The fact that Father is a personal name for the first person of the Trinity, grounded as it is in the biblically revealed doctrine of eternal generation, further cements the argument that Father is a name predicated properly of God. God is a Father eternally as the source of the eternal and uncreated Son. Thus, fatherhood is not a mere human denomination applied primarily to biological males with children. It is the other way around. Biological males are named father analogically in reference to their children. God is Father first in reference to his only begotten Son.

Editor’s note: The following essay appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Eikon.
The one true and living God is named Father in many texts of both the Old and New Testaments. Isaiah cries out to God on behalf of Israel, saying, “O LORD, you are our Father” (Isa. 64:8).  Jesus taught his followers to address God as “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). Paul says that Christians, who have the Spirit of God, cry out to God as “Abba, Father,” the very same cry by which Jesus addressed God in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before he was crucified (see Rom. 8:15 and Gal. 4:6, cf. Mark 14:46).
Even so, the very notion of the fatherhood of God is a subject of much theological confusion, often characterized by muddled arguments, which leave in their wake befuddled minds. The cultural landscape of the Western world, with its ideological gender insanity, is not helping matters. Since the name Father is inescapably masculine, and since God is not a biologically sexed being, confusion over the fatherhood of God is not surprising in our cultural moment. But it is nonetheless troubling! Christian theology is increasingly affected by a rising tide of influence from thinkers who wish to dismiss or diminish the theological significance of masculine names for God (and their accompanying masculine pronouns). This rising tide is battering the ramparts of sound doctrine with many different waves. That is, not all dismissive and diminishing voices are making the same arguments, but the variety of arguments have the same overall effect: the erosion of sound doctrine.[1] Furthermore, it seems to me that all such arguments have at least one common error, a failure to understand with precision the various ways Scripture predicates truths of God generally and the ways it names God as Father specifically.[2] Clear thinking coupled with uncompromising conviction must mark the way forward.
This essay will argue that Father is a divine name predicated of God properly, not figuratively. As such, it names God in two ways — personally and essentially — both of which find analogical correspondence in human fatherhood. This argument will be advanced in four movements: (I.) First, I will survey the scriptural significance of names in general and divine names in particular. (II.) Second, I will give a robust account of theological language, which is intended to be a synthesis of classical Christian theism concerning how Scripture norms the Christian doctrine of God. (III.) The third section of the essay will situate the name Father in this classical account of theological language, demonstrating it to be a properly predicated name in two ways: personal and essential. (IV.) In the final section of the essay, I will draw on the theological account of Father as a divine name to suggest some limited points of analogical correspondence between divine and human fatherhood.[3]
1. The Scriptural Significance of Names
For medieval scholastics like Thomas Aquinas, the category of divine names referred to any predication made of God in any way. Thus, all distinctions between different kinds of speech about God are made under the heading: “The Names of God.”[4] The Reformers and post-Reformation Reformed Orthodox theologians took a somewhat different approach. For them the category of the names of God was much narrower than Thomas’s. They treated the divine names as designations for God found explicitly and verbally in the biblical text. Names are ascribed to God in a proper way, meaning they are not mere metaphors or figures of speech. Furthermore, what the Reformed consider to be a divine name is the kind of designation for God that can be fittingly used as the grammatical subject of a sentence, which seems to be one of the chief ways a name is distinguished from an attribute.
The reason for this narrower account of what constitutes a divine name is the Reformation’s emphasis on the unique authority of Scripture as the very word of God written (sola scriptura) and the commitment to letting the text of Scripture regulate dogmatic formulation of the doctrine of God. As Richard Muller observes in his magisterial Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, “From the time of Zwingli onward . . . the names of God provided the Reformed with a primary source and focus” for theology proper as a whole. He goes on to suggest that the reason for this move is a “fundamental biblicism”[5] and a conviction that the divine names offer a primary exegetical pathway into theology proper as a dogmatic locus.[6]
The Reformed focus on the biblical divine names did not mean that they were in fundamental disagreement with Aquinas about the nature of theological language predicated of God. Rather, as will be shown, there was a high degree of agreement between Thomas and the Reformed Orthodox. Nor did this emphasis mean that Reformed thinkers gave no attention to broader dogmatic themes in the doctrine of God, such as divine attributes and Trinitarian relations. Far from it, they are known for their robust and lengthy accounts of these matters. Rather, they emphasized the divine names in order to facilitate such dogmatic considerations. Seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed theologian Petrus Van Mastricht, for example, offers an extensive treatise on the divine names and the relationship of names to the rest of the doctrine of God. He says, “The nature of God is made known to us by his names.” He goes on to explain that the names of God (1) reveal the divine essence, (2) distinguish the true God from false gods and creatures, and (3) disclose his properties (attributes and eternal triune relations).[7] Following the example of our Reformed forebears, let us consider the theological significance of the divine names revealed in Scripture.
