As we have introduced the disposition of the theologian/dogmatician, we have also begun addressing the theological influence on biblical exhortation (through preaching) and exposition (through commentary). At no point do we believe Scripture and theology are disconnected modes of speaking about God. Scripture is the norming norm (norma normans) for all theological discourse, and theological discourse is the appropriate response to Scripture’s speech. In theology, we affirm—often in our own words—what Scripture affirms and deny—in our own words—what Scripture denies. Since Scripture is the breathed-out Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16), and since God cannot lie, we believe that Scripture is without error or contradiction. This truth is the presupposition of all Christian theological discourse. At times, this means we must relativize some affirmations/denials in Scripture based upon other affirmations/denials in Scripture. In the previous article, it was noted that our interpretation of Luke 1:35 must be constrained by things stated by other affirmations in Scripture. Thus, we must not interpret Luke in such a way that we indicated the Person of Christ came into existence at the incarnation, nor that the man Christ was adopted by the eternal Logos. Thus, when the texts are taken in relation to each other, we are confronted by a robust declaration of what the incarnation is and isn’t.
In light of the reality that we must receive Scripture in its plenary teaching, and since Scripture’s telos is the uncreated God, we must precisely define the way in which Scripture speaks to us about God. In this and a future article, we lay out principles Scripture gives and the tradition has recognized in speaking about God. While in the broader definition we affirm with van Mastricht that theology is “living for God through Christ,” in a narrower definition, theology refers to speaking specifically about God, what the old theologians called “theology” (theologia) in distinction from “economy” (oikonomia).
In affirming that Scripture teaches us about God, we begin with a principle many current theologians—and certainly many Christians in general—fail to remember. This principle undergirds and protects the theological task as a whole in our effort to affirm what Scripture affirms. This principle is the principle of apophatic theology, or theology by way of negation (via negativa).
William Ames (1576–1633) says, “God, as he is in himself, cannot be understood by any save himself” (Marrow of Sacred Divinity I.IV; cf. 1 Tim. 6:16). Van Masticht states flatly, “so far this point has been beyond doubt among all Christians, against the Anthropomorphites, since all have acknowledged that regarding God’s essence we know what he is not rather than what he is” (Theoretical-Practical Theology 1.2.3). Perhaps one of the most obvious reasons for the need to deny direct knowledge of God is the sheer fact of the Creator-creature distinction. All that we are is dependent, complex, and composed, while God simply exists, he simply is. Thus, before we ever affirm things about God positively, we begin by recognizing he is not a creature. As that supreme Being who is not a creature, we therefore say things like, he is “atemporal/eternal” or “not measured by time,” “impassible” or “not in any way able to be the effect of or enhanced by any cause,” “immutable” or “not changing,” and “immense/omnipresent” and “infinite” or “not bounded by anything.” We say he is “simple” or “not composed of parts” and “incorporeal” or “not a body.” As soon as we begin to make these into positive statements, we end up modifying the historic Christian definitions of these things.
Note then that in these foundational doctrines to all theological discourse, we are fundamentally marking the edges of a cliff, like the edges of the buttes in Monument Valley, in which we maintain a proper understanding of what we are not saying because we can’t say them. Man may confidently assert that God will do something (Deut. 30:3–9), about how God’s heart is grieved (Gen. 6:6), about how God shelters him under his wings (Exod. 19:4) and bears him up by his right arm (Isa. 62:8), about how God in his temple (Ps. 132:5). These are biblical affirmations, but we begin by recognizing the fundamental denials/negations so that we are not driven and tossed by the various ways we conceive of God. Though we affirm God “will” accomplish something, behind and before that assertion we say that God does not “progress through time” (Isa. 43:13; 41:4; Ps. 90:2; Jn 8:58). Though we affirm that God’s heart is grieved, behind and before that assertion we say that God’s “emotions” do not “wax and wane” due to the creature (Ps. 102:25–28; 1 Sam. 15:29). Though we affirm the shelter of God’s wings and the strength of his arms, behind and before that assertion we say that he does not have a body like eagles or men (Jn. 4:24; Isa. 31:3). Though we affirm that God was in his temple, behind and before that assertion we say that he is not (to use an old term) circumscribed (1 Kgs. 8:27). The principle of apophaticism, or via negativa, guards us against bringing God down from heaven or, to return to the butte metaphor, it guards us against walking off the edge in our pursuit of truth.
