Over the next several weeks, we will publish excerpts from Drew Sparks’ recent article, “In Defense of Classical Theism: A Review Article of Jeffrey Johnson’s The Revealed God.” This article was originally published in the 2024 Journal of International Reformed Baptist Seminary (JIRBS). The editor and Broken Wharfe graciously granted Baptist Dogmatics permission to publish the article on our site.
This third excerpt offers minor critiques of The Revealed God. If you are new to this series, be sure to read part 1 and part 2 of Drew’s analysis of Johnson’s work.
Before I engage in a lengthier response to Johnson’s work, it is important to note five minor critiques. First, The Revealed God failed to address several key figures. Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Hegel are absent. Ockham briefly appears (219–20). One need not address every philosopher or theologian, but these individuals are significant in the history of philosophy and relevant to Johnson’s task. Further, Johnson does not address the writings of John Frame, Wayne Grudem, or Bruce Ware. These three thinkers may be found at the center of evangelical debates on the doctrine of God.[1] They argue against what Johnson identifies as PCT and modify core tenets of classical theism.[2]
Johnson’s failure to engage these individuals raises questions. May these thinkers be classified as biblical classical theists? Deism, pantheism, panentheism, process theism, and open theism are classified as philosophical mutualism and rejected by Johnson. Would he reject forms of “theistic mutualism” as well?[3] These individuals meet Johnson’s criteria for BCT. This leads to the second question. What does BCT allow? Does BCT allow for a God who is temporal but not merely temporal?[4] Is BCT broad enough to include eternal relations of authority and submission?[5] May one remain faithful to BCT and advocate that God is ontologically and ethically immutable while being relationally mutable?[6] What constitutes a substantial denial of immutability, impassibility, and simplicity? By including these three evangelical thinkers, Johnson could have provided a clearer presentation of his positions to his readers.
Second, and related, Johnson’s views are difficult to discern throughout the work. For example, he distinguishes biblical analogical language from philosophical analogical language. The defense of biblical analogical language receives less than a page and quickly turns to God’s incomprehensibility, which Johnson tells readers is experiential rather than philosophical (222). How might one engage in biblical analogical language rather than philosophical analogical language? Readers are left without answers. Johnson also criticizes Pseudo-Dionysius’ use of the “way of negation” and “affirmation” (125–133). Johnson’s omission of an alternative approach leaves readers to conclude the method is flawed despite its prevalence among Reformed theologians.[7]
Traditionally, theologians speak of the way of causation (via causalitatis), way of eminence (via eminentiae), and the way of negation (via negationis). Johnson claims to hold the 1677/89 Second London Confession of Faith (2LCF). This Confession, along with the Westminster Confession of Faith, reveals its commitment to the via negationis when it denies that God has body, parts, or passions (2LCF 2.1). Immutability, immensity, and eternality deny that God can change, be contained in space, or be contained by time (2LCF 2.1). The word “most” in the Confession, draws the attention of the readers to the via eminentiae (2LCF 2.1). Finally, it employs the via causalitatis when it affirms that God is the “fountain of all being” (2LCF 2.2). Johnson’s eagerness to criticize what he calls the way of affirmation and the way negation may undermine his own confessional commitments.
He also disagrees with those who study God by beginning with created mediums of revelation and maintain that creatures know according to their creaturely mode of knowing (58, 79, 137, 157). But Johnson never suggests how creatures know the Creator in this life apart from knowing what has been made. Scripture, like the cosmos, is a created medium of revelation that finitely reveals the infinite God. Since the mediums of revelation are not the infinite God and the knower possesses a finite mind, what uncreated medium or mode of knowing would Johnson suggest? Here, one might consider the principle that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite (finitum non capax infiniti), which applies to ontology and epistemology. Muller writes, “The finite or finite being is incapable of grasping, comprehending, or receiving the infinite or infinite being; an epistemological and ontological maxim drawn into Christological debate between the Reformed and Lutheran.”[8] Ontologically, the finite creation cannot become infinite since it is finite. Likewise, epistemologically, the finite mind of man requires that he always knows things in a finite manner. Dolezal provides a better path forward than Johnson when he writes, “The only creaturely language suitable to express the simple God is complex language since the only language that can be used by us to refer to God is drawn from the world of finite, complex beings.”[9] Johnson critiques various metaphysical and epistemological positions throughout his work. He claims the Bible is sufficient to provide us with a metaphysic and epistemology, but he does not tell his readers what this is or who they can read that has provided us with Scripture’s metaphysic and epistemology.
