1977. James Daane’s
The Freedom of God: A Review.
Presbyterion, 3(1), 37–45.
* Dr. Clark is professor of philosophy, Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. He is also an ordained minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod.
In his book, The Freedom of God, James Daane sets out to discover the reason for so little preaching on election even in Reformed churches. He wonders "whether the pulpit or the doctrine is at fault" (p. 6). His preliminary conclusion is that (1) Reformed theologians have differed among themselves "profoundly and deeply"; Therefore, they have stopped preaching it for the sake of peace. And (2) as the doctrine was more and more refined, "election became unpreachable."
Since Daane begins and ends his book on the theme of preachability, and since through the middle of the book the same theme frequently reappears, it is wise to consider from the outset what the criteria of preachability are. Are the criteria that Daane uses derive from the Scriptures, or are they his own invention, or does he give any criteria at all? Surely if one is going to distinguish doctrines on the basis of preachability, one ought to know what preachability is.
It is immediately clear, however, in the Introduction that Daane considers Turretin, whom he dislikes throughout the book, to have so refined the doctrine of election as to have made it all encompassing but "as bearing no particular relationship to what Paul designates as God's intent." This is rather suspicious for an introduction.
Since the first chapter is entitled "The Sum and Substance of the Gospel," one may expect a statement that includes the main ideas of election. An author writing on a given subject is not bound to list every element of the gospel, but must he not give a fair account of that part of the gospel he has chosen to discuss through the book? This chapter then is taken as a fairly complete account of what Daane means by election. The subject of Peter's sermon at Pentecost, Daane begins, and the burden of all the mockery as Christ hung on the cross was God's election of Jesus. The Jews at the cross "rejected Jesus' claim to divine election." Repeated references to God's election of Jesus follow, for example, "The resurrection was God's elective act, the act that constituted his election of the man, Jesus of Nazareth.... God made him to be both Lord and Christ. This occurred at the resurrection. The election of Jesus is no abstract, timeless, non-historical truth, which the resurrection simply revealed as an eternal truth heretofore concealed. Jesus had to become God's elect (pp. 10, 11).
Peculiarities emerge in this first chapter. Doubtless in some sense the Father elected or chose the second Person of the Trinity in the covenant of redemption; this was in eternity and was not historical at all. Yet there seems to be nothing in the Bible that speaks of this as election. The Biblical doctrine of election has to do with God's choice of a certain set of people whom he gave to his Son that he might save them. The resurrection was not God's elective act. Jesus had been chosen to be the Messiah long before the crucifixion or the resurrection; he had been chosen before the foundation of the world. Jesus did not become Lord and Christ at the resurrection. He might have become the Messiah at his birth, but he had always been Lord from eternity. The resurrection did precisely what Daane says it did not do, namely, it declared or made clear that Jesus was indeed the Son of God with power.
By substituting the election of Jesus for the election of certain group of sinners, Daane fails to give the sum and substance of the gospel in "The Sum and Substance of the Gospel."
Presumably Daane thinks that his doctrine of election is preachable but that the doctrine of election as regularly held by the Reformed churches is not preachable. In chapter four, "The Gap Between Election and Preaching," he writes: "Election indeed lends itself to lectures and theological reflection; but it appears impossible to preach - except to those identified as elect by some method that preaching itself does not possess.... The Bible does not teach and the pulpit cannot preach an irreversible judgment as an article of faith" (pp. 19-20).
These assertions are hard to digest. Since it is impossible for any evangelist to identify who are the elect in a large and motley assembly, Daane sets an impossible standard to suit himself. But just why it is impossible to preach election to a motley assembly he does not explain. In fact, if the practice of many evangelists is taken into account, it is plainly false that the pulpit cannot preach an irreversible judgment as an article of faith. This is precisely one of the liberal objection to evangelists who preach hell fire.
On the first page of chapter three, "The Sources of the Gap" between election and preaching, he begins a sentence as follows: "If election is for the elect only, whereas the gospel is to be proclaimed to all men..." (p. 34). Not to repeat the point that the preaching of election is not for the elect only, who are identified before the service begins, it should be further added that the separation between election and the gospel is unbiblical. Election is part of the gospel. Paul preached the whole counsel of God. Admittedly different audiences and different times need one theme more than another. We do not on every occasion preach about the Genesis flood, nor do we for years on end preach on the period of the judges. But eventually a faithful ministry will cover all the Biblical material: flood, judges, and predestination too.
