Links to all parts may be found here. This part will contain a review and evaluation of Mr. Lazar's Appendix in his book, Scripturalism and the Senses.
The doctrine of assurance serves as an appendix to Mr. Lazar's book on [Neo-]Scripturalism. In it, he seeks to outline and improve Clark's understanding. Serving as background to this post is my interaction with Mr. Lazar comments on whether Clark affirmed any synergism in a salvific context as well as how might the nature of saving faith be influenced by such a consideration (link, specifically the following):
...justification and [progressive] sanctification depend on faith, something we do indeed "do" (Acts 16:30-31). God alone indeed declares a man righteous in Christ - and in this sense, justification can be viewed as monergistic. But because justification in turn depends on saving faith, and because saving faith is something we "do," God's monergistic declaration depends on a synergistic cooperation. Of course, having faith is something we can "do" solely by God's grace, but this is besides the point.
Or to put things another way, we are, as Robbins says, sanctified by the truth, but not by a passive experience of truth. A reprobate can hear truth without it sanctifying him. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 shows that it is our belief in the truth through which we are saved, and actual belief is a volitional activity or act of will, as Clark argued (link). Thus, the point is that even on Robbins' view, a proper understanding of synergistic cooperation is involved in our "salvation" (link).
Incidentally, I think this admission enables admirers of Clark to revisit his view of the nature of saving faith. Once it is admitted that all sides agree saving faith is an obedience to the gospel - not that it is itself our merit or ground for justification (link) - there is less worry about what additional element (e.g. "trust" or "dependence") saving faith might include besides understanding and assent, so long as said element is also not taken to be merit or ground for justification. But I have attempted this elsewhere (link, link) and will look to reexamine such things in my final review of Mr. Lazar's book.
Introductory Notes on Assurance [of Salvation]
On Mr. Lazar’s position, “Assurance may be thought of as the conclusion to a simple deductive syllogism where we are first presented with Jesus’ promise of life and are expected to deduce the appropriate conclusion.” Using a discussion between Jesus and Martha as an illustration, the syllogism Mr. Lazar presents according to which he believes one may possess assurance is as follows:
P1: Whoever believes in Jesus has everlasting life.
P2: I believe [in Jesus].
C: Therefore, I have everlasting life.
Here, I agree with Mr. Lazar. We can "have assurance" - i.e. "know," in the fullest sense possible (
link) - that we are saved. While I will expound on this below, for now, I will point out that at one point in his life (at least), Clark agreed with this as well:
It is good to know you are saved. But if we depend on our feelings for this knowledge, our assurance cannot be very constant. On the other hand, it will be both constant and unshakable if we obtain that knowledge through some such syllogism as this: The infallible Word says that if I confess the Lord Jesus and believe God raised him from the dead, I shall be saved; I believe and have confessed; Ergo, I am saved. (1925. Gnosticism and Modernism, The Presbyterian & Herald and Presbyterian, Philadelphia, Sept 17, link)
On the other hand, Greg Bahnsen relates the following anecdote regarding a lunch he had with Clark in which self-knowledge and the doctrine of assurance were discussed:
If you follow Gordon Clark's epistemology all the way out here, none of us can know that we're saved. I had lunch with Gordon Clark once. I have met him on more than one occasion - not many - but I did have the privilege of having one long, afternoon lunch with him, and being able to discuss epistemology and discuss our differences, and I brought this up to him. Even to this day I'm a bit shaken that a Presbyterian minister would answer in the way that he did.
I said, "Well, now, if I understand you correctly, Dr. Clark, we can only know the things which are found in the Bible. And - well we've already talked about how we can't know what's the Bible without using your observational abilities, but forgetting that for a minute - can I know, or can you, Gordon Clark, know that you are saved? Because the proposition "Gordon Clark is saved" is not something you can read in the Bible. That right?"
For Gordon Clark to know that he's saved or for Greg Bahnsen to know that he's saved or for Cornelius Van Til to know that he's saved, we need to read what the Bible says about salvation, the conditions of salvation, and then observe of our lives that we meet those conditions.
I said, "Since you can't read 'Gordon Clark is saved' in the Bible, you can't know that you're saved." And so I figure, you know, in debate, that's known as a reductio ad absurdem. I've reduced you to something that even you would call absurd. But a reductio ad absurdem only works when the person thinks it's absurd. And Clark said, "Well, which of us can know that we're saved?"
At first I thought he was toying with me... and maybe he was. I mean, it would be easier, even at this point - even though there's no indication of it - I'd still like to believe he was just saying that with a wink in his eye, and it's like, "I don't have an answer, leave me alone." But he insisted on that, because
when I pointed out the confession of faith says that we can have an infallible assurance of our salvation, his answer was, "the Confession's not always right." (
link, minute 49ff.)
It seems clear that Clark struggled to harmonize self-knowledge with Scripturalism. Bahnsen is correct that assurance is tied to self-knowledge, and he is correct that the Bible does not mention the words "Gordon Clark." It does not follow, however, that Clark himself could not have knowingly affirmed, "I am saved." As I have already discussed self-knowledge several times (see here and follow the relevant links within), I will mostly pass over further comment on this issue. That Clark entertained doubt about his own ability to be assured of his salvation is, however, relevant to the next section.
Must One be Assured to be Saved?
While Mr. Lazar, Clark, and I agree that assurance is possible, is it necessary for one to be saved? Can anyone be saved even if they are not assured?
In a footnote in his appendix, Mr. Lazar writes, "Salvation and spiritual maturity are two very different issues. A person can believe in Jesus for eternal life and be regenerate without necessarily being a mature believer with intimate personal knowledge of God." Reading this, one might suspect Mr. Lazar would consider salvation and assurance to be "two very different issues" - that "a person can believe in Jesus for eternal life and be regenerate without necessarily being" assured of his salvation. Assurance, one might think, would be related to spiritual maturity.
Surprisingly and to the contrary, Mr. Lazar would part ways with Clark and myself, as he argues no fewer than three times that "assurance is the essence of saving faith." He writes:
Assurance is the essence of saving faith because Jesus promised that everlasting life was the present possession of all believers, so if you believe that promise, you must necessarily believe you have everlasting life as a present possession. If you do not have assurance, you either do not understand Jesus’ promise of everlasting life, or you do not believe it.
He further says, "If you have never been sure of your salvation, that means you have never believed Jesus' promise of life, which is the saving message." Finally and most pertinently, he argues:
If you believe the proposition, "Whoever believes in Jesus has everlasting life," then you must conclude, "I have everlasting life," because that is what Jesus promised to believers. The Lord's promise is in the subjunctive. If you meet the condition, then it become true of you. Hence, if you believe that John 3:16 promise, and you fail to draw the conclusion that you have eternal life, you either do not understand Jesus' promise, or do not believe it.
I have highlighted in bold the statements Mr. Lazar makes which I find problematic. Returning to Mr. Lazar's syllogism presented above, let us assume it is logically valid and sound. Even so, Mr. Lazar appears to be conflating the
logic of the syllogism with the
psychology of persons to whom the syllogism is presented.
That is, Mr. Lazar acts as though if you believe P1 and P2, "you must necessarily believe" or "you must conclude" his given conclusion to the syllogism.
This is false. While you should logically believe the conclusion if you believe P1 and P2, it is not psychologically impossible for you to disbelieve the conclusion. Does Mr. Lazar think people always reason with logical validity? If not, is there some reason he might think people always reason with logical validity regarding
this syllogism?
Surely not, for Mr. Lazar himself admits it is possible for one to "believe that John 3:16 promise" yet "fail to draw the conclusion" that one has eternal life. But if one believes the John 3:16 promise, one is saved and has eternal life, period. It is not relevant to one's salvation whether one correctly deduces his own salvation. One may not
know the conclusion - "I have everlasting life" - yet nevertheless
have eternal life.
Indeed, if we read Mr. Lazar closely, he understates his own position. Reread the following: "If you have
never been sure of your salvation, that means you have never believed Jesus' promise of life, which is the saving message." Should not Mr. Lazar more frankly say, "If you
are unsure of your salvation, that means you have never believed Jesus' promise of life, which is the saving message"? For Mr. Lazar, one must be
presently sure of one's salvation; if assurance if the essence of saving faith, it is not sufficient for one merely to have been sure of it at some point in the past. Would Mr. Lazar argue that Clark was unsaved during his conversation with Bahnsen?
Mr. Lazar would be hard pressed to defend such a position from Scripture. How would Mr. Lazar explain the father who cried, "I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)? The father clearly believed
something. Rather, it was the
logical implications of his belief he struggled to believe.
Or how would Mr. Lazar account for Peter's fear leading him to sink in terms other than, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt? (Matthew 14:29-31)? For while he sank, Peter still cried out to the Lord to save him, which Christ did.
When Jesus was resurrected and asked his frightened disciples, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?" (Luke 24:38), does Mr. Lazar think that the disciples were, at this time, unsaved? In each of these examples, saving faith and doubt do not appear to be mutually exclusive. Therefore, when Jude calls us to "have mercy on those who doubt" (Jude 22), does Mr. Lazar think such does not apply to someone who believes both P1 and P2 of this syllogism yet doubts the conclusion?
Or does Mr. Lazar wish to defend that this syllogism is special or, at least, different than the above cases? If so, why is it that Mr. Lazar thinks that one who is saved is never able to doubt his own salvation? If I meet the condition (believe in Jesus) such that the promise applies to me, my doubting this application would not have any bearing unless Mr. Lazar first demonstrated that to "believe in Jesus" precludes being able to doubt.
Antecedent to such a demonstration that this situation is special, however - which Mr. Lazar does not attempt - the presumption should be against it, for Scripture speaks of the possibility and reality of doubt and consistently models mercy. Jesus responds to his disciples' doubts by proclaiming, "Peace to you!" This is pastoral. This is how mature believers with full assurance are to interact with immature believers who are without it (Colossians 4:12).
