Written by R. Scott Clark |
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Daily, mysteriously, the Holy Spirit uses the ministry of the Word and the prayers of believing parents to bring baptized covenant children to new life and true faith. More than a few covenant children never remember coming to faith because they have always believed. 

Jackson writes to ask, “As it relates to continuity with the Abrahamic covenant, for example, Abraham and his children get circumcised, therfore in the new administration, Jesus and his children (spiritual) get baptized. Do you think that someone can retain their Reformed confession of the WSC and still be Baptist if they use that kind of reasoning?”
The essence of the question is the nature of the continuity of between the new administration of the covenant of grace and the Abrahamic administration of the covenant of grace. Under Abraham the promise was to believers and to their children and it included the external administration of the sign of the covenant to believers and to their children. Genesis 17:1–14 says:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant” (ESV).
There are two aspects to the promise as it was articulated in Genesis 17: children and the gentile nations. In connection with this expression of the promise (see also Gen ch. 12 and 15) Yahweh changes Abram’s name to Abraham. He will be the father of a multitude of nations. In v. 9 Yahweh articulates the second aspect of the promise, to be Abraham’s God and a God to his children.
Yahweh gave a sign and seal of the promise: circumcision. It was a bloody, typological sign pointing forward to the death of Christ (Col 2:11–12) and he commanded that the sign be applied both to Abraham the believer (Gen 15:6) and to his sons. The external administration of the covenant of grace under Abraham included both believers and children. This is significant for New Covenant believers because Paul invokes the Abraham promise as the pattern for the New Covenant:
For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Rom 4:13–17; ESV).
Abraham is the father of all Christians, both Jew and Gentile. Abraham believed before he was circumcised, when he was a Gentile and thus he is the father of all Gentile Christians, and he believed when he was circumcised and thus is the father of all Jewish Christians.
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No captain would knowingly go near submerged reefs and no farmer would permit space to be taken up by a fruitless tree. Yet that is precisely what the theological academy has been doing for some time now. It has been pointing us to Barth, the impenitent adulterer; to Yoder, the abuser of women; to a bevy of Germans who seem to have never met an orthodox doctrine they did not see fit to change; and now to Aquinas, the idolater. On behalf of many of the sheep in the pews permit me to say to this idea of returning to scholasticism and Aquinas – ‘no thank you.’

Previously we considered Craig Carter’s recommended revival of scholasticism. Now we finish our consideration of his claims and offer a rejoinder. He says “I am convinced that we need to recover and revitalize scholastic realism if we are to recover and revitalize classical orthodoxy after the disasters of the last two centuries.” He says this because he believes that in order to return Nicene Trinitarian and Chalcedonian Christological orthodoxy to “the forefront of Christian dogmatics again” means “we are going to need to go back to the last period in history when Enlightenment rationalism and naturalism had not yet corrupted Christian theology.” On his view that is “the period of post-Reformation scholasticism.” He believes one of the strengths of this period was its “catholicity, that is, its deep roots in the best of medieval scholasticism and the early church fathers.” He believes that the reformers anti-scholastic rhetoric “should be understood as directed against” “late medieval voluntarism and nominalism” and asserts that “many of the best Protestant theologians” employed Thomistic theology “extensively and with profit,” and, after some further elaboration on this point, says that this is where “we find the metaphysical and dogmatic foundations of Reformed scholasticism, or as one could also put it, classic reformed theology.”
One, “Reformed scholasticism” is not a synonym for “classic reformed theology.” There is much that is Reformed that is not scholastic: indeed, criticism of scholasticism was strong among some theologians of the period. Hence John Owen could say:
Some learn their Divinity out of the late, and Modern Schools, both in the Reformed and Papall Church; in both which a Science is proposed under that name, consisting in a farrago of Credible Propositions, asserted in termes suited unto that Philosophy that is variously predominant in them. What a kind of Theology this hath produced in the Papacy, Agricola, Erasmus, Vives, Jansenius, with innumerable other Learned men of your own, have sufficiently declared. And that it hath any better success in the Reformed Churches, many things which I shall not now instance in, give me cause to doubt.[1] 
Two, as for Protestant scholasticism’s catholicity consisting of its “deep roots” in the medieval scholastics and the early church fathers, consider what Owen says as he continues the section above:
Some boast they learn their divinity from the Fathers, and say they do not depart from their sense and idiom of expression in what they believe and profess . . . While men are thus pre-engaged, it will be very hard to prevail with them to think that the greatest part of their divinity is such that Christian religion, either as to the matter, or at least as to that mode wherein they have imbibed it, is little or not at all concerned in it; nor will it be easy to persuade them that it is a mystery laid up in the Scripture; and all true divinity a wisdom in the knowledge of that mystery.[2]
Modern paraphrase: ‘Some people are so enamored by their study of the early church fathers, some of whom made serious errors, that it is nearly impossible to get them to realize that a true knowledge and service of Christ has little if anything to do with their vain studies; true knowledge of Christ that is pleasing to him is found in understanding scripture’s testimony about him correctly (comp. Eph. 3:1-6).’ Such remarks, including as they do the ‘Reformed scholastics,’ do not seem limited to “late medieval voluntarism and nominalism.”