The reader, it is true, will find on the same page the statement that "election belongs to the core of the gospel." But this refers to Daane's own idea of election; it does not mean what the Westminster Confession means. Furthermore, Daane shows his dislike for Berkhof, who is rather close to the Westminster doctrine, and he even calls Hoeksema demonic. Yet he admits that their views on election are the standard Reformed position. But when the creeds say that God has foreordained "whatsoever comes to pass" - a phrase for which he expresses dislike several times in the book - he dismisses the creeds as "scholastic" and even as "medieval scholasticism." Now whether the seventeenth century is to be included in the Middle Ages or not, the doctrine of the Westminster Confession is scriptural. The Scripture says, "[God] has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires" (Rom. 9:18).
There are sections in Daane's book that are hard to criticize, not because it is difficult to find something in them to object to, but because the whole is so completely incredible. For example, Daane rejects predestination because it conflicts with history. He seems to assume that only the end event is predestined and not the historical events leading up to the end. "If every event," he says, "is itself destiny, then nothing moves toward a destiny and nothing comes to pass in the historical sense" (p. 44). Predestination does not mean that each event is by itself the final "destiny." It is predestined, but it is not the end of history. As predestined, it is a part of a series of events that advance toward a climax. Therefore, there is no inconsistency between predestination and events coming to pass in an historical sense. How could anyone be confused on such an obvious point? However, seeing this non-existent contradiction in the standard doctrine, Daane tries to avoid it by introducing the "freedom" of God. What he means by divine freedom becomes somewhat clearer as the book continues; but in the early part of his book he is not explicit, for example, "the truth lies in that the freedom of God by which he decided to go historical" (p. 49).
The alleged antithesis between predestination and history seems to be due to the idea that God's decree is single. Reformed theology, in Daane's opinion, not only asserts that God's decree is one, but it even makes this unity a controlling principle. To support this view of Reformed theology, Daane cites Berkhof and (especially, and at length) Francis Turretin. The difficulty in this view is that, according to Daane, man cannot think of God's decree as simple. By reason of human finitude we always divide the decree into parts, such as the creation, the fall, and so on. This undermines the Reformed system. Daane argues as follows: "Since God is a simple being [according to the Reformed system]... the divine decree must also be a simple, single act. The decretive act therefore is not composed of individual resolves, separable items, distinguishable moments.... When filtered through human reflection, the single decree is fractured into diverse items..." (p. 52).
The confusion is apparent. God's decree is one act, no doubt, but this one act, this single decreeing, includes the complexity of the divine mind. There are of course diverse items, distinguishable from one another: the flood, the call of Abraham, the anointing of David, and so on. In this sense the decree is manifold. Leibniz would have described it as beautiful because it united the greatest degree of unity. Daane's trouble is a confusion of the act, which is one, with the complexity of its contents. Nor is this diversity the regrettable infirmity of human limitations. Daane writes: "If the single decree is such that the distinctions finite minds inevitably make... do in fact characterize it, a number of things follow. First, election and reprobation, although they appear distinguishable to our finite mind, are in reality indistinguishable.... All created reality and history is one single, undefinable, indistinguishable datum..." (p. 53, 54). But whoever held that God cannot distinguish between Abraham and David, between Peter and Judas? Rather do Reformed theologians assert that these differences are established by God himself. Why a single act of decreeing cannot encompass millions of objects Daane nowhere explains.
Chapter five, "History, Eschatology, and God's Repentance," assures the readers that "the gospel was not always true." The reason for this is Daane's dependence on Aristotle. Aristotle held that truth is the assertion of what is. Events that will occur tomorrow are not real. Therefore a statement that it will rain tomorrow cannot possibly be true until tomorrow. Propositions in the future tense become true when the event in question happens. To this argument is may be replied that the statement, "Only by faith can sinners be justified," is an eternal truth. It was true even before Adam fell. And if a general principle, rather than an historical event, does not satisfy the discerning reader, one may consider the proposition, "Christ died." This is surely a dated, historical event. If we place ourselves in Old Testament times, "Christ will die" was true and was true from eternity, because Christ was crucified from the foundation of the world. Hence, contrary to our author, the gospel has always been true. A further logical difficulty with his position is that if a proposition in the future tense is not true, it cannot be used in a syllogism. But we are all content to say, "If it rains tomorrow, I shall stay home." Christians can also say, "If the gospel is preached throughout the world, some will be saved." This inference would be impossible on Daane's view of truth. What is worse, or at least what is more obviously unscriptural, Daane argues: "In his freedom God decreed. As an unnecessary decree, as a decree that bears the pedigree of the historical, it might not have been" (p. 77). This means, does it not, that the truth, "Judas betrayed Christ," might never have become true? And though Christ was slain from the foundation of the world, historically Jesus might not have been crucified.
