Imputation in Various Contexts

Samuel Baird writes, "To impute, is, to attribute a moral act or attitude to a party" (The Elohim Revealed, pg. 471). In the historia salutis, three contexts in which some sort of important attribution or imputation is theorized include:

1. Sins are imputed to Christ when He suffered for the sake of His sheep.

2. Sin is imputed to us when we are born.

3. Righteousness is imputed to us when we are converted.

Let's look at these more closely:

1. Here is why I think this proposal is problematic: Christ never sinned, nor did He participate in sin... so how can He be truthfully attributed, regarded as, or charged with being a sinner? Now, I would agree that it is just for Christ to voluntarily experience the wrath of God (see note below) in anticipation of union with sinners such that His suffering satisfies the punishment due to them (penal substitution). However, it seems to me that the Father never falsely looks at Christ as something that Christ is not (a sinner). Thus, #1 is false.

Another problem: if sin's are said to be imputed to Christ at another time than His suffering, when would that be? Whilst He is reigning in heaven? That isn't intelligible. Or if sin is imputed to Christ at the time He suffered on the cross, whose sins are imputed? The elect's? If so, then why are the elect regarded as enemies of God and under God's wrath before they are converted? That would imply double punishment - the same sins are unjustly punished twice over. I write more on this point here (see the comment section as well).

[Side note: one doesn't need to suppose that the Trinity experienced ontological separation in order for Christ to endure the just wrath due to sinners. As an analogy, consider that we were "children of wrath" and "enemies of God" even while "in love He predestined us." A fortiori, Christ's experiencing the wrath of God - suffering in body and soul - does not suggest an internal rift within the Trinity. See, for example, Psalm 22:1-2 specifying the withdrawal of the experience of the presence of the Father at the time of the crucifixion.]

2. Adam's sin is imputed to us when we are born because we are born "in Adam." We are united to our prototypical father by having been naturally generated from or been begotten by him. In the case of Christ, He is of the same spirit - consubstantial - with Adam (and us) but is not from Adam's concrete spirit, having been born of a virgin. We, on the other hand, are not only of the same spirit but from his concrete spirit. Having been multiplied out of him, we can be justly regarded as having sinned in him. While we did not exist as persons, Adam's same, concrete spirit by which he sinned is now in us (paternal traducianism). 

To deny any of this seems to lead to irresolvable problems. Are we are punished for something for which we are not guilty? Are we guilty without having participated in that in virtue of which we are guilty? I plan to outline this participation in a separate post, but suffice it to say that I think #2 is true.

3. Whereas I have suggested that there is a sense in which "we" were "in Adam" when he sinned (and, thus, were participants in his sin), we were not "in" the last Adam at the time He lived perfectly or suffered on the cross (cf. John 7:39). Thus, we did not "participate" in Christ's work of redemption. That is, while the ground of our condemnation is our own wrong-doing, the ground of our justification is not on the basis of our right-doing.

On the other hand, justification is based on our union with Christ and, by extension, His work (cf. the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 66). In fact, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:5-6, etc. show that those who are in Christ are attributed, imputed, or regarded as experiencing crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and seating with Christ. Christ's life forms the basis for and pattern of our salvation.

We bear an inverse relationship to the first Adam as we do to the last: pertaining to the spirit of the first Adam, by natural generation we are born out of him and his (and "our") sin. By contrast, pertaining to the Spirit of the last Adam, in regeneration we are born into Him and His righteousness (et al.). This inverse relationship explains why participation is necessary in the one case but not the other: the imputation of sin presupposes participation in said sin which, in turn, entails a real union with the first Adam. By grace, the imputation of righteousness does not require participation in the same sense, although said imputation does still require a real union with the last Adam. For more on this, see here. Thus, #3 is true.

Lane Tipton on Gordon Clark and Cornelius Van Til

Last year, I wrote on the importance of history (link). An example of this stems from a dialogue on Lane Tipton's book, The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til. I have since purchased the book, and below, I'll link to a video lecture by Tipton that covers much of the same content. Of initial interest to me was pg. 79 of Tipton's book:

...when we realize that Van Til speaks of God as "one person" in a manner synonymous with Bavinck's speaking of God as "absolute personality," we can discern that Van Til intends to add nothing beyond what Bavinck has already expressed. It is highly likely that Van Til uses such language to polemically sharpen his critique of Gordon Clark's conception of the divine unity as "mute substance." Clark's rationalistic notion of "mute substance" supplies part of the polemical context for Van Til's insistence that there is no impersonal dimension to God's unity as an absolute personality... (Tipton, The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til, pg. 79)

Further, on pg. 85, Tipton writes:

...we fail to do justice to Van Til’s concerns if we do not factor in his theological disagreements with the theological rationalism of his day, particularly the rationalism of the neo-evangelical Gordon H. Clark. Van Til’s comments on the incomprehensibility of God, especially in An Introduction to Systematic Theology, arise immediately from the context of the Clark–Van Til controversy. As a result, Van Til’s understanding of the Trinity and divine incomprehensibility is designed partly to correct the rationalistic distortions he detected in the formulations of Clark. What will prove instructive for our discussion of Van Til’s doctrine of the Trinity is the appearance, years after the controversy itself, of a motif in Clark’s theology that denies personality to God’s unity. While definitively dissenting from the personalists, Clark devised formulations that amount to the opposite error of the Boston Personalists in that he can affirm tripersonality only by describing the essence of God as mute or unconscious. The personalists deny personality with respect to God’s diversity, while Clark denies personality with reference to God’s unity. 

It is out of this matrix of Trinitarian reflection that Van Til deemed it appropriate to utilize the language that God is “one person” or “absolute personality,” while not allowing that affirmation to subvert the complementary truth that God exists as three persons or a tripersonal being. In Van Til’s mind, the formulations of both the Boston Personalists and Gordon Clark proved inadequate to convey the absolutely personal and incomprehensible character of God’s Trinitarian existence.

This has led other people to follow Tipton's conclusions. For example, Christopher Smith reviews of Tipton's book by stating (link):

This absolute personality means, contra Gordon Clark (1902–85), that self-consciousness can be found in the Triune God even while there is a self-differentiated existence as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thus guarding against the tritheistic notion of three centers of self-consciousness. Van Til was reacting to Clark’s notion that in God there are three “distinct bundles of thoughts,” i.e. self-consciousness. Van Til’s opponents were broader than merely Gordon Clark, however. Indeed, his primary opponent was a school of thought Tipton identifies as “theistic personalism,” and Van Til’s thought was, in large part, a reaction to these views.

So, how accurate is Tipton's assessment of Clark's influence on Van Til? Despite other areas in which I enjoy Tipton's work, my answer will be: not at all. 

For starters, Van Til's language of "absolute personality" is found in works as early as his An Introduction to Systematic Theology. In the 1971 preface to this book, Van Til writes:

The first ‘‘edition’’ of this syllabus appeared some thirty-five years ago. Its title then was: An Introduction to Systematic Theology. Since then much has happened in theology. Yet the old syllabus is now made available again in a practically unaltered form. The author has dealt with the main developments of recent theology in other writings.

That means Van Til's syllabus was originally made available in 1936. Access to this original would aid in answering which topics were impacted by later theological developments and which topics were "practically unaltered" (although having such access will turn out to be unnecessary to answer whether Tipton's analysis is accurate). 

For example, Clark's work in the 1940s is referenced in the 1971 edition; specifically, Clark's "The Primacy of the Intellect," "The Answer," and "A Christian Philosophy of Education"). Obviously, these works would not have been discussed in the original 1936 syllabus. If the language that God is "one person" or absolute personality" appeared in the original, such would seem to antedate any mention of Clark. 

Also, are there even any contexts in the 1971 edition in which Clark merits so much as a mention while Van Til uses the language that God is "one person" or "absolute personality"? No - one can read Van Til's book himself to verify that this is the case.

Further, Clark's rhetorical question of whether a person is "to be considered unconscious, mute substance?" comes from The Trinity (1985), 3 months prior to his death. The most thorough bibliography on Van Til (of which I am aware) states that his last published article came at the age of 87. How is it possible that Tipton thinks Van Til critiqued a 1985 statement by Clark if Van Til's last published work was in 1982? I could very well end this post with the simple observation that it is impossible for Van Til to have been reacting to a thought by Clark in 1985.

[To be more precise, while Clark's The Trinity was originally published in 1985, Clark had finished the manuscript as early as 1977 as part of a larger project: a systematic theology (link). Because The Trinity was not published until 1985, however, I will continue to refer to that as the earliest date Van Til might have read Clark use the phrase "mute substance" unless evidence is shown to the contrary.]

There are more points to be made, so I'll come back to Clark's actual remarks found in The Trinity later. Let's turn to Tipton's book. If we set aside Tipton's tangent on paradox, human freedom, and divine sovereignty (pgs. 96-98), the only reference Tipton makes to any of Clark's works is The Trinity. Thus, it doesn't appear that Tipton has in mind any other statements by Clark that were made during the 1920s-1970s that might have impacted Van Til's language in question. g

I have already intimated that Clark's works in the 1940s do not appear to relevantly bear on Van Til's language that God is "one person" or "absolute personality," at least so can as I can discern from the 1971 edition of Van Til's Introduction to Systematic Theology itself. On the contrary, take the following statement by Clark written before 1936:

1935. Revised edition of Readings in Ethics. Gordon H. Clark and T.V. Smith, eds. New York: F.S. Crofts and Company. 

But one must learn that when a philosopher says God, he may not mean God. Both Jew and Christian regard God as an Almighty Personal Being who chose to create the world. Two Christians, Descartes and Leibniz, may have disagreed on the question whether God made this world good by choosing it, or whether God chose this world because it was good. But all agree He chose and created. But for Spinoza, on the contrary, there was neither choice nor creation, for his God is not a personal being.

