Paul Helm has recently offered criticism of certain aspects of K. Scott Oliphint's book, God With Us (Crossway, 2012), and Reformation21 has published responses by Oliphint and Nate Shannon. (1) It is striking that neither Oliphint nor Shannon offers much discussion of Oliphint's central thesis and arguably his most innovative proposal, that God relates himself to the world by taking on "covenantal properties" in addition to his essence.(2) Shannon's article in particular contends that Oliphint advances the Reformed commitment to Scripture by rejecting presumably corrupt elements of the classical Reformed doctrine of God. In my estimation Shannon's criticism of the tradition is somewhat overwrought and misguided. The question of the Reformed scholastics' doctrine of God, and especially of divine simplicity, has been settled. They deny that God can add properties to himself. (3) And while the merits or demerits of that position may be debated, the issue at hand is whether or not Oliphint's own doctrine of covenantal properties is a suitably orthodox alternative to the classical Reformed teaching on God. It is my contention that it is not. In what follows I aim to briefly set forth what I perceive to be the leading difficulties with the covenantal properties thesis. This critique is here stated tersely for the benefit of those just tuning in. (4) My objections are theological in nature and do not require that one adhere to any particular school of philosophy.

In his volume Reasons for Faith (P&R Publishing, 2006), Oliphint rightly insists that all that exists is either God or something created by God: "[W]e cannot simply posit existence without at the same time saying whether it is God's existence that we are positing or something that exists because created by God" (Reasons for Faith, 110). In applying this criterion to the covenantal properties that Oliphint believes God adds to himself in order to relate to the world, we are thus compelled to ask: Are the covenantal properties God or creature? Presuming that Oliphint believes God's covenantal properties (or "modes" as some prefer) exist, (5) this question regarding the status of their existence is inescapable. He gives us some insight into what he understands their status to be when he explains the process by which he believes God acquired these new attributes or modes of being:

From this passage it would seem that the covenantal properties do not exist as God. (6) That is, they are not identical with his divinity. They appear to be contingent, caused, and dependent on God's free will for their existence. In sum, the covenantal properties seem to be creaturely rather than divine. If they were divine attributes then we would now have to speak about features of divinity that are temporal, finite, contingent, caused and dependent. This is exactly the opposite of what divinity is. The covenantal properties seem plainly not to be eternal, infinite, necessary, or any of the other things we normally ascribe to God's attributes. It is perhaps, then, not an exaggeration to conclude that for Oliphint God as covenantal is a creature and not divine.

This poses no small challenge to traditional Christian belief. Inasmuch as Oliphint regards the assumed covenantal properties to be the means by which God relates to and acts in the world, it seems that God does not relate himself to us as God, but as the (covenantal) creature he has become in assuming to himself new non-divine properties of being. For God to be "with us" he must become something non-divine. This is the heart of Oliphint's understanding of God's condescension. (7) Among these apparently non-divine features that God takes on, Oliphint includes God as decreeing, creator, and redeemer to name only a few. Basically, anything that God does with respect to the world. (8) If we are correct that Oliphint understands the covenantal properties as creaturely, then in all the ways God relates to us and is near to us he is such not as God, but as creature. This prompts the surely unintended result of banishing God as God from the world. Even as creator God seems to be acting as a creature. 

Incarnational analogies are notoriously difficult to marshal without incurring collateral theological damage. Oliphint's use of the incarnation as a model for explaining the God/world relation and the assumption of new properties in God is no different. His program of reading theology proper through the lens of Christology is fairly straightforward: "Because the person of Christ is the quintessential example of God's remaining who he is essentially, even in his interaction with creation, we would do well to think carefully about how our understanding of Christ's person helps us to see what is taking place throughout covenant history as God relates to his human creatures" (God With Us, 182). He further adds, "If we begin with Christology, rather than with some abstract concept of antinomy, paradox, or mystery, we can start to see that all explanations of God's relationship to creation can be understood properly only within the context of God's relationship to creation as expressed in the incarnation" (God With Us, 226). On the face of it one can appreciate the appeal of such an explanation for the covenantal properties. Just as the Son assumes the contingent properties of the human nature while remaining essentially the same as divine, so God as creator and sovereign has become contingently what he was not eternally, while remaining unchanged in his divine essence. But is the incarnation really the key to understanding how the eternal and unchanging God relates to the world in his acts of creation and providence throughout history? I submit that if the union of divine and human in Christ is the model for explaining God's acquisition of covenantal properties, then a few untoward theological implications seem to follow. I mention three.