Frankly, I would humbly recommend that Mr. Lazar [re]read John Bunyan. If this seems a bit harsh, it is because I find his idea that one can never waver from assurance or else be outed as faithless as sadly naïve and as setting dangerous, unrealistic expectations. I also think this position is sectarian. It implies that Arminians, for example, can't be Christians. Since Arminians cannot be consistently assured of salvation (
link), if one were to, as Mr. Lazar does, regard assurance as essential to salvation, one could not regard Arminians (or anyone who affirms libertarian free will) as saved. In fact, on such a view, one could not even regard some Augustinian monergists
as saved, for such monergists also think it possible that some could fall away from the faith due to a withdrawal of divine grace (
link).
Now, these persons (Christians, in my mind) may be assured on false grounds. On their positions, they could fall away tomorrow or even today. On their positions, assurance wouldn't really be possible. Nevertheless, I submit, like Clark did, that they may be saved in spite of their inconsistency:
If God did not intend to complete that good work in us, it would not be completed. And if there were the slightest possibility that it would not be completed, we could not have the comfort of assurance. That is to say, as the "perseverance of the saints depends not on their own free will, but upon the immutability of the decree of election," so assurance of salvation presupposes the perseverance of the saints.
An Arminian may be a truly regenerate Christian; in fact, if he is truly an Arminian and not a Pelagian who happens to belong to an Arminian church, he must be a saved man. But he is not usually, and cannot consistently be assured of his salvation (link)
All the more does this make sense when we consider that many Scriptures are designed to assure believers. If Scripture is written for that purpose, it implies some believers may not yet be assured. Clark writes:
False assurance is a common thing.
Yet it is possible to have a true assurance and rejoice in a hope that will not disappoint. The Scriptures say it is possible and urge us to that state. John wrote his first epistle especially to teach us this lesson.
To begin to distinguish between presumption and true assurance, one may begin by noting the title of the chapter - Assurance and Grace. The unregenerate are not assured of grace: they believe that they are good enough to deserve heaven. But the assurance spoken of in the Confession is a result of faith in Jesus Christ. It is an assurance that can be found only in those who love him in sincerity and who endeavor to walk in all good conscience before him...
I John 2:3; 3:14, 19, 24, and 5:13 tell us how we may obtain assurance of salvation. Do we love the brethren? Are we humble or proud? Cf. I Cor. 15:9, 10; Gal. 6:14. Do we teach transgressors the way of the Lord? Cf. Ps. 51:12, 13; II Pet. 1:5...
On the other hand we must not say that assurance is a necessary and inseparable concomitant of faith. Some overly enthusiastic evangelists insist that unless a man is sure he is saved, he is not saved at all...
If assurance were a necessary concomitant of faith, the Scriptures would not exhort the faithful to press on to assurance. But the Scripture references contain such exhortations. (What Do Presbyterians Believe? 2001, pgs. 176, 178-179)
When Peter lists and exhorts his readers to exhibit spiritual qualities that supplement saving faith, he continues that we should do so, "For
whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he
is blind,
having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers,
be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall."
If assurance is already essential to saving faith, as Mr. Lazar thinks, it should be impossible that a believer could have "forgotten he was cleansed from former sins." As Clark notes (see above), it should be impossible for one to be diligent to confirm one's calling and election if saving faith itself requires that one already has such confirmation.
Finally, if Lazar sins as a regenerate, then he should understand why assurance isn't essential. Illogical thinking is indeed sinful, and I would hope Mr. Lazar would admit that even as believers in Christ, he, Clark, and I have all sinned in this respect. While regrettable, we are blessed that God does not hinge our salvation upon our being able to continuously deduce and affirm a specific conclusion from a syllogism such as Mr. Lazar's. Belief in Christ is all that is necessary for salvation:
In general, one must be extremely cautious, not merely in asserting that faith and assurance are inseparable, but in making any universal statement of the psychology of Christians. The New Testament records a number of conversions, and psychologically they were all different, in fact very different. The New Testament and church history as well give abundant evidence of the infinite variety of Christian experience...
Assurance of salvation, like other blessings, does not come to all Christians...
What is the same is the object of our faith, and this object is the same yesterday, today, and forever. (What Do Presbyterians Believe? 2001, pg. 179)
What, then, is Saving Faith?
The above discussion about P1, "belief in Christ," and allusions to psychology beg the question as to what the nature of belief or faith is. In some ways, Mr. Lazar correctly summarizes Clark's view. For example, I agree with Clark that given our different, individual backgrounds, one who is saved may and should be - but not necessarily will be - assured of his salvation. Assurance can be inhibited by experiential factors that play a part in causing us to believe or disbelieve propositions. This point on the causal factors of belief formation return us to the distinction between logic and psychology.
When Peter commanded believers to confirm their calling and election (2 Peter 1:10), conceivably, this was to prevent scenarios such as those Peter himself experienced. When Peter was obeying Christ's command to walk on water towards Him, Peter did fine until he saw the wind. Then he became afraid, doubted, and began to sink. Had he not seen any wind, would that have happened? Perhaps not. But the point is that some people will experience more challenges to their faith in Christ than others.
Now, the presence of wind, storms, enemies, etc. should not logically shake our faith in He who is Lord over all these things. As we follow God's commands in our walk of progressive sanctification, though, there may be times when such faith is but "little" and we begin to sink. Our experiences might affect our obedience - even (or especially) to the command to confirm our calling and election! In these times, if and when believers will cry out to God, they will be heard and rescued. This often comes with a rebuke - for, again, no experience should cause us to doubt the love of God for those who have been called (Romans 8:28-39) - but the possibility for assurance is always available to those who remember that election is unto perseverance (Philippians 1:6, 2:12-13).
Incidentally, I think this Petrine anecdote serves to explain a question Mr. Lazar had about Clark's defining "assurance and conviction" as "belief, strong belief, voluntary belief, and as intellectual as you please" (Religion, Reason, and Revelation, pg. 100). Faith can be strong or weak, great or little (cf. Westminster Confession 14.3). While he was the weaker brother of Christ, as a believer of even a little faith, Peter did not forget his Lord even as he was sinking.
Mr. Lazar interprets Clark's statement about "strong" belief to be in terms of evidential support. In context, however, Clark goes on in the same paragraph to discuss "heroes of faith, whom... all believed some definite intellectual truths. In these cases, admittedly, their faith was followed by physical action." I think Peter's case is one in which his faith was little or weak, rather than strong, because it was not followed by physical action. Peter faltered in his ability to obey Christ's command to "Come." His fear caused him to doubt. He did not doubt Christ, but he did doubt himself.
So, too, when we falter, we may stray from Peter's own command for us to confirm our calling and election (among failure to obey other commands). Whereas Peter's fear led him astray in terms of a physical command ("Come") by which he was caused to sink in water, our fear may lead us astray in terms of an intellectual command ("confirm your calling and election") by which we may "sink," say, into despair. In both cases, crying out to Christ for strength is the solution.
Hopefully it is not too unnatural to pivot from thoughts about fear, doubt, and assurance to belief and faith, for these are all psychological activities. Having said enough on the matter that assurance does not seem essential to saving faith, what is? Here I find potential for some qualification of Clark's position. Clark equates "faith" with "belief" and defines the latter as follows:
But first it is clear that the Greek verb pisteuo is properly translated believe, and that this Greek verb and the English believe mean precisely the same thing. The important point now is to see what the object of this verb can be. Obviously it can be, and in the Bible usually is, the truth. Of course a person may believe something false; but even so the nature of the psychological act of believing, called faith, is the same, for the man who believes a falsehood believes it to be true...
Put aside questions as to the object or objects believed, recognize that phrases not containing the words voluntary or assent may nonetheless have the same meaning, and realize that the act of belief is psychologically the same no matter what is believed, and it is hard to find a phrase descriptive of belief better than voluntary assent. (link)
Clark is right that "belief" is difficult to define. We may omit for now discussion of the object of belief or faith. Mr. Lazar and Clark are right that object(s) which one understands and to which one assents are propositions. A question will be whether these are the only objects to which "beliefs" and "faith" bear relation, but more on that below.
Firstly, assuming "belief" and "faith" are equivalent - as I will assume, but one may read more about this from Clark in the above link - they can be commanded. While I will not repeat what I have written elsewhere (
link), God commands repentance (Acts 17:30) and belief (1 John 3:23).
Secondly, I believe that a typical worry of Clark (and those who agree with him) is that if anything other than understanding of and assent to true propositions is included in the nature of saving faith, some sort of "works" is smuggled into the picture. I would, of course, deny any conception of saving faith which would suggest such a thing. For example, I've written against the idea that our faith can, as some Roman Catholics hold, function as a meritorious work according to which God reckons us as inherently righteous (
link). The Westminster Confession Larger Catechism also denies this while, at the same time, staking out a clearly anti-Clarkian view of the nature of saving faith:
Q. 72. What is justifying faith?
A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and Word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness, therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation.
Q. 73. How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?
A. Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it, nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for his justification; but only as it is an instrument by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and his righteousness.
At the same time, recall above (and as I've written
elsewhere) that there is a proper, biblical understanding of "synergism." In addition to synergism being involved in sanctification, faith itself - [a component of] which is "assent" - is an act of volition in which man's will is involved. As it is an act of volition, it is, as Clark agrees, an act of obedience:
I regret Calvin, a giant among pygmies, said that assent comes from the heart and not the head. This distinction is unscriptural; the Bible nowhere opposes heart to head, for it does not mention this “head.” Naturally assent comes from the heart because all psychological actions of a person come from the heart. There is nothing else for them to come from.
