The suggestion that we should learn from the representatives of a communion that still binds men’s consciences and misleads them with false doctrine is highly objectionable. Such men are members of a communion that has spent most of the last 500 years saying that believing Protestant doctrine is damning sin, has regarded it as within its power and duty to curse Protestants for such ‘error’ by its anathemas, and that has readily abetted such spiritual coercion with physical persecution of the cruelest types when and where it has been within its power to do so.

There exists a certain method of argumentation in which someone who disputes a given position does not argue against it but instead implies that the position’s proponents are motivated by fear. Thus, for example, someone who thinks it imprudent to allow large numbers of immigrants into one’s nation is apt to be dismissed as a xenophobe, as if doubting the wisdom of allowing large numbers of foreigners to spontaneously immigrate without careful assimilation is some sort of clinical condition.
Craig Carter, in an article at Credo, does not go so far; though from a Christian perspective he arguably does worse by quoting Karl Barth’s statement that “fear of scholasticism is the mark of a false prophet.” Scripture gives certain criteria for how to identify false teachers. Some are methodological—false teachers are fond of “relying on their dreams,” Jude tells us (v.8)—while others have to do with their moral character, and with the nature and effects of their teaching (“you will recognize them by their fruits,” Matt. 7:20). Prof. Carter admits in his article that Barth’s teaching was sorely mistaken at sundry points and bore ill consequences. Indeed, he says that the last two centuries (which include Barth) were “disasters” and “among the most forgettable in the two-millennium history of Christian theology,” and that after them there is a need to “recover and revitalize classical orthodoxy”.
More importantly, by the standards of scripture Karl Barth was a false teacher himself. Such people are characterized by “sensuality” (2 Pet. 2:2) and “have eyes full of adultery” (v.14). It just so happens that Karl Barth maintained a long affair with his assistant, even having her move into his house over his wife’s protests and maintaining the relationship against the stern disapproval of his mother, her rebukes (“What’s the point of the very sharpest theology if it suffers shipwreck in your own home?”) going unheeded.[1] (Comp. Prov. 1:8; 6:20; 30:17; 31:1.) You may be forgiven, dear reader, if you are inclined to think that Barth’s opinions about the nature of false prophets are therefore about as authoritative and useful as a pronouncement from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe on prudent monetary policies.
Turning to Prof. Carter’s essay we find a long analysis of Barth’s thought as it relates to various trends in theology after the Enlightenment, including concepts taken from Schleirmacher and Kant. I make no comment on the accuracy of this analysis as such. It may be a faultless exercise in historical and theological analysis that traces the development of Barth’s thought with perfect accuracy. That is an academic question which I do not presume to address here.
I must confess that the analysis seems somewhat oddly formed, however. The title of the section is, “Barth’s Rejection of the Scholastic Doctrine of Election,” yet in the second sentence we read that Barth “was particularly critical of the reformed doctrine of election” (emphasis mine), which suggests that “reformed” and “scholastic” are synonyms, when in fact they are not. Also, this section is not merely about Barth’s rejection of election (be it Reformed or scholastic), but about his fundamental metaphysical framework and its sources, and of how it lead him to a more apparently Christocentric but in fact still anthropocentric theology; and in fact discussion of his method, sources, etc. makes up the larger part of it, hence it seems somewhat misnamed. Something like “Barth’s Rejection of Common Scholastic Metaphysics” would seem a more accurate title given the actual content.
Elsewhere in the section Prof. Carter does speak of “the scholastic doctrine of election.” In one case he presents it as a question and follows it with a sentence about how, though Barth engaged “with Protestant scholastic theology, he never felt it was possible to take on board its metaphysical framework.” The second case is after he discusses the Thomistic proof for God’s existence and before he begins the next section with a discussion of a recent “Thomistic Ressourcement movement.” It is therefore unclear what he means by “the scholastic doctrine of election.” It would seem it means something along the lines of ‘Thomas Aquinas’ doctrine of election as it was received and developed by the later Protestant Scholastics, especially those that were Reformed,’ but this is not certain given Prof. Carter’s failure to define it more clearly.