The Significance of Names in Scripture
In Scripture, a person’s name signifies something more than the particular phonemes (sounds) or graphemes (written letters) by which a person is identified. Two general truths about the significance of names should be observed. First, names are given by one with authority to one under authority. In Genesis 1:26, God names mankind (אדם, a name designating both the genus of humanity and the specific name of the first male human created). Adam, who is given dominion over the animals on the earth, names the animals (Gen. 2:19-20). Significantly, Adam also names the woman as a particular type of human (Gen. 2:23) and later gives her the specific name, Eve (Gen. 3:20). Furthermore, parents, who have authority over their children, give names to their children, who are to honor and obey their parents (Ex. 20:12, Eph. 6:1).
Second, the name of a person generally signifies some truth about the person so named. The name woman signifies that she is created from the man (Gen. 2:23), and the name Eve is derived from a Hebrew word meaning “living” because she is “the mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20) humanity. In the case of parents naming their children in Scripture, names often signify some feature about the child’s birth.[8] In other instances, the names of children reflect some prophetic expectation based on divine revelation.[9] Still other times, a child’s name reflects something of the circumstances in the land where the child is born.[10] There are even times in Scripture when a person’s name is either changed by God or some new name is given in addition to a prior name because the person’s life has been changed by God.[11] In all such cases, the common thread is the revelatory significance of a given name.
The Significance of Divine Names in Scripture
The names of God in Scripture are similarly significant. First, since names are given by one in authority to one under authority, it should not surprise us to find that God names himself in Scripture. This pattern of naming signifies the fact that God is not beholden to anyone. He is not given names by his creatures but reveals his names to his creatures. The paradigmatic passage for understanding this truth is Exodus 3:1-15, the historical narrative of the call of Moses at the burning bush. Here it is abundantly clear that the act of naming the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a divine prerogative. Moses asks God his name, and God answers,
“I AM who I AM. And he said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.’ God also said to Moses, ‘Say this to the people of Israel: “The LORD [יהוה], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.” This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations’” (Ex. 3:14-15).
Moses could not choose a name for God based on some mere metaphorical association drawn from the creaturely realm, nor based on his own reason, preference, or imagination. If Moses would know the name of God, it would have to be made known to him by revelation from God. “What is your name?” says Moses. “This is my name,” says the LORD.
The burning bush passage is paradigmatic in that it states clearly what is implied in many other passages involving divine names. For example, In Genesis 16:13, Hagar calls the name of the LORD “You are a God of seeing” (אל ראי, El Roi). There is no account of Hagar asking God his name, nor any indication that the LORD said to Hagar, “This is my name: El Roi.” Nevertheless, Hagar’s naming of God is in response to God’s revelation of himself. Hagar fled from the presence of Abram and Sarai and was desperate and alone in the wilderness where she believed she and the child in her womb would surely perish. It is then that the LORD “found her” and spoke to her words of promise and instruction. She would bear a son who would live and flourish, and she should return to Sarai and bear the son for Abram. Note that the LORD found Hagar, not the other way around. The name by which Hagar referred to God—“God of seeing” — was a response to his revelation of himself. Thus, the late nineteenth-century Dutch Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck was right when he said, “We do not name God; he names himself,” a sentiment he further clarified by saying, “What God reveals of himself is expressed and conveyed in specific names. To his creatures he grants the privilege of naming and addressing him on the basis of, and in keeping with, his revelation.”[12]
Secondly, as with scriptural names in general, divine names signify truths concerning the nature of God. Again, the burning bush passage demonstrates the point. When Moses asks God his name, God says, “I AM WHO I AM” (אהיה אשׁר אהיה, Ex. 3:14). He goes on to offer the most prominent name for God in all of Scripture, the LORD, which in Hebrew is four letters (יהוה, YHWH), the famed tetragrammaton, the sacred name. This name, the LORD, is to be the name by which God is known “forever, throughout all your generations” (v. 15). Though the details are disputed, it is generally agreed that the name YHWH is grammatically derived from the name “I AM,” expressing the same truth in the third person. Pre-modern theologians and exegetes tended to see this name as revealing the aseity of God, the fact that God is not dependent on anything external to himself for his being and existence. Thus, he reveals himself by the name of being itself. All other beings receive their existence from God, but God has his existence from no other. In other words, God exists from himself (Latin, a se).