Aside from this unfortunate slip, Calvin proceeds to say that assent is the obedience of faith. Clearly obedience is a matter of volition. Assent then is an act of will. No pious additions are necessary, for the assent itself is already pious. (Today's Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine? 1990, pg. 83)
Now, while saving faith is an obedience - after all, Scripture says that unbelievers are commanded to obey or believe the gospel, that one must "do" something to be saved (Acts 16:30-31), talks about "the obedience of faith" (Romans 16:26), etc. (cf.
link) - any obedience on our part is not the
ground of our righteousness. The object of our assent is the gospel, and this gospel is about what the Christ in whom we trust has done (by which the Father has grounds to justify believers whose regeneration unto saving faith unites them to Christ). Further, God Himself is the determiner of who is gifted saving faith. While faith entails our activity, any such faith we have in Christ is a response to and first requires God's monergistic, regenerative grace.
That saving faith is obedience does, however, prove a few things: one cannot be doxastic involuntarist about saving faith (
link). Our obedience to God's command to believe does depend on grace, but when we do receive such grace, our obedience in believing is related to our will.
Another point - and one critical to the nature of saving faith and debate surrounding how to define it - is that as faith involves assent to a [set of] proposition[s], psychologically, faith must be distinct from the proposition(s) to which one assents. Assent itself, for example, is not a proposition but rather an act of will. Its object is or are proposition(s). Although inseparable, Clark himself distinguishes between the act of believing and the object believed:
Undoubtedly Christianity requires a subjective, psychological act of believing; but the faith is what is believed. Unless a person believes something, he does not believe. He has no faith. The fundamental difficulty with much modern preaching is that it allows faith no object or content. (link)
Forasmuch as defenders of Clark in particular resist inclusion of any component to the nature of saving faith other than understanding and assent, their motivation would seem to be undercut at precisely this point. After all, while the psychological act of faith is something that can be described with propositions, the act itself cannot be a proposition, for the act is, as Clark says, "subjective."
Let's tease this out: there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with acknowledging, say, that belief or faith in Christ entails a new, non-propositional dependence relation between the believer and God (
link). Neither God nor myself are reducible to propositions (
link), so I don't see anything intrinsically wrong with thinking that the nature of faith captures a non-propositional change in relationship between God and the believer. While this change in relationship can be
described in propositions such as, "we were enemies who are now reconciled" (Romans 5:10), the relationship
itself is no more reducible to a [set of] proposition[s] than are the persons who newly relate.
The more interesting question is whether this "dependence relation" is also something subjective. To put this more clearly, does the above suggest that the believer psychologically depends on God or only that he ontologically/soteriologically depends on God? If only the latter, then we would seem to be speaking of a corollary of or consequent to saving faith, not of faith qua faith. If the former, what is psychological dependence, and how does it differ from understanding and assent?
I think this is where Clark et al. have a point in asking what, for example, people mean by "trust." If trust or dependence is a component of saving faith above and beyond understanding and assent, it must literally refer to some psychological feature compatible with, say, doubt (for faith is, as already mentioned, compatible with doubt of oneself). Metaphors about chairs or whatnot, standard as they are, must mean something literally true. What truth is meant by the statement that we must, in addition to understanding and assenting to the gospel, "trust" [in] God?
Returning to the "dependence relation," perhaps to say "I psychologically depend on or trust [in] God" differs from assent in that the objects of assent are propositions, whereas the object of dependence or trust are not. Just as salvation requires assent to certain propositions about the gospel (see below) but not others (e.g. implications of the gospel message such as that one can have assurance), salvation may require trust in certain persons (the Trinity) but not others (ourselves).
After all, while persons and propositions should be distinguished - neither one being metaphysically reducible to the other (were the disciples terrified or afraid of a [set of] proposition[s] in Mark 6:50?) - one should not wish to so divorce persons from propositions as to suggest that the object of saving faith can only be either in the propositions of the gospel or in the person of Christ. That is a false dichotomy, one which is more readily recognized if "trust" is a distinct psychological act that is, like understanding and assent, of the essence of saving faith. And since Clark's own, stated position is that subjective, psychological acts (like assent) are of the essence of faith, so too may "trust," in this sense, be compatible with Clark's position.
It is, however, an open question as to whether it is possible to have assent in the propositions of the gospel without trust in Christ (or vice versa). Some Reformed writers seem to think that it is possible for assent to be unaccompanied by trust, although it is also sometimes the case these writers are not altogether specific about whether they mean assent to the gospel or assent merely to generally theistic propositions. On the other hand, it has not been my experience that Reformed authors think true "trust" in Christ can be had apart from acceptance of [the propositions of] the gospel. I tend to think each of these distinctly identifiable characteristics of saving faith or belief go hand in hand such that to have one is to have the other, on which see below for more. The only exception in regards to these characteristics of saving faith, of course, would be that a rebel could understand the gospel without either assenting to it or trusting in God.
Finally, just as Clark's understanding of saving faith can be generalized to faith as such, so too could this understanding of truth be generalized. Saving faith is a species of faith. Saving faith has to do with understanding and assenting to certain propositions - and, ex hypothesi, in trusting certain persons, e.g. the Trinity or evangelists. Faith in general has to do with understanding and assenting to propositions that may or may not relate to salvation - and, ex hypothesi, to persons in general. For we only encounter propositions through the medium of persons. To accept the propositions of the gospel is to trust the God whose word communicated this gospel in the first place.
This is clear in the case of saving faith (Romans 10:14-17) but is also true in general. Propositions do not exist independently of God - we are not Platonists. So we can only experience propositions as they are communicated to us by God either directly or immediately, through divinely appointed intermediaries (e.g. parents, friends, evangelists, etc.), or innately (see below; cf. we ourselves are created, embodied images of God, "words of God" intrinsically ontologically capable of self-awareness, reflection, and, therefore, intrapersonal communication -
link). Some communicated propositions will be true, while others (e.g. communicated through intermediaries) will be false. In every case, though, persons are involved, and our assent to the
propositions communicated will correspondingly involve the non-propositional, psychological act of "trust in" or "dependence on" the
persons who communicated them.
Ultimately, I hope that this discussion provides some sort of balance to the conversation and at least shows proponents of Clark's position in particular that it is possible - in principle and on Clark's own grounds - that something called "trust" could be of the essence of saving faith (even if it is a psychological act that is difficult to put into words, as I have done my best to do). At the very least, I think one is better off regarding the matter as an open question than he is in being closed off to the idea that the nature of saving faith could involve something more than understanding and assent. Regardless, I will hereafter operate on an understanding of faith that involves "trust" as something distinct from "assent."
What, then, is the Gospel?
The foregoing was meant to shed some light on the nature of [saving] faith, and to that extent it generally engaged possible object[s] of [saving] faith. But even if it is conceded that the nature of faith involves "trust" in persons, to argue that faith involves "trust" in persons does also seem to mean that one would understand and assent to what propositions "trusted" persons communicate.
For example, Jesus says, not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21). Saying one "trusts" [in] Christ does not sufficiently establish that one actually does. This statement in Matthew follows right after Jesus says that we will recognize good or bad trees by their fruits. If you really trust in Christ, the fruits you bear should be good. Believing, again, is something we "do" (Acts 16:30-31). If we recall that our belief is an obedience, our assent to the gospel is itself a psychological act of will that is the good fruit of regeneration, public confession of which can function as evidence to others that we actually trust in the Lord, not emptily claim to. As actual assent to the gospel presupposes understanding it, the components of saving faith appear to be tightly bound up in one another.
Now, while one's confession of that to which he assents may be a lie, all that illustrates is that confession and assent is an insufficient condition for one to be able to infallibly recognize whether a professing Christian is a good or bad tree. But I don't think Jesus expects us to have infallible knowledge of who is or isn't saved. Where confession of the gospel (to which one ought to assent) is absent, however, we can take such bad fruit as evidence of one's being a bad tree. So confession of that to which one assents - if one is called upon to do so - is a necessary condition for one's being able to recognize a good tree: it's the same point that we ought to acknowledge Christ before men, not deny Him (Matthew 10:32-33). It's the same point that we ought to hear Christ's words and do them, as one finds in the rest of Matthew 7.
So far, then, the situation seems intelligible enough: faith is understanding, assent, and trust. We trust persons if and when we understand and assent to what propositions they communicate to us, and our confession of that to which we assent evidences our trust in them. But whether it is God, our parents, our peers, or even ourselves, do we always trust them? We should always trust in God, for example, but if and when we fail to accept what He has propositionally revealed, is that not indicative of a failure to trust in God?
Indeed, in this case, the trust appears incomplete. In some cases, having gradations of trust is healthy: there are persons whose communications of which we sometimes should be skeptical, and it would be unhealthy to entirely trust them by assenting to what propositions they communicate. An obvious case would be about media. Reports are sometimes conflicting, in which case there must be inaccuracy. Proverbs 18:17 promotes being open-minded in this sense.
Likewise, with the entrance of sin into the world, we cannot even fully trust ourselves (Romans 7) except as we trust that we are found in the Christ who, without sin, can and has saved us from a self-defeating world[view] of distrust (and more, of course). We are only found in Christ to the extent that we trust in Him, and we only can be said to trust Him to the extent we understand and assent to the gospel about Him, the very gospel He Himself communicates. This is important: the person of Christ we trust and the [propositional] communication about Him to which we assent are inseparable, even if they can and should be distinguished.
If in other respects we find that we do not believe His communication, Christ Himself, being united with us through the Spirit, advocates on our behalf (1 John 2:1). That is, sinful distrust of God in our thinking may still be a struggle we experience even once we have been justified. The effects of sin linger and require sanctification for us to fully accept and apply God's word. But those who have been justified will at least trust God to the extent that they understand and assent to the gospel. That is the thesis on which I will continue to operate.
What, then, of the gospel? What is the object or content of the component[s] of saving faith that have to do with propositional communication? For all that I believe Mr. Lazar gets wrong, I do believe he makes a fair criticism against Clark:
Clark did not know what the saving message was. He denied there was a minimum saving proposition, but could not define a maximum. He thought the content of saving faith a complex of propositions known only to God. He counseled preachers to preach the whole Bible and trust that God would use some combination of propositions to bring the elect to faith.
