In other words, faith justifies, and the various “other saving graces” that accompany it come into view in sanctification with its operation of the Spirit in which he “infuses grace” per Larger Catechism Q. 77. It is not an accurate summary to say that there is an infused habit of faith that is first passive in justification but then subsequently active in sanctification, when the confessions appealed to actually distinguish between the saving grace of justifying faith (Q. 72) and the other saving graces that accompany it (Q. 73; Conf. 11.2).

Credo, the organ of the movement to normalize scholasticism among evangelicals, has pursued an interesting career as of late. When it has not been praising the alleged glories of Platonism, giving space to people who regard the Reformation as a tragedy to be lamented, or interviewing the presidents of organizations whose faculty and contributors include female pastors, it has found time to cast aspersions at contemporary evangelicals for “cutting ourselves off from Thomas” and suffering, as a consequence, “from a theology that looks more modern than orthodox.”
Of particular interest is an article by J.V. Fesko asserting that the acceptance of Thomas Aquinas is a sort of litmus test for whether one may be deemed a bona fide Protestant. To be told that we are under obligation to embrace any Romanist in order to be considered Protestant is intriguing enough, but to hear that we must do so concerning the preeminent medieval scholastic and the man whom Protestants have historically understood to be among the foremost expositors of those ideas which so corrupted the Western church that she fell into that ‘Babylonian captivity’ from whence part of Christendom escaped only with great suffering – well, that makes for quite a large pill to swallow. To think that those who have justified our murder[1] and commended the religious veneration of images of Christ and of his cross[2] should be rejected as false teachers is, on Prof. Fesko’s view, only enough to make us “self-professed Protestants,” and such assertions are only so much “noisy din” and engaging in “cancel culture theology.”
Central to Prof. Fesko’s assertions is his belief that previous generations of Protestants employed a “nuanced approach to the thought of Aquinas” in which, for example, they “excised the problematic teachings of infused righteousness as it relates to justification but retained Thomas’ teaching on infused habits for the doctrine of sanctification.” As evidence Prof. Fesko says that John Owen “took a nuanced approach to Aquinas’s doctrine of justification,” especially as regards the concept of an infused habit of righteousness. He quotes Owen’s The Doctrine of Justification by Faith as proof when it speaks of “an habitual infused habit of Grace which is the formal cause of our personal inherent Righteousness,” but which is yet distinct from the “formal cause” of our justification, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
The edition Prof. Fesko has quoted is available here. Owen mentions Thomas a single time and says this:
It is therefore to no purpose to handle the mysteries of the Gospel, as if Holcot and Bricot, Thomas and Gabriel, with all the Sententiarists, Summists, and Quodlibetarians of the old Roman Peripatetical School, were to be raked out of their Graves to be our guides. Especially will they be of no use unto us, in this Doctrine of Justification. For whereas they pertinaciously adhered unto the Philosophy of Aristotle, who knew nothing of any Righteousness, but what is an habit inherent in our selves, and the Acts of it, they wrested the whole Doctrine of Justification unto a compliance therewithall.
Such strong language and complete rejection can hardly be called taking a “nuanced approach to Aquinas’s doctrine of justification.” When Prof. Fesko, commenting upon the passage he had quoted, then asks:
How does Owen hold the concepts of imputed and infused righteousness together? How does he blend this Thomist category of the infused habit of righteousness together with the Reformation teaching of justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ?
We may fairly reply that he doesn’t: the passage from Justification by Faith Fesko quotes proves that Owen and other Protestant theologians vigorously distinguish between imputed and infused righteousness. It is noteworthy as well that the word “infused” appears a mere two times among Justification by Faith’s approximately 208,000 words.[3] “Imputed” appears 305 times and “imputation” some 429 times. The notion of an infused habit is not prominent, then, by any stretch of the imagination; if anything, it is, as the context of the excerpt Fesko quoted also shows, a mere passing thought, at least in this particular work.
Curiously, Fesko does not answer his own question with a further appeal to Owen’s works but by shifting to the position of the Westminster Assembly (which Owen did not attend). To this end he appeals to the Westminster Confession (11.1-2, 14.2) and Larger Catechism (Q. 77), and he believes he finds in them “the language of infused habits” which “the divines continue to employ” in Q. 75 of the Larger Catechism, which speaks of the sanctified as “having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased, and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.” Prof. Fesko believes that the description of Questions 75 and 77 (“in sanctification his Spirit infuseth grace”) “sounds a lot like Aquinas’s doctrine of justification as the believer increases in righteousness, but the difference here is that this growth does not factor in justification, which rests entirely upon Christ’s imputed righteousness.”