The enduring influence of the Hellenization thesis might lead one to think that the notion of aseity is too philosophical and foreign to the context of the passage itself.[13] Thus, some prefer alternative interpretations.[14] Good work has been done, however, demonstrating that the Scriptures presuppose philosophical commitments concerning the nature of being and existence (metaphysics) and that the Hellenization thesis is drastically overstated.[15] Furthermore, the exegetical case for linking the divine name (“I AM” / “the LORD”) to the aseity of God is quite strong. It is undeniable that God chooses a form of the being verb to answer Moses’s question about his unique name. This indicates that God’s name is irreducibly ontological, revealing the mode of his existence, which is altogether independent. Who is God? He simply is! Put differently, he is the existing one who receives his life from none, but possesses it fully of himself (a se, cf. John 5:26). Furthermore, the visible manifestation of God as a flame seems to correspond to the verbal revelation of the divine name. When Moses first sees the burning bush, his curiosity is aroused by the fact that “the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed” (Ex. 3:2). In his eighty years of life, Moses had undoubtedly seen a flame before, and he had probably even seen a flame burning in a bush before. But he had never seen a flame burning in a bush that did not consume the bush as fuel. This utterly unique flame-bush relation provoked Moses to say to himself, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned” (v. 3). In every observable case of burning flames, the flame is dependent on fuel to burn. Take away the fuel, extinguish the flame. But this flame does not consume fuel. It is a self-burning flame, just as the great “I AM,” whose presence is represented by the flame, is the self-existent God. God’s name (“I AM” / “the LORD”) reveals an attribute of his nature (aseity). Whether revealing the attributes of God’s nature or the eternal relations of the three distinct persons, names predicated of God reveal truths about God.
This section has shown the significance of names in Scripture in general in order to make some basic observations about the significance of the names of God in particular. Names are given by one in authority to one under authority. As such, no creature can name God. Rather, God names himself and reveals his name to creatures. Names also reveal certain truths about the one named. The names by which God makes himself known reveal his attributes and Trinitarian relations.
2. Classical Theological Language: A Conceptual Map
The purpose of this section is to synthesize the insights of a massive theological tradition regarding the ways that Scripture predicates truth of God. This tradition’s roots extend from the patristic period through Western medieval theological scholasticism and into the Reformation and post-Reformation eras of Christian theological reflection. Many have referred to the Christian doctrine of God as expressed by this tradition as classical theism. Standing on the shoulders of giants, I hope to offer a conceptual schema that is descriptive of Scripture’s various modes of discourse with respect to theology proper. Insofar as the schema is faithfully descriptive of Scripture’s own modes of discourse, it should also be prescriptive in the sense that it helps readers of Scripture recognize the nature of the language being deployed in a given scriptural context where truths about God are being conveyed.[16]
Analogical Language in Scripture
All true creaturely language about God is analogical. This claim is a recognition of two facts. First, God has chosen to reveal himself truly to creatures in a way that can be understood by creatures, namely through created words. Second, words predicated of God do not mean exactly the same thing in God as when predicated of creatures. Rather, words predicated of God are true of God in ways that transcend the limits of created reality. In any analogy, two things correspond to one another in ways that are similar and dissimilar. In the case of analogical language predicated of God, the two things, words and God, do not bear an exact similitude with no remainder. Rather, the fullness of God’s being transcends the capacity of meaning conveyed by finite words.