Additionally, consider other statements Clark made in the 1940s:

1949. Authority in Religion. The Witness Jul: 5-6.

The Christian as well as the modernist believes that God has revealed himself in nature. But if this is the only revelation, if this is the most definite revelation there is, men soon begin to see in the marvels of nature, nature and only nature. A real, living, personal God recedes into the dim, unnecessary background.

Pre 1950. Language is Beautiful - and Deceitful. The Home Evangel

The other day a Jewish community house, to raise funds for their unfortunate brothers, invited a philosopher to give a lecture. The philosopher was a Christian, in the original, orthodox, Biblical sense of the word. He chose to speak on the reality of a personal God, and tried to show that only by trusting a personal God could man face the world and solve its problems. A gentleman in the audience said that he did not believe all the stuff this philosopher propounded. “I don’t believe in any personal God,” he insisted, “I am a Unitarian.” 

And so it seems that “Unitarian” has come to mean “atheist.” And “Christian” has come to mean one who denies the Bible and rejects the blood atonement of Christ. All this leads a thoughtful person to believe the more in the inherent depravity of man, out of which comes the modem depravity of words. Respectable authors must long for a regeneration of language; but this can only occur by a regeneration of the human heart that is at enmity with God.

Now, I really did try to do some legwork on Tipton's behalf. I had to scour my notes to find anything by Clark that Tipton could have remotely included in the alleged "matrix" of reflection out of which Van Til opted to use the language of "one person" or "absolute personality." The closest I could find was a letter from Clark to J. Oliver Buswell on April 3, 1937, to which Van Til probably did not have access and which I doubt is the sort of thing Tipton had in mind anyways (since Clark is just attempting to summarize Shedd):

Question: Is the being of the second Person of the Trinity derived from the Father according to Vos?

Answer: I doubt it. On p. 216 of The Self Disclosure, Vos says that the glory of the Son comes from the Father, and on pg. 221 Vos says that Jn. 5:26 and 6:57 teach that the Son's life is derived from the Father. He further seems to accept the doctrine of eternal generation.

The question therefore becomes, what historically is the doctrine of eternal generation, and what does the word 'being' mean?

Hodge, Vol I. on the eternal generation quotes Turretin as opposing the eternal generation of the essence of Christ and as therefore opposing the Nicene fathers. Having read Hodge hurriedly I may be mistaken on the 'therefore' in the last sentence, for I do not think the Nicene father taught what Turretin attacks.

Shaff, Creed of Christendom, Vol I, p. 37, says that the Athanasian creed excludes every kind of subordination of essence. It states clearly that absolute unity of the divine being or essence.

Shedd, History of Christian Doctrine, Vol. I p.316, speaks of the essence as that which is one, the personality three. Thus persons may be generated but not the essence. Shedd also, p. 317, remarks that the eternal generation is necessary but creation depends entirely upon arbitrary will. Apparently this denial ofthe generation of essence is compatible with the expression: the Father communicates the one eternal essence to the Son. By 'communicate' I guess is meant Platonic participation (though there is something queer here) and raises the question whether Gregory of Nyssa was correct in saying that the relation of persons to the Godhead was the same as that of individuals to their Idea.

The generation therefore is of a Person by a Person. As Calvin I xiii 19 says: “we justly represent him as originating from the Father.”

Shedd, op. cit. p. 323: “Hence the Nicene theologians harmonized the doctrine of eternal generation with that of unity of essence by teaching the necessity of this generation.”

CONCLUSION. Since the Nicene fathers maintained eternal generation in their repudiation of Arianism, it seems to me first that there is no ground for saying that Vos implies the generation of essence, being, reality (ousia); and second that the doctrine instead of being dangerous is an excellent method of defending trinitarianism against Arianism.

May I also add that Vos may not have the “unified perspective” of Machen and Warfield because he approaches his problems exegetically rather than systematically.

It is also difficult for me to imagine that Van Til himself would have nitpicked Shedd. That in mind, here is the full context of Clark's rhetorical question cited by Tipton. From pgs. 129-130 in The Trinity (2010 edition):

Several romantically inclined students, and a few professors as well, have complained that “this makes your wife merely a set of propositions.” Well, so it does. This suits me, for I am a set of propositions too. And those who complain are as they think. Is a person to be considered unconscious, mute substance? Why is he not conscious thoughts? Of course, one may just say “thoughts,” for thoughts cannot be unconscious.

Naturally, human beings are mutable: Their thoughts or minds change. The three Persons of the Godhead are immutable because their thoughts never change. They never forget what they now know, they never learn something new, in fact they have never learned anything. Their thought is eternal. Since also the three Persons do not have precisely the same set of thoughts, they are not one Person, but three. If substance were the principle of individuation – for we have seen that space-time cannot be – then there could not be three Persons. Identity of substance would mean identity of person. If then substance, for this and other reasons, is not the principle of individuation, the theologians referred to should explain what their principle is.

One may disagree with Clark's metaphysical reductionism of persons to sets of propositions (as I do and have argued against). A few points, though:

1. The immediate context of the quote is in reference to human persons and substances, not divine. 

2. The point of the bold is obviously meant by Clark to be a denial that persons are unconscious, mute substances... but one would think Tipton and Van Til would agree with this? If so, then what is the issue? Is Tipton inferring something more, e.g. that Clark thinks all substances are unconscious and mute? If so, his inference is by no means obvious to me, and I think he would need to give more evidence of this.

3. In fact, this inference would be false. In the same book on The Trinity, Clark says (pg. 67):

In VII, ii, 3 Augustine makes substance and essence synonyms, and in VII, iv, 7 he twice, and maybe a third time, includes nature. This may help some readers to escape from Aristotelian matter and Locke’s two substances, but the term essence today is also vague. If, however, these terms were replaced by the word definition, several difficulties could be avoided. The definition of the Triune God is not the definition of the Son.

Obviously, Clark thinks the Son is a person who is neither mute nor unconscious. If the Son is a definition (= substance), then even in 1985, Clark thought that there is at least one "substance" that is neither mute nor unconscious. Of course, there are numerous problems with this construction, but the point is that Tipton seems to be reading into Clark's rhetorical question things that are not entailed. 

For those who don't have access to Tipton's book, Tipton's lecture on Gordon Clark: Theological Rationalism and Trinitarianism support what I have argued: that Tipton inaccurately interprets a rhetorical question by Clark from 1985 and anachronistically refers to it as part of the polemical context out of which Van Til's distinctive Trinitarian theology was formed. For example, between minutes 21-25, Tipton says:

To clarify a bit the relationship of the hypotheses to the essence of God - the relationship of the persons to the essence - what distinguishes the persons from the godhead or the essence is self-consciousness. Mute substance is not what characterizes the persons - that is collections of thought collections of thoughts. Personhood is not what characterizes the substance - it's unconscious and mute.

And so look at what you start to find in the polemical context that Van Til faced: whether it's the personalists at the early turn of the 20th century moving into the 20s and 30s or whether it's the developing neo-evangelical trinitarianism of Gordon Clark in the 30s, 40s, and into the 50s, what do you find?

You find an affirmation of unipersonality that calls into question the integrity and personality of the individual hypotheses in personalism, or you find an affirmation of personhood as bundles of thoughts - a novelty in the history of the reformed tradition, but that's how personhood is defined - but in a way that makes the essence of God unconscious, mute substance. 

And so there's an affirmation of one Consciousness (a denial of three Consciousness) in the personalists there's an affirmation of three Consciousness and a denial of one Consciousness in the neo-evangelical rationalists...

Did Bavinck confirm absolute personality as an entailment of numerical unity and divine simplicity? Yes. Did Hodge affirm that there is one will, one mind, one consciousness in a way that peacefully and sweetly complies in mystery with tri-personality? Yes. Did Van Til follow both? Yes.

But according to Clark, personality requires only those things not common to the three and he draws the implication from that that the essence of God is unconscious, mute substance that is antithetically related to personality. See, a necessary condition for Clark for the possibility of personality is the presence of propositions not common to the three. So what Clark lacks is a theological principle that can account for the absolute personality of God. 

I see no evidence that Clark said anything in "the 30s, 40s, and into the 50s" which could be labeled "neo-evangelical trinitarianism," and I have already quoted several statements by Clark during this time period which cut against it. A 1985 quote which may not even be correctly interpreted is insufficient evidence for the idea that Van Til owed his distinctive Trinitarian language or views to anything Clark wrote. 

Conclusion: my theory is that Tipton is unaware of Clark's gradual, metaphysical synthesis I have posited elsewhere (link). This is understandable in the absence of an historical chronology such as that which I have been putting together. Tipton might assume Clark's earlier Trinitarian views were more or less consistent with what Clark expressed in 1985. But this is an assumption which cannot be maintained. History matters (with this, Tipton would surely agree).

[Parenthetically, if I were pressed to pinpoint when Clark's understanding of "persons" changed, I would suggest Reason, Religion, and Revelation (1961, "Trust in a person is a knowledge of a person; it is a matter of assenting to certain propositions") illustrates an outworking of Clark's rejection of the correspondence theory of truth. 

By the time of The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark (1968), it is explicit ("persons are propositions"). Interestingly, Clark's definition of persons is given in reply to Ronald Nash, who in that book suggested "certain affinities" between Clark's metaphysic and "the Boston Personalism of Edgar Sheffield Brightman and Process Philosophy." I wonder if Tipton took Nash's thesis and ran with it.]

Moreover, Tipton simply misreads Clark. His whole argument seems to be tenuously premised on one rhetorical question (!) that in context does not lend even the least bit of credence to Tipton's inferences.