Before proceeding to Prof. Fesko’s other remarks in this section, let it be noted that in B.B. Warfield’s analysis of the Westminster Assembly and its products there is a single reference to Aquinas, and even there on a point of logic and regarding the completeness of Scripture.[4] That work is not an absolute catalogue of the minutes, admittedly, but if Aquinas were such a large presence in the thought of the Westminster divines we might expect that to show in a work such as Warfield’s. In addition, note that the phrase “habit” appears nowhere in the Westminster Confession or Catechisms and that “infuse” (in its various forms) appears in the Westminster Confession a single time in 11.1, cited by Prof. Fesko, in which it is said that “Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth: not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins” (emphasis mine). Returning to Prof. Fesko’s remarks, he ends the paragraph in question by saying this:
In justification the infused habit of faith is passive but in sanctification it is active. What Aquinas conflates Owen and the Westminster divines distinguish. Even though they distinguish justification and sanctification, they nevertheless maintain they are inseparably joined together.
While we are on the topic of conflation, note carefully Prof. Fesko’s words (especially his first sentence) and how they compare to those of the passages he cites and his earlier statements. Larger Catechism Question 77, the only Westminster statement to positively employ the language of infusion, says that in sanctification the Spirit infuses grace, not a “habit of faith.” Sanctification follows justification, so the grace that the Spirit is said to infuse then is distinct from the faith which factors in justification.
This is proved as well by Westminster Confession 11.2, quoted previously by Fesko, which says that “Faith . . . is the alone instrument of justification; yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces.” In other words, faith justifies, and the various “other saving graces” that accompany it come into view in sanctification with its operation of the Spirit in which he “infuses grace” per Larger Catechism Q. 77. It is not an accurate summary to say that there is an infused habit of faith that is first passive in justification but then subsequently active in sanctification, when the confessions appealed to actually distinguish between the saving grace of justifying faith (Q. 72) and the other saving graces that accompany it (Q. 73; Conf. 11.2). (The question of when, and to what extent, faith is best described as passive or active is one we will not engage here.)
And as for the fact that the Westminster divines and Owen distinguish what Aquinas conflates, it may be asked how exactly that proves anything for Fesko’s case. That the respective parties have different perspectives upon sanctification and justification has nothing to do with the question of whether the former got a concept of infused habits from the latter.
Fesko also appeals to the Canons of Dort’s explicit mention of faith as being infused. Yet here too the question arises as to whether the similarity in terms between Aquinas and Protestants arises because the latter are borrowing from the former: perhaps Dort’s divines borrowed the concept of infused faith unknowingly or got it from other sources? That is an academic question which we have neither the space nor the inclination to answer here, but whether or not Fesko’s basic assertion is correct, he fails to make the case in this article. Such evidence as he provides is circumstantial at best and can be sufficiently explained by other theories absent further evidence. Mere coincidence or reception from other sources is at least as probable on the thin evidence (if such it is) that Fesko gives here. When he states that Owen, Dort, and Westminster “plied Aquinas’s insights” he is therefore coming to a conclusion that is not warranted and which other material in his sources makes seem highly doubtful. Consider again Owen’s mention of Aquinas above, as well as the fact that the Synod of Dort also rebuked the Franeker professor Maccovius for his use of the Romanist scholastics Suarez and Bellarmine.[5]
Fesko asserts two benefits of “the concept of an infused habit.” First, “infused habits help us distinguish between natural human ability from [sic] those abilities given by the grace of God in salvation.” But one can do such a thing without the concept of infused habits, for example by saying that natural morality is a result of God’s common grace, whereas sanctification comes from his saving grace. It is not clear that the language of infused habits does anything that cannot be done just as well otherwise. When Fesko states that “acknowledging that a capacity for holiness and righteousness is infused is another way of saying that it is the gift of God” we can reply: ‘why not just say that a capacity for righteousness is the gift of God, then, and spare your readers the scholastic terminology and the confusion it is likely to engender?’
Second, Fesko claims that “the infused habit of faith establishes a conceptual context for a theology of virtue,” to which the same objections apply. One can simply say that true virtue pleasing to God is his own gift and arises because of our new nature in Christ and the operations of the Spirit in us as we work out our salvation.
In conclusion, consider the sheer absurdity of Fesko’s position. He belittles his living brethren for the sake of trying to lay claim to the heritage of a dead Romanist who would regard him as a heretic who should be put to death. In this we see a fine example of how theologians have a bad tendency to get carried away in their speculations and researches, and how they tend to lose sight of the practical matters entailed in serving Christ. Be very careful whom you read, dear reader, for “bad company ruins good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33) and “much study is a weariness of the flesh” (Ecc. 12:12). You do not need to tackle Aquinas’s many words (the Summa Theologica in PDF is over 9,400 pages) or his excruciating prose, nor sift through his various erroneous doctrines in order to be a faithful servant of Christ, whose yoke is by contrast light and easy (Matt. 11:28-30), and whose word is sufficient for all you need in order to know him and to abound in virtue (Ps. 19; 119; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Pet. 1:5-8).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

[1] Summa Theologica, IIaIIae Q.11, Art. 3
[2]Summa Theologica, IIIa, Q. 25, Art. 3 and 4
[3] “Infusion” appears 25 times, but often while discussing the position of Rome.