The idea that all language about God is analogical stands in stark contrast to two alternative proposals. First, the theory of analogical language stands in contrast to the theory of univocal language. If words spoken about God are univocal, then the meaning of the word discloses exactly what is true about God without remainder. The implication of this theory is that God can be comprehended intellectually (i.e., exhaustively understood) by finite creatures. Most theologians in the classical tradition have recognized that this would blur the Creator/creature distinction by reducing the being of God to the level of creatures. Second, the theory of analogical language stands in contrast to the theory of equivocal language about God. If words spoken about God are equivocal, then the meaning of a word does not disclose anything true about God. To equivocate is to express two altogether different things with the same word. To hold a theory of equivocal language about God would be to embrace a kind of functional deism in which all speech about God is merely a blind guess concerning the reality of one who is utterly unknowable. The analogical theory of theological predication affirms the fittingness of created words spoken about God to reveal truth concerning him (John 17:17) while acknowledging that the LORD’s being is ultimately beyond all comparison (Isa. 46:5, 9) and his ways “inscrutable” on account of his infinite glory (Rom. 11:33).
The distinction between univocal and equivocal language has roots in Aristotle, who, in his Metaphysics, proposed the notion of analogia as a middle way of predication. This feature of Aristotelian thought makes its way into Christian theology through early medieval thinkers like Boethius, who wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.[17] However, it was Aquinas who applied these categories explicitly to the doctrine of God and gave the magisterial description that would be firmly fixed in Christian theological discourse moving forward.
Thomas considers the divine attribute of wisdom and observes that the term wise is not predicated of God and man in exactly the same way. Wisdom in man is a quality distinct from his essence and existence. Whereas in God, wisdom is identical to his essence and existence, per the doctrine of divine simplicity. Furthermore, we can fully comprehend the meaning of the term wise when applied to man, but we cannot fully comprehend the meaning of the term wise when applied to God, who is incomprehensible. From this, Thomas concludes:
Hence it is evident that this term wise is not applied in the same way to God and to man. The same rule applies to other terms. Hence no name is predicated univocally of God and of creatures. Neither, on the other hand are names applied to God and creatures in a purely equivocal sense, as some have said. Because if that were so, it follows that from creatures nothing could be known or demonstrated about God at all; for the reasoning would always be exposed to the fallacy of equivocation. . . . Therefore, it must be said that these names are said of God and creatures in an analogous sense, i.e., according to proportion.[18]
It is unsurprising that later Roman Catholic theologians would follow Thomas with respect to these distinctions, but some are quite surprised to learn that the Reformed theological tradition takes the notion of analogical language as a given. John Calvin warned of the limitations of creaturely comprehension of the immeasurable and spiritual essence of God, explaining that divine revelation is accommodated to our finite mode of understanding. He writes, “[A]s nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to ‘lisp’ in speaking to us.” In this way, Calvin explains, God “accommodates the knowledge of him to our slight capacity.”[19] Nearly one hundred years later, the successor to Calvin’s chair at Geneva, Francis Turretin, would state plainly that the attributes of God are “not predicated of God and creatures univocally. . . . Nor are they predicated equivocally. . . . They are predicated analogically.”[20] Bavinck could summarize his account of the nature of theological language by saying, “Our knowledge of God is always only analogical in character, that is, shaped by analogy to what can be discerned of God in his creatures.”[21]
Proper and Figurative Predication
Serious Christian thinkers must acknowledge the basic truth of God’s transcendence and creaturely limitations when speaking of God on pain of collapsing the Creator/creature distinction. A commitment to the analogical theory of language about God has proven to be the most consistent way that classical Christian thinkers have accomplished this. While all scriptural predications of God are analogical, not all analogical predication in Scripture functions the same way. Some analogical predications are proper, and some are figurative.
The simplest way to describe the difference between proper and figurative predication is to consider which direction the analogy runs between God and creation. The analogical theory of language indicates that there is a comparison between a term predicated of creatures and the same term predicated of God. There is similarity and dissimilarity. The analogical predicate is proper if the notion has its origin in God and its analog in creation. The predicate is figurative if the origin is in creation and the analog is in God.
Let us return to Aquinas’s discussion of the divine attribute of wisdom. The term wise is true of God in himself even when there is nothing else in existence that can be called wise. When God creates men and angels and gives them the capacity for wisdom, the term wise can be predicated of such creatures by way of participation. Divine wisdom precedes creaturely wisdom, and divine wisdom is the infinite perfection of which creaturely wisdom is but a shadow. Because wisdom is in God originally and in creatures derivatively, the term wise is predicated of God properly.[22] The analogy runs from God to creatures.
