Exegesis and Theology

The Blog of Brian Collins

Books and Articles Read in October

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Books

Wilber, Del Quentin. Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan. Henry Holt, 2011.

Articles

Hess, Richard S. "Genesis 1-2 in its Literary Context," Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 1 (1990): 143-153.

He looks at the toledoth breaks in Genesis 4-5 and Genesis 10-11 and concludes that it is common in Genesis 1-11 for a toledoth formula to mark a point in which more a detailed account follows a linear account of the same events. This undercuts the view that Genesis 1 and 2 necessarily come from two different sources.

Seely, Paul H. "The Geographical Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis 1:10," Westminster Theological Journal 59, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 231-55.

The upshot of this article is that truly grammatical-historical exegesis of Genesis 1:10 must recognize that the earth spoken of there is a flat disc that floats on the single sea that surrounds the land since this is the view of all ancient peoples.

In a very brief postscript Seely raises the question of whether interpreting these verses "according to their historico-grammatical meaning impinge negatively on the biblical doctrine of inspiration?" (155). He appeals to Warfield to argue that it does not: "A presumption may be held to lie also that [Paul] shared the ordinary opinions of his day in certain matters lying outside the scope of his teachings, as, for example, with reference to the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun; and it is not inconceivable that the form of his language, when incidentally adverting to such matters, might occasionally play into the hands of such a presumption" (Warfield, "The Real Problem of Inspiration," in Works, 1:197).

It is important to note that Warfield makes two points in this quotation. Before the semi-colon Warfield is referring to what Paul thought apart from what he wrote in Scripture. Warfield is clear in the preceding context that Paul can err in his thinking in any number of ways , including his view of "the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun." After the semi-colon Warfield is referring to what Paul wrote in Scripture. Here he makes the more limited claim that Paul’s erroneous views could affect the wording of Scripture. Warfield does not say that Paul introduces error into Scripture on this account (since that is precisely what he is arguing against). Rather Warfield is saying the wording could be understood in harmony with the error while not actually being in error itself (this is the import of the phrase "play into the hands of such a presumption"). In other words Warfield is teaching that God did not correct all the popularly-held opinions of the day held by the biblical writers and that some of the wording of Scripture is compatible with those views, while being in itself free from error.

This reading is substantiated by Warfield’s earlier discussion of accommodation in the same article. There he notes, "It is one thing to adapt the teaching of truth to the stage of receptivity of the learner; it is another to adopt the errors of the time as the very matter to be taught. It is one thing to refrain from unnecessarily arousing the prejudices of the learner, that more ready entrance may be found for the truth; it is another thing to adopt those prejudices as our own, and to inculcate them as the very truths of God" (ibid., 1:194).

In this article Seely argues for the latter: he argues that the errors of the time are taught by the text when interpreted in a grammatical-historical manner. For this reason alone Seely’s interpretation must be rejected as inconsistent with the Bible’s own teaching regarding its inspiration. Seely’s interpretation should also be rejected for limiting grammatical historical interpretation to the human level. The words of Genesis 1:9-10 are not merely the words of Moses writing within his own cultural milieu. These are also the words of God. This is an especially relevant factor in interpreting Genesis 1 since the events of this chapter lie beyond human observation; God alone could reveal these truths to Moses. There is little reason therefore to insist that these words can only be rightly interpreted when understood strictly as someone of Moses’s time would have understood them. They may "play into the hands" of such an understanding (though even this is not a necessary conclusion), but they do not demand of the reader to be read in light of such an understanding.

Importantly, Seely’s argument is not that Genesis 1:10 necessitates this reading on the textual level, but rather that given that all ancient cultures held to belief that the earth was a flat disc surrounded by an ocean, modern interpreters must read the Bible through this ancient lens. To the contrary, historical background must play an ancillary role to the Scripture; it is the servant of the text rather than its master. Otherwise the sufficiency of Scripture is undermined just as surely as when tradition moves from an ancillary role to that of master. The historical background that Seely introduces provides a helpful window into the worldview of ancient peoples, but it does not determine the meaning the divine Author intended for Genesis 1:10. To say otherwise undermines both the doctrines of the inerrancy and the sufficiency of Scripture.