I am no scholar of Van Til, but if I had to make a suggestion, it would be that Van Til drew inspiration from his interaction with Hegelians. See the following remarks from his 1927 dissertation, God and the Absolute:

...in as much as the Absolute is often spoken of as revealing Himself or itself,—being regarded either as personal or as impersonal,—and in as much as this revelation is spoken of as inexplicable 18 , the Absolute is very clearly looked upon as Beyond... 

For McTaggart God is the logical universal immanent in all particulars or else he becomes one of the particulars Himself. Now on this basis it is not possible to maintain that the Absolute has any meaning except that which finds realization in the particulars. It is again quite true that Idealism does not wish to go that far with its emphasis on immanence. It continues to speak of the Absolute as “selfconscious” and “personal.” But is Idealism entitled to such an Absolute? It seems not; a logical universal has meaning only because of and for the particulars in which it is manifested.

Right or wrong, Van Til's thesis (so it seems to me) is that in contradistinction to Idealism, Christianity is entitled to "such an Absolute." 

Perhaps Tipton's other argument in his book are worthwhile, but I hope the above sets the record straight regarding Clark. As an addendum, I don't find Tipton's following line of argument convincing:

The theology of Gordon Clark finds affinity with the personalists in that it is motivated by a strong form of theological rationalism. However, the result of Clark’s rationalism for his doctrine of the Trinity amounts to a virtual denial of a personal essence or ousia in the Godhead – a point that has received little to no attention. Clark’s commitment to theological rationalism, together with his attempt to formulate a principle of individuation within the Godhead, yield a conception of the Godhead that granted self-consciousness only to the hypostases. If the rationalism of the personalists ascribed personality only to the unity of the Godhead, Clark’s rationalism relegated personality only to the diversity within the Godhead. This appeared most clearly in Clark’s argument that self-consciousness applies not to God as a self-identical subject, but only to the distinct hypostases understood as unique combinations of thoughts.

I do not find anywhere in the book that Tipton engages with Clark's points in his later works (flawed as they are) such as one can read in Clark's last letter to John Robbins (February, 1985):

Dear Dr. Robbins, The sheet from the Elders Handbook, which you sent me and Van Til also, held that God is both one Person and three Persons. This seems to be to be a form of Modalism, or Patripassionism as the early Church called it. The three names are names of three activities. When God creates, he is called Father, when he redeems he is called Son. In spite of the fact that Dr. Kuyper and Van Til speak of Three Persons, there is not much personality left, or perhaps I should say individuality. Look again at the seven lines you checked. I don’t know what these people do with “Only Begotten” or the “Procession” of the Spirit, or one of them speaking to another. In the study I am writing on the Incarnation, I preserve the distinction among the three Persons by arguing that although each is omniscient, they do not know, i.e. they cannot assent, the same set of propositions. The Second Person can know and say, “I became incarnate.” The Father cannot say this. The Father can say, “I begot the Son.” The Son begot nothing. What these modalists say on these points, I do not know. But it seems to me that the One Person would have to assert all these propositions, and to my mind that is plain nonsense.

For those interested in pursuing the doctrinal aspect of this debate further, I highly recommend Doug Douma's book The Grand Old Doc, in which he engages Tipton on this point (particularly, pgs. 115-117 and an apropos citation of John Murray).

The Clark Debate, The Calvin Forum, and the Intellect of Man

I recently read a few references to Gordon Clark in The Calvin Forum, a periodical which ran from 1935-1956. One such instance is the following which was written by Richard W. Gray, a member of five-person committee that was commissioned by the twelfth general assembly "TO CONSIDER THE DOCTRINAL PORTION OF THE COMPLAINT OF CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE PRESBYTERY OF PHILADELPHIA." Gray writes: 

A caucus of leaders had met prior to the First General Assembly. Those leaders included Dr. Machen and certain men involved in the present controversy. These men were zealous for a pure Calvinistic church as is manifest by the series of articles to which Mr. Heerema referred, "The Reformed Faith and Modern Substitutes." This caucus picked Dr. Gordon H. Clark to nominate Dr. Machen. At that time his differences with Dr. Cornelius Van Til were well known, as those who were students at Westminster Seminary at that time can testify. Prior to that time his article, "Determinism and Responsibility," which is the basis for one of the four parts of the Complaint lodged against him, had been printed in The Evangelical Quarterly (January, 1932). That those views which were then looked upon as differences within the orbit of the Reformed Faith should today be Complained against as opposed to "some of the most central doctrines of the Christian faith" is, I repeat, strange.

If that can be explained on the basis of the impossibility of bringing to light the views of all the men in the place of leadership in the early days, here are some more recent facts which the average observer of the controversy in the OPC finds difficult to reconcile. 

In May of 1941, Dr. Clark at the invitation of the faculty of Westminster Seminary delivered the Commencement Address. Anyone who knows the care with which the Reformed testimony of that institution is jealously guarded is confused by the fact that less than three years later some of his views are challenged because it is alleged they vitiate some of the central doctrines of the Christian faith. 

Finally, in November, 1943, less than a year before the views of Dr. Clark were challenged, his article, "On the Primacy of the Intellect," appeared in the Westminster Theological Journal, a periodical edited for the faculty of Westminster Seminary. Strange indeed did it sound to hear Dr. Van Til charge on the floor of the General Assembly that this article of Dr. Clark's assumed a Greek rather than a Christian view of the position of man's intellect. This article, which formed part of the basis for another fourth of the Complaint, appeared in a journal dedicated to the purpose of promoting the interests of the Reformed Faith and edited on behalf of several of the Complainants. 

For these paradoxes I am offering no solution. I am simply stating that they are part of the historical record which is the background of the present controversy. And I think it is safe to add that they have contributed to the perplexity of the situation in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  

I had never heard that differences between Van Til and Clark were well-known as early as 1936. That would indeed beg the question as to why Clark was invited to speak at WTS commencements and write in the WTJ. Given the similarity in origin of WTS and the OPC, it would be hard to understand an argument that the first 15 years of WTS had a lower bar for Reformed input than those standards by which prospective OPC ministers were measured.

I was also unaware that a caucus of men voted for Clark to nominate Machen as the first OPC GA moderator. From the records of The Presbyterian Guardian, it appears John Murray was one of the men in said caucus, as it is he who authored numerous articles by the title of "The Reformed Faith and Modern Substitutes" (and, as Gray says, was also a complainant). This is interesting in that John Muether writes that Arthur Kuschke told him the 1940s ordeal is "better described as the Clark-Murray debate" as opposed to Clark-Van Til (Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman, pg. 107).

The statement by Gray is from just one from a series of exchanges between he and Edward Heerema in The Calvin Forum during 1946-1947. The back-and-forth covers several topics, one of which is (in contemporary times) a relatively undiscussed portion of The Complaint:

Dr. Clark does not deny the necessity or the fact of regeneration but he makes no absolute qualitative distinction between the knowledge of the unregenerate man and the knowledge of the regenerate man. With the same ease, the same “common sense”, the unregenerate and the regenerate man can understand propositions revealed to man (p. 20; 28:13-16; 31:13-17; 34:13-35:2).

The clear implication is that the complainants believed that unregenerates cannot "understand propositions revealed to man." Here is Clark's own response to this charge in The Answer:

If the complainants had quoted these passages from the transcript instead of merely referring to them, everyone could have seen that all but the last have nothing to do with the matter of regeneration, and that the last is contradictory to their assertion. The discussion had entered on the proposition “two times two equals four.” Dr. Clark had asserted that any man who knows this proposition knows it by means of the definitions of the numbers and by the laws of logic. Then the transcript continues: “Q. Where do we get those laws of logic? A. ‘Every man that cometh into the world.’ (Obviously the transcript omits part of the quotation.) Q. Is it possible that by the effective sin, man will not be able to deduce by the propositions concerning God? A. That is often the case.” In other words, the complainants imply that Dr. Clark holds that regeneration does not renew the mind or that sin has not affected it; whereas Dr. Clark said specifically that sin often causes men to commit logical fallacies. Thus the complainants cite evidence that is not only irrelevant, but also evidence that contradicts their charge. Some further study of the knowledge of a regenerate man and of an unregenerate man might prove profitable, but the subject can be accorded only the briefest mention. Both the regenerate and the unregenerate can with the same ease understand the proposition, Christ died for sinners. Regeneration, in spite of the theory of the Complaint, is not a change in the understanding of these words. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate lies in the fact that the former believes the proposition and the latter does not. The regenerate acknowledges Christ as Lord; the other does not. The one is a willing subject; the other is a rebel. Regeneration is not necessarily a change in understanding propositions. An unregenerate man may understand the proposition “Christ died for sinners,” but far from knowing it to be true, he thinks it to be false. Strictly speaking he knows only that “the Scriptures teach Christ died for sinners.” When he is regenerated, his understanding of the proposition may undergo no change at all; what happens is that he now accepts as true what previously he merely understood. He no longer knows merely “the Scriptures teach Christ died for sinners”; he now knows “Christ died for sinners.”

While that may suffice as a refutation, at the same time, it may also be of help to provide more information on the subsequent historical events with an aim to set a fuller context for just what was important about the 1940s OPC debate. Last year, I wrote quite a long post on the question of intellectual "understanding" as well as the distinct question of whether unregenerates can "know" truth (link). 

Since then, I've come across further details. Something of a side note the The Calvin Forum is that Fled Klooster's 1951 dissertation on The Incomprehensibility of God in the Orthodox Presbyterian Conflict makes an elementary blunder on this subject. Klooster writes:

Clark holds that the proposition and the knowledge of the proposition are identical. Therefore since the proposition as an object of knowledge is the same for both God and man, their knowledge of that particular proposition in its minimal significance is also identical. The knowledge a regenerate man has of the proposition, "Christ died for our sins’, is also the same as that which an unregenerate may have. The only difference is that the regenerate believes it and appropriates it. Therefore even the knowledge an unregenerate man has of the proposition, Christ died for our sins, can be identical with God's knowledge of that proposition.