Three, on the Protestant view theology has been ruined by many others besides Enlightenment philosophers: Rome, various early heretics, and many of the scholastics have done so too. Hence Owen elsewhere says:
I could wish he [Fiat Lux’s author] would take a course to stop the mouths of some of his own Church, and those no small ones neither, who have declared them to the world, to be a pack of egregious Sophisters, neither good Philosophers, nor any Divines at all; men who seem not to have had the least reverence of God, nor much regard to the Truth in any of their Disputations, but were wholly influenced by a vain Re­putation of Subtility [cunning], desire of Conquest, of leading and denominating Parties, and that in a Barbarous Science, barbarously expressed, untill they had driven all Learning and Divinity almost out of the World.[3]
If that is a fair appraisal of scholasticism, then it seems Prof. Carter would have us discard Enlightenment rationalism by going back to something equally bad.
Four, why not return to non-scholastic Reformed theology, or better yet, to scripture? We confess that it is sufficient and perspicuous, “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). It will not suffice to combat aberrant theology on its own terms, for our own thought does not carry with it that power which scripture has. Consider its testimony of itself – “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) – or what God says of it: “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29) and “it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose” (Isa. 55:11).
If we are serious about reforming theology we must recognize that such an undertaking cannot be performed by merely human learning, no matter how polished or extensive: God himself must work reformation in the study of the knowledge about him, and if he does so it will only be because we humbly submit ourselves to his word and look rather to it and to his mercy than to our own learning. In the words of Isaiah, “to the teaching and to the testimony!” (8:20) – naught else will suffice to impart a true knowledge of God, and any who attempts to renovate theological studies will find he is building upon a house of sand if he does not ground his efforts on God’s own revelation of himself.
Five, it is not scholasticism that we fear, but God, who will judge us if we yield to the excesses of any merely human school of thought. We do not wish to be like those people whom Paul would say “have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions (1 Tim. 1:6-7). If a given school leads us into sin – as scholasticism does at sundry points, not least in Aquinas’ teaching that it is proper to worship the cross – then we ought to keep aloof from it.
Six, if scholasticism is the method of the schools, i.e., academic theological study, then it must be admitted that there already is a modern strain of it that predominates theology at present. This contemporary scholasticism operates by the same methods as secular research: it will study anything to find formative influences, not merely for cautionary or polemic purposes; it requires its proponents to participate in its system and receive doctorates by researching internal technical matters related to theology itself (e.g., “God’s Being-in-Reconciliation: The Theo-Ontological Basis of the Unity and Diversity of the Doctrine of the Atonement in the Theology of Karl Barth”[4]) rather than “rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15); it discusses its materials in a detached, unemotional spirit utterly unlike the urgency and emotional fervor one finds in the prophets and our Lord; it makes inquiry its guiding principle rather than faith; it studies its own number with greater zeal than scripture, thus elevating secondary sources above primary; and by its love of esoteric terminology it has made theology a pursuit of an initiated few rather than a service to the church and her people.
The consequences of such an approach are apparent. Compare the following two passages.
[N]ot a few of the advocates of philosophic studies, when turning their minds recently to the practical reform of philosophy, aimed and aim at restoring the renowned teaching of Thomas Aquinas and winning it back to its ancient beauty.
And
Since they thought Thomas was one of the most brilliant theologians the church has produced, they did not hesitate to benefit from him in innumerable ways—from his epistemology to metaphysic, from his Christology to ethics.
One passage is from Credo’s Aquinas issue, the other from Aeterni Patris, the encyclical commending Thomism. If your ideas about whom it is appropriate to study put you in the same position as the pope – whose office Protestants have historically confessed to be antichrist (2 Thess. 2:3-4) – then you have adopted the wrong practical position. There are grounds of agreement between us and Rome, especially regarding Christology and theology proper; but the question of adopting one of her own number as a positive source of our own thinking is not one of them.
If it be objected that Rome advises studying sources that we also use let it be rejoined that though she uses them they are not properly her own as are those things that have arisen within her midst during the time of her corruption. Some things in the early fathers have parallels in Rome’s thought, such as Augustine’s ecclesiological ideas, but it is hard to see where any of the early fathers is Roman after the fashion of the medieval scholastics: their position before a long process of corruption, even one they in some cases inadvertently started, means that they are fundamentally different from those who arose later after that process had advanced very far.