Sinclair Ferguson, "The Whole Counsel of God: Fifty Years of Theological Studies," Westminster Theological Journal50, no. 2 (Fall 1988): 271-78. [section on common grace]

Ferguson summarizes the views of John Murray and Cornelius Van Til on common grace. He notes that Murray defines common grace as “every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God” (271). He also lists the functions of common grace according to Murray: Common grace "restrains human depravity"; God "restrains his own wrath"; "God restrains the influence of evil"; "the disintegration of life is contained"; "God has ordained good in the beauty and abundance of creation"; "good is attributed to unregenerate men"; "civil government provides peace and order for men"; "it is the precondition for special grace" (271-72). Regarding Van Til, Feguson brings out his emphasis that common grace must be understood to exist in the flow of history. In this Van Til counters those who deny common grace on the grounds that the unregenerate will receive judgment for neglecting and rejecting the grace given to them by God (thus, in their view, making it not grace but judgment). Van Til insists that history has real significance and that God can offer real grace to sinners in history.

Pennings, Ray. "Can We Hope for a Neocalvinist-Neopuritan Dialogue," Puritan Reformed Journal 1, no. 2 (July 2009): 229-37.

By Neopuritan Pennings means those who have rediscovered Puritan literature and who emphasize the sovereignty of God and Reformed soteriology. By Neocalvinist Pennings means the heirs of Abraham Kuyper who stress the sovereignty of God over all of culture. Pennings thinks that both groups have strengths that they can contribute to the other. He notes four strengths among Neocalvinists: (1) recognition of the goodness of the creation order which grounds a right understanding of natural law and which explains positive developments of human culture, (2) the idea of antithesis which recognizes that the effects of the Fall touch on every aspect of creation and culture, (3) the idea of common grace which preserves the goodness of creation and allows the unregenerate to contribute positive insights to society, (4) the concept of sphere sovereignty. He notes two strengths of the Neopuritans: (1) a high view of the church and worship in the church which can balance the Neocalvinist emphasis on cultural involvement, and (2) an eschatology which emphasizes the judgment of God, which balances the right emphasis of the Neocalvinists that grace restores nature.

McCune, Rolland. A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity. Volume 2. Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2009. [Section on Common Grace, 297-303]

McCune defines Common Grace as "an operation of the Holy Spirit, based on the atonement of Christ and God’s merciful and benevolent attitude toward all, by which He immediately or through secondary causation restrains the effects of sin and enables the positive accomplishment and performance of civic righteousness and good among all people" (297). According to McCune, common grace serves to restrain the effects of sin, to enable civic good, to direct people to God, to promote a fear of God even among the unsaved, and to enable many natural blessings (wording modified only slightly from McCune).

Kuyper, Abraham. "Common Grace." In Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader. Edited by James D. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Pages 165-201.

Kuyper emphasizes the role of common grace as a necessary precondition for special grace. Without common grace earth would be hell and the church could not grow. Kuyper also sees common grace in the growth of civilization, but he warns against equating the progress of civilization with the growth of the kingdom. Interestingly, Kuyper also argued that common grace is necessary for the great evil of Antichrist. He notes that Revelation 18 reveals that all the developments of culture made possible by common grace are placed in the service of sin. Thus sin takes what is made possible by grace and twists it to evil.

Bavinck, Herman. Reformed Dogmatics: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation. Edited by John Bolt. John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008. [Chapter 5: The Church’s Spiritual Essence]

Covers the origin of the church, the church as visible and invisible, the marks of the church, and the attributes of the church.

Apologetics and Holiness

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In our defense of Christianity, as in the entirety of our Christian lives, we are to be a holy people. . . . It seems to me anecdotally, that this may be one of the most neglected aspects of Christian living currently. Someone whose ministry is focused exclusively on college-aged people recently said to me that the burning need among that age group of Christians is holiness. It may just be that the cultural pressures are winning a subtle victory in this regard. If that is true, then it is serious indeed. Scripture is clear that without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). In wanting to be ‘relevant’ to those who are not in Christ, we may be displaying more of a life ‘in Adam’ than we might think. This bodes ill for the art of persuasion in covenantal apologetics. If Christianity makes little difference in the way we walk and talk on a day-to-day basis, we should not think that there will be any obvious reason or others to want to consider a life in Christ.”