Notice that Clark never held that “Christ died for our sins” is something that unregenerates can know. One only has to read "The Answer" carefully to see that Clark held, "unregenerate man may understand the proposition “Christ died for sinners,” but far from knowing it to be true, he thinks it to be false."

Thus, Klooster makes a double mistake in 1) conflating Christ's dying for "our sins" (about which Clark never spoke in the context of unregenerates) with Christ's dying for "sinners" and 2) supposing Clark believed that unregenerates know the proposition "Christ died for sinners" (because unregenerates do not believe said proposition, Clark points out they cannot "know" it).

Returning to Gray's reference to a speech in which Clark silenced his critics, more information would be possible were it not for the unfortunate pragmatism that the minutes of church assemblies can be only so detailed. For example, the Thirteenth General Assembly of the OPC does not contain any record of Gray's following account which took place during said assembly: 

While much of the discussion has been too abstruse for the average person, one statement of Dr. Clark's has been widely quoted as. a simple and clear evidence of his "error." I refer to the words, "regeneration is not necessarily a change in understanding propositions" (such as "Christ died for sinners"). On the floor of the assembly Dr. Clark silenced the criticism of this statement by quoting from Berkhof's formulation of historical faith and James Buchanan's work on the Holy Spirit.  

It would be helpful to have the references Gray had in mind, and I'll return to this question below. 

Now, as I mentioned above, Gray was corresponding (sparring might be a better adjective) with Edward Heerema, a minister and son-in-law of R. B. Kuiper, an original signer of "The Complaint." Here is how Heerema replied to Gray's statement:

At one point Prof. R. B. Kuiper declared that a vote favoring Dr. Clark would not end the "Clark case'', as some had indicated in their remarks, but would rather for him be only the beginning, as he would fight for these "precious" doctrines to his dying breath... 

In his letter Mr. Gray asserts that on a particular point Dr. Clark "silenced" the criticism by quoting from two well-known authors. Whether Dr. Clark actually "silenced" his critics on this important point still remains to be seen, of course. 

It seems Heerema himself was not content to remain silent, for while there is no record (of which I'm aware) of an engagement with Clark's sources, he wrote a book called Whither the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? which, as reported by John Muether, "contained the absurd claim that Clark was an Arminian" (Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman, pg. 107). While I don't have access to Heerema's book, it seems he explains his reasoning in the April 1947 edition of The Calvin Forum: 

Men who take such a faulty and weak attitude toward the autonomous will of man that lies at the heart of Arminianism can be expected to have little trouble with Dr. Clark's notion of the autonomous intellect of man. The careful biblical theologian has always looked upon any concession to the autonomy of man as the theological poison. Views such as. those described above are quite out of harmony with Reformed theology's unqualified attitude on this fundamental and cardinal point. 

That Dr. Clark's theology has at its heart the conception of the autonomous intellect of man seems quite clear to the undersigned. He freely admits that he gets his definition of truth, not from exegetical considerations, but from "common sense." He has written that "regeneration ... is not a change in the understanding of these words (Christ died for sinners)." The same notion is imbedded in his article "On the Primacy of the Intellect" appearing in The Westminster Theological Journal of May, 1943. One of Dr. Clark's most ardent supporters is constantly stressing at every available opportunity that regenerate and unregenerate man have the knowing element (notitia) of saving faith in common, without distinction. 

It must be punctually observed that by no means all who voted in favor of Dr. Clark at the 1946 assembly subscribe to the views on Arminianism discussed above. Also, it must be noted that the above discussion must not be interpreted to indicate that Dr. Clark holds these views. Furthermore, I would not be understood as questioning the sincerity of the above-mentioned men in their profession of the Reformed faith. But that their views on the important matter in question are erroneous appears to the undersigned to admit of no serious doubt. 

This non sequitur by Heerema led to a response from Floyd Hamilton and Clark himself in the following issue. Clark's response to Heerema was terse:

Who these men are who hold to the autonomy of the will, I do not know. None of my friends hold such a view. But let them speak for themselves. 

What I wish particularly to make clear is that I do not and never have held to the autonomy of the intellect. Mr. Heerema's statement of my opinions is as far from the truth as it can possibly be. 

The unfortunate controversy about which Mr. Heerema writes would lose one of its unfortunate characteristics, if Mr. Heerema would determine what the truth is before he publishes his opinions. 

Hamilton's response is more extensive and covers a wider variety of issues than the subject of the regenerate or unregenerate intellect. I invite readers to peruse that on there own, but one valuable piece of information - which functions a something of a tangent to the foregoing - should not be missed: 

...this "program of action" was first conceived by four ministers in consultation on April 18th, a month after Clark had been passed for licensure by a large majority of presbytery. After sending out the first section in mimeographed form to a number of other ministers, suggestions were received, and it was put into final form, as quoted above, with the Specific Objectives added, on May 12th, 1944. Dr. Clark was licensed on July 7, 1944, and it was voted to ordain him, at that meeting. He was ordained shortly afterward. 

Mr. Heerema has put the cart before the horse in this matter. One of the factors that led to the formulation of the "program for action" was the determined opposition to Dr. Clark of the men who afterwards became the Complainants, at the March 20th, 1944, presbytery meeting. 

That is, Hamilton refutes something mentioned by Heerema in a previous issue: "that the 'program of action' to which Mr. Heerema refers (p. 196) was antecedent to the Clark Case." Hamilton's historical chronology helps correct a false caricature by Heerema regarding ulterior motives for Clark's ordination. 

It also serves to rectify the repetition of Heerema's mistake (and, frankly, glaring omission of Hamilton's correction) by Michael Hakkenburg in "The Battle over the Ordination of Gordon H. Clark, 1943-1948" (Pressing Toward the Mark, pgs. 343ff.), which John Muether once called "the best treatment of the Clark controversy" (link). Heerema backpedaled rather quickly in the next issue:

In this connection I wish to make a correction. In a previous letter (November 1946) I stated that "there were those who sought the ordination of Dr. Clark for the express purpose of gaining his ability and prestige to further a particular program of action in the church." In private correspondence some of Dr. Clark's most persistent supporters have disavowed such a motivation. I must recognize this disavowal, and am therefore glad to withdraw this particular statement regarding the attitude expressed in the "program for action" and accompanying correspondence. 

Sadly, Hakkenburg also fails to recognize this withdrawal. While the article is relatively nuanced, these exclusions lead him to a framing of the events of the 1940s that does not include important and relevant facts.

 

Heerema further responded to Hamilton and Clark with a blatant obfuscation: "I was not saying that any man in the O.P.C. held to 'the autonomy of the will'." I suppose an apology would have been too much to ask for? On the contrary, Heerema doubled-down and contradicted himself within the span of two paragraphs!

...both Mr. Hamilton and Dr. Clark reject my statements attributing to Dr. Clark a "notion of the autonomous intellect of man". Permit me to present one quotation from the Answer (to the original Complaint), and I shall let the reader decide the issue for himself. This is the quotation: "Both the regenerate and the unregenerate can with the same ease understand the proposition, Christ died for sinners. Regeneration, in spite of the theory of the Complaint, is not a change in the understanding of these words. The difference between the regenerate and the unregenerate lies in the fact that the former believes the proposition and the latter does not. The regenerate acknowledges Christ as Lord, the other does not. The one is a willing subject, the other is a rebel. Regeneration is not necessarily a change in understanding propositions. An unregenerate man may understand the proposition 'Christ died for sinners', but far from knowing it to be true, he thinks it to be false. Strictly speaking he knows only that 'the Scriptures teach Christ died for sinners'. When he is regenerated, his understanding of the proposition may undergo no change at all; what happens is that he now accepts as true what previously he merely understood. He no longer knows merely 'the Scriptures teach Christ died for sinners'; he now knows 'Christ died for sinners'." (p. 32f.), (By an autonomous intellect the undersigned means an intellect which, as intellect, can function in the process of salvation without being affected in that function either by total depravity or regeneration. In either state the intellect can understand propositions of saving truth. It is autonomous, then, in that it functions under its own power, without needing the enabling power of divine grace to function as intellect in the process of salvation.)

It is as if Heerema et al. - for Heerema reports that John Murray "made it plain at the assembly that the O.P.C. cannot tolerate the views of Clark, Hamilton, et alii, on the question of the effects of sin and regeneration on the intellect of man" - were oblivious to James 2:19. To affirm one understands (or even believes!) true (and theological!) propositions is an entirely distinct issue from total depravity and salvation. Merely understanding a true proposition is clearly insufficient for ethical good and salvation. "Autonomy" is a red herring.

That Heerema reports Hamilton was not sent to Korea because "he had left doubt in the minds of those on the committee as to the accuracy of his views on the influence of sin and regeneration on the human intellect" is a shameful admission. It is yet another fact which Hakkenburg fails to report.

Finally, to return to the aforementioned curiosity regarding which references Gray alluded to in Clark's speech during the OPC's thirteenth general assembly, I wondered whether it might be possible to find what Clark quoted. The following are my guesses. From James Buchanan's The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit:

Being an appropriate means, adapted to the faculties of the human mind, there can be no reason to doubt that the Bible, like any other book, may convey much instruction to an unrenewed man. When it is affirmed that a natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God, it is not implied that the Bible is unintelligibly written, or that he cannot understand the sense and meaning of scriptural propositions, so as to be able to give a rational account of them; for he may investigate the literal meaning of Scripture, and, in doing so, may attach a definite idea to many of its statements - may be able to see their mutual relations - to reason upon them, and even to expound them; and yet, in the scriptural sense, he may be in darkness notwithstanding. There are truths in the Bible which admit of being recognized, and even proved by natural reason, 'for the things of a man may be known by the spirit of man which is in him;' and even 'the things of the Spirit,' when revealed, may be so far understood as to affect and impress the mind which is nevertheless unconverted... 