In chapter six, "The Election of Israel," Daane offers a substitute for the Biblical doctrine of individual election to salvation. "The first case of election in the Bible," he says, "is God's election of the nation of Israel (p. 99). No verse is quoted, and one naturally thinks of God's choosing Abraham, selecting him out of the other pagans in Ur and sending him on a long journey. Noah was also selected. How is it then that anyone can say that the first case of election is that of the nation of Israel? It is no wonder that "this light from the Old Testament has largely been ignored by all those ecclesiastical traditions which have formed a doctrine of individual election." We shall continue to ignore this light, for this light is darkness. Daane continues, "By approaching election in the first form in which it was historically actualized, we can protect ourselves against an individualistic distortion of election..." (. 100).
But once again, how can anyone think that the first historical actualization of election was the nation of Israel, when Noah lived many centuries earlier? Of course Daane has heard of Abraham: "In choosing Abraham God does not choose a single individual; his election includes the election of his seed." This does not dispose of the cases of Noah and Enoch, nor does it do justice to the case of Abraham. God did indeed choose the single individual Abraham, and he did not choose the others in Ur. Then further, though he chose Abraham's seed, God did not elect Ishmael, but Isaac only. And in the case of Isaac, God chose the individual Jacob and not the individual Esau.
Of course Israel was the chosen nation. As a nation it preserved the worship of Jehovah and prepared for the Messiah. But the election of the nation to play this role is not the individual election of every member to salvation. The national election is subservient to individual election. Salvation is the main concern. Salvation is the most important point in Genesis 15. Even in Genesis twelve, where nation and seed are explicit, there are altars. To suppose that the blessings mentioned in these verses are merely earthly blessings of a posterity and a nation is to misunderstand the whole matter. If such were the case, why should Christians today be at all interested in Abraham? The most important thing is the election of individuals to eternal salvation. One must reject as untenable the statement: "The Bible knows nothing of an individualistic doctrine of election; it knows only of a divine election that involves both the father and son and his seed.... The Bible knows nothing of an individual election with a direct reference to eternity.... As there are no more individuals like Melchizedek, without father and mother, so there is no individual election that is not also social corporate election" (p. 114).
For one thing, the case of Melchizedek itself disprove the general statement that the Bible knows nothing about individual election. Further, Rahab was individually elected. True, she later joined the nation of Israel, and with her household too; but these later events were dependent on her prior personal election. Then what about the many Gentiles whose fathers were not Christians and whose children were not? Of course these elect persons became members of the organized church. But they are members of the organization because they were individually elected. No one denies that Christians have social responsibilities; but the basis it hat first of all they are Christians. Indeed, one is repelled by Daane's slighting reference to "this narrow interest in the individual's salvation" (p. 116; emphasis supplied).
A previous paragraph indicated that Daane speaks of the freedom of God. This theme becomes more prominent in chapters seven and nine. Though it may at first be difficult to see what Daane meant by freedom, it soon becomes clear that he does not mean freedom from external control. No doubt God is free from external control, but for Daane this is by no means sufficient for the doctrine of God. Therefore, one must consider the following passages: "A God who cannot elect without reprobating nations or individuals is not a free and sovereign God" (p. 127). "It is as erroneous to impose inevitable sequences on God's elective action as it is to condition it on man's choice" (pp. 127-29). "Within decretal theology, God's elective ways are so comprehensively searched out and scrutinized that the very necessity of election and grace is seen as grounded in the rational nature of God" (p. 148).