This notwithstanding, Prof. Carter is right in his broad assertions. The last couple of centuries in Protestant theology were not merely strained but, as he asserts, disastrous. Philosophy did indeed wreak havoc on theology in a variety of ways, the application of its concepts to divinity causing strange developments that came at the expense of historic orthodoxy. Barth too was sorely mistaken in his thinking and would have done far better to return to more reliable sources and to break free from the erroneous concepts which formed so much of his thought.
But where Prof. Carter is right in diagnosing the problem, we must differ in his suggested solution and in the argument he pursues. He begins the next section with the statement that we must “reject nineteenth century historicism and the flawed metaphysical assumptions on which it rests” and mentions four people in the Thomistic Ressourcement movement who “are providing the impetus for doing this.” All four authors are members of the papal communion, as was Thomas, yet Prof. Carter does not hesitate to say that “confessional Protestants need to learn from them,” as if there are not other sources that might give one good grounds to reject historicism.
The suggestion that we should learn from the representatives of a communion that still binds men’s consciences and misleads them with false doctrine is highly objectionable. Such men are members of a communion that has spent most of the last 500 years saying that believing Protestant doctrine is damning sin, has regarded it as within its power and duty to curse Protestants for such ‘error’ by its anathemas, and that has readily abetted such spiritual coercion with physical persecution of the cruelest types when and where it has been within its power to do so. Theirs is a communion that believes, further, that it is infallible in its official pronouncements, so that it can never confess it has erred in past or repent its sins, and which has in some ways taken a strange twist since about Vatican II and now asserts that, while all previous pronouncements declaring Protestant beliefs anathema still stand, nonetheless they can also be regarded as estranged brothers who are really members of Rome because of an implicit but unknown desire to be part of her. Contemporary Rome says that the canons of Trent, which curse us unambiguously, are still in force as infallible declarations of the truth about our beliefs; it also says that we (or at least some of us) are really members of itself, but that we are just ignorant of that fact and mistaken when we refuse formal participation with her.
It does this because on its view nothing – be it scripture, tradition, or previous church councils or papal pronouncements – means anything other than what the present church says it means. ‘The church is the official interpreter’ of all such things, so that Trent’s anathemas meant ‘those who believe thus are doomed to hell’ up until about Vatican II, but have since apparently come to mean something along the lines of ‘those poor, silly Protestants are mistaken, but we should pity them for they mean well and we hope for them to come to their senses.’ What anything means, in short, is what Rome finds it advantageous to mean at any given time, an obvious violation of “let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’” (Matt. 5:37 NKJV). Such double-tongued tendencies are no less reprehensible in an institution than in an individual, and the discerning reader should recognize what they reveal about the Roman communion. And yet many Protestant theologians, as Prof. Carter here, have no qualms about commending members of such a communion as reliable teachers.[2]
Prof. Carter then moves quickly to his point: because of the failure of Barthianism “the time has come to re-visit scholasticism.” Prior to this he had just spent over 1,200 words describing how Barth had allowed philosophy to ruin his theology — and his response is to return to another movement that was conspicuous for allowing philosophy to dominate theology!