The natural man is capable of acquiring, by the use of his rational faculties, such an acquaintance with the truths of God's Word as is sufficient to make him responsible for his treatment of it. Not to enlarge upon other points, let us take the doctrine which affirms the darkness of the human understanding, and the necessity of the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit, which is often supposed to destroy the grounds of human responsibility in this respect; unless he be taught of God, he cannot have such an experimental knowledge of that doctrine as belongs to the exercised believer, and probably he will not submit to it; but it is stated, nevertheless, in plain intelligible language. He cannot read his Bible without being made aware that it contains this truth, nor can he exercise his understanding upon it, without acquiring some general knowledge of its import; and that knowledge, although neither spiritual nor saving, is amply sufficient as a ground of moral obligation. And farther, he may also learn from the same source, and in the same way, how it is that the enlightening grace of the Spirit is obtained, for he cannot read such passages as these: 'If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him;' and, 'If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? - he cannot read such passages as these without forming some notion of prayer as the means by which his natural darkness may be dispelled; and if, notwithstanding his clear natural perception of such doctrines, he either refuses to believe them, or persists in neglecting prayer for the Holy Spirit, he must be dealt with hereafter on a very different principle, and tried by a very different rule of judgment from that which alone is applicable to those who have no Bible to teach them, or no rational mind to be taught. You cannot have sat under a Gospel ministry for years without acquiring such knowledge as is abundantly sufficient to lay you under the most weighty responsibilities... 

In Berkhof's The History of Christian Doctrines, my best guess is that Clark may have cited the following:

It asserted the doctrine of original sin in the strict sense of the word. Since Adam was the legal representative of all his descendants, the guilt of his first sin is imputed to them, and in consequence the corruption of human nature is also propagated to them. They are totally corrupt, that is, corrupt in every part of their being and so corrupt that they cannot do any spiritual good and cannot make a single effort to restore the broken relationship with God. At the same time the Canons also say: "There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and discovers some regard for virtue, good order in society, and for maintaining an orderly external deportment. But so far is this light of nature from being sufficient to bring him to a saving knowledge of God, that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil." III and IV, Art 4. 

Regeneration is regarded as strictly monergistic, and not at all as the work of God and man. Without regenerating grace no one can turn to God, and none can accept the offer of salvation apart from an efficient act of God founded on election. Yet salvation is offered in all seriousness to all who hear the Gospel on condition of faith and repentance. They who are lost will have only themselves to blame.

For readers who find this time period as fascinating as I do, I've recently written some thoughts on the alethiology of Clark and the complainants as well as on the seeming irrelevance of an "archetype-ectype" distinction to the 1940s debate here. Several of my posts include references to some as-yet unpublished material written by Clark. 

Original Sin, Guilt, Traducianism, and Eastern Orthodoxy

The following is an expansion of a criticism of Eastern Orthodoxy I have only touched on elsewhere: original sin. It seems several Eastern Orthodox adherents prefer to call it "ancestral" sin. In some cases, there is a complete lack of understanding, such as can be seen in this video (the first video that shows up if you search for "original sin eastern orthodox" on Youtube), which is explained by a Ph.D. and priest:

...we have this development, this theological development which is based on this erroneous concept but we also have among the Reformers John Calvin who embraced a lot of the Augustinian concepts including predestination and he also embraced the understanding of Original Sin and the transmission of sin and guilt and the responsibility of Adam based on Augustine's understanding and that has been the case until this day for those who have followed the Calvinist understandings. Of course in the Orthodox Church this is not even a topic to be discussed because we do not see any such possibility of transmission of sin and guilt and responsibility in any possible way.

Perry Robinson similarly writes (link):

For the Orthodox, original sin pertains only to Adam’s transgression, and is not something that his descendants inherit from him. What we get from Adam is corruption and death, which lead us to sin, and separate us from God, in that we live in death.

This is not even remotely in the same league as intramural debates amongst Reformed theologians such as is found in George P. Hutchinson's fantastic work, The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterianism. Perhaps this would be less of a problem if the ignorance weren't so seemingly prevalent. 

Or take the following from the introduction to another priest's (Romanides') book, The Ancestral Sin:

Now we sin because we die, for the sting of death is sin. Sin reigns in death, in our corruptibility and mortality. Death is the root; sin is the thorn that springs from it.

This completely reverses cause and effect (Romans 6:23). I've also seen several Eastern Orthodox apologists appeal to John Chrysostom (Romanides and Eastern Orthodox apologists who disagree with Romanides - it seems there may be something of an intramural debate). Chrysostom says (link):

Seeing their children bearing punishment proves a more grievous form of chastisement for the fathers than being subject to it themselves.

Without fail, I find that Eastern Orthodox apologists deny original guilt. But then how is it that they think children may justly bear the punishment for another's sins? Whether Chrysostom himself believed this point is irrelevant. Hutchinson and the Reformed tradition deal with this question directly. Eastern Orthodox apologists seem barely aware of it. And those who are aware of it seem to ignore it! 

On this note, it's helpful to see engagement between theologians or apologists of different traditions. An example may be found in Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views. In it, Oliver Crisp responds to the Eastern Orthodox presentation (Andrew Louth, priest and Ph.D.) with the following on pg. 184:

In the context of expounding the doctrine of ancestral sin in terms of a web of human sinfulness going all the way back to our first parents, he raises the issue of whether this is sufficient as an account of sin. As he puts it, for defenders of original sin, like myself, the ancestral sin view “seems to leave open the possibility (even if totally exceptional) of someone living a blameless life.” And this, of course, is the fundamental worry Augustine had with Pelagius’s doctrine. The problem is, Louth never really addresses this objection to his position head on. He never explains how the Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin can avoid the traditional Augustinian objection that it leaves conceptual room for the existence of someone that is, for all practical purposes, without sin. This, it seems to me, is a serious lacuna in his presentation.

Note that Louth himself brings up the possibility of all people who are subject to original sin as living blameless lives and then proceeds to cite Mary as a case in which such a possibility actually happens. Even setting aside the problems with Marian devotion and the possibility that all men subject to original sin might refrain from choosing to sin, the immediate point is that Eastern Orthodox apologists think those who are subject to original sin are guiltless subjects of punishment. In the case of Christ - who voluntarily laid down His life - a case can be made that experience of punishment can just. The same cannot be said if our subjection to original sin is involuntary.

Rather than squarely facing this problem, Louth merely notes it and moves on as if it were a mere curiosity. From the same book, the following criticisms of Louth by another contributor are even better than Crisp's (pg. 172):

On a final note, the corruption-only position of ancestral sin is a flawed doctrine; it discounts the truths of imputation (and realism) implied in passages like Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 as well as the broader doctrinal synthesis of the whole Bible on which imputed guilt rests (see my marks to Crisp). I ask Louth, Are there any human beings apart from Christ who were perfectly sinless? Answering yes would suggest he has a defective hamartiology and Christology. Scripture is clear that with the exception of Christ all humans are sinners (e.g., Rom 3:9-20; 1 Jn 1:8); if we presume there were any sinless people, as perfectionists have claimed, such naiveté detracts from the glory of the incarnation and belittles the gravity of sin. I suspect Louth agrees. In that case, it must be our inherited corruption that makes sinning inevitable. But then how is this scenario just? Since no human is responsible for innate corruption, in his view, and since that same corruption leads inevitably to sin, it is unclear how ancestral sin fares any better than original guilt. The concerns surrounding divine justice remain.

Now, Hutchinson's book shows the Reformed view has its own, intramural debates regarding just how it is Adam's ancestors can be considered guilty. I've defended a realist view most extensively here (see also here and here where I engage with different Reformed theologians who disagree with it).

What might be helpful, however, is to draw comparisons to theologians whom Eastern Orthodox apologists respect. Even though their views don't align with mine in every facet, such might anticipate the more typical apologetic concerns that Eastern Orthodox apologists seem to have about the Reformed view as well as facilitate conversation. Discussing the view of Maximus the Confessor, for example, Marcelo Souza writes:

In Christ, the natural will is rooted in his concrete human nature, not an abstract human nature (as some modern philosophers of religion, who reject dyothelitism, haver argued).

This is a helpful point of departure in that it tracks with the sort of theological and anthropological metaphysics I (link) as well as other Protestants agree (as Souza himself notes; e.g. link): Christ has His own, concretely distinctive soul and body. He was, of course, consubstantial with us, but theologians like John of Damascus acknowledge a distinction between the concrete humanity of Christ and that of everyone else. He writes:

And we cannot, if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having judgment (γνώμη) and preference. For judgment is a disposition with reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation concerning something unknown, that is to say, after counsel and decision. And after judgment comes preference, which chooses out and selects the one rather than the other. But the Lord being not mere man but also God, and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and whatever is bad foreign to Him.

John of Damascus is referring to what Eastern Orthodox theologians describe as the "gnomic will," a term particularly associated with Maximus the Confessor. Joseph P. Farrell describes it as a "mode of employment of the will" (link). Ian McFarland writes (In Adam's Fall, pg. 112):

Maximus draws a parallel between the natural and gnomic wills on the one hand, and the capacity to speak and the act of speaking on the other... Some monothelites rejected the ascription of a human will to Christ on the grounds that it would imply ignorance (see OTP 19 [PG91:216B – C]). The terms of Maximus’ dyothelitism imply not so much a flat - out rejection of this charge as its deflection by conceding that ignorance is a feature of gnomic will but denying that Christ willed gnomically. To put it another way, from Maximus’ perspective the monothelite charge rests on a failure to recognize that gnome refers to a tropos rather than the logos of the will. 