Of course, if you believe in justification by faith apart from works, but do not know what you must believe in order to be justified, you can never be sure you have saving faith. Your faith might consist entirely of non-saving propositions. Without a clear saving proposition to believe, Clark's doctrine of assurance will lead to doubt.
This is true. Clark tended to side-step the question of gospel content when it arose. For example:
What propositions did they believe? Is there any passage in Scripture that identifies, in a scale of decreasing knowledge, the very minimum by which someone can still be justified?
But even if a minimum of propositions could be listed, below which number justification were impossible, it would still be the wrong question with a perverted outlook. The Church is not commanded, encouraged, nor even permitted to be satisfied with a barest minimum of theology. The command requires the maximum possible:
Matt. 28:19,20 Teach all nations … instructing them to observe all whatever I commanded you.
There seems to be no other conclusion but that God justifies sinners by means of many combinations of propositions believed. For which reason a minister should not confine himself to topics popularly thought to be "evangelistic," but should preach the whole counsel of God, trusting that God will give someone the gift of faith through sermons on the Trinity, eschatology, or the doctrine of immediate imputation. (link)
There isn’t any minimum belief. There isn’t anything absolutely, no particular doctrine is absolutely necessary for a regenerate person to hold. Look at all the converts on the mission fields in primitive lands. All the peasants in medieval Russia or in Africa not so very long ago. They knew very little. They believed very little, and probably got it mixed up. But I’m not willing to say on that account they are excluded from heaven. There is no minimal belief that you can specify and I’m rather, and I would rather prefer to approve of the desire to know as much and believe as much as you can rather than to find out how little you can and get away with it. (link)
Whether peasants knew much or little, I don't know. But is not the point is that if they were saved, they must have known something? Romans 10:14-17 is clear enough that there is a need to evangelize precisely because of how little is known about Him in whom we must believe. Israelites were destroyed for their lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6, cf. Romans 10:1-2).
Of course, the idea that the gospel has definite content which can and should be specified does not imply that the gospel is the only content which should be recommended or prescribed, nor that one who desires to know this content just wants "to find out how little you can [believe] and get away with it" or has a "perverted outlook." Clark's implied suspicion as to the motivations of those who are interested in what specific propositions "the gospel" entails is a red herring.
A particularly troubling statement by Clark is the following: "There isn’t anything absolutely, no particular doctrine is absolutely necessary for a regenerate person to hold." If this were true, Mr. Lazar would seem to be quite right that we could not have assurance. Whatever doctrines we hold are not absolutely necessary for a regenerated person to hold, so we could not look to what doctrines we hold and hope to gain any assurance that we have been regenerated.
Further and as worrisome is that if the above were true, we could have no hope of distinguishing between good and bad trees, between sheep and wolves. If what doctrines we hold have no bearing on whether or not we are regenerate, sheep and wolves may believe the same thing. To deny this would, again, seem to require that we specify a doctrine one must believe to be regenerated.
Now, in defending peasants, surely Clark would not argue that only those who know whatever "maximum" number of propositions there are are saved. But then must there not be a minimum belief, even if Clark was not aware of it? This would have been a better admission, if still disappointing.
One alternative I can think of (which can be considered and then immediately dismissed) is that perhaps Clark could reply that one must not believe certain doctrines. For example, suppose Docetists cannot be saved because they believe something they should not. Clark could argue that those who believe in the bodily incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are no more or less assured of being regenerated than those who are agnostic or ignorant of the subject... for, again, on Clark's view, it is not necessary to believe that Christ assumed a body et al. to be saved. Given Clark's view, it would not even be necessary to deny Docetism, for such a denial ("Docetism is false") can itself be viewed as a "particular doctrine" that isn't "necessary for a regenerate person to hold."
This would imply that assurance is largely apophatic: we can be assured insofar as we do not believe falsehoods, but not by believing truths. What an ironic position that would be for someone whose position on the topic was precisely meant to encourage people to desire a maximum of knowledge!
I cannot seriously entertain that this is what Clark thought. Paul's warning to the Galatians (1:6-9) that they be watchful for anyone who preaches another gospel than that which Paul preached presupposes their being able to recognize, as Machen puts it, what is counterfeit by comparison to the authentic [gospel they had already accepted (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:4)].
Likewise, Clark's own writings mitigate against this as seen in one of the very articles I linked to above. For Clark says, while commenting on the remarks of another theologian, that a "minimal amount of theological ideas or teaching is necessary as a prerequisite for true faith" is "a fine statement"!
How he could not have seen the tension between this affirmation and his denial of their being "minimal belief" in the same article is difficult to understand. I gather that this is a transcription of what was originally an audio recording, so one might be tempted to excuse it on those grounds. However, as I have cited, there are multiple places in which Clark protests against a specification of what is entailed by the gospel. Further, the following establishes multiple places in which Clark contrastingly affirms a "minimum of information" is necessary for a "true relationship to our... Redeemer" (parenthetically, note that this relationship - which was not always the case, for redemption occurs in time, e.g. Hebrews 9:15 - reinforces the idea that trust can be understood as something distinct from assent):
Of course it is true that God commands and redeems; but this is not incompatible with his giving information to man. When God said to Abraham, “Thou shalt be a father of many nations,” it was information; and when John wrote, “the World [sic] was made flesh,” it was information. Now, it may be true that God's redemptive acts do not of themselves inform; but in addition to the act God has provided us with its explanation. 'Christ died' is the act, but 'for our sins' is the informative theology. Far from theological information being incompatible with the true relationship to our Creator and Redeemer, this true relationship is impossible without a minimum of information; and the more the better. Like the Athenians we cannot worship an unknown God. (link)
Not just any minimum will do, however. In chapter 7 of What is Saving Faith?, Clark wrote:
Quoting James 2:19 Manton remarks that the faith here is a “bare speculation” and cannot possibly save anyone.
That this faith cannot save is very true. It is no more than a belief in monotheism. This the Muslims possess. But however it may be with Muslims, it seems incorrect to call the faith of devils a bare “speculation.” This word often is used to refer to some proposition that is so unverifiable as to be more likely false than true. Granted, Manton also calls it a knowledge; and this is better, because on this point, if on nothing else, the devils believe the truth.
If devils and Muslims are not saved even though they are monotheists, and if monotheism is true, then this belief or faith in truth is insufficient. It is too minimal! In other words, once again, the tension in Clark's thought cannot be excused so easily.
What, then, of this minimum? If one were an evangelist, would he not be advised to begin his preaching with propositions which would enable a "true relationship" with the only Redeemer of sinners? Why not begin by delivering the gospel Paul outlined in 1 Corinthians 15, which many historians, scholars, and theologians consider to be the earliest creedal expression of Christianity, dated to within months if not years of Christ's resurrection? After all, in what other sense can we understand these propositions to be of "first importance" if not in that they convey a minimum of information which a Christian ought to believe? Let us continue to consider some points that may in turn help fine tune a correct understanding of the nature of saving faith and its objects.
Understanding, Assent, and Dispositions
Suppose an evangelist begins to evangelize peasants but does not begin with 1 Corinthians 15. Can they be saved? Of course. One of Clark's statements I quoted above does hold some potential: "God justifies sinners by means of many combinations of propositions believed." This statement allows that there is a minimum of theological information necessary for a true relationship with our Redeemer, yet this statement can be construed such that it also does not require said minimum to entail a particular doctrine. That is, what the propositions of "the gospel" are that one regenerate person believes and what the propositions of "the gospel" are that another person believes may be equivocal, without overlap. Perhaps there are two sets of propositions, set A and set B, which both suffice to meet whatever minimum Clark has in mind but do not overlap.
Framed this way, I doubt it would present as an attractive option to Clark or most who follow him. If, for Clark, the faith of demons is too minimal, Hebrews 11:6 nevertheless seems to establish theism as a necessary belief for those who are faithful. Can one be saved without believing God is or exists (Hebrews 11:6)? On the other hand, I can't think of any other way in which one could attempt to coherently synthesize Clark's statement about combinations of beliefs and his statement that "There isn’t anything absolutely, no particular doctrine is absolutely necessary for a regenerate person to hold."
I will offer an alternative to Clark (on this point, at least) that might also both serve to answer a few lingering questions and develop a more robust and consistent understanding of the nature of saving faith. I'll begin by considering a following note that Doug Douma says Clark wrote in the margins of a letter to J. Oliver Buswell:
In several places you accuse me of the Greek fallacy. No doubt I am confused. The problem is extremely complex. But obviously, by the statement of Scripture in Luke 12:47 responsibility is proportional to knowledge. I think the difficulty lies in the fact that I have not made clear what the primacy of the intellect is; and I suppose at this point we pass from unessential details to the main point. Hence your remark exactly at the bottom of p.2 is quite beside the mark. [[Clark has a marginal note here connected to the fourth sentence of the paragraph: Not exactly. Knowledge increases responsibility but responsibility does not depend on personal knowledge because infants are born in sin – guilty.]] (Feb. 9th 1939, To J. Oliver Buswell, Pres. Wheaton College, PCA Archives)
Now, there are other places in which Clark says that "responsibility depends on knowledge" (link; see also many other locations, e.g. link). But the above paragraph balances those places by mentioning an exception. Clark's article here also mentions this same exception when he writes, regarding Romans 1: "In any ordinary sense of the verbs, know, suppress, or hold, infants do not have the truth. They have not even seen stars and stones, much less the effects of sin in disease and death. There may be others than infants too... The text does not explicitly attribute this knowledge to all mankind. At the minimum infants are excluded."
Similarly, as important qualification of Clark's position on the nature of saving faith is his intended audience. He is not writing to infants, so he typically excepts them from a discussion of faith: "Faith, like regeneration, is necessary to salvation, if for the moment we defer discussion of infants, imbeciles, and the insane" (link).