K. Scott Oliphint, Covenantal Apologetics: Principles and Practice in Defense of Our Faith, kindle location 2737,

The Word as the Soul of the Church

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“That the Reformation rightly sought the key mark of the church in the Word of God cannot be doubted on the basis of Scripture. Without the Word of God, after all, there would be no church (Prov. 29:18; Isa. 8:20; Jer. 8:9; Hos. 4:6). Christ gathers his church (Matt. 28:29), which is built on the teaching of the apostles and prophets, by Word and sacrament (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 2:20). By the Word he regenerates it (James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23), engenders faith (Rom. 10:14; 1 Cor. 4:15), and cleanses and sanctifies [the church] (John 15:3; Eph. 5:26). And those who have thus been regenerated and renewed by the Word of God are called to confess Christ (Matt. 10:32; Rom. 10:9), to hear his voice (John 10:27), to keep his Word (John 8:31, 32; 14:23), to test the spirits (1 John 4:1), and to shun those who do not bring this doctrine (Gal. 1:8; Titus 3:10; 2 John 9). The Word is truly the soul of the church.”
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4:312.

Critique of Paul Seely’s Hermeneutical Approach to Genesis 1:10

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Seely, Paul H. "The Geographical Meaning of ‘Earth’ and ‘Seas’ in Genesis 1:10," Westminster Theological Journal 59, no. 2 (Fall 1997): 231-55.

The upshot of this article is that truly grammatical-historical exegesis of Genesis 1:10 must recognize that the earth spoken of there is a flat disc that floats on the single sea that surrounds the land since this is the view of all ancient peoples.

In a very brief postscript Seely raises the question of whether interpreting these verses "according to their historico-grammatical meaning impinge negatively on the biblical doctrine of inspiration?" (155). He appeals to Warfield to argue that it does not: "A presumption may be held to lie also that [Paul] shared the ordinary opinions of his day in certain matters lying outside the scope of his teachings, as, for example, with reference to the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun; and it is not inconceivable that the form of his language, when incidentally adverting to such matters, might occasionally play into the hands of such a presumption" (Warfield, "The Real Problem of Inspiration," in Works, 1:197).

It is important to note that Warfield makes two points in this quotation. Before the semi-colon Warfield is referring to what Paul thought apart from what he wrote in Scripture. Warfield is clear in the preceding context that Paul can err in his thinking in any number of ways , including his view of "the form of the earth, or its relation to the sun." After the semi-colon Warfield is referring to what Paul wrote in Scripture. Here he makes the more limited claim that Paul’s erroneous views could affect the wording of Scripture. Warfield does not say that Paul introduces error into Scripture on this account (since that is precisely what he is arguing against). Rather Warfield is saying the wording could be understood in harmony with the error while not actually being in error itself (this is the import of the phrase "play into the hands of such a presumption"). In other words Warfield is teaching that God did not correct all the popularly-held (but erroneous) opinions of the day held by the biblical writers and that some of the wording of Scripture could fit some of those views, while not affirming those views and thus remaining free from error. (It is important in this regard to remember that the Bible teaches that the text of Scripture is inspired and not that the authors were inspired.)

This reading is substantiated by Warfield’s earlier discussion of accommodation in the same article. There he notes, "It is one thing to adapt the teaching of truth to the stage of receptivity of the learner; it is another to adopt the errors of the time as the very matter to be taught. It is one thing to refrain from unnecessarily arousing the prejudices of the learner, that more ready entrance may be found for the truth; it is another thing to adopt those prejudices as our own, and to inculcate them as the very truths of God" (ibid., 1:194).

In this article Seely argues for the latter: he argues that the errors of the time are taught by the text when interpreted in a grammatical-historical manner. For this reason alone Seely’s interpretation must be rejected as inconsistent with the Bible’s own teaching regarding its inspiration. Seely’s interpretation should also be rejected for limiting grammatical historical interpretation to the human plane. The words of Genesis 1:9-10 are not merely the words of Moses written within his own cultural milieu. These are also the words of God. This is an especially relevant factor in interpreting Genesis 1 since the events of this chapter lie beyond human observation; God alone could reveal these truths to Moses. There is little reason therefore to insist that these words can only be rightly interpreted when understood strictly as someone of Moses’s time would have understood them. If the prophets did not always understand the spiritual import of what they wrote (1 Peter 1:10-12), must we insist that they always understood the physical import? Their words may "play into the hands" of an erroneous understanding from their time (though I think that would be an overstatement in this case), but they do not demand of the reader to be read in light of such an understanding.