 

First, if the human properties of the incarnate Son are not divine attributes, then neither are the "covenantal properties" that Oliphint proposes for God. After all, what is assumed in the Son's incarnation is wholly creature and is in no way to be regarded as divine. The incarnation cannot serve as the model for the assumption of anything other than creatureliness. When we speak of the Son's assumed human properties we do not speak of them as new divine properties or attributes. God does not now have the attributes of eating, drinking, sleeping, walking, growth in favor with God and man, suffering, dying, and so forth. All these things are attributed to the Son solely as creature. But if we are to deploy the incarnation as a model for explaining God's relationship to the world as the one who eternally decrees, creates, sustains, redeems and so forth, it would seem that none of these actions can be attributed to God as divine, as God, but only as creature. The net effect of this is that creation, redemption, and consummation can no longer be regarded as divine actions any more than the Son's uniquely human actions and experiences are attributed to him as divine. God, then, does not create or save or judge as God, just as Jesus does not obey, die, and rise again from the dead as God!

Second, it is difficult to see how Oliphint's incarnational model does not entail that the Father and Spirit each subsist as one person in two ontologically distinct ways, just as the Son does by his subsistence in two natures. That is, if the Son's union of two natures is the model for explaining how God relates his divine nature to newly procured covenantal properties--which Oliphint believes are required for God to relate to the world as the one who decrees, creates, sustains, and redeems; actions that are surely attributed to the Father and Spirit--then it must be that the Father and Spirit each subsist in the same twofold manner as the Son, as divine and creature. To say otherwise would be to jettison the supposed explanatory function of the incarnation as a model for the union of essential and covenantal properties in God. 

Third, and perhaps even more perplexing, is the implication Oliphint's incarnational model has for the Son. If he, with the Father and Spirit, experiences the union of divine and covenantal, then he already subsists in this divine/creature union prior to his incarnation. And if the human nature assumed in the incarnation is something other than the already-assumed covenantal properties (a point on which Oliphint is not entirely clear), (9)  then it would appear that there are two unions in the Son: one between the divine and covenantal properties and another between the divine and human.

No doubt Oliphint commends to us the worship of the Triune God as God. Indeed, to worship God in any other way than as divine would be to make the object of our worship that which is not God. Yet the covenantal properties proposal seems to bring with it some dark unintended consequences in this connection. Specifically, if we worship God as creator or as redeemer, and if these perfections are creaturely perfections (as the covenantal properties doctrine almost certainly requires they be), then we direct our worship to that which is not God, but is creature. We worship God not only as he is as God (divine), but also as he has become in relation to the world as covenantal (creature). It is inconceivable to me that Oliphint would ever endorse this and his volume most certainly does not make this connection. Yet if the covenantal properties exist as creatures and not as God, as I have argued they must on Oliphint's incarnational model of explanation, then this ominous outcome threatens if we worship God as creator, redeemer, and consummator.

If one objects that we worship Christ who is a creature, then it must be pointed out that we do not worship Christ as creature (as man), but as God. More precisely, though in worshipping Christ we worship one who subsists as a creature in his humanity, we do not worship him in virtue of his humanity. When Jesus receives worship in the New Testament, it is always as divine that he does so. Truly, this is one of the great biblical confirmations of his deity. If he were to be worshipped as man those worshipping would be guilty of worshipping the creature and not the divine creator. Herman Bavinck correctly asserts that "the ground for the worship of Christ can, according to the Scriptures, be derived only from his deity" (Reformed Dogmatics, III: 318). Likewise, if what God is as creator and redeemer is creaturely, then we cannot worship him as creator and redeemer. Clearly, how we answer the questions regarding the ontological status of the covenantal properties--Do they exist? Are they God or creature?--is of the utmost significance for our worship of God.           