The first of these quotations can be paraphrased by saying, "A God who cannot toss a coin heads without tails being on the under side is not a free and sovereign God." To elect some only, as the Scriptures plainly teach, is ipso facto not to choose certain others. Would freedom allow God to elect some only and also to elect all? This is a freedom to think irrationally. Is God free to create a stone too heavy for him to lift? The question is constructed of a self-contradiction. It is nonsense. Must we defend the sovereignty of God by ascribing nonsense to him? Similarly, the second passage quoted in the preceding paragraph is an assertion that God is irrational. Whatever logical consequences may be deduced from God's elective action are as inevitable as their premises. The Westminster Confession, to which Daane of course does not subscribe, says that "the whole counsel of God... is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture." Thus the Confession rejects Daane's demand that we accept certain premises and simultaneously repudiate the conclusions validly deduced from them. In the present century many religious persons wish to curb their logic by their faith, as Emil Brunner recommends. They define a triangle as a three-sided plan figure and complain that the Pythagorean theorem is inconsistent with the sovereign freedom of God. Like Kierkegaard they make a belief in contradiction the prerequisite of being a Christian.
Possibly Daane might answer that the above ignores the subject of reprobation. Reprobation, however, is but one instance where an author must choose between rationality and irrationality. The principle of logical consistency admits of no exception. He who offends in one points can equally offend in any other. Nevertheless a mention of reprobation is appropriate.
A dozen times Daane quotes the Canons of Dort to the effect that the decree of election and the decree of reprobation are not accomplished "in the same manner." This is a vague phrase and neither Daane nor the Canons of Dort define it. Whatever may be Daane's esoteric sense of the phrase, it is possible, and even likely, that the men of Dort had something in mind that would not satisfy Daane's intentions. For example, they might have meant that election to salvation is based on the merits of Christ and that reprobation is based on the sins of the person reprobated. This satisfies the phrase "non in the same manner," but not Daane's argument. Therefore, it is not true to say that "the rejection of the 'in the same manner' causes decretal theology no end of trouble" (p. 150). Equally untrue is the following assertion: "Election in biblical thought is never a selection, a taking of this and a rejection of that out of multiple realities." And immediately he confounds his readers by mentioning God's election of Abraham rather than some other person in Ur of Chaldees.
Chapter nine, "The Freedom of God and the Logic of Election," is probably the worst in the book. It is chiefly a diatribe against theologians. "Many distinguished theologians rarely sit in the pew, and even less often occupy the pulpit" (p. 152). What is the evidence for this assertion? Does it apply to the theologians of the Westminster of perhaps of Dort? Even if it did, the argument is a non sequitur. Why must Daane assume that the most careful students of Scripture are the least to be trusted? Daane in particular dislikes Turretin. But to say that he and others who hold that God is rational had their roots in Aristotle is forced; it is also ironical because Daane takes his theory of propositions in the future tense directly from that ancient Peripatetic. Nor can one agree that the name Aristotle have to his God was the Absolute (p. 153). Again, "Aristotle's God was not a person," needs qualification. It does not fit in with Metaphysics, Book Lambda. Aristotle in this place asserts that a human being can for short periods of time experience the same type of thought that God always experiences. This seems to presuppose that God is a personal being who thinks.
To return now to matters more immediately theological, Daane in several ways argues that the decretal theologians asserts a simplicity in the divine decree that allows no distinction between creation and the fall, or the fall and Christ's crucifixion. This strain in Daane's thinking was alluded to before. One asks, which decretal theologian holds that creation cannot be distinguished from the crucifixion?
If now one admits that Daane's historical sense is poor but believes that the logic of the situation supports him, we repeat that there is no reason to deny that a single act of decreeing can include several distinct items. But beyond this repetition a rational critic must maintain that God need not be irrational to be free. "Van Til holds that God is exhaustively rational. He is therefore obliged to make God's will an unfree agent of divine rationality" (p. 157). But this is to say that if God is free, he must be irrational. Anything rational is unfree. So also with Turretin: "God's will [in Turretin] is so identified with his essence that the former [God's will] is not free to will anything but that which the latter demands" (p. 159). In other words, Daane demands that God be free from rationality. This means that God must be insane. A few pages further on (164-70) Daane several times speaks of God's going out of himself. But if God goes out of himself, he must be beside himself, as is proper to an irrational mind.