Importantly, Seely’s argument is not that Genesis 1:10 necessitates this reading on the textual level, but rather that given that all ancient cultures held to belief that the earth was a flat disc surrounded by an ocean, modern interpreters must read the Bible through this ancient lens. To the contrary, historical background must play an ancillary role to the Scripture; it is the servant of the text rather than its master. Otherwise the sufficiency of Scripture is undermined just as surely as when tradition moves from an ancillary role to that of master. The historical background that Seely introduces provides a helpful window into the worldview of ancient peoples, but it does not determine the meaning the divine Author intended for Genesis 1:10. To say otherwise undermines both the doctrines of the inerrancy and the sufficiency of Scripture.

Doriani on the Beatitudes

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Grace also holds the Beatitudes together. The first three beatitudes describe a disciple’s knowledge of his spiritual need. The fourth states God’s promise to meet that need. The fifth through seventh describe the results of the fourth beatitude.

Daniel M. Doriani, Matthew 1-13, Reformed Expository Commentary, ed. Richard D. Phillips and Philip Graham Ryken (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 109.

September Reading

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Books

Gutjahr, Paul C. Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

This was an enjoyable book on many levels. Most theological books have minimal illustration, but this book opens with several pages of pen and ink sketches of the major people the reader will encounter in Hodge’s life. Accompanying each illustration is a brief biography. Paintings and photographs abound throughout the book. Once grown, Gutjahr divides the book into parts based on the decades of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of each section is a painting or photograph of Hodge from that decade. Hodge’s friends, family, colleagues, and interlocutors are also pictured throughout. The illustrations and their captions added to the quality of the book.

Of course the heart of the book is the text. It does a good job of explaining Hodge’s theological positions. Gutjahr, for the most part, does not engage in his own evaluation of Hodge’s views. Rather, he presents Hodge’s own justifications for them and places them in the intellectual context of Hodge’s time. At times Gutjahr defends Hodge from unjust characterizations. Finally, though Gutjahr does not place as much emphasis as Hoffecker on Hodge’s spiritual life, this aspect of Hodge is not neglected either.

Wenham, Gordon J. Psalms as Torah: Reading Biblical Song Ethically. Studies in Theological Interpretation. Edited by Craig G. Bartholomew, Joel B. Green, and Christopher R. Seitz. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012.

Wenham makes the case that the Psalter should play a greater role in Christian worship. He opens with a historical survey that demonstrates the Psalms played this important role during much of Jewish and Christian history. Wenham believes it is vital to the health of the church to recover this practice. He specifically argues that the Psalter was intended to be memorized and sung. From this foundation Wenham explores the ethical implications that singing the Psalms has. Singing the Psalms engages the worshipper in affirmations about God and commitments to his ways. This leads Wenham to examine the Psalter’s teaching about the law as well as the presence of law within the Psalter. This book is both thought provoking and is persuasive for giving the Psalms a greater role in our worship.

John W. O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013.

O’Malley does a good job of placing Trent in its historical context, tracing the doctrinal and practical issues raised in the council, chronicling the political intrigue that shaped the council, and summarizing the effect of the council.

Anderson, Courtney. To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson. Judson Press, 1987.

This is an engaging biography of Judson. However it is not annotated, leaving the reader to wonder at times about the source for dialogue or the reporting of the thoughts of certain characters.

Nonetheless the broad outlines are accurate and general sources are provided. The book is devotional and spiritually challenging.

Piper, John. God’s Passion for His Glory. Wheaton: Crossway, 1998.

The great value of this book is the complete text of Jonathan Edwards’s The End for Which God Created the World. Edwards defends the logical coherence of and proves with copious examination of Scripture the thesis that the end for which God created the world was the exhibition of his glory so that he might receive back from the creatures praise and glory. This edition is nicely printed and provides helpful explanatory footnotes by Piper. The philosophical section can be difficult reading, but the scriptural section often verges into devotional exaltation. The introductory essays by Piper may be read of skipped depending on the reader’s interest in Piper’s evaluation of modern evangelicalism and his interest in Piper’s own history of reading Edwards.