The idea is that while Christ is consubstantial with the rest of humanity - having the same nature and natural will as we do - the rest of mankind has a mode or tropos or manner or way of will[ing] that Christ did not. As McFarland says (In Adam's Fall, pg. 105):

...a given logos may be instantiated according to a range of possible tropoi. The full humanity of the will is thus unaffected by whether the tropos by which it operates is gnomic deliberation or the immediate presence of God characteristic of deification.

Let us now consider a Reformed engagement with Eastern Orthodox apologists. Given what has been said, McFarland points out (In Adam's Fall, pg. 107):

...while Maximus’ understanding of postlapsarian human willing neither envisages nor requires Augustine’s vision of a fallen humanity unable to avoid sin, it certainly allows for it. If the integrity of the will remains intact when we become unable to sin in glory (as both he and Augustine affirm), there seems nothing inherently problematic about affirming that genuine agency is preserved in circumstances where sinning is unavoidable. 

Satan is an example of an agent who unavoidably sins. So what prevents a Reformed Christian making use of a concept of mode of will[ing] such that in concrete cases (viz. everyone except Christ), "sinning is unavoidable"? 

[As an aside, I don't think McFarland is suggesting that unavoidability implies determinism: we might imagine one's freely (in the libertarian sense) choosing from amongst various, sinful alternatives. On the other hand, it is possible for sin to be predestined (e.g. 1 Kings 22:20-23, Acts 4:27-28).]

Or take an Eastern Orthodox apologist like Jay Dyer, who says: "Christ has not possessed a corrupted, defective will - we do... He's not subject to the corruption that comes through the procreation of man through seminal means." (link). 

A Reformed Christian might say the same. Indeed, traducians like Samuel Baird have argued along these lines. Romanides suggests that the early church "writers regarding the fall and salvation incline strongly toward the theory of traducianismus." The concrete soul of a child is paternally traduced, and this functions to explain why our mode of will[ing] is unlike Christ's (and, for that matter, unlike prelapasarian Adam).

Of course, a point of disanalogy would be that the Reformed position thinks our "corrupted, defective will" entails more than the Eastern Orthodox position, and this might return us to the subject of punishment, original guilt, participation in Adam's sin, and divine justice. But the immediate point is that on both Eastern Orthodox and Reformed positions, it is possible for Christ to be consubstantial with us yet not subject to [certain effects of] original sin.

I believe the foregoing anwers one further counterargument. Joseph P. Farrell writes:

...nature and its properties as created by God, are good. The natural will thus chooses nothing but the good. Opposition to the divine will is thus always in the evil mode of the employment of the will, and is thus always personal. And this in turn means that free choice is not ultimately concerned with a dialectic of opposition between the divine and human natures in Christ, or between evil and good choices in man himself.

Similarly, McFarland writes:

As promising as Maximus’ doctrine of the will may appear for shoring up Augustine’s understanding of original sin, however, further reflection suggests serious obstacles to any proposed marriage of the two theologies. As Augustine himself was very aware, the doctrine of original sin is credible only if the categories of nature (as God’s good creation) and will (as the source of creatures’ deviation from God) are kept distinct. But surely one of the consequences of Maximus’ integration of will and nature is to render this sort of distinction untenable: if sin is a function of the will (viz., its deviation from God’s will for the creature), and the operation of the will is simply an expression of human nature, then the doctrine of original sin (viz., the assertion that the will is congenitally opposed to God) seemingly implies that human nature as such has become evil. It follows either that God is not the creator of human nature (the Manichean position), or, worse, that God –precisely as the creator of human nature – is also the creator of sin.

In the case of Farrell, my first response would be to point out that the natural will qua natural will does not choose anything. Persons enhypostatize natures. A natural will outlines a capacity one has in virtue of his nature. For Farrell to say "The natural will thus chooses nothing but the good" conflates nature with person, because only persons choose.

Ignoring this slip, there is the question of the natural will itself, discussion of which performs the double-duty of responding to Farrell and McFarland simultaneously. What capacity or capacities does the natural will entail (in the context of anthropology)? The simplest answer seems to be that the natural will affords man the capacity to will, act, or choose. This capacity is distinct from the voluntary exercise of will, act, or choice. This capacity is also distinct from that to which one might be disposed to choose. Sin is not a substance, but neither are volitional natures morally neutral in terms of disposition.

[Parenthetically, one might easily expand this discussion on human nature to encompass our rationality. Both the rational and volitional seem to be rooted in one's concrete humanity, viz. one's spirit or soul. What I've said regarding a distinction between a natural will vs. its employment/disposition would analogously apply to a distinction between a so-called natural rationality vs. its employment/disposition. 

Thus, these are two capacities of one nature. In no sense did the Fall destruct our capacity to capacity to think, will, act, or choose. On other other hand, our mode of disposition and action - in obedience or rebellion to God - was mutable.] 

This finally turns us to the fact that God created Adam and Eve good. Of course, God created everyone good. Does this entail that the orientation of one's natural will can only towards the good, as Farrell seems to want to suggest? If so, then why isn't it possible for Satan (for example) to employ his will towards the good?

On the other hand, how does the Reformed position avoid McFarland's point regarding anthropological Manicheanism? If the orientation of a concrete human nature might be to rebel against God, how could this be? As has been mentioned, traducianism seems to solve the dilemma. McFarland seems to assume that this is not a live option - as if the concrete humanities (souls and bodies) of Adam's progeny are created ex nihilo. While John of Damascus is taken to be a creationist, consideration of the following is still useful (link):

...generation means that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence. But creation and making mean that the creator and maker produces from that which is external, and not out of his own essence, a creation of an absolutely dissimilar nature....Wherefore all the qualities the Father has are the Son's, save that the Father is unbegotten, and this exception involves no difference in essence nor dignity, but only a different mode of coming into existence. We have an analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God Himself moulded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son), and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam's rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from each other in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of coming into existence.

After contrasting begetting and creating, he says Adam begot Seth. This implies Adam produced out of his essence an offspring similar in essence. If we highlight that it was out of Adam's concrete humanity that Seth was begotten, we are closer to a biblical and reasonably motivated model on which: 

1. Christ was consubstantial with the rest of humanity yet, unlike them, not subject to [the effects of] original sin.

2. Adam's ancestors are justly punished for having guiltily participated in the original transgression.

3. The Fall did not destruct the image of God in man yet did put us in a terrible mode of need for conformity to Christ's image.

The Super-Sufficiency of Christianity

 A few months ago, I wrote:

...we should always keep in mind that we have no control over how others will respond to our engagement with them. And we can't forcibly change one's ethical orientation. Nevertheless, we can always do something. Calvinism is not fatalism, and what we do makes a difference. Thinking about or planning for different situations before they happen helps one to be prepared to actually follow through when it comes time to make good (whether proactive or responsive). The less we reflect, the more apt we may be to hesitate on how to rightly respond when particular opportunities arise for exemplifying particular fruits of the Spirit. 

Regardless of how others (or even we) respond, all things Christians experience have been ordained for a reason. The Spirit will use our experience to some end that is good for us, others, or both - even if, in the moment, we don't understand how. I tend to try to live with Romans 8:28 in the back of my mind, and it saves me from anxiety. In fact, my struggle is less with assurance (keeping the big picture in mind) and more with daily application (focusing on immediate needs). I tend to need to set conscious, proximate goals for myself or make little progress. My weakness may be another's strength and vice versa: each of us needs the support of others (Hebrews 10:24-25). (link)

Reformed Christians are often asked how they balance God's sovereignty and man's responsibility: if God is in control of all things, does what I do make a difference? Or: if God's grace is sufficient to work through the weakest means, then is there a "need" for me to worry about how I present the gospel to others?

As I mentioned in the post from last year, we should have assurance that God is able to use our most meagre of efforts for good. Even so, Christians should not neglect the importance of sanctificatory progress (such as in one's apologetic or evangelizing, although one might of course extend this to all areas of our lives). We should always pattern ourselves after the work of our God.

Christianity is a religion of super-sufficiency. Our God Himself is wholly sufficient for us, yet with how much more are we gifted? His grace extends far beyond our needs. Indeed, God has even ordained that the means by which we are ordinarily blessed is through His church. But this is already a surplus of divine favor!

Another example: we are all blessed each Lord's Day. What might have been a simple, sufficient reading of God's word is typically beautified homiletically, a clear product of the session's meditation upon God's word. A plain presentation of God's word would suffice for a sermon, but is it improper to say that we are more benefitted from a wise and didactically intentional application of it? I don't think so.

Surely we would agree our pastors don't think that the root of conviction in the minds of his congregants lies in his own efforts. The Holy Spirit works the conviction... through the preaching. That is, we wouldn't want to say the preaching was irrelevant to the conviction even while we acknowledge the Efficient Cause of its effectuality. I think that good efforts (such as a hard-worked sermon) tend to coincide with an increased manifestation of God's presence - even if not in the worker's own life (e.g. "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church").

Likewise, I think a simple, sufficient defense of the faith might be rhetorically beautified. Is this "necessary" in all cases? "Need" and "necessity" is a function of context. Apologetics, for instance, can function as a means towards several ends: to stop the mouths of unbelievers, to persuade, to increase the psychological or epistemic assurance of believers, to solidify good habits, etc. Different contexts might relevantly bear on one's decision to speak or act differently.