[4] The Westminster Assembly and Its Work by B.B. Warfield, p. 206, quoting the position of George Gillespie expressed in one of his writings.
[5]H. Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. I, p. 181
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God, through the winter, is working grace in us, though now we may not see it. In this way we might liken winter to night. It is ominous because it is lightless.  But if you’ve ever sat near a field on a hot summer night you can hear the corn growing. We are growing in the night. But to grow we must stand. We must endure the night. We must face the blinding snow. And amid it we must look to Christ in whom we are rooted and grounded. 

In the fall I visited Lowe’s and spoke to the clerk about planting grass seed in a few places where my lawn is more dirt than turf.  His advice was simple; don’t waste your time or money. Planting in the cold season (or just before) is counterintuitive and counterproductive. Grass and plants don’t grow in the winter.  I left the store that day without seed but thinking to myself, there are some things that grow in winter. Several years ago, a friend sent me a book with Samuel Rutherford’s famous quip, “I see grace groweth best in winter.” Grace grows in winter, but what does that mean?
Life has ebbs and flows or seasons of summer and winter. Yes, there are transitions like spring and fall but they are just that, transitions. We are either moving into winter or out of it and into summer. These are the seasons of life. Some winters are hard. Some are harder than others. But God gives us winters in order that grace might grow. For that to happen we need to remain rooted during those months of bitter cold and biting snow. I like the tree analogy because we are prone to wander and seek the summer. A tree is rooted. Paul calls this withstanding and standing.[1] But standing or staying rooted is hard. It means facing the snow rather than turning from it. Not everyone is used to that sort of thing. But if you faint in the winter your strength is small.[2]
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Written by Forrest L. Marion |
Friday, November 26, 2021
Keep in mind that by this time the Jerusalem church probably numbered between fourteen and eighteen thousand. As the church grew, new men were needed to continue doing what the elders had been handling, that is, if the elders were to continue to focus on the Word and prayer. The deacons took up three duties that formerly had been done by the elders: the administration of the church, the resources of the church, and the mercy ministry of the church. The reason deacons are to be ordained is because they perform roles the elders formerly did. One very practical tip Reeder gave to elders and sessions was this: try not to redo the work of the diaconate.

On a beautiful, crisp Saturday in October, Southeast Alabama Presbytery (SEAL) deacons held a half-day conference focused on deacons and their biblical role in the church. Hosted at Eastwood PCA in Montgomery – strategically, on a “bye” week for Auburn football – about 40 men attended, mostly deacons from several Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) churches plus several teaching elders (TE) and ruling elders (RE). The conference organizer, Montgomery attorney and Eastwood deacon Samuel McLure opened the event by remarking that, as far as anyone knew, this was the first-ever SEAL presbytery gathering to focus on deacons and their role.
Mr. McLure provided handouts of an 1859 article in The Southern Presbyterian Review by the Rev. James B. Ramsay that addressed “The Deaconship.” One of Ramsay’s excellent thoughts was, “A man cannot be a Christian without seeking to assist, comfort and elevate, all that are Christ’s, to the extent of their wants and his ability.” The Apostle Paul gave considerable attention to the taking up of collections and their proper distribution to the poor of the churches he ministered to, Ramsay pointed out. The Virginia pastor argued that the deacon “as a distinct officer” is to have charge of that important, “distinct function of the church.”[1]
Following the welcome and introduction, TE Jere Scott Bradshaw of Covenant PCA (Auburn, Ala.), preached a sermon from Acts 6-7 on the life and ministry of Stephen, one of the seven men full-of-the-Spirit and wisdom chosen to serve the Jerusalem church as a deacon, thereby enabling the elders to focus on prayer and the ministry of the Word. Pastor Bradshaw had three main teaching points: the character of the deacon, the confidence of the deacon, and the incompetence of the deacon.