Piper, John. Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing the Gospel to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, Adoniram Judson, and John Paton. Wheaton: Crossway, 2009.

Brief but well written devotional biographies of Tyndale, Judson, and Paton.

Articles

Warfield, B. B. "Agnosticism." Selected Shorter Writings . Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

"In effect, therefore, agnosticism impoverishes, and, in its application to religious truth, secularizes and to this degree degrades life. Felicitating itself on a peculiarly deep reverence for truth on the ground that it will admit into that category only what can make good its right to be so considered under the most stringent tests, it deprives itself of the enjoyment of this truth by leaving the category either entirely or in great part empty."

Warfield, B. B. "Atheism." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

Examines different kinds of atheism and investigates in what ways a person may be an atheist and in what ways it is impossible to be one.

Warfield, B. B. "God." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

He looks at what may be known through general revelation and what may be known through special. Under special revelation he considers God as redeemer and God as Triune. The section on the Trinity is an excellent, brief statement of the biblical basis of the doctrine of the Trinity.

Warfield, B. B. "Godhead." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

He looks at the historical development of this word in English. Argues that it not be replaced by the term Divinity.

Warfield, B. B. "The God of Israel." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

Warfield argues that the God is Israel is not the god of Israel’s imagining but the God revealed to Israel. The Bible may at points touch on false ideas that Israelites had of God, but this is not primarily the Bible’s teaching about God. Warfield then surveys the Old Testament’s teaching about God as the Person who makes his power known in establishing justice and redeeming Israel.

Warfield, B. B. "The Significance of the Confessional Doctrine of the Decree." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

A defense of the WCF’s teaching of the divine decree.

Warfield, B. B. "Some Thoughts on Predestination." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

If God creates a world he cannot control, he is not God. If God chooses to create beings who can do highly dangerous things and chooses to create them to be beyond his control, God does not act wisely and thus does not acts God.

Warfield, B. B. "God’s Providence Over All." Selected Shorter Writings. Edited by John E. Meeter. P&R, 2001.

Warfield notes that the human element of Scripture has come to receive move emphasis. Stress is placed on the distinctive styles of John, Peter, and Paul. But because of the Scripture teaching that God’s providence is over all, this new emphasis on the human aspect of Scripture authorship does not endanger its fully divine aspect. God not only choose the Scripture writers but he providentially guided their whole lives so that they would have the personalities and styles to write precisely what he breathed out.

Kuyper, Abraham. "Manuel Labor (1889)." In Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader. Edited by James D. Bratt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

In this collection of newspaper articles Kuyper addresses challenges facing labor in a new industrialized economy comprised of larger corporations. He opposes the liberals’ laissez faire approach as having razed the traditional guilds and replaced them with nothing but the slogan of freedom. He agreed that the guilds needed reform, but he objects to destroying them and replacing them with nothing. He also objects that the structure created by the liberals privileges the bourgeois and enables him to abuse the laborer. On the other hand Kuyper objects to the plans of the social democrats. He says that they would simply tear down the liberal social structure (with whatever benefits it does have) and replace it with their own structure which would place the power of government in the hands of the masses, who would then exercise tyranny over the landed classes. Though Kuyper disagrees with the liberal laissez faire approach he does not wish overmuch government involvement due his vision of sphere sovereignty. Kuyper proposes government recognized, but independently run, chambers of labor that would represent the concerns of the laborer to employers and government. Kuyper’s chambers of labor would have differed from labor unions in that Kuyper objected to the antagonistic nature of strikes as being part of the problem. The chambers were mean to foster more harmony between laborer and manager.

Zaspel, Fred G. The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary. Wheaton: Crossway, 2010. [Read Chapter 5: Theology Proper]

Zaspel does an excellent job of directing the reader to all of Warfield’s writings on particular topics. His summaries of Warfield’s teaching are also well done. This chapter on theology proper focuses primarily on the Trinity and God’s sovereign decree.

David T. Tsumura, "Genesis and Ancient Near Eastern Stories of Creation and Flood: An Introduction Part II," 9, no. 2 Bible and Spade (Winter 1996): 37-38.

He takes ‘ed to "mean “high water” and refer to the water flooding out of the subterranean ocean."