In summary, we should not return to scholasticism. To do so would entail exposing ourselves to the bad as well as the good in it; and while theologians like Prof. Carter may be able to take an eclectic approach in which they keep certain teachings while discarding others, it must be remembered that most of the church’s members are not theologians. Members sometimes have much difficulty distinguishing between false and true doctrine. It is a predicament best avoided where possible.
Also, we already have a contemporary scholasticism by which we have been ill-served, not least since it has spread this idea among us, that there is something useful to be learned in practically everyone. That is contrary to scripture. It does not deal with false teaching in a detached manner as do our contemporary theologians. On its view false teaching arises because of the bad character of those that teach it. It does not take a nuanced approach to them, trying to retain the good while shedding the bad; rather it says that people who teach false doctrine constitute a class that is to be avoided. Jude 12-13 says that:
These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
No captain would knowingly go near submerged reefs and no farmer would permit space to be taken up by a fruitless tree. Yet that is precisely what the theological academy has been doing for some time now. It has been pointing us to Barth, the impenitent adulterer; to Yoder, the abuser of women; to a bevy of Germans who seem to have never met an orthodox doctrine they did not see fit to change; and now to Aquinas, the idolater. On behalf of many of the sheep in the pews permit me to say to this idea of returning to scholasticism and Aquinas – ‘no thank you.’
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

[1] Vindication of Animadversions Upon Fiat Lux, 212-13
[2] Ibid., 213. Spelling, punctuation, and diction somewhat modernized. Original available here: https://ota.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/repository/xmlui/handle/20.500.12024/A53737
[3] Animadversions Upon Fiat Lux, 122-23
[4] The Ph. D. thesis of Adam Johnson, professor at Biola.
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We are born male or female. We are, therefore, male or female. And one becomes, through reproduction, a mother or father. The way we manifest our identity as a man or a woman is going to either conform to “socio-cultural standards” or be a form of reaction against these same socio-cultural standards, or be a mixture of conformity and reaction.

Nature, Gender, and Biological Sex
Introduction
It is becoming more and more common to hear politicians, social media influencers, and celebrities discussing biological sex and gender in much the same way that they discuss religious or political affiliations. We are told that we choose them, to a certain extent, or, perhaps, that we are chosen by them and only come to a progressive discovery that we just “are” Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, Male, Female, or something else. What we are hearing through the various media outlets, in cinema, and online, is essentially a trickle-down effect from research and theorizing that has been going on in the“academy” for well over 100 years.1
According to the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People (hereafter, SOC), published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (hereafter, WPATH), “Sex” is defined as follows, “Sex is assigned at birth as male or female, usually based on the appearance of the external genitalia. When the external genitalia are ambiguous, other components of sex (internal genitalia, chromosomal and hormonal sex) are considered in order to assign sex (Grumbach, Hughes, & Conte, 2003; MacLaughlin & Donahoe, 2004; Money & Ehrhardt, 1972; Vilain, 2000). For most people, gender identity and expression are consistent with their sex assigned at birth; for transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals, gender identity or expression differ from their sex assigned at birth.”2 The term “Gender Identity,” used in the second part of this definition, is defined as “A person’s intrinsic sense of being male (a boy or a man), female (a girl or woman), or an alternative gender (e.g., boygirl, girlboy, transgender, genderqueer, eunuch) (Bockting, 1999; Stoller, 1964).”3
From these definitions alone, which are increasingly influential on public opinion, it is clear that biological sex and gender are no longer understood, as they historically have been, in relation to a person’s phenotypical and genotypical traits. Rather, they are  presented to the public as something that is “assigned” or “imposed” upon children at their birth, though potentially (and truly) discovered at a later time. Indeed, models of gender-fluidity are becoming more and more prominent in discussions about sex, gender, and studies related to the social aspects of “being” some “gender”.4 We are told that it sometimes happens that an individual’s “gender identity or expressions” differ from the biological sex they were assigned at birth. This “gender identity” refers to one’s intrinsic sense of identity—who or what they feel themselves to be—or, their way of socially acting in relation to reproductive processes. Gender, and even biological sex, is a social construct which needs to be deconstructed.
The question we wish to discuss is, does natural law have anything to say to this cultural phenomenon? To do so, we will provide a quick reminder of what natural law is. We will then perform a short “experiment” of sorts, illustrating how natural law theory can be helpful in public discussions surrounding sexuality.5 In this second section, we will first consider questions related to biological sex, and then turn to questions related to gender.
Natural Law and the Gender-Identity Debate
What is Natural Law?
As we have stated elsewhere, natural law, as that part of the eternal law which applies specifically to human beings, is the rule or norm of practical reason which governs all human actions. Natural law is “natural” because it is based upon human “nature”—what humans “are” as designed by their Creator6—and not upon the human will.7 Natural law is a “law” because it is not only binding (prescriptive and proscriptive commands) on all humans, but also because it directs all humans to their proper end and common good, and is in principle knowable by all humans.8 Some might wonder about the promulgation of natural law, suggesting either (1) that it is not promulgated, as there is no “place” where one can find it written down, or (2) that it is not promulgated, because it appears that not all are aware of it.