Perhaps it will be objected that the historic understanding of scholasticism as melding theology and philosophy is wrong. But why then did Pope Leo XIII, in an encyclical in which he declared Thomas’ excellence and recommended his restoration to a place of preeminence, speak of “that philosophy which the Scholastic teachers have been accustomed carefully and prudently to make use of even in theological disputations,” and say that “since it is the proper and special office of the Scholastic theologians to bind together by the fastest chain human and divine science, surely the theology in which they excelled would not have gained such honor . . .  if they had made use of a lame and imperfect or vain philosophy”?[3] Unless we wish to say that Leo did not understand the method of his own favored school, his testimony seems an accurate description of the nature of scholasticism, and it is abetted by John Owen, who described the scholastics as “the men, who out of a mixture of Philosophy, Traditions, and Scripture, all corrupted and perverted, have hammered that faith which was afterwards confirmed under so many Anathemaes at Trent.”[4]
For his part Prof. Carter asserts that the “rediscovery of the value of the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas does not necessarily lead back to Roman Catholic theology” and that it “can just as well lead us back to the post-Reformation, Protestant scholasticism.”  Perhaps; but in practice it often does lead to Rome, a road which even a president of the evangelical theological society has traveled.[5] Also, it is a somewhat strange method that would go to Thomas in order to wind up in the Protestant scholastics. Why not just read the Protestant scholastics themselves, especially if they are, as Prof. Carter asserts, “the sources of the classical expressions of the Reformed faith that would emerge over the next two centuries”?[6]
He asks “who is afraid of scholasticism?” but does not directly answer his own question, states “nobody should be afraid of it,” and answers with a strange disquisition on John Webster’s contribution to a book called The Analogy of Being: Invention of the Antichrist or Wisdom of God. Note the movement. He starts with a question about a broad school of thought and transitions to a technical question about a single scholastic concept in a single recent theologian. An odd movement, surely.
There follows a brief account of the late career of the English theologian John Webster, the relevance of which to the question of evangelical readers embracing scholasticism is not at all clear. ‘Because a single Anglican theologian in recent memory moved in an opposite direction from Barth and ended by studying Protestant scholastics appreciatively, therefore evangelicals should read Aquinas seriously’ is a strange argument, but it seems to be the one Prof. Carter makes here. As for the rest of his suggestions, we will consider them and offer a rejoinder in the second and final part of this series.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/scottish-journal-of-theology/article/when-karl-met-lollo-the-origins-and-consequences-of-karl-barths-relationship-with-charlotte-von-kirschbaum/CB5E82941743160C1BAE527870883C7A#fn26
[2] Any discussion of Rome’s beliefs is difficult owing to the wide array of beliefs and practices that exist within her. My statements here are an attempt to take Rome at its official word and at the practical consequences of the principles of her polity. They do not deny that in practice many individuals and groups within Rome might differ in their opinions: hence I recently found a Roman laywoman calling Pope Francis the antichrist, which is really impermissible by Rome’s belief that the laity form the ‘listening church’ whose duty it is to obey and uncritically assent to the clergy (or ‘teaching church’), at whose head is the pope.
[3] Aeterni Patris
[4] Animadversions on Fiat Lux, 122
[5] Francis Beckwith
[6] There are some practical difficulties, however, since many of them have not been translated out of Latin.
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The Bible’s grand story is not complete without the bodily resurrection of God’s people. It is blessedly true that the spirits of our loved believers who die before the return of Jesus will immediately be welcomed into his blessed presence upon death. But Jesus did not come merely to provide a detour around death for his people. He came to destroy death. 

31:2. At the last day, such of the saints as are found alive, shall not sleep, but be changed; and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, and none other; although with different qualities, which shall be united again to their souls forever.(1 Corinthians 15:51, 52; 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Job 19:26, 27; 1 Corinthians 15:42, 43)
31:3. The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonour; the bodies of the just, by his Spirit, unto honour, and be made conformable to his own glorious body.(Acts 24:15; John 5:28, 29; Philippians 3:21)
Second London Confession, 31:2–3
It was a cold, gray February afternoon when we buried my grandfather. The ground was still muddy from the snow that had melted earlier in the week. Every tree was bare. The small crowd under the tent shivered against the cold as the national guard officers folded the American flag they would present to my grandmother. But into the sorrow, the gathering of family members and friends read the Apostle’s Creed from the tiny bulletins issued to them by the Methodist minister: “…I believe in the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, Amen.” I was struck by the power of that ancient Christian confession against that bleak backdrop. It was also struck by how few funerals I attend ever even mention the hope of bodily resurrection.
