RE: Shedd on Concursus

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From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 26, 2004 5:34 PM
To: Rich Blinne; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Shedd on Concursus

Apologies for my careless reading.

"Ongoing providential support of the created order" avoids - as I suggested earlier - an avoidance of the ideas that God utilizes creatures as secondary causes. This is more characteristic of Reformed than of Lutheran or RC treatments.

Schmid (Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) begins his discussion of the problem of evil by saying:

"The most difficult problem in the science of theology is that of exhibiting the method of the divine concurrence in the evil actions of men, without at the same time in any wise throwing the blame of the evil upon the first cause, i.e., upon God. The Dogmaticians apply for this purpose two formulae: God concurs in producing the effect, not the defect; God concurs as to the materials, not as to the form." (The 2 formulae cited are from, respectively, Quenstedt and Hollaz).

Unfortunately many discussions of the theodicy problem are primarily philosophical & of little use. An theodicy that isn't grounded in the cross is of little value.

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Shedd properly throws up his hands concerning the theodicy issue vis-à-vis concursus. Here Shedd discusses the issue, stating all “solutions” are inadequate.

How the permissive decree can make the origin of sin a certainty is an inscrutable mystery. God is not the author of sin, and hence, if its origination is a certainty for him, it must be by a method that does not involve his causation. There are several attempts at explanation, but they are inadequate:

1. God exerts positive efficiency upon the finite will, as he does in the origination of holiness. He makes sin certain by causing it. But this contradicts the following texts: “Neither tempts he any man” (James 1:13); “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5); “God made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions” (Eccles. 7:29). It also contradicts the Christian consciousness. In the instance of holiness, the soul says, “Not unto me, but unto you be the glory”; but in the instance of sin, it says, “Not unto you, but unto me be the guilt and shame.” “By the grace of God, I am what I am” in respect to holiness; “by the fault of free will, I am what I am” in respect to sin.

2. God places the creature in such circumstances as render his sinning certain. But the will of the creature is not subject to circumstances. It can resist them. Circumstances act only ab extra.15 The conversion of the will cannot be accounted for by circumstances, and neither can its apostasy.

3. God presents motives to the will. But a motive derives its motive power from the existing inclination or bias of the will. There is no certainty of action in view of a motive, unless the previous inclination of the will agrees with the motive; and the motive cannot produce this inclination or bias.

4. God decides not to bestow that special degree of grace which prevents apostasy. But this does not make apostasy certain, because holy Adam had power to stand with that degree of grace with which his Creator had already endowed him. It was, indeed, not certain that he would stand; but neither was it certain that he would fall, if reference be had only to the degree of grace given in creation. When God decides not to hinder a holy being from sinning, he is inactive in this reference; and inaction is not causative.

5. God causes the matter but not the form of sin. There is a difference between the act and the viciousness of the act. The act of casting stones when Achan was slain was the same act materially as when Stephen was martyred; but the formal element, namely, the intention, was totally different. God concurs with the act and causes it, but not with the intent or viciousness of the act. But the form or “viciousness” of the act is the whole of the sin; and God’s concursus does not extend to this (cf. Charnock’s Holiness of God on the divine concursus). Charnock regards it as a valid explanation of the permissive decree.16

FN 15. from the outside

FN 16. WS: Alexander in the 1831 Princeton Repertory makes the same objection as above to the doctrine of the concursus.

Reformed theology does not deny second causes concerning His creatures. Note the following from the Westminster Confession of Faith:

Chapter V: Of Providence

II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

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15 15. from the outside

16 16. WS: Alexander in the 1831 Princeton Repertory makes the same objection as above to the doctrine of the concursus.
Received on Sun Dec 26 20:04:01 2004