To the first objection, we reply (a) that it is inscribed on the mind of man—it is more naturally anchored in the mind of man than the Operating System and basic applications are in a newly purchased i-Phone.9 Furthermore, (b) as if “permanent inscription” of the law on the mind of man was not sufficient, many of the early Reformers held that God also “published” the main tenets of natural law in the 10 Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
To the second objection, we reply that ignorance of a law is proof neither that the law was not promulgated, nor that one can be held non-guilty if one breaks the law. It is simply not the case, even in our technologically advanced age, that all of those who live within any given municipality are aware when new laws are created, even though they may be posted publicly. Even if one is not aware of a law which has been promulgated, one is still held responsible for knowing about it (and seeking to find out what regulations may apply to any socially affective action one makes), and one is considered guilty for breaking the law whether one knows about it or not.10 In the same way, though the Natural Law is equally promulgated to all, it is not necessarily equally known by all. Just as there may be many who are unaware of the laws in a given area, there may be many who, due to lack of time, training, or ability, or due to negligence (vicious or innocent), have less knowledge of the givings of the Natural Law than others. However, the Natural Law is sufficiently promulgated that those who break it are rightly condemned.
How can we apply Natural Law to Gender and Sexuality?
Though there are many aspects of transgender theory and the philosophy of gender that we could discuss, we will concentrate on two aspects which are fundamental to the discussion: (1) biological sex and (2) gender or gender-identity. As there is somewhat more of a consensus on the first, we will begin with biological sex and then turn to gender. Natural law, grounding human morality in human nature, is able to call upon the observations of human biology to arrive at conclusions concerning sexual morality. In what follows, we will approach the question of sexuality in a way which could be broadly construed as a natural law approach to sexuality. Such an approach necessarily begins with an examination of what is meant by the terms “biological sex” and “gender”.
Biological Sex
Despite the fact that some gender theorists suggest that biological sex is fluid and that bodily changes associated with sexual development are ambiguous until given meaning in a socio-cultural context,11 the study of biological life reveals a number of important natural truths about human beings, which have normative implications for our question. First of all, though some gender theorists claim that biological sex is “assigned” at birth, or that individuals must “determine” their sex when they discover, create, or recreate their “gender identification,”12 it is still recognized by most that biological sex is determined at the molecular level,13 and “discovered” through the examination, first, of the phenotypical traits of an individual; and, then, if there is some doubt as to the biological sex of an individual, genotypical traits can be examined.14 Some gender theorists, though they see biological sex as a bodily reality, argue that the bodily changes related to reproductive processes take on the meaning that we give them within the society in which we find ourselves, and in relation to the gender structures of our culture.15 It is worth emphasizing here that even for those who deny that biological sex is “determined” by genetics and discovered through examination, it remains, by their own admission, inescapably related to genotypical and phenotypical traits. Connell and Pearse, for example, suggest that bodily processes related to reproduction, such as childcare, birthing, and sexual interaction “which deploy human bodies’ capacities to engender, to give birth, to give milk, to give and receive sexual pleasure,” should be understood as “an arena, a bodily site where something social happens…the creation of the cultural categories ‘women’ and ‘men’.”16 We will address the question of gender in the next section, but it is worth noting that they recognize that biological traits do have some bearing upon what they see as culturally relative categories.
Secondly, going a step further, recent research into the function and interrelation of the various parts of human bodies has shown that the piece-meal “mechanistic” view of the human being, which sees the human body as highly modifiable (malleable) through the removal, addition, or replacement of body parts, is far from the truth, especially in relation to our biological sex. Rather, “Systems Biology,” which understands living things as dynamic networks of integrated parts all working together for the growth and flourishing of the individual, suggests that “the sexual development of an organism cannot be readily divorced from its overall developmental trajectory.”17
It follows that, “the specification of sex/gender and the maturation of the sexual organism is the result not of the activity of a single gene but of the interactions among numerous genes and the molecules that they encode. Together these molecules determine the shape and overall trajectory of human sexual development.”18 This implies that in discovering the biological sex of an organism, one does not rely exclusively on genotypical or phenotypical traits, but must also consider how the phenotypical traits of the biological organism have naturally developed, in relation to their proper ends and functions. If biological sex is determined by the role of the sexual organs, based on the natural development of a biological organism, in relation to the process of human reproduction, then there can only be two sexes — male and female — one that, to put it simply, fertilizes an egg, and one that produces the egg which will be fertilized and which brings the fertilized egg to term.19 In relation, then, to biological sex, we find that it is neither assigned nor determined by doctors, but, rather, discovered by observation.
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