This post deals with some technical stuff that might not be interesting for all readers, but I find it quite instructive in better understanding why it is that Thomas Torrance rejects the determinism that shapes frameworks of thought like that found, theologically, within Arminianism and Calvinism. And it should also help to illustrate an alternative route to thinking about things in causally determinative ways; which implicates the ways that, in the West, in general, we have become most accustomed to think, even though someone like Einstein and his theory of relativity has demonstrated that reality, in fact does not work in mechanistically determinative ways. If this is so, then systems of thought like classic Calv/Arm are no longer viable in their classical theistic forms. Here is what Torrance writes about such things—just for a little context, he has been discussing the role of order, and contingency that we experience in creation; he persuasively argues that contingency (like creation presupposes) must presuppose a ‘rational’ ground of order beyond contingency, such that creation and contingency both find their orientation beyond themselves thus bequeathing to us an open-structured mode that only asks us to seek and think in accord with the intelligibility that stands beyond contingency … so contingency then allows for things, like knowledge, to be held in a dynamic relation relative to the personal ground of its reality V. a static relation that requires that we fill in the gaps between an unmoved mover and what we experience in creation (and as), thus maintaining some sort of necessary constancy between the Creator and the creation (I doubt the context I just provided helps very much; like I said, this is rather technical material). Here is Torrance:
Now let us consider the other concept mentioned above, that of inertia. It is not difficult to trace its source either, in late Patristic and mediaveal theology — not to mention Neoplatonic and Arabian thought — particularly as the doctrine of the immutability and impassibility of God became tied up with the Aristotelian notion of the unmoved mover or a centre of absolute rest which was resurrected and powerfully integrated with Latin scholastic philosophy, science, and theology. In theology itself, it induced a deistic disjunction between God and the world, which scholastic thought tried to modify through bringing into play all four Aristotelian causes, the ‘final’ and ‘formal’ along with the ‘material’ and ‘efficient’ causes. The effect of this, however, was not to overcome the dualist modes of thought inherited from St. Augustine, the Magister Theologiae, but actually to harden the dualism by throwing it into a causal structure. This was particularly apparent in the conception of sacraments as “causing grace”, which was further aggravated (as in the doctrine of “real presence”) by the acceptance of Aristotle’s definition of place as “the immobile limit of the containing body”. In mediaeval science, on the other hand, the conception of a causal system ultimately grounded in and determined by a centre of absolute rest had the effect of obstructing attempts to develop emperical interpretations of nature for it denigrated contingentia as irrational. [Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Frame of Mind, 24-5]
The moral is that we will either operate with something like an Aristotelian static view of metaphysics offers, or we will operate with a dynamic view of reality that is offered through a Trinitarian theology (and illustrated by an Einsteinian theory of relativity). One that is mediated through the contingencies of God become human in Jesus Christ.
Cal said:
This is one of the most challenging things to wrap myself around.
So what can be implied of Torrance is that:
A mechanistic determinism inherited by some Platonism and Aristotle into Christian thought became the paradigm. This thinking led to the Beza/Arminius split over the issue of call and choice.
The common arguing platform was assuming that because this, this and this, that happened. Therefore Beza rooted it in an Eternal Decree and the Elect and Reprobate; while Arminius turned to some “moment of clarity” (functionally, this is what it is though no good Arminian would call it this).
However, the Scripture is firm on there being an Eternal Decree and the definite, concreteness of atonement. Calvinist critique of Arminians is fair on this point. Christ didn’t just die for the potentiality of a people or for the possibility of blotting out sins. It actually happened. However the Determinism leads to throwing out (or explaining them away, pick your words) Scriptural maxims that Christ died for all, that He died for the whole world.
The problem is the system. In Election, we see both the particular (us) only because we see the direct (Christ). He was Elect, and in our Union with Him we take up Him in our very being. By allowing an “open view” (should always note this is not leading to some Open Theism of sorts), we’re allowed to operate within the Scriptural dialectic of Christ “drawing all unto Himself” and yet some perishing, the Father calling and yet the need to repent and believe. We are able to dodge the twin errors of Pelagianism (in all its forms and colors) and Fatalism.
This is all because of the Trinity being, solving the philosophical conundrum of “one and many”. The Decree focuses on the Lord and does not devolve into sneaking in the idea of emanations and demiurges that are the mean-spirited fairies that haunt the Neo-Platonic injection into the Christian mind.
I ask this everytime, but, am I getting it?
Bobby Grow said:
Cal,
Yes, except that that idea of an ‘Elective Decree’ would not be present, at least not for Torrance (or me following the distinctives of ‘EC’). The so called ‘Decree’ is actually the Person of Jesus Christ, indeed these categories are appealed to by Torrance, but they are so gutted and then reified that to continue to use the language of Decree etc. loses any meaningfulness.
As far as the disjunction between efficient/sufficient etc., yes, TFT is saying that there is no such disjunction because reality is actual and united in Christ. So he is both sufficient and efficient in himself, and Torrance appeals to the ontic and epistemological revolution that took place through Einstein’s, Clerk Maxwell’s, and Michael Polyani’s work on the theory of relativity, continuous electromagnetic field theory, and tacit knowledge; which Torrance see as undercutting the faulty Newtonian (and even going back to the classic Greek philosophers) mechanical imposition of positivistic and mathematical thought onto the universe (which is reductionistic by reducing all of reality into static absolutized theorems) resulting in a universe that is governed in ‘clockwork’ fashion instead of dynamic and personal open-structured ways as the science that the Ein., Max., and Poly. have demonstrated to be the case.
jonathanskuo said:
Bobby, which resources would you most recommend for understanding the shift from understanding history/providence/predestination from a logico-causal/mechanistic determinism viewpoint to what you’re getting at in this post? I see in this post and a previous post that you quote and quoted two of Torrance’s books (Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ & The Christian Frame of Mind) – would those be directly relevant?
Thanks,
Jonathan Kuo
Bobby Grow said:
Hi Jonathan,
His book ‘Theological Science’ coupled with his book ‘Scottish Theology’ would be the places to go. And then p/u our book “Evangelical Calvinism”, there are some chapters and theses in their that will flesh this out even further 🙂 . Blessings.