On the other hand, when a term is predicated of God which is true of creatures in a primary way, that term is understood to be figurative with respect to God. For example, when Scripture ascribes human body parts to God, we are to recognize that such body parts are proper to human beings and only spoken of God as a figure of speech. Proverbs 5:21 says, “For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths.” Because Scripture plainly teaches that God is an infinite, invisible, immaterial spirit, we know that eyes are predicated of God figuratively. The figure of speech refers to the perfect knowledge of God with respect to all the ways of men. Eyes are predicated of God figuratively to reveal his comprehensive knowledge, which is true of God properly. The analogy runs from creatures to God.
All figurative language is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. It communicates what is true of one thing in terms proper to another thing. Metaphor can take many specific forms. Simple metaphor is the identification of one thing by the name of another thing. “The LORD is my rock” (2 Sam. 22:2) is a prime example. Simile is a type of metaphor that makes the comparison with the words “like” or “as.” When he judges the kingdom of Judah, “The LORD is like an enemy” (Lam. 2:5). Metonymy is a metaphor in which a concrete object symbolizes an abstract quality, such as a divine attribute. When the psalmist says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Ps. 45:6), throne symbolizes God’s sovereignty. Theological anthropomorphism (in the form of a man) is a metaphor in which human body parts are ascribed to God in order to reveal some truth about him (see Prov. 5:21 above — “the eyes of the LORD”).
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We have good reason to trust God. But this trust moves us beyond mere reason. Faith is well-reasoned trust. While we may not fully, rationally, comprehend mysteries like the doctrine of the Trinity, we can trust the triune God. The Christian need not use reason as an ultimate guide to all belief, but they certainly must not neglect it. 

What is the role of reason in the life of faith? Should a believer simply walk by faith and defy all rational concerns? Should Christians ever offer a coherent and compelling explanation for what they believe? How might we balance all the ways reason can both go right and wrong in the domain of spirituality?
One of the definitions Webster’s dictionary gives for faith is, “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” Is there no evidence for God? Do Christians have a firm belief is something for which there is no proof? Is Christian faith irrational?
Alvin Plantinga from Notre Dame University strongly disagrees. Plantinga has long been a champion of a view known as “Reformed Epistemology.” He argues belief in God is neither irrational nor does it require an argument. Plantinga says belief in God is a properly basic belief, something we can believe in without arguments or evidences.
We believe in God in a similar way we believe in the reliability of our sense experience. Our senses can fail us. We still trust them. There are times our senses are entirely off, like when we are dreaming and everything we experience is false. We can’t prove we’re not in some dream state now, or even living in the matrix, or stuck in some sort of virtual reality.
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But the disagreement, itself part of a larger debate about catholicity, does highlight the problems with that doctrine as it is often presented. By catholicity I mean the attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith and the bonds of the Spirit. It is a spiritual unity diffused through space and time: wherever there is true Christ-embracing faith, there is the church. Catholicity is not visible or formal unity as such, but unity in the Spirit and in the truth that he has revealed in word, sacraments, fellowship, charity and works, etc.). 

Last summer Derrick Brite published an article at Reformation 21, “William Perkins on Keeping It Catholic,” that occasioned a skirmish concerning catholicity by bringing forth a response from a Reformed Church in America (RCA) minister writing pseudonymously with Calvin’s nom de plume ‘Charles D’Espeville.,’ which in turn brought forth the remonstrance of R. Scott Clark of Westminster Seminary California. Many of the particulars do not merit reconsideration. Brite’s original article is no longer available, while the RCA’s minister’s fit of high dudgeon, while understandable given his personal history with Rome and its historic tyranny over the souls of men, was not pristinely accurate in all its representations.[1]
But the disagreement, itself part of a larger debate about catholicity, does highlight the problems with that doctrine as it is often presented. By catholicity I mean the attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith and the bonds of the Spirit. It is a spiritual unity diffused through space and time: wherever there is true Christ-embracing faith, there is the church. Catholicity is not visible or formal unity as such, but unity in the Spirit and in the truth that he has revealed in word, sacraments, fellowship, charity and works, etc.).[2]
The problem is not with the concept as such, but with how it is discussed. One, catholicity wants a better scriptural defense. Many people appeal to the concept as correct without any attempt to demonstrate its scriptural basis. There are passages at hand to do so like 1 Corinthians 1:2 and 12:13; Ephesians 4:3-6; Acts 9:31; 10:34-35; Revelation 5:9; and 7:9 (amongst others), but they want elaboration, even in accomplished theologians who are otherwise long on exegesis. The Scripture index for Berkhof’s Systematic Theology is 23 pages long, and yet he fails to reference Scripture a single time when discussing catholicity. The Scripture index of Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics is 47 pages long, yet his consideration eschews detailed scriptural reflection at many points: in two pages of consideration of catholicity (“The Church is Catholic,” Vol. IV, 282-284) his only reference to Scripture is in an Augustine quote that appeals to Jude 19 (rather dubiously for our purposes viz. catholicity).[3] He elsewhere cites Scripture plentifully, but in a single clause and without elaboration (322).