Auden, W. H. "Jacob and the Angel." The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose, Vol. 2: 1939-1948 . Edited by Edward Mendelson. Princeton University Press, 2002.

A review of Walter de la Mare’s anthology, Behold This Dreamer. Discusses the emergence of Romanticism.

Auden, W. H. "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the Detective Story, by an Addict." The Complete Works of W. H. Auden: Prose, Vol. 2: 1939-1948 . Edited by Edward Mendelson. Princeton University Press, 2002.

Interesting in that Auden clearly distinguishes between the art literature and escape literature and yet does a serious analysis of the latter.

Bowald, Mark. "A Generous Reformer: Kevin Vanhoozer’s Place in Evangelicalism." Southeastern Theological Review 4, no. 1 (Summer 2013): 3-9.

An introduction to a journal issue that reviews Vanhoozer’s Remythologizing Theology. Bowald highlights ways in which Vanhoozer is a committed evangelical (e.g., firm commitment to the absolute authority of Scripture) and ways in which he makes evangelicals nervous (e.g., building bridges out to non-evangelicals; ad hoc use of various interpretational methodologies; less emphasis on propositional truth).

Kidner, "Genesis 2:5, 6: Wet or Dry?" TynBul 17, no. 1 (1966): 109-113.

Kidner argues that the ‘ed in Genesis 2:6 are the waters that covered the earth on the first day of creation. Verse 5 is a kind of parenthesis that introduces the main themes of land and man as cultivator that follow in Genesis 2. Kidner rightly pinpoints the lack of rain as a reason for the absence of plants and shrubs in the land combined with the presence of the ‘ed watering the whole face of the ground as the interpretational conundrum that must be addressed, but his answer does not seem to be the most natural way of reading the text.

Harris, R. Laird. "The Mist, the Canopy, and the Rivers of Eden," Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society 11, no. 4 (Fall 1968): 178-79.

Rejects the views of Kline, Kidner, and Speiser on Gen. 2:4-7. Takes Genesis 2 to focus on the region of Eden. This region is not one that receives rain. He takes the ‘ed to be the rivers that flow through Eden. When there is inundation from the river, the land can be irrigated. Also rejects the canopy theory and the supposition of no rain at all before the Flood, though he endorses the worldwide extent of the Flood.

Calvin, Accommodation, and Creation

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Augustine held that an omnipotent God did not need six days to create, that God created all things simultaneously (in a single moment), and that the revelation of God’s creative activity in terms of ‘six days’ was an accommodation to human understanding designed to convey certain logical or causal relationships among the creatures. See Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 1, trans. John Hammond Taylor, SJ (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 36-37, 154. Cf. Augustine, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1980), 435-36. Calvin disagreed, maintaining that divine accommodation does not always have to do with what God says but sometimes with what God does. That God too six (literal) days to complete his work was itself the divine pedagogy. See John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (Edinburg: Calvin Translation Society, 1847), 78.

Bruce L. McCormack, "Introduction," in Mapping Modern Theology: A Thematic and Historical Introduction, eds. Kelly M. Kapic and Bruce L. McCormack (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 5.

The Christian Derided

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Faith in the doctrines of Christ, and conformity to the strict commandments of the Gospel, must expose us to the taunts of the unbeliever and the worldling. Yet, where the heart is right with God, the " derision of the proud," instead of forcing us to " decline from the law of God," will strengthen our adherence to it.

Charles Bridges, Exposition of Psalm CXIX, 131.

Warfield on Agnosticsm

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"In effect, therefore, agnosticism impoverishes, and, in its application to religious truth, secularizes and to this degree degrades life. Felicitating itself on a peculiarly deep reverence for truth on the ground that it will admit into that category only what can make good its right to be so considered under the most stringent tests, it deprives itself of the enjoyment of this truth by leaving the category either entirely or in great part empty."

B. B. Warfield, “Agnosticism,” in Selected Shorter Writings, 1:36

Bridges on Delight and Obedience

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Acceptable obedience must however flow from love, and be accompanied with a measure of " delight." And surely at the very time that we are " abhorring ourselves in dust and ashes " before our God, we have every reason to delight in his ways ; and it cannot be entirely right with us, until something of this " delight in God’s commandments " is felt and enjoyed.

Charles  Bridges, Exposition of Psalm CXIX, 123.