A brief word concerning Johnson’s metaphysic is in order. Chapter 18 contains a list of what Scripture does and does not reject. Scripture does not reject the use of reason or logic, but it rejects pagan metaphysics. Scripture provides readers with everything they need for metaphysics. Johnson writes:
We don’t need to find a metaphysical framework outside the Scriptures to understand the Scriptures. The Scriptures themselves are sufficient in providing their own metaphysical framework. The Scriptures give us answers to philosophical questions relating to ontology, epistemology, and ethics. And using Scriptures’ [sic] own metaphysical framework, we have everything we need to understand the Bible and the world around us. (233)
Elsewhere, he states, “If Scripture is our sole authority, it is sufficient to supply its own metaphysics. Therefore, whatever philosophy gets right in its exploration of ultimate questions is not needed” (243).
But why does Johnson believe he can separate logic from metaphysics? Is this not a metaphysical commitment? The three principles of logic include the principle of non-contradiction, the principle of identity, and the principle of the excluded middle.[10] Henri Renard claims, “The modern Relativists, the Idealists, and Hegel himself, while admitting the value of this principle [i.e., the law of non-contradiction] as a law of thought, reject it as a law of being.’”[11] Consider Aquinas, who writes, “Wherefore, the first indemonstrable principle is that the same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time, which is based on the notion of beingand not-being: and on this principle all others are based.”[12] As Renard and Aquinas argue, the principle of non-contradiction is a principle of being that is then apprehended by the mind. Idealists, such as Kant and Hegel deny that it is a principle of being even though they affirm it is a law of thought. Has Johnson unwittingly aligned with Kant and Hegel against Aquinas? Johnson claims to be the kind of biblicist who refuses to “incorporate extra-biblical and contra-biblical concepts and ideas into Christianity” (234).[13] Yet, it seems he imbibed the extra-biblical metaphysics of Kant and Hegel over and against Aristotle and Aquinas. Johnson seems unaware of the implications of separating logic and metaphysics, which reveals a deeper metaphysical issue on which he sides with philosophers, just not the ones he criticizes or even discusses. Johnson’s apparent alignment with Kant and Hegel against Aristotle and Aquinas reflects the following concerns presented by Carter, who writes,
Eventually, I realized that everyone utilizes metaphysical assumptions in exegesis and that the choice is not between metaphysics or not but rather between unconsciously assumed metaphysics and critically revised metaphysics. It is, after all, highly arbitrary to assume that Hellenization is bad but Hegelianization is just fine. It began to look as if modern revisionists were far more uncritical of the dominant metaphysical assumptions of their culture than the fathers had been of the dominant metaphysical assumptions of their culture.[14]
Johnson criticizes the metaphysical commitments of PCT while uncritically adopting philosophical commitments of Kant and Hegel.
Johnson makes large claims that he does not support, which is the reason for my third minor critique. For example, he writes, “When we overview the history of Western thought, we discover that Classical philosophy produced modern philosophy, which then produced postmodern philosophy” (203). This claim would shock the postmodern philosopher Richard Rorty who identified Philosophy—note the capitalization—with Platonism and philosophy with the postmodern project.[15] He also states that John Wallis signed the original Westminster Confession of Faith and denied the identity account of divine simplicity without compromising his conscience (190). But Johnson provides no argument or relevant evidence for his assertion. Derrick Brite, on the other hand, argues that Johnson’s use of Wallis fails to prove his case:
John Wallis was a non-voting scribe whose only job was to record the proceedings but who had no influence on the debates at the assembly whatsoever. Furthermore, Wallis was not a theologian but a trained mathematician! Why would Johnson choose to appeal to a non-voting scribe and mathematician to defend the proposition that the Westminster divines rejected the identity account of divine simplicity? Even if Wallis does reject the account (something worth exploring), that does not actually help prove Johnson’s case for confessional precedent.[16]
Brite demonstrates that Johnson’s ambitious statements fail to supply a meaningful historical argument.