Nor has this lack of exegesis been limited to previous eras and longer works. Brite’s original article did not reference Scripture except obliquely in conclusion with an appeal to Jeremiah 6:16, and appealed rather to Perkins’ historical example to plead the cause of catholicity. Clark appeals to 1 Kings 19:18 (and Romans 11:4) and elaborates upon the practical outworking of Acts 1:8, but the bulk of his useful article is concerned with the confessional and historical nature of catholicity. To be clear, we do confess the church’s catholicity (Westminster Confession 25.1-4), and we find support for it in history; Clark is right to appeal to such things in his helpful consideration of catholicity.
But if one’s position is that many contemporary evangelicals are effectively radical sectarians (‘biblicists’) with a benighted view of the church and her history, then appealing more to history, confessions, and the opinions of sundry medieval and ancient teachers than to Scripture is not a prudent approach in trying to convince said evangelicals of the validity and importance of catholicity. Nor can this be limited to dealing with traditional bastions of evangelical belief like independent churches, for as that RCA minister’s article demonstrated, disregarding catholicity is common even in professedly Reformed denominations. Given that many evangelicals are not only ignorant of catholicity but actually take offense at it, convincing them that the concept is a real attribute of the church is best approached by establishing its scriptural validity, not with appeals to things that many evangelicals do not recognize at all (confessions, teaching of early church figures), or about which even the professed adherents or those of a more Reformed bent often have a lukewarm and inconsistent devotion (ibid.).
So it is with historical appeals as well. The proponents of catholicity argue that the Protestant churches and their foremost leaders have always been cognizant of their own catholicity, as evidenced by their practice of appealing to councils, creeds, and the opinions of earlier thinkers in establishing the continuity and fidelity of their own doctrine. That historical argument seems correct, but is naively practiced in many cases; for it does not accomplish much when one’s target audience regards the church as having veered into apostasy from an early date. Saying ‘see, this is catholic because Tertullian and Aquinas believed it too’ doesn’t work when one’s audience either doesn’t know who such people are or thinks that they are apostates whose opinion ipso facto doesn’t matter. The defenders of catholicity therefore make a practical error when they argue its validity primarily on historical and confessional grounds without first demonstrating the scriptural fidelity of the things to which they appeal.
A second problem with catholicity is that its typical form seems unlikely to win the people of Rome on the opposite side, for she has a different definition of catholicity than we. She regards its essence as lying in communion with herself: “Particular Churches are fully catholic through their communion with one of them, the Church of Rome” (Roman Catechism 834). Indeed, catholicity is another of the many things that we need to recover from the corrupt notions of the church that Rome has propagated.[4] When we therefore appeal to catholicity to urge the legitimacy of our churches, they are apt to dismiss us (e.g., their catechism refers to us as “ecclesial communities” (1400), not churches).[5]
This is the weakness in something like Perkins’ A Reformed Catholic, to which Clark and Brite appealed. Saying that a Reformed Catholic is one “that holds the same necessary heads of religion with the Roman Church; yet so as he pares off and rejects all errors in doctrine whereby the said religion is corrupted”[6] seems unlikely to convince most members of Rome, and as a dual polemic/irenic approach it contains another inherent weakness which is the third problem with catholicity. Catholicity requires careful explanation in relation to Rome. In that same work Perkins says of Rome “we take it to be no Church of God.” He never speaks of Rome being catholic, and actually juxtaposes the Roman and Catholic churches.[7] How then can we speak of catholicity having any part here? For catholicity is a mark of the church, and yet here we are denying that Rome is a true church, which would appear to mean that any concurrence of belief between us is a matter of coincidence, not catholicity.