The writer of Acts, the apostle Luke, relates that Stephen’s character was marked by grace and power, wisdom and evidence of the Spirit, and tenacity in the message of grace in Jesus Christ. Stephen’s confidence was reflected in his message, “one of the greatest speeches in the history of the world,” as Bradshaw said. Stephen emphasized to his audience that God was not confined to Israel. But the problem his audience faced was not one of the distribution of bread or of church resources; rather, it was the defilement of sin. His audience needed a new creation, a new birth, a new LORD, a new witness. Stephen courageously pointed them toward Jesus Christ, the one who fulfills all that the scriptures had led God’s covenant people to anticipate. Yet Stephen was unable to bring about their change of heart. Pastor Bradshaw observed that, like the elder, the deacon is utterly incapable of bringing about change in another’s heart; only the True Deacon, Jesus Christ, is competent to change the heart. Connecting with the biblical account of Stephen’s death, Bradshaw reminded the men that it was this True Deacon who changed the murderous Saul into the Apostle Paul.
Pastor Bradshaw continued, “Dear brother, you will be utterly incompetent in your service as a deacon.” Your service often will go unnoticed; it will receive unmerited criticism; it will be ineffective in bringing about lasting change in people. “And, beloved, this is the joy of being an officer in the church” (both elder and deacon). Because we, as mere men, are unable to produce transformation – neither in ourselves nor others – we must look to Jesus Christ. Deacons must live for the approval of only one voice . . . the Glorious God, who says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. . . .” Jere Scott Bradshaw closed with these words to deacons: “May you rest and work in the power of the Holy Spirit as you manifest the gospel of grace in acts of mercy.” “Then,” added Bradshaw, “you will truly be serving ‘with much advantage.’”
Bradshaw’s closing remarks played into the title and theme of the conference, taken from the PCA’s Book of Church Order, section 9-6: “The deacons may, with much advantage, hold conference from time to time for the discussion of the interests committed to them” (emphasis added).
Following the sermon, the group watched a recorded interview that Sam McLure had conducted with Pastor Harry Reeder of Briarwood PCA (Birmingham, Ala.), specifically for this conference. Pastor Reeder encouraged the men to be concerned with “church health” rather than “church growth.” Normally, a healthy church will also grow numerically. In some churches, however, he noted, the pastor is doing the work of the elders, the elders are doing the work of the deacons, and the deacons are “just doing some work.” Focusing on Acts 6, he suggested the partiality of the elders toward the Hebrew widows at the expense of Gentile widows was “functional but not spiritual” partiality, or prejudice. The earliest elders at Jerusalem were ethnic Jews and so, by virtue of prior relationships and traditional networking in today’s parlance, they easily were aware of the needs of the Jewish widows in their midst to a degree that could not be duplicated among the Gentiles. Keep in mind that by this time the Jerusalem church probably numbered between fourteen and eighteen thousand. As the church grew, new men were needed to continue doing what the elders had been handling, that is, if the elders were to continue to focus on the Word and prayer. The deacons took up three duties that formerly had been done by the elders: the administration of the church, the resources of the church, and the mercy ministry of the church. The reason deacons are to be ordained is because they perform roles the elders formerly did. One very practical tip Reeder gave to elders and sessions was this: try not to redo the work of the diaconate. Enough said.
Following Harry Reeder’s talk and a short break, Eastwood’s diaconate chairman, Brian DeHuff, spoke on the duties of the deacon. “The work of a deacon is sacrificial,” he observed, and if they don’t do their job then the elders will have to pick up the slack. In the imagery with which Alabamians so easily relate, the deacons are “the offensive line for elders” in the church. Deacon DeHuff went on to discuss several duties of deacons today, including collecting and distributing the resources of the church, promoting the members’ giving and stewardship, the care of widows and orphans, maintaining the buildings and grounds as well as the church’s financial and budget records, and preparing the sanctuary for worship. He encouraged deacons to look for opportunities to secure other men in the church with gifts or qualifications in certain areas to assist in ministry. Men with carpentry or other home skills might assist in repairs for a widow. A CPA might help with financial counseling of a member in debt, and so on. An insightful observation he gave the men was this: God looks at giving in terms of how much we keep back. The poor widow in the gospels who kept nothing back was the one who gave the most from Christ’s perspective. “Our wealth is meant to be shared with those who have need,” DeHuff said, and, “One of the cures for greed is generosity.” The best deacons are “do-ers” and “pray-ers.”
Following Brian DeHuff’s talk, the men enjoyed a lunch and fellowship time before wrapping up, and were done by one-thirty in the afternoon. The 5-hour conference was instructive, encouraging, insightful, practical, and cheerful. We recommend other churches and presbyteries consider doing a deacons’ conference of their own. To that end, we note the conference website, WithMuchAdvantage.com, created to encourage deacons to zealously and faithfully own their domain.
Forrest Marion is a ruling elder in Eastwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Montgomery, Ala.
[1] James B. Ramsay, “The Deaconship,” The Southern Presbyterian Review, vol. 12, no. 1 (Apr. 1859): 1-24.