Consider three serious ways apophatic theology has been undermined in contemporary theological discourse. In the first case, we have seen the denial of impassibility. As one author says, “In light of [a] nuanced understanding of divine immutability, it is necessary to reject divine impassibility. The king who cares experiences real emotions; he sympathizes with our pains and can rejoice over our joys.1” Likewise, another says, “God’s emotivity is his supreme capacity to act responsively and sensationally; to feel pure and principled affections of love and hate, joy and grief, pleasure and anger, and peace; in accord with his supreme, spiritual, and simple Being and impeccable virtue.”2 For God to be truly personal, according to some, he must be in a give-and-take relationship with his creatures. Contrast those statements with this: “For God, being good, is the cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion. For envy is far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the divine tradition” (John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 1.1).
In the second case, we have the denial of the doctrine of simplicity. One author says, “God really is good and just and omniscient. The multiple attributes refer to genuine complexities in God’s essence.3” Similarly, though affirming God is not a composite, another says Scripture requires the affirmation that the “attributes are really distinct, not simply different names for the same reality.”4 Because the attributes seem to be real differences about God, God must have some sort of complexity (which the first author states outright while the second thinks he avoids it). Contrast those statements with this: “Because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not. . . . Now it can be shown how God is not, by denying Him whatever is opposed to the idea of Him, viz. composition, motion, and the like. Therefore (1) we must discuss His simplicity, whereby we deny composition in Him; and because whatever is simple in material things is imperfect and a part of something else, we shall discuss (2) His perfection; (3) His infinity; (4) His immutability; (5) His unity” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologia, 1.3).
In the third case, we see the denial of proper equality among the Persons of the Trinity. One author says, “I argue that if the self-revelation of God is exactly that, the self-revelation of God, and if his Father-Son relation depicted in all that we see in Scripture truly describes that relation, then it follows that the relation of authority and submission in the Trinity is indeed eternal (i.e., eternal in the stronger, ad intra, sense of eternal).”5 Similarly, though with less precise clarity, another author says, “Surely this designation [of the Word of God in John 1:1] intimates a relationship of subordination between the person designated God and the person designated the Word in John 1:1.”6 Contrast this with the basically uniform theological consensus of the past that calls the relations, “relations of origin,” leaving all submission/subordination language to discussions of the economy of redemption.
Now is not the time to challenge the arguments above. Not only has that been capably accomplished by other authors, but it would also extend the length of this article beyond its purpose. Rather, note that all three cases demonstrate contemporary theologians’ proclivity for saying more than can be said, for seeing if the edges of the butte really exist, where traditionally theologians have said “when we discuss ‘this’ topic, we must recognize where the mystery is and not pretend to be less ignorant than we are.” If the theology of the present seems vastly different than the theology of the past, several reasons for this can be given, but one especially pertinent reason is the loss of a due sense of apophaticism, recognition of the via negativa, and awareness of the concept of mystery. In a future post, we will note ways we can speak positively about God.
1 John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God, The Foundations of Evangelical Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), 277.
2 Greg Nichols, Lectures in Systematic Theology: Doctrine of God, Vol. 1, ed. Rob Ventura (Grand Rapids, MI: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), 369.
3 John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 432.
4 Greg Nichols, Lectures in Systematic Theology: Doctrine of God, vol. 1, ed. Rob Ventura (Grand Rapids, MI: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017), 174.
5 Bruce Ware, “Unity and Distinction of the Trinitarian Persons,” in Trinitarian Theology: Theological Models and Doctrinal Application (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2019), 59.
6 Samuel E. Waldron, A Modern Exposition of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith, 5th ed. (Durham; Wyoming, MI: EP Books, 2016), 70.