The answer, which is already latent in Perkins, is twofold. One, catholicity is a mark of both the visible and the invisible church. Though Rome be no true church, yet we suspect that there are many faithful in her midst, who by their faith in the truth are members of the invisible catholic church in spite of the visible communion of which they are a part. “For the popish Church and God’s Church are mingled like chaff and corn in one heap: and the Church of Rome may be said to be in the Church of God: and the church of God in the church of Rome; as we say the wheat is among the chaff, and the chaff in the wheat.” Second, catholicity is a mark not only of the church, but of that body of faith and practice to which she adheres (albeit with greater or lesser purity), hence in his subtitle Perkins argues that “the Roman religion” is “against the Catholic principles and grounds of the Catechism” (defined as The Apostles’ Creed, Ten Commandments, Lord’s Prayer, and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper).
Establishing catholicity of belief, however, presents an enormous difficulty. Rome can simply say that what qualifies as catholic is what she officially approves, as demonstrated by such formal approval, ubiquity, and antiquity. Many a contemporary evangelical can simply see if something is prescribed or forbidden in Scripture and reject or accept it accordingly. We must consider whether a thing not only has a long and wide pedigree, but whether it comports with Scripture’s teaching. The more traditional Protestant, that is, has a harder task than both, for he may not merely take the church’s word for it or use Scripture as an encyclopedia of belief, but must have a broad knowledge of history and scriptural doctrine so that he can determine if a popular, long-established belief or practice is correct.
It is just here that a further difficulty arises, for it soon becomes evident that there are things that have a long and wide pedigree that are clearly at odds with Scripture (e.g., images). What then are we to make of a mistaken thing that large swathes of professing believers and whole institutional churches have done for centuries? That version of an evangelical conception of history that imagines the church departed into darkness in the second century and largely remained there until the Reformation, when the primitive church was reconstituted, might not be correct simpliciter, but it has abundant reasons and appears, as Allen and Swain note in the beginning of their book Reformed Catholicity, in no less illustrious a theologian than B.B. Warfield.
This brings me to the final difficulty with many present conceptions of catholicity, which is that they do not seem to have a good explanation for apostasy in the church, and especially take no notice of the great apostasy (or rebellion, 2 Thess. 2:3) that many believe finds at least partial fulfillment in Rome’s corruptions. Indeed, some of our retrievers and promoters of catholicity get carried away in their enthusiasm and greatly exaggerate the beneficence of various historical figures. Credo calls Aquinas a “beam of orthodoxy” in its issue about him, apparently forgetting that he taught the damning sin (1 Cor. 6:9) of idolatry (Summa III, Q. 25, A.4). This present fondness for catholicity means, in other words, that we risk having an imbalanced understanding of the church and her history, one in which we so much emphasize continuity and similarity in belief that we forget the ancient faults from which God has graciously delivered us (Ps. 80:3, 7; Ecc. 7:10; Lam. 5:21).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] For example, his claim that vatican means “diving-serpent” is contradicted by the Online Etymology Dictionary, and his claim about Rome “burning of hundreds of thousands of Christian martyrs” cannot be approved since, though Papal cruelty was often great, the precise number and means of death of people who died at the hands of members of that communion are uncertain, and since many victims would not be considered martyrs of the true faith.
[2] James Bannerman, The Church of Christ, pp. 57-60 (pdf version). Available here: https://www.monergism.com/church-christ-ebook
[3] Arguably this arises because of the organization of Bavinck’s discussion of the church. The section immediately prior (“The Church is One”), beginning on p. 279, does contain extensive scriptural reflection and ends with mentions of catholicity that are then elaborated in “The Church is Catholic.”
[4] Alas, her efforts to lay sole claim to catholicity have caused many Protestants to misunderstand its true nature and to take her definition (if unknowingly), of which the response to Brite’s article was an example. My local PCA church uses a modified form of the Apostles’ Creed that refers to the “holy Christian church.”
[5] But not necessarily in all cases. Matthew Levering, a Romanist professor, has praised Matthew Barrett’s The Reformation as Renewal. The difference between what the Roman communion officially teaches and what her people actually do and believe is a common difficulty in comprehending Rome.
[6] All quotes from Perkins have been modernized somewhat.
[7] In a single case he speaks of “Roman Catholics,” but elsewhere speaks of the “Roman” and “Catholic” churches as separate, most notably by saying that “the Roman Church, though falsely, takes unto itself the title of the true Catholic church” (all spelling modernized).
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