Admittedly, Daane does not want to call God insane. Indeed he says: "God is rational, not irrational. But this is not to say he is exhaustively rational" (p. 161; emphasis his). He had also just said: "Once God is defined as exhaustively rational, no room is left for his will and freedom." But what can this mean but that some parts of God's mind are irrational. Most of God's mind may be rational, but in the recesses of his will reason does not rule. Then as a sort of punch line, he adds: "God's will is no less definitive of God than is his essence." This and similar phrases surely imply that Daane thinks of God's essence as one thing and his will as something else added to it. Such a concept suggests several questions: (1) is God a compound, or is he a simple being? (2) Is it not of the essence of God to have a will? (3) Is divine psychology a faculty psychology? (4) What is the essence the essence of? Could it not be the essence of his will? Or, to repeat early Reformers, God's will is simply God's willing. The difficulties increase. They are exemplified in Daane's statement: "God is free to exist without a decree as well as without a world" (p. 162). This means that God's freedom consists in his having, or his ability to have, a mind without mental content; he is free to exist without ideas, without knowledge, without purpose. Verbally Daane rejects irrationalism. But either he does not see the implications here put forward or he sees them and denies that they are validly drawn. But whether they are validly drawn or whether they are fallacious is precisely the question every reader must settle for himself. To the present writer, the freedom Daane describes seems to be the freedom of a blank mind. And in opposition to Daane, Turretin, his bete noire, was surely correct when he said that the cross must be for "those reprobates who arranged for Christ's crucifixion... the means of damnation."
One must face the question, being the kind of God he is, could God have decided against Christ's being crucified before the foundation of the world? Presumably Daane says yes. But then Daane's God is not really the God whom the Bible presents. Omniscience makes Daane's God impossible.
On page 162 we read, "God's creation of the world as his free act is not contrary to rationality, but something other than his rationality requires." On the following page he continues: "Either alternative would accord with his nature." But this statement is something neither Daane nor anyone else can possibly know. Admittedly it seems very plausible to most people that God's nature does not require ten planets in the solar system rather than only six. So far as omnipotence is concerned God could have made this system with any number of planets. But though this is so plausible when omnipotence along is considered, the situation is different when we take omniscience into account. Since there is much that is not revealed in Scripture, our ignorance is such that we cannot know that "either alternative accords with his nature." Therefore, unless Daane can support his premise, there is no reason to accept his conclusion.
There is even less reason to accept his conclusion in view of the fact that Daane's arguments are frequently fallacious. He says: "When everything is rational, nothing is distinguishable from anything else. In the darkness of rationalism everything is a cow and all cows are black" (p. 163). This is nonsense. Geometry is as rational as anything anyone can think of; but this does not prevent us from distinguishing a circle from a triable. In fact, it is our rationality that enables us to distinguish respectively the theorems describing their diverse characteristics. And surely rationality does not confuse a school boy's mistake with a formally valid deduction.
There is more bad logic. "In decretal theology... whatever happens is ipso facto what God wills. No purpose runs through the stream of events" (p. 169). To be sure, God decrees whatsoever comes to pass - a phrase Daane detests - but how does this exclude purpose in whatsoever comes to pass? God decrees each event for the purpose of exhibiting his own glory; and in subsidiary details God decreed that Abraham should have no ground for boasting. A further purpose of justification is the sanctification that inevitably follows. Naturally the subject matter of geometry is no teleological; but rationality and syllogisms handle teleological subject matter just as easily. Under given conditions, it is rational to choose one line of action and irrational to choose another. Reason dictates the correct choice. Hence there is no ground for saying that decretal theology excludes purpose.
Daane does not and cannot produce one verse which asserts that a particular event was not foreordained. His rejection of the phrase, "whatsoever comes to pass," is an imposition of an alien philosophy on the Scriptures, and the result is a serious distortion. Nor is there a valid point in repeating that predestination in the Bible is in Christ, as if decretal theology had ever excluded the second Person of the Trinity from the divine decreeing. Is it simply not true to say, "Individual election... is regarded [by decretal theology] as an occurrence outside Jesus Christ.... Individual election occurs outside of Christ because God's decree itself does" (p. 179). On the contrary, the Trinity made the decree, all three Persons; and the Trinity decreed that salvation should take place through Christ's sacrifice. Why should anyone insinuate that decretal theologians ever denied this? Note the men he opposes: Turretin, Benjamin Warfield, Abraham Kuyper, Lorraine Boettner, Louis Berkhof. The mention of these excellent theologians shows that the view Daane opposes is the standard view of the Reformed churches. It is also the view of the Bible.