In most funerals I attend, and in most popular discussions about death I observe, the focus of the Christian hope falls almost exclusively on what theologians call “the intermediate state:” the promise that upon death, the believer’s spirit leaves the body behind to dwell in the presence of Jesus in heaven. On the one hand, this emphasis is perfectly reasonable, since it is the immediate hope of all the saints who die before the Lord’s return. We are right to celebrate Jesus’ assurance that, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43) We rejoice that “the spirits of the righteous” are now “made perfect” in the heavenly assembly (Heb 12:23) . We find unspeakable comfort in the truth that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord, that for the believers, to die is gain, and that it really is better by far to depart and to be with Christ (2 Cor 5:6; Phil 1:21, 23).
But while our immortal spirit’s reception into heaven is the believer’s immediate hope, the Bible teaches that it is not our ultimate hope. As wonderful as the intermediate state will be, it is, well, intermediate. An even great future awaits the people of Jesus! A hope even richer, more thrilling, more satisfying. It takes the whole story of the Bible to understand this audacious Christian confession: I believe in the resurrection of the body.
“To the Dust You Shall Return”
The Bible’s first two chapters map out God’s design for human life: embodied human beings made in his image, living forever in fellowship with him in a perfect, physical creation. This, God says, is “very good.” (Gen 1:31). But by Genesis 3, the rebellion of those image-bearers has destroyed God’s beautiful design. Sin’s consequences are not only spiritual and moral, but physical: the once-submissive creation now rebels against its former caretakers, and bodily life is now marked by pain, sickness, weariness, and, ultimately, death. The man formed from the dust, made to live forever in face-to-face fellowship with God, must now return to the dust (Gen 3:19). The relentless recitation of the deaths proceeding from Adam in Genesis 5 bears grim witness to the awful wages of sin, and to the unyielding truthfulness of God’s Word: “in the the day that you eat of it, you will surely die (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23).”
These opening acts in the biblical drama remind us that there is nothing “natural” about death. Death instead is an “enemy” (1 Cor 15:26), a sinister intruder on God’s good design for human life. The Genesis patriarchs wept over the bodies of their dead loved ones for good reason (Gen 23:2), and so do we. All human beings—whether they affirm the Bible’s account of reality or not—instinctively know that death is not the way it was meant to be. I can see it in the “gone but not forgotten” memorial decals on the pickup trucks in my hometown. You can sense it in the feverish attempts to stave off the aging process in fitness centers and cosmetic products. I can hear it in the quavering voice of the old bluegrass singer Ralph Stanley, pleading: “O death, won’t you spare me over til another year, won’t you spare me over til another year…”
The apostle Paul tells us that these are all so many manifestations of creation’s “groaning” under the unnatural curse of death; we long to be “set free from [our] bondage to corruption (Rom 8:21).” But will anyone hear these groans? Can anyone deliver us from death?
“…Those Who Sleep in the Dust of the Earth Shall Awake”
Yes! Standing in the ruins of Eden, God not only pronounces judgment, but promises salvation: “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” God tells the Serpent, “and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15). God did not disclose the details of his plan, but he made it clear that he would one day restore the beautiful kingdom our sin had destroyed, and deal with the awful curse of death itself.
For the rest of the Old Testament, God’s people cling to the persistent, if shadowy, hope that Yahweh would overcome death for them. One catches the patriarchs’ hope beyond the grave in their insistence on securing burial plots in the land of promise (Heb 11:22). We hear it also in Job’s confession that, “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another…” (Job 19:26–27)
The prophet Isaiah foresaw a day when the Lord would spread a feast for his people on Mount Zion, and “will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken (Isa 25:6–8).” Near the end of the Old Testament, Daniel articulates God’s coming victory over death explicitly in terms of a bodily resurrection: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever (Dan 12:2–3).” By the time Jesus comforts Martha at the grave of Lazarus, it seems Daniel’s expectation has taken hold among God’s people: when Jesus tells Mary that “your brother will rise again,” Martha immediately responds “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” (John 11:23–24)
One thing this brief survey indicates is that, the saints of old longed for more than a strictly spiritual “life after death.” Rather, they looked forward to the complete undoing of death, in a glorious, bodily resurrection at the end of history. They did not know that before that could happen, Someone would first blaze a trail through death, right smack in the middle of history.