Suppose one considers the different ways to speak or act in a given context but that in each scenario, he will speak the truth. Is consideration "unnecessary" under these conditions? I think framing the situation this way tends to dampen the recognition that Christianity is a religion of super-sufficiency. Are not the different ways in which one might speak or act relevant to the outcome - even while we believe that it is only due to the Spirit that anyone will be convicted of the truth? 

That we meet the needs of those around us is important. The way we meet the needs of those around us is important too.

Sola Scriptura and "The Primacy of Revelation"

I was pleasantly surprised to hear James White use the word "Scripturalism" in his opening statement in a recent debate on sola scriptura with Trent Horn (link). He even seems to mean something pretty near to Clark's position: that Scripture is our ultimate epistemic authority - see minute mark 17:30-21:00. If more mainstream, Reformed apologists are willing to go this route, it would make more clear "the dividing line" (pardon the James White pun). [Side note: less pleasant was listening to White's final cross-examination answers from minute mark 1:42:00-1:46:20.]

A comment on my recent post on Eastern Orthodoxy noted a few, anecdotal examples of nominally Reformed Christian moving to Eastern Orthodoxy due to issues they took with the doctrine sola scriptura. That Protestants would be more aware of the centrality of sola scriptura (if not the nuances) does not surprise me. Most - if not all - heresies are traceable to a faulty understanding or doctrine of Scripture. After all, it is a rare person who would claim to understand a biblical doctrine as true, claim to accept it as true, and later reject said doctrine despite still regarding it as true. 

I noted in the above link and elsewhere that Eastern Orthodox apologists appear quite willing to borrow concepts or appropriate arguments made by Reformed theologians - far more so than Roman Catholics (at least in my experience). Even in the case of sola scriptura, you are unlikely to hear a Roman Catholic make a statement such as this, for example: 

Though I think much of Dr. Svendsen’s critique of Roman theology can often be polemical and bitter because he sees as a corrupt institution, he is undoubtedly right about his insistence on the primacy of revelation as this is probably the main point that also divides Orthodoxy from Rome... Svendsen’s approach to the question at hand and insistence that divine revelation be the paradigm is far more acceptable of how an Orthodox approach these questions.

This is not an isolated observation. I'm aware of other proponents of Eastern Orthodoxy who would likewise state acceptance of something along the lines of "a primacy of revelation." Similarly, Eastern Orthodox apologists tend to disapprove of "natural theology" (example). Is it any wonder that upon hearing these sorts of things, nominally Reformed or Protestant individuals - particularly, certain presuppositionalists who deny any and all epistemic or apologetic utility in natural theology - might find themselves more receptive to apologists whose positions are seemingly similar to their own? 

Again, what is often missing is nuance. For one thing, Michael Sudduth has argued fairly persuasively in The Reformed Objection to Natural Theology that some kind of natural theology was accepted among virtually all Reformed theologians until the 19th century (see most of chapter 1, here and here) . I hope to do a further post on this book in particular, as its distinctions and explanation of the functions of natural theology are helpful. In brief, though, I agree with finding a proper place for natural theology within one's worldview, as Gordon Clark also accepted (link). This may come as a surprise to some.

Another missing nuance in deconversion stories related to sola scriptura is that to state agreement on "the primacy of revelation" does not outline what the content of divine revelation is. For those who are mistakenly dissuaded of sola scriptura, it makes sense that Eastern Orthodoxy is viewed as a leading alternative (despite problems I've mentioned elsewhere) in light of the mess that is contemporary Roman Catholic apologetics. Just have a look at the comments here or the numerous examples of Roman Catholic cognitive dissonance here (particularly on the question of private judgment; cf. link). Talk about buyer's remorse!

But in turn, does Eastern Orthodoxy stand in any better position relative to Protestantism? Take the Synod of Jerusalem. Most Eastern Orthodox apologists would say the synod was not ecumenical. In this case, then, one would think that an Eastern Orthodox believer should agree that it may err and therefore is not to be made the rule of faith, or practice (cf. Westminster Confession of Faith, 31.4). 

Nevertheless, some Eastern Orthodox apologists would appeal to it as an external confirmation of the canon of Scripture (link), whereas others would disagree and hold to a different canon of Scripture (link). How is this to be explained? What would motivate an Eastern Orthodox apologist to appeal to a fallible synod? 

1) Is the idea that the Synod of Jerusalem is infallible after all? If so, then there is disagreement among Eastern Orthodox believers regarding the canon of "divine revelation" vis-a-vis what counts as an ecumenical council. Many apologetic arguments one finds against Protestantism would thereby cut against Eastern Orthodoxy. [Side note: that Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy disagree on which councils were ecumenical already begs this question.] 

2) Or is the idea that the Synod of Jerusalem is fallible but supports a particular understanding of the canon of Scripture? If so, one can understand why Eastern Orthodox believers who take seriously "the primacy of revelation" and have a different canon of Scripture than this synod would not gainsay the epistemic weight of what they regard as infallible in favor of the determinations of a fallible synod. 

3) If an Eastern Orthodox believer doesn't wish to appeal to the Synod of Jerusalem at all, how then does he know the canon of Scripture? So-called ecumenical councils never listed the books of Scripture. In fact, who is to say that one's opinion of the canon of Scripture won't differ from a future, allegedly infallible ecumenical council?

In each case, how is disagreement about the content of divine revelation supposed to be resolved? There is no infallible table of contents for the Eastern Orthodox believer any more than there is for the Protestant. The Protestant is simply more honest about this and, if nuanced, able to argue that such a fact is really irrelevant (link). 

Sola scriptura is a species of sola revelation. If the Eastern Orthodox apologists I've referenced are representative of the whole, then the principle difference between Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy is not so much "the primacy of revelation" but the content of it. In that case, though, one who deconverts from Protestantism due to perceived issues with sola scriptura but then goes ahead to accept another form of sola revelation has simply exchanged one set of presuppositions for another without meaningfully considering 1) whether what he thought were issues actually are, and 2) whether said issues would also apply to his newfound beliefs. The issue of "private judgment" never disappears, nor the need for self-authenticity. Protestantism just turns out to be more defensible because Protestants self-consistently accept as God-breathed only the sort of content that is described as God-breathed: holy writ (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

WCF 31.3 All synods or councils, since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred. Therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith, or practice; but to be used as a help in both.

Trinitarian and Anthropological Metaphysics

In the comments of a recent post, I was recently asked some challenging questions regarding Trinitarianism, Christology, and anthopology. In the past few years, I've mentioned several times the need for humility and balance when positing a doctrine of God (see here and pursuant links). On the one hand, I aim to do a better job of avoiding dogmatism on points of speculation. On the other hand, even in the case that answers to certain questions are underdetermined by biblical data, apologetic concerns warrant consideration of possibilities to prevent one's faith from being undercut. 

In what follows, my goal is to provide answers that are faithful to Scripture insofar as they are deducible from or coherent with it. Keeping in mind that this latter qualification - coherence - is a necessary but insufficient condition for truth, the questions I was asked will be indented:

I'm trying to also keep in my the Trinity, with the three persons united in one being. Being would be identical to nature (divine nature), would it not?

On the concept of "unity," this post would provide a helpful background for my own thoughts (excepting a few uncareful remarks in the final paragraph).

I don't think the Trinity are united "in one being" if that means persons are subsumed under nature. Don't get me wrong: natures don't exist without persons, and persons do not exist without natures. Yet insofar as "nature" or "being" discusses what is common to individuals, natures belong to and are predicated of persons, not persons to natures. "Enhypostasis" - nature is in the hypostasis. If persons were "in" natures, then Christ's having two natures would seem to imply Nestorianism.

Now, the members of the Trinity are consubstantial. In fact, I think the meaning of their being consubstantial is just the same as the meaning of you and I being consubstantial, although the manner of consubstantiality differs between Trinitarian members (eternal, necessary) and us as men (temporal, contingent). Regardless, they indeed are of the same nature. 

But I would balk at certain theories of divine simplicity that may be implicit in the phrasing of your question. That is, Trinitarian consubstantiality does not imply only one concrete nature. Recall that you mentioned mind is "indexed" to nature: if we subsumed the divine persons under or in a single, concrete divine nature, then, that would entail that there is just one divine mind. The problem with that - as you seem to recognize - is that it runs against biblical data suggesting the members have distinct, self-reflective thoughts (e.g. John 17). On that note:

So the mind of the Son would have self-referential propositions that the Father would not (e.g. "I am the eternally begotten one"), but that mind would not be coextensive with the person of the Son? What would be the remainder? Would it be something like the shared divine nature that extends beyond the self-referential thoughts of the mind?

While the mode of the Son's existence is eternal, He is also eternally begotten. Here is precisely where I think Clark, for example, went wrong: it is not merely that the Son thinks something of Himself that is different than His thought of the Father or Spirit; rather, this thought corresponds to something about the Son Himself. I argue Clark's rejection of the correspondence theory of truth in the 1940s led him to collapse persons into propositions/thoughts (link). I further argue I think Clark's reasons for rejecting it only pertain to a certain kind of correspondence theory of truth (link). 

What I am saying, then, is that the persons of the Trinity are not simply minds - and again, since you agree minds are "indexed" to nature, that would not constitute a differentiating principle between the individual Trinitarian persons anyway. Nor are the persons the thoughts of the mind (as if it is intelligible to suggest the divine persons are products of three minds?). On the contrary, the thoughts of the persons of the Trinity about themselves reflect or correspond to something unique about the way that they themselves are: unbegotton/originate, eternally begotten/generation, eternally spirated/process. Epistemological and ontological categories should not be collapsed. 