The question, then, becomes whether Clark thought that infants couldn't have faith in any sense. If personal knowledge is not necessary for one to sin... must it be necessary for one to believe? Are infants excluded from a "true relationship to our Creator and Redeemer" because they cannot articulate any "minimum of information"? If nothing else, Clark was sympathetic to the Lutheran argument on this point:
One difficulty in the doctrine of justification by faith alone has to do with infants and imbeciles. Most Christians believe that some who die in infancy are saved, and many believe that all who die in infancy are saved. But if faith is necessary, and if infants are incapable of believing anything, what happens to Calvinistic theology? The usual answer is to deny that faith is universally necessary and that infants and some others are justified without faith. The Lutherans, however, are more consistent. They hold that infants can exercise faith even before birth. Of course, how they can believe the Gospel which they cannot possibly have heard remains a mystery, for the Scripture says, Faith comes by hearing. On the other hand, Lutherans have a powerful point in their favor as they cite the case of John the Baptist, who was filled with the Holy Ghost while yet in his mother’s womb. (What is Saving Faith? 2013, Chapter 14)
To my knowledge, Clark never took issue with the commonly held belief that infants can be justified. Now, Clark did write:
Of course a newly born infant cannot express his faith. No matter, say the Lutherans, infants can and some infants do have faith because some infants are justified and justification is by faith alone. This is an impressive argument; but Presbyterians, thinking of a theological expression of faith, allow other means of justification for the incompetent exceptions such as infants and the insane. (Sanctification, 1992, pg. 68)
While notable, it is not clear to me that Clark here means that infants cannot have faith. Infants, in contrast to Clark's intended audience, cannot "express" faith, to be sure. However, if possession of "faith" simpliciter does not necessarily require the capacity to "express" it, then infants could have faith. Consider:
The positing of innate ideas or a priori equipment does not entail the absurdity of infants’ discoursing learnedly on God and logic. To all appearances their minds are blank, but the blankness is similar to that of a paper with a message written in invisible ink. When the heat of experience is applied, the message becomes visible. Whatever else be added, the important words refer to non-sensuous realities. (Christian Philosophy, 2004, pg. 203)
Even though this statement is not written in the context of salvation, one could easily apply it as follows: among infants who are regenerated, the heat of experience will eventually yield (once they have sufficiently matured) a theological expression of their saving faith. This would mean they could have saving faith as infants, albeit in an incipient form. The word of God is written in invisible ink on their hearts, and the public manifestation and confession of this message will visibly follow, assuming the infants do not die such that they sufficiently develop.
Perhaps it is too much to say that Clark affirmed that infants could have faith. I do think, however, that this position is generally compatible with his views, and it opens up an attractive alternative to his generally understood view on the nature of saving faith that avoids the dual pitfalls of requiring too little or too much theological information of the person saved. The position I am referring to can be outlined as follows (link):
An occurrent belief is a belief one has, considers, entertains, etc. at a given time. A dispositional belief is a belief one would... have under certain circumstances - say, if one asked a person a question about whether or not he believes some proposition.
So let's look at the discussion of essential and nonessential doctrines from a different angle. Does everything one could list that I "would" need to agree with in order to be saved actually need to be an occurrent belief rather than a dispositional one? The answer is negative. When a believer sleeps, he doesn't usually, at least in my experience, actively believe "Jesus died and was raised for my sins." He's disposed to believe that. And we don't become unbelievers when we [occurrently] think something other than "Jesus died and was raised for me." All of this also indicates that even a Scripturalist who sincerely believes that "a person is what he thinks" must take "thinks" in a dispositional sense, so he should have no problem accepting this distinction.
However, in these cases, the actual or occurrent belief that "Jesus died and was raised for my sins" had already occurred at least once prior to my sleeping or thinking about something else. A better question is: do all propositions relating to the gospel need to have been occurrent at some prior time in order for one to be currently disposed to believe all of them? I don't see why. The burden of proof would be on the one who believes this to be the case to explain why.
Of course, I'm not saying one shouldn't entertain actual thoughts about the gospel. Less trivially, we can't know who is disposed to believe what. We have to act based on what we believe to be the case. This bears on the question of whether we should preach the whole counsel of God. I sometimes hear the argument that Christians should just list a minimal amount of propositions needed to be believed for salvation. That way, the audience isn't exposed to what I guess the arguers would call unnecessary potential obstacles to belief.
But in considering the above distinction between occurrent and dispositional beliefs, as witnesses, evangelists, and apologists of God's word, we only become aware that those to whom we are speaking actually were disposed to believe some doctrine when we actually confront them with it to see if they occurrently accept it, reject, or require clarification of it.
If one rejects a non-essential doctrine, while that doesn't necessarily mean the person isn't saved, the situation bears correction and watching. Christians make mistakes, but they should be teachable. It helps when the so-called teachers aren't constantly accusatory and defensive, which seems to be the case in many apologetic discussions. But sometimes, disagreements are never settled. That's just a fact of life we have to deal with. Sanctification is a process.
To the main point. If one rejects an essential doctrine, that's how we know he wasn't disposed to believe it and how we know he can't occurrently believe the gospel. If he accepts the essential doctrine, then we would have prima facie grounds - and here, Scripturalism needs to update its epistemology to account for kinds of justified belief other than infallibilistic - for believing they already had the disposition to believe it.
This point is relevant to cases where certain parts of the gospel may have been left unsaid in an evangelistic encounter, for even as, in that case, we could not have [as strong] grounds for believing that the audience became or were believers - for we would have no evidence of their dispositions toward what was left unsaid - God could know whether He had disposed them to believe. They could be saved after all.
Again, this doesn't discount or discourage us from activity, for we don't have access to this divine knowledge, assuming it is divinely known. We work with what we have. But that it is a possibility at all is of some note in a discussion about what must one "believe" to be saved.
Applied to this discussion, if I don't need to have an occurrent belief in the gospel while I sleep (or even, at times, when I am awake and am focusing on other things) to be counted among the faithful, why should an infant need an occurrent, conscious belief? There doesn't seem to be any reason that an infant couldn't have dispositional beliefs just like a sleeping person can. If this is true, must they have had an occurrent belief in the gospel at least once before they can be counted among the faithful? I don't see good reasons for thinking this. On the contrary, I see many reasons for disbelieving this (see below).
Of course, the circumstances under which the person who is disposed to believe the gospel would be able to express said belief would presuppose he or she sufficiently matures or develops such that they are able to express the belief. That just means we must qualify our description of what the "certain circumstances" are under which dispositional belief could be evidenced. No evidence of dispositional belief can be had where there is not the capacity for expression of said belief; but absence of evidence for saving faith is need not always be viewed as evidence of absence of saving faith.
In a number of ways, this dovetails nicely with Scripture. Romans 10:14-17 does not need to imply that only persons with developed consciousnesses can have faith. Infants are just as in need of hearing the gospel as any other sinner, but if, for example, the Holy Spirit uses parents to regenerate a child in the womb or in infancy, they are also just as capable of believing - in a dispositional sense - this gospel in which they have been raised (2 Timothy 3:15). That John the Baptist leapt in the womb has already been mentioned. Other evidences for infant faith would include Psalm 22:9 and Matthew 21:16, which ascribe actions of "trust" and "praise" to nursing infants. Finally, if it impossible to please God apart from saving faith (Hebrews 11:6), are we to believe infants are excepted from the rank of the faithful? Is the author of Hebrews allowing for exceptions, or is it not rather the case that to such infants belong the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:14) precisely because they have a childlike faith, one completely dependent on Jesus and contributing no merits of one's own to the ground of one's justification before the Father?
Of course, parents won't necessarily know or see more robust evidence of their children's faith until such a time as their children are capable of articulation. But the ignorance of parents does not cut against the potential of saving faith in their children. On the contrary, it should stir the parents to better disciple their children so that they as parents can be assured that their children have been made by God to be good trees after all.
Relatedly, this helps answer why our evangelical witness does not need to follow a programmatic method, such as repeating 1 Corinthians 15 on autopilot. The question which should be asked is whether a person is disposed to or would affirm the gospel as presented in 1 Corinthians 15 under certain circumstances (if they were asked), not whether they actually believe it at a given moment in time (such as when they are asleep). In this sense, Clark may be right after all that persons can be justified by faith in any variety of biblical propositions, if "faith" be taken in an occurrent sense. That is, all believers are disposed to believe in a single, definitive set of content ("the gospel"), but not all may consciously or occurrently believe said content at the same time.
As mentioned in the lengthy quote above, this does not make evangelism a free-for-all of teaching whatever propositions randomly come to mind. A goal of the evangelist should be to confirm the faith of the person to whom he is witnessing. As mentioned, Scripture indicates some propositions which ought to be believed (e.g. theism, Hebrews 11:6; monotheism, James 2:19; solus Christus, John 14:6; etc.). Clark is right that we ought to preach the whole counsel of God, yet one may prioritize communication of certain propositions adapted to various situations. For example, one who is already a monotheist yet struggles to understand the Trinity should discuss Scriptures which illustrate the deity of Christ. In this sense, evangelism can be viewed as pragmatic and situational, although the content of the gospel [which the faithful are continuously disposed to believe] is definitive.
To some, this initially might sound strange. Parents should tell infant children about the gospel when they can't talk or understand? But if we think about it, that's precisely the means by which our children normally learn to talk or understand: parents talk to their children all the time - not just about the gospel - even though they don't know how to talk. Speech is creative in divine activity (Genesis 1), and this is imaged in our speaking as images of God to images of God. Parents ectypally create understanding and speech in their children by speaking to them just as God archetypally [re]creates us by speaking His word to us.
While it would be too much to attempt to prove in a post like this, I also think nonverbal communication has an understated role in teaching. Many people have the intuition that a mother cuddling her infant implicitly communicates to her infant, "you are safe and cared for," "I love you," "I have compassion on you" (Isaiah 49:15), or some such proposition[s]. Naturally, one can mistake an inference based on nonverbal communication; perhaps my silent gesture of cranking a film reel by hand during a game of Pictionary is mistakenly interpreted by another as the reeling in of a fish. For one who understands and accepts Clark's core epistemology, this would come as no surprise, but nor should it prevent us from suggesting that communication can and does occur nonverbally. Mistaken inference can occur when one attempts to verbally communicate just as it can when one attempts to nonverbally communicate (e.g. sign language). But no one - presumably not even the most ardent disciple of Clark - would deny that humans verbally communicate.
