilt of unbelief from the unbeliever, or attribute guilt to God. The judgment day will justify God with regard to all those criticisms.


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(III)

Homer C. Hoeksema (1923-1989)


There are theologians today who attempt to play Dordrecht’s repudiation of this calumny over against the Canons’ teaching of reprobation as found in Articles 6 and 15 of the First Head of Doctrine. They claim that the Synod of Dordrecht, when finally it was confronted by the necessity affirming the allegedly deterministic doctrine of reprobation taught in Articles 6 and 15, drew back from the brink, so to speak, and modified its view in the Conclusion. They have taken this repudiation of the “in the same manner” (Latin: eodem modo) as meaning that the decrees of election and reprobation themselves are not “in the same manner”! By this they mean to deny that reprobation is an eternal and sovereign decree of God, and to teach instead that reprobation is nothing more than a judicial response of God to man’s sin in the course of history. Reprobation, according to them means nothing more than that God rejects those who reject Him. G. C. Berkouwer (Divine Election [1960], pp. 75 ff) initiated this line of argumentation. Other theologians, James Daane among them (The Freedom of God [1973], pp. 32, 35 ff., 38 ff., 40 ff., 45 ff., 149 ff., 173), have followed this same line of attack against the doctrine of reprobation in the Canons.

Now, in the first place, this presentation is historically inaccurate. As we have seen, the Conclusion was not separately adopted as a kind of modifying appendage to the Canons. But in the one hundred thirty-fifth and one hundred thirty-sixth sessions all five heads of doctrine, along with the Conclusion, were once more read and finally adopted and separately subscribed to by all the delegations. It certainly would be a very strange way of doing things if at the very sessions in which the fathers of Dordrecht once more explicitly affirm the doctrine of reprobation as taught in Canons I, Articles 6 and 15, they would also deliberately adopt and affirm by their signatures a Conclusion which was designed flatly to contradict those articles. Furthermore, this would be a most illogical thing to do, while the theologians of Dordrecht are in the minds of some almost notorious for their logic.

In the second place, it should be kept in mind that in this part of the Conclusion the Synod was not adopting a doctrine, nor even rejecting an error. Both the positive doctrine and the rejection of errors belong in the body of the Canons proper. But the Synod in this Conclusion simply calls attention to various calumnies, slanders, and false charges, which the Arminians brought against the Reformed truth. And concerning these calumnies, false charges which the Arminians sought to impute to the Reformed Churches, the Conclusion says: the Reformed Churches not only do not acknowledge these ideas, but even detest them with their whole soul.

In the third place, it should be pointed out that this calumny of the Arminians will never be registered against any view which denies the sovereignty of reprobation. If, according to the Reformed view, reprobation were conditional or were simply a judicial response of God to man’s sin, this slander would never have been raised against the Reformed Churches and their doctrine, for the simple reason that in such a case it would make no sense and would not be necessary. And in that case the Synod of Dordrecht would not have had to call attention to this slander and repudiate it.

In the fourth place, the specific point of this slander and of its repudiation ought to be noted carefully. It concentrates in the words “in the same manner.” According to this calumny, the Reformed Churches are slandered as teaching that “reprobation is the cause of unbelief and impiety in the same manner in which election is the fountain and the cause of faith and good works.” In other words, this is the old charge that just as the Reformed view teaches that God is the Author of faith and good works, so He is the Author of unbelief and sin. The point of this repudiation of the Arminians’ calumny is precisely that while election is the sovereign cause of faith and good works, and reprobation is the sovereign cause of unbelief and impiety, they are not causes in the same manner. Election is the cause in the sense of being the fountain of faith and good works, so that God is the Author of our salvation. Faith and all the blessings of salvation flow forth from election as water flows forth from a fountain. But reprobation, while being the cause, the sovereign cause, of unbelief and impiety, is not the fountain of these. Unbelief and impiety do not flow forth from the fountain of reprobation, and God is not the Author of unbelief and sin.

All of this is quite in harmony with the teachings of Canons I, Articles 6 and 15. That some do not receive the gift of faith indeed proceeds from God’s eternal decree. God is not the Author of their unbelief, but according to His decree He withholds from them the gift of faith. Nor according to Article 15 is God the Author of sin. In fact, this is explicitly denied in Article 15. On the other hand, reprobation is not arbitrary, so that “without the least respect or view to any sin, [God] has predestinated the greatest part of the world to eternal damnation.” On the other hand, reprobation is not because of sin. No, the decree of reprobation is out of God’s sovereign, most just, irreprehensible and unchangeable good pleasure. But the eternal damnation to which the reprobate are sovereignly appointed from eternity is a damnation in the way of their own sin and unbelief. Hence, there is perfect harmony between Articles 6 and 15 of the First Head of Doctrine and the Conclusion.


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(IV)

More to come! (DV)


For some excellent treatment of the eodem modo (“in the same manner”) issue, along with a critique of those who use it to overthrow the Canons’ teaching on reprobation in Head I, Articles 6 and 15, check out the following PDF (19 pages) by Homer C. Hoeksema:







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