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The classical Marxist is concerned mostly with equality of outcome. By abolishing private property and with workers in charge of production, everyone theoretically ends up with the same number of eggs in the fridge at the end of the week. That, of course, is an absolute impossibly because of man’s inherent greed and avarice. Some, as the old children’s book says, always end up “more equal” than others.

Most of readers probably hold this truth to be self-evident: “That all men are created equal.” Every professed Christian can also affirm that statement from the Declaration of Independence because the Bible teaches that all men are made in the image of God. As such, all men can know God, all men should worship God, and all men should be compelled to believe the gospel. Those who do will be saved and those who do not, shall be damned. Christians believe in that kind of equality, but they do not (or at least should not) believe in Egalitarianism because that is a distinctly Marxist doctrine.
The great difference between Equality and Egalitarianism can be demonstrated by establishing a very important distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome.
This essential distinction can, first of all, be observed in the gospel itself. All men, without distinction, should be invited to believe the gospel. That is equality of opportunity. Nevertheless, the Bible clearly teaches that not all men will be saved and that is a clear proof of inequality of outcome.
Classical Marxism is about economics and Frankfort School Neo-Marxism is about culture, so let us now apply this distinction to both of those areas.
The classical Marxist is concerned mostly with equality of outcome. By abolishing private property and with workers in charge of production, everyone theoretically ends up with the same number of eggs in the fridge at the end of the week. That, of course, is an absolute impossibly because of man’s inherent greed and avarice. Some, as the old children’s book says, always end up “more equal” than others.
Again, the cultural Marxist broadens this ideal of economic egalitarianism to all areas of life, expecting not just equality of opportunity, but also that of outcome. So, if there happens to be more men than women on a board of directors, that’s injustice. If there happens to be more whites than blacks in management, that’s injustice. This is the kind of thinking that led to Affirmative Action policies in the 1960s.
Here, however, is the vital question: Is observed “inequality” actually injustice? The holy Scriptures offer a very clear answer: No.
As Moses argued with God about his qualifications for office, the Lord said, “Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord?” (Exodus 4:11). Think about what that means in terms of equality of opportunity. Should a blind man have equal opportunity for employment as an airline pilot? Should a mute man be called as a preacher in the church? No one truly believes in absolute equality of opportunity.
Consider also the scriptural example of Mephibosheth: “He was five years old… and his nurse took him up, and fled: and it came to pass, as she made haste to flee, that he fell, and became lame” (cf. 2 Samuel 4:1-4). Being crippled from childhood, should David have offered Miphiboseth a position as a horseman in his army? That would certainly be equality of opportunity! No, he rather showed him “the kindness of God” by caring for him as a cripple.
The inescapable tension between what God says and what the cultural Marxists say is even more obvious when we consider the other kind of equality. To expect absolute equality of outcome in any area of life is absolute madness. Do you expect a woman to bench press the same amount of weight as a man? Do you expect a man with an IQ of eighty to earn the same amount of money as a man with an IQ of one hundred and twenty? Actually, what we may or may not expect, is a secondary consideration as the scriptures speak very clearly to this matter.
Hannah, for example, acknowledged in prayer, “The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich” (1 Samuel 2:7). Do you actually believe that? Do you believe that each man’s level of wealth has been ordained, personally, by God himself? If so, then you cannot believe in equality of outcome and you cannot therefore be a Neo-marxist. Inequality exists under the sovereign appointment of our only-wise God.
Consider also the fifth commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother” (Exodus 20:12). This commandment, at least as explained in the Reformed tradition, presupposes that three classes of men exist in this world: Superiors, Equals, and Inferiors. We simply cannot relate properly one-to-another without acknowledging essential or functional inequalities and then adapting our behavior accordingly.
Egalitarianism, then, is entirely unbiblical and also laughably unrealistic. Yet still, it is set forth as the empty promise of the Neo-Marxists. Because they see it as good news, anyone who opposes it is inherently evil. This, we shall explore in the next article.
Christian McShaffrey is a Minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and is Pastor of Five Solas Church (OPC) in Reedsburg, Wis.