Just as it is possible to understate the role of nonverbals in human communication, it is equally possible to overstate it. While giving cold water to little ones may be behavior due to one's being a disciple of Christ - and an act for which one will be rewarded - Matthew 10:42 does not suggest that one can infer another's kind actions are the result of being a disciple of Christ apart from verbal communication. Even where verbal communication is present, such evidence for that person being a good tree is, as has been said, fallible.
In any case, all human-to-human communication is embodied, occurring through physical means. As a result, communication is intertwined in subtle ways that we don't quite understand. Sometimes, nonverbal communication facilitates understanding in cases in which it would otherwise be impossible, like if someone is deaf. On the other hand, sometimes, it can facilitate misunderstanding (e.g. tone of voice or inflection would imply something different than a text message would convey using the same words). Difficulties in developing an empirically grounded epistemology - verbal or nonverbal, examples and difficulties of which easily could be multiplied - are apologetic evidence for why we must have a revealed epistemology for full assurance of knowledge (link). What is being proposed here is an augmentation to a Scripturalist view of the means of communication and understanding (which relate to evangelism and fallible knowledge of the salvation of other), not of a robust epistemology.
Returning to the topic at large, in the final analysis, let us now try to outline a proper, finely tuned understanding of the nature of saving faith. If infants, imbeciles, or the insane can be counted as true believers, what do each have in common with a person whose cognitive faculties have developed to the extent that they can also express or articulate their faith? A helpful analogy from Clark might be made between faith and knowledge:
Mode and object: the mode of knowing, as I use the word, is simply the psychological activity of the knower. The object is what the knower knows. An answer to the question, How do you know, would state the mode of your knowing. An answer to the question, What do you know, would state the object. And so far throughout all the discussion I have failed to see any reason for introducing any other element; in particular the third element that has been introduced is simply unintelligible to me. (Feb 20, 1946, To Ed Clowney, WTS Archives)
Faith or belief also has modes and objects - this makes sense since faith sometimes is knowledge. Faith or belief involves understanding, assent, and trust. The objects of understanding and assent are propositions, whereas the objects of trust are persons. These objects are objective or external: you and I can have the same objects of faith at the same time without conflation of our distinct persons. The mode of faith - the psychological activity of the believer - is subjective or internal, for my psychological activity is not yours.
How it is that one's subjective, psychological activity is directed towards understanding of, assent to, or trust in these objects is always ultimately determined by God and never morally neutral. Men were created with an understanding and direction or orientation towards submission to truth and God. When Adam fell, all fell in Adam in that we participated in sin (cf. traducianism, link). From conception, then (Psalm 51:5, Romans 1-8), our wills are now oriented towards rebellion to truth and God. We often lack understanding to the extent that as unrepentant sinners, if we accept any truth, it is not for the right reasons - it is unsound, being ultimately grounded in false premises. We do not trust God.
God works to reorient our wills towards truth and Himself again through the regenerative work of the Spirit - infants as well as fully mature men and women. This regenerative work is monergistic. This does not require the activity of our will; on the contrary, that which reorients our will is God's activity alone. Due to sin, synergy or cooperation between God and man now can only take place on the prior ground of monergism. Faith, since it entails the involvement of our wills, is one example of such a synergy. This particular activity "completes" the union of ourselves to Christ that the Spirit's regenerative work "began," although there is no temporal distinction between the two (since, at regeneration, one is at least immediately disposed to belief in the gospel; that is, the causal relation between regeneration and saving faith does not entail a time at which one was regenerate yet an unbeliever). And, as was mentioned earlier, no synergistic activity is the meritorious ground upon which we are viewed as righteous.
Essentially, then, saving faith is one's reorientation towards [the gospel] truth and God [incarnate and triune]. Just as an unregenerate [infant et al.] has a rebellious disposition towards truth and God [even if he is not able to consciously express this], a regenerate [infant et al.] has a submissive and accepting disposition towards truth and God [even if he is not yet able to consciously express this]. Again, one's will - in its activity or its disposition, direction, or orientation - is never morally neutral. We are rational, moral creatures, and our moral makeup, while mutable, is always determined (ultimately by God) towards falsehoods or truth, good or evil, God or sin. In this way, sola fide still applies to infants et al.
No doubt, there is a better way to argue for what position I have been proposing. I do think, however, that it does the job of showing how the traditional, Reformed categories for the components of faith (understanding, assent, and trust) are coherent and in line with Scripture and how categories in contemporary epistemology can be useful to explain how God actually saves people.
Contemporary Epistemology and Assurance [of Salvation]
Continuing the theme of contributions from contemporary epistemology on the subject of assurance, in what way do the above nuances regarding [saving] faith affect assurance [of salvation]? If all without distinction can have saving faith, can all without distinction have assurance? This question itself requires nuance in terms of what it means to "
have" assurance. For example:
Epistemologists distinguish between two notions of epistemic justification: having justification to believe that p versus justifiedly believing that p. To keep track of these notions, epistemologists typically refer to the former as propositional justification and to the latter as doxastic justification. (link)
An ideal sort of assurance is assurance that is
doxastically justified (
link,
link,
link) in that such justification pertains to our beliefs - specifically, ones intentionally grounded in sound premises through reflective access or self-awareness of one's occurrent beliefs. This can only be had by those whose cognitive faculties have developed to an extent that they can occurrently believe the gospel. It is in this way that one can intentionally connect epistemology and soteriology: Paul calls believers to full assurance (Colossians 2:2). We cannot imagine this to mean an assurance which is
only or is
merely available.
Nevertheless, that is a useful distinction. Infants or those whose faith are dispositional "have" propositional justification for assurance in that the propositions relevant to their dispositional beliefs could be justified (in principle) even if they occurrently do not believe or have doxastic justification (at least not in a way that is conscious or intentional to someone like an infant). In this way, due to the beliefs to which they are disposed, regenerate infants et al. have the capacity for doxastic justification even though they will not be doxastically justified until they occurrently believe. Since the beliefs or knowledge or faith they have is in its most incipient, undeveloped, or basic form, this will be reflected in the sort of assurance which can be ascribed to them.
This helps too, I think to answer Mr. Lazar on the question of whether one can be saved without also being assured of his salvation. Arminians, Augustinian monergists, and others do not have doxastic justification for any beliefs they have about their assurance of salvation. As mentioned earlier, these people hold beliefs which would, if true, undercut our ability to be assured. These individuals cannot, therefore, rightly ground their beliefs about any feeling of assurance they may experience. They do, though "have" assurance in the sense of propositional justification, for given that they do believe the gospel, there is and they "have" available justification to believe that they have everlasting life. That they don't occurrently appeal to the right justification only impacts the doxastic justification for their beliefs as it stands, not as what it could be.
This is also one way in which one who has faith in the gospel ipso facto has more readily available justification for assurance than one who does not have faith in the gospel does not: an unbeliever must become a believer before he can be doxastically justified in any [psychological experience of] assurance [about his eternal destiny].
A Defense of Clark's View of Assurance Against Mr. Lazar
The foregoing has mostly involved outlining my own views on the subject of faith and assurance with a conscious aim to develop Clark's thought. While I have also touched on statements by Mr. Lazar here and there, at the risk of repetition, I now return to review Mr. Lazar's remaining exposition of Clark's view in contrast to his own. Mr. Lazar begins his assessment by agreeing with Clark that "To believe is to be persuaded that a proposition is true." Mr. Lazar would agree that the objects of belief are propositions, and given that one's being "persuaded" is involved, he would presumably agree that belief entails psychological activity and/or our wills.
Mr. Lazar says that Clark "never defines assurance." He repeats this accusation a few times, even writing, "Significantly, Clark did not define assurance, which leads to confusion about its nature. According to Clark, assurance is not a type of belief, but related to psychology, but it is not clear how." Unfortunately, it is only Mr. Lazar who is confused. Firstly, he provides no citation for his statement that assurance is not a type of belief. In fact, this statement is false. Indeed, as was mentioned earlier, Mr. Lazar mentions at least one instance in which Clark does define assurance, and Clark is explicit that assurance is a type of belief: "Assurance and conviction are belief, strong belief, voluntary belief, and as intellectual as you please. They are intellectual because their objects are meaningful propositions. Their objects are truths." (Christian Philosophy, 2004, pg. 175). For Clark, then, assurance cashes out as beliefs. As also noted earlier, Clark called them "strong" beliefs because they result in other [physical] actions.
Secondly, assurance is related to psychology because beliefs are related to psychology. Mr. Lazar himself agrees with Clark that faith is a "mental act" that involves understanding and assent... but these just are psychological acts, and distinct ones at that. One can understand a proposition without assenting to it, but both are psychological. Assurance too, then (as a type of belief), is psychological; it involves a person subjectively understanding and/or assenting to various propositions.
Moving on, one can, then, merely believe one is saved and take action on that basis, but since mere beliefs can be false as well as true, Clark says, "Just because a person believes that he is saved is an insufficient reason for thinking that he is saved." Instead, Clark advises:
Since the epistle was written for this purpose, it is one of the best places in the Bible to find directions. I John 2:3 says, “Hereby we do know that we know him—if we keep his commandments.” Recall the lament, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name?” But these people were condemned because they had not acted righteously. They may have walked down the aisle, shaken someone’s hand, and signed a card; but they were workers of iniquity. Remembering some emotional experience would do them no good. We know that we know the Lord by keeping his commandments. Another test by which we may come to assurance is given in 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren.” Later in the same chapter it says, “Let us love. . . in deed and in truth; and hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before him.” Again, “He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him; and hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
II Peter 1:5 does not explicitly mention assurance, but the section has to do with God’s “exceeding great and precious promises” with which he “called us to glory and virtue,” so that the remainder of the section describes how we may be assured of profiting by those promises. Verse five then says, “Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to your virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance. . . for if these things be in you, and abound, they shall make you that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Without minimizing the other items in this list, it is well to emphasize knowledge. If one wishes assurance, he will try to increase his knowledge. Knowledge is mentioned twice in the section. Therefore, if one wishes assurance that he is regenerated, let him ask himself, Do I study the Scripture? How much of it do I know? Some people know so very little; some people believe so very little; some evangelists must have so very little assurance. (Today’s Evangelism, Counterfeit or Genuine? 1990, pgs. 93-94)
Incidentally, notice that Clark affirms that we can have assurance and/or know our own salvation. This is an example of a later time in Clark's life in which he affirmed - despite all the difficulties he had in understanding how such was possible - that self-knowledge was possible (in contrast to the Bahnsen anecdote). True assurance is grounded in knowledge.