Finally, inasmuch as Oliphint appeals to the Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1 as a confessional charter for his doctrine of the covenantal properties (God With Us, 13-14, 92), it is fitting that we consider it briefly. I shall cite the text and then offer a few interpretive and critical remarks:

WCF 7.1 is about the disproportion between God and the obedience rendered to him by creatures. No amount of creaturely obedience (to which man is obligated as creature) can naturally enable him to obtain an infinite God as his reward and eschatological beatitude. In order to give himself to man as man's eschatological blessing, God lovingly condescends to inaugurate a covenant that gives a reward (i.e., himself) infinitely disproportionate to man's obedience. A finite obedience could only be properly proportionate to a finite reward. This is why the article opens with an emphasis upon the "distance between God and the creature." God, as divine creator, has a natural right to possess the creature, but man has no natural right to possess God, not even if he perfectly fulfills his natural obligation to obey God. 

There is nothing in WCF 7.1 that suggests ontological condescension on God's part, but only the condescension of offering (via covenant) a reward disproportionate to natural human action. This is called "voluntary condescension" because God is in no way naturally obligated--not even by the fact that he has created man--to offer himself as man's reward. The content of the entire chapter suggests this article is about how man might receive God as his eschatological beatitude. The point, then, is not about the Creator-creature relation as such. That relation is presupposed in the article. Moreover, insisting that it is about the creator-creature relation in general, as Oliphint does, (10) tends to obscure the clear emphasis upon the disproportionality between creaturely works and divine reward. The condescension spoken of is meant to address that particular situation and is not intended here as a framework for explaining God's relationship to the world generally or ontologically. Plainly put, the ratification of the covenant (of works) by which man might receive infinitely more than he could ever naturally lay claim to as an obedient creature simply is the condescension of God spoken of in this article. Indeed, the plainest reading of this text would seem to indicate that this wonderful condescension is something God undertakes beyond the establishment of the created order as such. (11) This covenantal action may very well be coincident and concomitant with God's act of creation, but it does not appear to be coextensive with it according to this article. (12)

Furthermore, the ontological distance between God and creatures is in no way diminished or lessened by God's covenantal condescension. If this distance were abridged by God's assumption of covenantal properties, for instance, the implication would be that God does not give himself to man as God in the covenant--as an eternal, infinite, and unchanging reward--but as the creature he has voluntarily condescended to become in addition to his divinity. On this scheme we would never have any hope of enjoying God as God. (13) If our reward and "fruition" of God is God as covenantal, then our great ambition (to enjoy him forever) is directed at a creature and not at that which is divine. This underscores the point I raised above that the covenantal properties thesis seems to have dark unintended consequences for Christian worship and apparently also our hope of eschatological beatitude: We do not worship God as God when we worship him as creator and redeemer and we do not inherit God as God when we obtain him as our final covenant blessing. These outcomes are unacceptable.   

V. Conclusion    

I do not relish issuing these objections to Scott Oliphint's central thesis. God With Us is full of many doctrines with which I agree and which Oliphint expresses well. And surely he does not intend many of the outcomes I have suggested follow from his covenantal properties doctrine. Nonetheless, his doctrine appears to me to produce far more theological problems than those it purports to resolve. It matters not whether one believes the covenantal properties are God or creature, a raft of undesirable theological consequences seems to follow of necessity upon either view. For my part, I am content to deny that assumed covenantal properties exist and to confess instead that God does not require the acquisition of new actuality in order to create or relate himself to the world, mysterious as this may be. The Son's assumption of a human nature was for the purpose of accomplishing our salvation as the last Adam, and was not meant to bring God near to us as creatures per se, but as sinners in need of a worthy substitute. The distance bridged by the incarnation is that between God and creatures as sinners, not creatures as creatures.   

James Dolezal (PhD, Westminster Theological Seminary) is part-time professor of theology and church history in the School of Divinity at Cairn University. He is the author of God without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God's Absoluteness (Pickwick, 2011).