Also remember that in the original post on Clark and Nestorius, I was only attempting to provide a connotative definition of "person" in general. I was not talking individual persons/hypostases/subjects. For example, I think the Father, Son, Spirit, the angels, and humans are all "persons" because they have something in common: they each have a mind or minds. But this definition does not individuate any one individual "person" from any other. Well, that makes sense, for we agree that the having of a mind (or minds) is something properly belonging to the category of nature - not that we have the same nature as God, of course, but the overlap explains (at least partially) in what sense creaturely persons might be images of divine persons. 

So what individuates individual persons/hypostases/subjects? We might posit (as Clark did) that they can be individuated by their thoughts (of themselves). In a cursory analysis, this might be sufficient. But foundationally, note again that thoughts are products of thinkers. To the extent that an individual's thoughts of himself is relevant to this question, that to which the thoughts correspond - the individual himself - is all the more so. 

Let me suggest that an individual person is the correspondent of whatever may truly be predicated of him either timelessly (if His mode of existence is timeless, e.g. the Father) or at time t (if his given his mode of existence is temporal, e.g. an angel or human). What I "think" of myself is irrelevant, because my thoughts of myself are potentially false. Rather, true propositions about me (corresponding to my existence at time t) are those thoughts God thinks about me (corresponding to my existence at time t).

The above is perfectly intelligible to me. Even the case of Christ incarnate can be nuanced (example). Here is one catch, however: it suggests that the divine nature is concretized in the three persons. This should be obvious anyways if we accept a model of the Trinity on which each member of the Trinity has a distinct mind, but it should be noted. Not all (or even most) Trinitarian models would accept this. If we take Clark's definitions of thoughts/beliefs as involving volition, three concrete minds also entails three concrete wills.

Clark's own reasoning supports this, for he reject faculty psychology in the context of anthropology and Trinitarianism:

In the case of God, the simplicity of his reality should favor still more such a identification, rather than a development of divine faculty psychology. (April 3, 1937, Letter to J. Oliver Buswell)

A man is not a compound of three things, an intellect, a will, and an emotion. Each man is a single personality. (1943. On the Primacy of the Intellect. Westminster Theological Journal Vol. 5 No. 2, May. 182-195)

The question has to do with Ephesian 4 where it speaks of man’s mind being darkened. Well, I would include in the functions of mind the assent as well as the notitia, but I distinguish between the two functions. This is not faculty psychology, but it is two functions of the same spirit. (1977. A Defense of Christian Presuppositions in the Light of Non-Christian Presuppositions)

Just as in the post on "unity" I linked to above, these statements exhibit an internal inconsistency in Clark's thought. If the same spirit has two functions - assent and notitia or knowledge - then on what grounds could Clark affirm three distinct functions in one respect (self-knowledge) but not the other (assent)? If only the Son thinks "I am the Son," what does it mean to "think" if assent is not involved?

We can certainly differentiate the relationship between our persons to propositions we "know" (acquisitional, receptive) to the relationship between the Trinitarian persons and propositions they "know" (active, generative). In both cases, the objects of knowledge - truth-bearing propositions - are the same, although the psychological activity of "knowing" differs.

To reiterate, on the model I gravitate towards, the Trinitarian persons are consubstantial just as you and I are consubstantial. What it means for the divine nature to be "in" each person is the same, is true, and therefore corresponds to the existence of each person. There is just one "divine nature" that we conceptualize: all-wise, all-powerful, all-good, etc. Each member of the Trinity is all-wise, all-good, etc.

It's just that how consubstantiality cashes out is not in persons being found "in[side]" of a common nature but rather along the lines that a person who is a principle or "fount" (e.g. the Father; Adam) communicates his same nature to others who find their "origin" in him (e.g. the Son/Spirit; the rest of humanity). This bears on the unity of persons and explains the connection to traducianism, by the way, which I'll return to momentarily.

In the context of the Trinity, there is a necessary connection between the members. The property of the Father, the attributes of the divine nature He enhypostatizes, and mode of the communication of His divine nature to His Son and Spirit is such that the three persons 1) mutually depend on each other - for example, the Father is not who He is without His Son and Spirit - and 2) always act conjointly and agreeably. 

A comparison could reasonably be made between 1) three distinct knowers who distinctly and reflexively index the same, objective body of propositional meaning, and 2) three distinct operators or actors who necessarily produce one and the same conjoint operation or act (which, incidentally, includes the body of propositional meaning comprised of necessary and contingent truths).

A traducian friend of mine (Ken Hamrick) uses the language of "shared agency" to describe our participation in Adam's sin while the mode of "our" being was not yet (i.e. at the time of the Fall) as individuals but as the singular nature of Adam through which he sinned and out of whom we were not yet propagated as individuals (link). I agree with him, although how we think this analogizes to the Trinity differs. 

Ken would emphasize the numerical sameness of the spirit traduced to us and thereby argue for the numerical sameness of essence shared among the Trinity (link). I would emphasize that once we are propagated out of Adam, our possession of the same spirit is nevertheless concretely distinct and thereby argue that the Trinitarian persons exhibit an analogy to "shared agency" in the eternal communication of the divine nature through which the persons operate even as they are eternally individuated and individuals. As I mentioned at the outset, these are rather deep waters to stake out a dogmatic claim that one can confidently swim them. 

In either model - Ken's or mine - there is an analogy one could make between Trinitarianism and traducianism. There are also disanalogies in either case, of course. For Ken, whereas we have distinct, concrete natures (albeit inherited through our fathers once we are propogated out of them into a different mode of being, i.e. as individuals), the members of the Trinity would not. On my end, the manner of consubstantiality between the Father, Son, and Spirit would be eternal and grounded in their intrapersonal relations rather than temporal (such as my relation to my father). This interesting impasse at once suggests an argumentative parallel between Trinitarianism and traducianism regardless of which one of us is correct as well as that other reasons must be given for independent support for either of our positions.

I think my model goes some way in explaining biblical texts like John 17, the covenant of redemption, and the resonance between theology proper and anthropology. 

Further, on the subject of anthropology in general and traducianism in particular, I think this model (and Ken's) also avoids nominalism while affirming a realism in the contexts of original sin and justification which does not devolve into erroneous positions. For example, erroneous positions such as: 

1) one wherein Christ assumes a sinful nature (cf. uncareful statements of the doctrine of original sin), 

2) one wherein I am unjustly punished for sins which are really and completely alien to me (cf. representationalist theories of original sin), 

3) one wherein Christ assumes and glorifies a human nature under which all persons are said to be subsumed (cf. Eastern Orthodoxy and deification, despite the protestations of its apologists to believe that natures are in hypostases rather than the reverse), 

4) one wherein infused righteousness is argued as necessary for justification to be justly possible in this lifetime (cf. Roman Catholic apologists, although those who argue this are themselves inconsistent).

On several of these points, see here for more. Further potential advantages of this model are that it seems to cohere with other metaphysical ideas which have separate appeal: theistic propositional realism (i.e. divine conceptualism), a version of divine simplicity which allows for formal distinctions, an Aristotelian theory of universals, etc.

I've thought about this quite a lot, and while the above is not a full story, it's probably the best articulation I can come up with at the present. To your next question:

If by inheriting one's father's "spirit" means those immaterial attributes that he possesses (analogous to the material attributes one possesses), then I think I can get my mind around what "spirit" means. Just as our bodies are made from our parents's bodies without being identical to them, so our spirits are made from our parents's spirits without being identical to them.

But then what distinguishes mind and spirit, or are they the same?

I think they are the same. Christ assumed a body and a rational soul or spirit without assuming a person, so there is no Christological difficulty, at least. Ken has elsewhere suggested that the "spirit is the seat of the will regarding moral matters" (link), and I think this all dovetails with Clark's aforementioned thought that knowledge and assent are two functions of the same spirit.

Finally, I had written:

The separation of body and spirit is "death," and such is predicated of our persons; but so too is the separation of our spirit from the Spirit "death" also predicated of our persons... suggesting the relationship between man's body and his spirit is analogically related to the dependency of our spirit to God's Spirit?

Maybe all of this becomes simplified by looking at a case most Christians would agree with: Christians will be conscious in the intermediate state. Are these Christians still human? If so, then it appears that they just are, ontologically speaking, spirits. To say that the person experiences death is to say that his body has been separated from his spirit (i.e. himself). Men are not, ontologically speaking, composite beings, for although these spirits do normally have bodies, the separation of the normal unity between spirit and body does not ontologically change a person (spirit). Likewise, the separation of the designed unity between spirit and Spirit does not ontologically change a person (spirit). If physical death is not an ontological change, neither would be spiritual death.

Your question: 

As for the subsequent post wherein you discuss the intermediate state, have you considered also that our spiritual bodies may be of a different order than our physical bodies? Paul's statements about the natural body and spiritual body are puzzling. "Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." The first man was made of the earth from dust, the last man is from heaven. Is it not safe to say that even in our present state we not "fully human" but are "incomplete" because the body we were given (even Adam's sinless body) was only the seed of what will only be completed in the resurrection? So, it may be the case that there is no ontological change since the separation of the spirit from the body in death is part of the planned transformation from natural body to spiritual body (like the seed germinating).

Did you mean to ask whether it's possible that "even in our present state we [are] not "fully human" but are "incomplete""? If so, did the incarnate and yet-be-glorified Son assume a fully human nature? Further, when this Son died and was buried (prior to His resurrection), was He fully human or not? Surely the former. 

I would also keep in mind the question of whether or not the reprobate are fully human: they will experience a bodily resurrection too, but their spirit remains severed from the life-giving Spirit of God and, thus, experience a second death. These points cumulatively suggest that death entails no change in nature.

Now, my original comment was about whether is ontological change at the time of death. Here, on the other hand, I am here emphasizing that there is never a change to the human essence each of us has. Ontology is indeed a broader category than humanity, I just wanted to answer your specific questions by distinguishing between an eschatological telos and a change in nature.