Likewise, in another book written later in his life, Clark again affirms the possibility of self-knowledge in the context of assurance of salvation:
Here is the difficulty Hodge does not face. How can one know that his assurance is not a delusion?
But where there is true faith, the want of assurance is to be referred either to the weakness of faith or to erroneous views of the plan of salvation. Many sincere believers are too introspective. They look too exclusively within, so that their hope is graduated by the degree of evidence of regeneration which they find in their own experience…. We may examine our hearts with all the microscopic care prescribed by President Edwards…. And never be satisfied that we have eliminated every ground of misgiving and doubt.
Hodge continues by listing five grounds of assurance – external, not internal grounds. But the reader must judge for himself whether or not Hodge has eliminated every ground of misgiving and doubt. In fact, while Hodge’s external grounds are exceedingly important, and usually underemphasized, ignored, or even explicitly denied in contemporary pietism, our text in John’s Epistle certainly seems to depend on internal factors and our mental ability to arrive at a correct psychological analysis of them. Does regeneration guarantee competence in psychology? It must be admitted, therefore, that these apparently simple verses are in truth immensely difficult. (First John, 1980, pg. 107)
Thus, Clark did present his own position as to "How can one know that his assurance is not a delusion," albeit with reservation:
With some diffidence and reserve because of the complex difficulties, I suggest the following: By loving in deed and truth we shall know that we are of the truth. (First John, 1980, pg. 113)
Assurance of eternal life can be deduced from a knowledge that one is a believer. Of course, as the negro spiritual says, “Everybody talking about heaven ain’t going there.” With constant frequency people are assured of many things untrue. Indeed certainty increases in direct proportion to ignorance. The less educated a man is, the more things of which he is certain. If this obvious truth disturbs anyone, he should also realize that assurance is not essential to salvation. Different people have different mentalities. John Bunyan was so morbid he could hardly have had much assurance. But if one knows, if one has a clear intellectual understanding that he believes, he should have legitimate assurance. (First John, 1980, pg. 161)
These sorts of passages are important to remember when Mr. Lazar claims that "Clark did not have an answer" to certain questions or that "Clark's doctrine of assurance will lead to doubt."
Continuing in his evaluation of Clark, Mr. Lazar summarizes Clark's views as follows:
- Assurance Is Possible
- Assurance Depends on Divine Monergism
- Assurance Is Based on Psychological Experiences
- Assurance Is Based on Good Behavior
- Assurance Can Be Lost
- False Assurance Is Based on Good Behavior
1) is true, both in that Clark taught it and that it is Scriptural.
5) is also true and Scriptural if assurance is merely possible - not also necessary, as Mr. Lazar thinks - for salvation. One may be saved without being assured. The idea that one can become assured at some point in time after his salvation does not mean one must remain assured at all future times. Peter's self-doubt and the disciples' fear were discussed earlier. One might also consider forgetfulness or other factors that Christians can experience as possible causes for a loss of assurance.
2) is true if divine monergism is being considered simply as a necessary condition for assurance to be possible. For example, the following statement Mr. Lazar cites is correct: assurance "presupposes and depends on perseverance and irresistible grace" (Clark, What Do Presbyterians Believe?, pg. 174). This is true and Scriptural. However, as was mentioned earlier, Clark did not suggest an abstract understanding of "divine monergism" was a sufficient condition for assurance. I noted earlier that Augustinian monergists would reject that sincere believers in the gospel always persevere in saving faith. Such people cannot be assured of their eternal salvation, for they do not know if God will withdraw the grace necessary for them to persevere. As Clark affirms the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, he avoids this problem.
3) is trivially true, for on Clark's definition of assurance (see above), assurance itself is a psychological experience just as belief or faith in general are psychological experiences. Assurance is a subset of belief; it is a certain kind of belief ("strong belief").
Assurance itself is also based on other beliefs. To be assured of one's own salvation, one has to, for example, already believe something about salvation. One cannot be assured of one's own salvation without having already had certain psychological experiences (i.e. beliefs about what salvation is).
Moreover, what Clark says about the variety of experiences which might lead one to be assured and another to not be assured is also true. Not all Christians are taught about or have thought about assurance, so not all will have had psychological experiences which would lead them to even think about the subject, let alone to actually be assured. These are excellent reasons to not think that assurance of salvation is necessary to for one to be saved.
4) is expressed ambiguously. Whether the statement is true (of Clark or in general) depends on what Mr. Lazar means. I will try to charitably explain what I think Mr. Lazar is getting at, but the reader should be wary of his first impressions upon hearing that Clark thought "Assurance is Based on Good Behavior."
Scripture commands us to attain full assurance, to make our election sure, etc. Christians should seek to obediently become more assured of their calling and election. Well, isn't that a command to be assured by "good behavior"? If so, all assurance comes by means of being obedient.
While an important thought and one worth returning to, I don't think this is the question Mr. Lazar has in mind, though. Rather, I think the question Mr. Lazar is trying to get at - given his puzzlement in how to reconcile 4) with 6) - is what grounds do Christians have for being assured. That is, can good behavior function as evidence or reason for assurance of one's own salvation?
Let's suppose "good behavior" means "good works" (another question I will revisit below). I think an analogy can be made between the role of something like archaeology in Clark's epistemology to the role of good works in Clark's doctrine of assurance. In Clark's epistemology, archaeological discoveries can function as confirmatory evidence of the truth of Scripture:
Let us use as much archaeological evidence as we can find. Let us go into great detail on J, E, D, and P. We shall discuss the presence of camels in Egypt in 2000 B.C., and the hypothetical council of Jamnia. But our arguments will be entirely ad hominem. We shall show that the principles our opponents use destroy their own conclusions; that their critical procedures on Genesis cannot be applied to Homer’s Iliad; that their historiography ruins Caesar’s Gallic Wars. The argument is ad hominem and elenctic. When finally the opponent is reduced to silence and we can get in a word edgewise, we present the word of God and pray that God cause him to believe. (link)
A Christian might be entirely ignorant of the field of archaeology. Or some might use archaeological findings some would use to discredit Christianity, and a Christian might therefore temporarily experience doubt about the truth of or his ability to know God's word. Of course, no one should regard these as problematic, for the truth and one's knowledge of Christianity is not founded on fallible, empirical conclusions. Christianity is not empirically falsifiable.
On the other hand, our God is completely sovereign and a God of truth. It should not surprise us when historical findings bear out the truth of the Christian narrative, and these findings can play an apologetic (though not epistemically foundational!) role and serve as confirmatory evidences of what Christianity claims.
Compare this to good works and assurance: in the normal course of life, a Christian will do good works, for a good tree bears good fruit. However, a Christian may not always do good works. Good works, then, certainly can evidence one's salvation; indeed, according to total depravity, one cannot even do any good works unless one is saved! Appearances aside, the very nature of good works is such that only Christian's can do them, for only Christians can act in accordance with the chief end of man: to glorify God.
To a Christian who is ignorant of the relationship between saving faith and good works - that faith without works is dead - such a person may still do good works and still may have assurance that he is saved (due to his knowledge of his faith). Likewise, a Christian who is ignorant of archaeology may be assured of the Bible and of Christianity. But there is value in understanding the fuller picture of the Christian worldview.
Just as archaeology (rightly interpreted) evidences the truth of God's word but is not a necessary condition for our knowledge of the truth of God's word, good works evidence our salvation but are not necessary conditions for our assurance of it.
One needn't have historical awareness of God's works to be know His word is true, although having such awareness is good and also has other uses (in, for example, apologetic conversation). Likewise, one needn't reflect on what good works one has done to know he is saved, although so reflecting is good and has other uses (good works function as a public testimony of one's personal faith and can play an evidentiary, confirmatory role in our own assurance of salvation).
We do not always get exposed to archeological evidence for Christianity - and when we do, we may be tempted to doubt - and we do not always do good works. But by God's mercy, a new Christian can know God's word is true and know that he is saved anyways. These observations also help to resolve a paradox Mr. Lazar mentions:
One will recall that Clark faulted Arminianism for making assurance depend on persevering in faith and good works. He pointed out that since the Arminian cannot be sure he will not choose to unregenerate himself in the future, he cannot be sure of his salvation. However, Clark’s doctrine of assurance is subject to a similar objection. Clark based assurance on good behavior. This poses a problem, because while you might be behaving properly now there is no certainty you will continue to do so in the future.
Mr. Lazar finds Clark at fault for a similar reason Clark faults Arminians as having false assurance. One relevant distinction between Clark and Arminians, however, is that for Clark, if you are "behaving properly now" (doing good works), you can have "certainty you will continue to do so in the future." In an Arminian system, this may be so: one may lose his salvation by choice.
[As a brief aside, what Mr. Lazar means by "certainty" is probably not what Clark means by the same word, at least in the following case:
You use the word certainty. People are certain of very peculiar things. Some people, I judge, a few not many, are certain that drinking vinegar will cure warts. Hence it is not particularly important in my point of view to ask or explain why a person is certain of anything. Certainty is a psychological act that is more misused than anything else. To be certain of something doesn’t mean that it is true. People are certain of many things that are false. And so that part of your question I would dismiss. (link)
Mr. Lazar is probably thinking of cases in which people are knowingly self-aware that they will continue to behave properly. Assuming this is true, I would agree that being knowingly self-aware is important, so I will continue to address Mr. Lazar's with this assumption in mind.]
