Wisdom from Niebuhr: The Greatness and the Weakness of Human Beings

Note: this is a part of a series on the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. You can find an outline of the series with links to the articles here.

Human beings are limited and even sinful. Niebuhr spoke eloquently to these limits. However, Niebuhr also constantly reminds us of the goodness of human beings and their amazing created potential as created by God.

The Transcendent Freedom of the Human Being
Niebuhr did not believe that human beings were “timeless” creatures. Humans are ethnic and family beings. The determinists have recognized these factors and explained them well, but they overplayed their hand. Humans are also capable of transcending their own time and place.

The self is a creature, but it is also creator. It has freedom to act differently than it has before. Compare this to the animals. They always form the same culture. There is no ability to transcend their nature and look beyond it. Continue reading “Wisdom from Niebuhr: The Greatness and the Weakness of Human Beings”

The Dutch Reformed Doctrine of the Covenant of Works

It’s almost hard for me to believe that I wrote a lot of this kind of stuff back in the day, but, for you who are interested in such things, here’s an article on the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works in Dutch Reformed theology. The point is that this is a feature of Reformed orthodoxy in the 17th and into the 18th century. It’s not an anomaly only found in the The Westminster Confession of Faith or British theology. I have altered the conclusion to more accurately reflect the legitimate conclusion that one can draw from what I present. I was much more strident and insistent on the specific manner of formulating this doctrine in 2008 than I am now.

The Dutch Reformed Doctrine of the Covenant of Works

By

J. Wesley White

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Is the covenant of works an aberration in Reformed theology?  Is it simply the view of the Puritan theologians who wrote the Westminster Confession (WCF)?  One fact that might lead some to believe that this is true is the absence of any explicit reference to the covenant of works in the Three Forms of Unity (TFU), the doctrinal standards of many of the continental Reformed Churches.  Does this mean that the continental Reformed theologians rejected the covenant of works or thought it unimportant?  On the other side, if the Reformed theologians on the continent did hold to the covenant of works, then why is there no explicit mention of it in the TFU?  How is it that there is no explicit mention of the covenant of works in the TFU in the first part of the 17th century but in the second half of the 17th century, there is an adamant statement from a popular theologian stating its necessity for theological formulation?  Consider Wilhelmus à Brakel’s statement from his book, The Christian’s Reasonable Service:

We shall now speak of Adam as being in covenant with God–the covenant of works. Acquaintance with this covenant is of the greatest importance, for whoever errs here or denies the existence of the covenant of works, will not understand the covenant of grace, and will readily err concerning the mediatorship of the Lord Jesus. Such a person will very readily deny that Christ by His active obedience has merited a right to eternal life for the elect. This is to be observed with several parties who, because they err concerning the covenant of grace, also deny the covenant of works. Conversely, whoever denies the covenant of works must rightly be suspected to be in error concerning the covenant of grace.[1]

For Brakel, the covenant of works was no light matter, and similar statements could be added from other Dutch theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries.

In this essay, we would like to explore the development of the doctrine of the covenant of works in the 17th century.  The question we are seeking to answer is how do we get from no explicit mention of the covenant of works in the TFU to an adamant defense of this doctrine in Brakel and other subscribers to the TFU? Continue reading “The Dutch Reformed Doctrine of the Covenant of Works”

Hardwiring Happiness

Our brains present an interesting paradox. When it comes to bad things, we worry about them and go over them again and again. When it comes to good things, we don’t even hold them in our mind for ten seconds.

Rick Hanson, in his helpful book Hardwiring Happiness deals at length with this paradox from the perspective of brain science.

Hanson notes that our brain “has a hair-trigger readiness to go negative to help you survive” (20). He describes the way our brain works this way, “when the least little thing goes wrong or could be trouble, the brain zooms in on it with a kind of tunnel vision that downplays everything else” (21).

In contrast, Hanson notes, our brains hardly give any attention to good experiences. “Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences but Teflon for positive ones” (27). Continue reading “Hardwiring Happiness”

Freed to Serve

[Listen to an audio version here]

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh[a]; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other (Galatians 5:13–15).

If we are free, why should we have to serve anyone?

This question masks a common misunderstanding of human destiny. Human destiny is not to live as isolated individuals. It is to live as a community that works together to accomplish amazing things, blesses everyone, and glorifies God. This is what we were made for, and this is how we flourish.

On the other hand, if we are not free, then we cannot develop our potential. We cannot serve other people well or freely. Coercion is not conducive to cooperation.

So, there is irony here. We have to become free in order to be able to serve. Paul expressed this irony in 1 Cor. 9: “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible” (1 Cor. 9:19).

It is only when we are free that we can truly serve. It is only when we serve that we can build a community that thrives rather than destroys. So, how do we use our freedom to humbly serve one another in love? Continue reading “Freed to Serve”

Happy Juneteenth Day

Today is Juneteenth Day. This day marks the end of slavery in the seceded states on June 19, 1865. Here’s what happened on that day:

Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth) (also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Liberation Day) is an unofficial American holiday and an official Texas state holiday, celebrated annually on the 19th of June in the United States to commemorate Union army general Gordon Granger’s reading of federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming all slaves in Texas were now free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed them almost two and a half years earlier, and the American Civil War had largely ended with the defeat of the Confederate States in April, Texas was the most remote of the slave states, with a low presence of Union troops, so enforcement of the proclamation had been slow and inconsistent (Source).

Continue reading “Happy Juneteenth Day”