Fourth, Johnson’s work was difficult to read. The book would benefit from a good editor as noticeable spelling errors and incorrect names appeared throughout the work.[17] Citations were also problematic. Endnotes were absent from some quotes and citations were not always correct (43). Johnson also introduces ideas and concepts into various portions of the book that interrupt the flow. For example, he discusses apologetics in Chapter 16, but the topic has not been addressed in earlier portions of the work (203). At the end of the book, Johnson discusses the trinitarian solution to the one and the many yet never laid the groundwork for this argument or shows how the problem is solved by the Trinity (246–48). He neglects to root this argument in any biblical or historical precedent. The historical argument presents a challenge to Johnson since the trinitarian solution to the one and the many is wanting in the Reformed tradition prior to the 20th century.
Fifth and finally, Johnson confuses categories, which lead to unhelpful criticisms. Johnson labels Aquinas as an empiricist, a rationalist, and a mystic. Not only are these positions incompatible with one another, but Johnson also notes that Aquinas believed in things “outside the reach of pagan philosophy,” such as creation ex nihilo, the Trinity, and God’s free will (195). Instead of revising his incompatible criticisms of Aquinas, he doubles down, and writes, “After Aquinas admitted that empiricism and rationalism cannot demonstrate these foundational truths, I have no idea why Aquinas accepted empiricism and rationalism. But I know that he should not have” (195). I am not sure what further evidence Aquinas would have to put forth to show that Johnson misunderstands his views.
[1] Readers are encouraged to see James E. Dolezal, All That Is in God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical Christian Theism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017).
[2] Ware serves as a helpful representative. While evaluating modern criticisms of classical theism, he finds several of their objections to classical theism wanting. But the modernist response to classical theism, according to Ware, has some truth in it. Ultimately, classical and modern approaches suffer from “methodological imbalances in their respective doctrines of God.” Bruce A. Ware, God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2000), 37.
[3] For a helpful description of theistic mutualism and its contemporary adherents, see, Dolezal, All That Is in God, 1–8. He identifies Frame, Grudem, and Ware as theistic mutualists. Readers are also encouraged to see Brian Davies’s treatment of “theistic personalism” in Brian Davies, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 1–21. Dolezal and Davies identify mutualism/personalism as grounded in univocism and God’s dynamic relation with the world. Dolezal writes, “From the viewpoint of theistic mutualism, such dynamic reciprocity and mutuality seem to call for an overhaul of the well-intentioned, if misguided, classical emphasis upon a God who cannot change in any way whatsoever.” Dolezal, All That Is in God, 5.
[4] John M. Frame, Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 2002), 559.
[5] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology. 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020), 301–19.
[6] Ware, God’s Lesser Glory, 73.
[7] See, Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:166–67. Henceforth, PRRD. For Turretin’s description of the threefold way of knowing God, see Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, vol. 1, First through Tenth Topics, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1992), III.ii.8.
[8] Richard A. Muller, “Finitum Non Capax Infiniti” in Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, Second Edition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 125.
[9] Dolezal, All That Is in God, 77.
[10] For a helpful treatment, see Henri Renard, The Philosophy of Being (Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1947), 104–08.
[11] Renard, The Philosophy of Being, 107. Emphasis added.
[12] Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 8 vols. trans. Laurence Shapcote (Lander, WY: Aquinas Institute, 2012), Ia-IIae. Q94. A2. Henceforth, ST.
[13] Rather than engaging in a discussion on the utility and definition of “biblicism,” I simply operate with Johnson’s own description.
[14] Craig A. Carter, Contemplating God with The Great Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021), 4.
[15] Richard Rorty, The Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), xiv–xv.
[16] Brite, Derrick. “Review of Johnson’s The Revealed God,” Reformation21 (blog), April 22, 2024, https://www.reformation21.org/blog/review-of-johnsons-the-revealed-god accessed June 19, 2024.
[17] Brite has compiled a list of errors in Johnson’s work. See, Brite, “Review of Johnson’s The Revealed God.”