As was mentioned earlier, Clark holds to the perseverance of the saints and explicitly grounds the ability for one to be consistently assured on [belief in] the truth of this doctrine. In the Reformed system, if one is "behaving properly" (doing good works), this is only possible because one has already come to saving faith, for without such faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). A bad tree does not bear good fruit.
Further, saving faith is only possible if one has been elected by God. This answers a charge Mr. Lazar makes later on:
Clark claimed that assurance must be based on monergism, including the belief that God has only predestined to save the elect. This Calvinistic view undermines assurance, because while you can be sure that God will save the elect, you cannot be sure that you are among them.
This statement by Mr. Lazar suggests a poor understanding of Calvinism. Clark holds to what has been called the golden chain of redemption: election necessarily leads to regeneration, regeneration necessarily leads to saving faith, and saving faith necessarily leads to a life which normally consist of good works (depending on how long one lives after conversion) and perseverance unto eternal life.
As such, recognition that any link in this chain applies to his own life affords him legitimate assurance of salvation. Because election leads to saving faith and only election can lead to saving faith, faith can be an evidence of election, redemption, or salvation. This answers Mr. Lazar's charge directly above. Likewise, though, because saving faith leads to good works and only saving faith can lead to good works, good works can be an evidence of election, redemption, or salvation. Good works is not the only evidence of election, redemption and salvation - cf. saving faith - but such can be evidence.
It is in this sense that assurance can be (not must be) "based" on good works. Other people can only see fruits by which they make a determination as to whether a person is a good or bad tree, believers themselves can know they are believers. Believers themselves don't need to see the fruit of their saving faith to know they have it and to be assured of their salvation, but they can be assured by an introspective reflection on what good works they've done or not, works which spring from saving faith. It is in this sense that Clark can recommend a chapter in Jonathan Edwards' Treatise Concerning Religious Affections entitled, "Christian practice is a distinguishing and sure evidence of grace to persons' own consciences." (What Do Presbyterians Believe? 2001, pgs. 178-179)
Take another relevant distinction that was already alluded to by Mr. Lazar: the Arminian denies monergism. On Arminianism, grace is a necessary but insufficient condition for salvation. The decisive factor which fundamentally explains why two people who have both been given grace by God do not both become saved lies in man's free will. As such, on Arminianism grace cannot fully account for why one person is saved and another is not.
This shows a way in which an Arminian doctrine of assurance is "based" on good behavior in a sense that Clark's doctrine is not: for Clark, our good behavior is not ultimately based on or rooted in an alleged autonomy but in God's grace. We have nothing which we have not received (1 Corinthians 4:7), including the saving faith by which we can do good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). That is, for Clark, it cannot be alleged that we are "good enough to deserve heaven." Mr. Lazar even cites Clark on just this point yet seemingly fails to appreciate the relevance: "The unregenerate are not assured of grace: they believe they are good enough to deserve heaven" (Clark, What do Presbyterians Believe?, pg. 178).
In short: it is not a paradox to say that one who is going to heaven will do good works while also denying that same person is going to heaven because he deserves to on the basis of his good works.
There are still more points to be made. Clark never held assurance is merely based on good works. Mr. Lazar's primary problem seems to be with Clark's following statement: "But the assurance spoken of in the Confession is a result of faith in Jesus Christ. It is an assurance that can be found only in those who love him in sincerity and who endeavor to walk in all good conscience" (Clark, What do Presbyterians Believe?, pg. 178).
The italics are what Mr. Lazar emphasizes when he quotes this passage. He ought to have emphasized what I have bolded. Good works and saving faith are always connected. Again, our redemption comprises links in an unbreakable, sovereignly ordained chain. Good works flow from saving faith, and saving faith flows from grace. One can't say assurance is "based" on good works as if such is divorced from a proper understanding of the relationship between electing and regenerating grace or saving faith.
Neither does Clark say Christians "should base assurance on their sincerity and their endeavoring to live good lives." Mr. Lazar has read that into Clark. Clark actually said, "assurance is a result of faith." Now, it would not be wrong for one to be assured by examination of his sincere love of God and endeavoring to walk in good conscience (as if one could be assured who does not sincerely love God or does not endeavor to walk in conscience... does Mr. Lazar really think that?). But such an examination ought to always be connected - implicitly if not explicitly - to the saving faith by which we love and walk and to the grace by which we come to saving faith in the first place.
In fact, though, such an examination does not have to take place at all. When one tries to attain assurance, he is undertaking a project which from a first-person: "I am assured as a result of my faith." Mr. Lazar also agrees with this when he explains his own view later on: "Having assurance of salvation means being persuaded that the proposition, "I have eternal life," is true.
But descriptions (like Clark makes in the above quote) that are just about one who is assured can be done purely from a third-person perspective and, therefore, do not have to be thought of (although they can be thought of) during the first-person project of trying to attain assurance: "Any person who is assured sincerely loves and endeavors to walk with God, even if they are not thinking about their love and walk at the time of their assurance."
At most, the points in Clark's quote which Mr. Lazar emphasizes just describe how one who is assured will act - not how they will think, much less that such things are one's [only] grounds for assurance. In following God's command to attain full assurance, I may look at my saving faith to be assured; if and when I do that, that is an instance during which I am simultaneously loving God and endeavoring to walk in good conscience. But I may be sincerely loving God and endeavoring to walk as I should without even thinking about those things! I don't always have to think about something (e.g. my love of God, my walk with God) to be doing it.
Finally, I return to the question of what "good behavior" means. The above has given a somewhat sharp impression of a distinction between saving faith and good works. Now, when one thinks of "works," one thinks of one's grounds for wages, what one is due, or on what basis one has merited something (Romans 4). Protestants rightfully maintain that saving faith itself is not our grounds or merit on which account God counts us as righteousness. Rather, it is the instrument by which we are united to the person of Christ and justificatory ground of His righteousness. Saving faith does not merit salvation, although it is a necessary condition for salvation. While good works do not merit salvation, I do think good works can merit covenantally determined heavenly rewards.
Whereas saving faith saves us by connecting us to Christ's good work and merit, our good work merits heavenly rewards. This is a real difference between saving faith and good works, but lest we forget, saving faith and good works are both commanded by God and, therefore, are both examples of obedience to divine commands. Therefore, the distinction between the two is not so sharp as to dissolve any similarities. Perhaps, then, "good behavior" could refer to obedience broadly considered rather than meritorious good works.
If so, it would be ironic, for whereas Mr. Lazar has given the impression that to base assurance on good behavior "poses a problem," he admits that faith is a mental act. When we think about this act as one done in submission to a divine command, though, it is clear that faith also is an obedience, a good behavior. In this case, when Mr. Lazar argues that assurance depends on faith (indeed, that it is even of the essence of saving faith), whether he realizes it or not, he too is implicitly arguing that assurance depends on good behavior.
Summary and Conclusion
Mr. Lazar's objections to Clark fail on several levels. He takes exception to good behavior being a "basis" for assurance, but if one rightly understands the golden chain of redemption, I think Clark can be well-defended here. Mr. Lazar also takes exception to Clark in that he contends that assurance is of the essence of saving faith. Again, as outlined earlier, since regenerates can still think illogically within their earthly lives, Mr. Lazar can't assume how regenerates would have or will reason from certain, gospel premises. He can only prescribe how they ought to reason. This very distinction shows why assurance need not be of the essence of saving faith. A Christian ought to deduce that God's word is perspicuous, but does Mr. Lazar think that a stance on the baptism of infants is of the essence of saving faith? Failure to hold to the logical implications of certain premises does not suggest that one has failed to hold to said premises themselves.
We can also say that Mr. Lazar rightly criticizes Clark in several ways: Clark denied self-knowledge at times, which would preclude assurance. At times, Clark also said that one cannot list a minimal number of propositions about the gospel as well as that there aren't any particular doctrines necessary to believe in order to be saved. Because Clark apparently held these beliefs inconsistently across his life, we can acknowledge the mistakes where they exist and even use Clark's own thought elsewhere to correct them.
In some respects, Mr. Lazar's own understanding of assurance is rather close to Clark's, even in places Mr. Lazar himself fails to recognize. For example, Clark's broad definition of assurance as "strong belief" is mirrored by Mr. Lazar's attempt to explain his own views by reference to Clark's understanding of the nature of faith (which, for Clark, just is belief). Clark's more specific understanding of assurance of salvation as a first-person knowledge of the proposition, "I am saved," also aligns with Mr. Lazar's view. In these sorts of cases, Mr. Lazar tends to inadvertently defend Clark rather than really suggesting a change in view.
In still other cases, it appears best to diverge from both Clark and Mr. Lazar, either in disagreement or development. In addition to "understanding" and "assent," "trust" can be understood as a clear and distinct component of faith. Contemporary epistemology also contains lines of thought (occurrent and dispositional beliefs; doxastic and propositional justification; internalism and externalism; infallibilism and fallibilism; etc.) by which one can better defend and articulate the full assurance he has in Christ or other important ideas, such as that infants can be saved.
Finally, I find it appropriate that the topic of assurance functions as a sort of conclusion to my review of Mr. Lazar's book. I have long argued that assurance is a central goal of a sound epistemology and resultant apologetic. Christians can be knowingly self-aware of their own salvation, and this assurance should drive them to take action in expanding the manifestation of God's kingdom by following His commands, to His glory.
As Mr. Lazar has attempted to read Clark's works to take the good and leave the bad, one should also take the good in Mr. Lazar's book and leave the bad. I hope this series of reviews has contained more good than bad and that the reader is profited from it, by God's grace and unto assurance in God's word.
This concludes my review of Mr. Lazar's book, Scripturalism and the Senses.
