ANDREWS UNIVERSITY SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL Volume 1 Spring 2015 Number 1 CONTENTS EDITORIAL iii INVITED ARTICLE FORTIN, DENIS. Historical and Theological Perspectives on the Rise of Arminianism and the Place of Seventh-day Adventism in the Calvinist-Arminian Debate 1 ARTICLES THEOLOGY SILVA, SERGIO L. Creation and Covenant: A Hermeneutical Approach to the Correlation of the Seventh Day and the Biblical Sabbath 17 MENDIETA, ERICK. Typology and Adventist Eschatological Identity: Friend or Foe? 43 CHURCH HISTORY HERNANDEZ, ABNER F. Adventist Eschatological Identity and the Interpretations of the Time Periods of Daniel 12:11-12 65 BURTON, KEVIN M. Wolcott Hackley Littlejohn: Defender of the Faith 85 * * * * * * * * * * * * Copyrights @ 2015 held by authors Online edition: ISSN 2376-063X Print edition: ISSN 2376-0621 i ii SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL 1 (SPRING 2015) WELCOME AUSSJ AND LIVE LONG! JIŘÍ MOSKALA Dean and Professor of Old Testament Exegesis and Theology (Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University) Congratulations! It is a great pleasure to introduce a new journal initiated by the Seminary doctoral students and produced at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary. Its particularity lies in the fact that it is a student journal sponsored by the Seminary faculty. This is a historical moment because a student journal has never been published at the Theological Seminary. The journal’s name echoes and is deliberately associated with Andrews University Seminary Studies, the official Seminary journal. At first glance, it may look like AUSSJ is a child of AUSS. The acronym of this newborn journal may be puzzling and misleading for some, because the first guess is to interpret it as a junior journal of AUSS. However, the last letter J in the acronym of AUSSJ simply stands for journal. The acronym AUSSJ stands for Andrews University Seminary Student Journal. It will be mainly published semiannually online. The play with AUSS is intentional in order to demonstrate its close affinity to Andrews University and the Theological Seminary. This new endeavor by students is jointly sponsored by the Andrews University School of Graduate Studies and the SDA Theological Seminary. The first issue presents a powerful medley of important issues. The sponsoring faculty member for this special introductory volume is Dr. Denis Fortin, professor of Theology, and his insightful article deals with “Historical and Theological Perspectives on the Rise of Arminianism and the Place of Seventh-day Adventism in the Calvinist-Armenian Debate.” Four bright students publish their fine studies: (1) Sergio Silva argues for the importance of perceiving a close relationship between biblical Creation and Covenant. He approaches this topic from an exegetical angle and offers answers to the principle question of what is the correlation between the seventh day and the biblical Sabbath. (2) Erick Mendieta engages the readers’ attention with a pertinent problem that lies at the core of our Seventh-day Adventist self-understanding when he deals with our interpretation of typology in relationship to Adventist eschatological identity. (3) Abner Hernandez explains in his article the need for careful prophetic interpretation and articulates the historicist understanding of the 1290 and 1335 days/years of Daniel 12 and formulates this historical study especially against the futuristic interpretation. (4) Kevin Burton underlines the importance of studying early Adventist history and draws crucial lessons from the life and struggles of Wolcott H. Littlejohn whom he presents as a defender of the faith. It is a joy to be at the birth of this students’ journal and wish it a safe, meaningful, and fruitful journey through real life. May its sailing always be under God’s guidance, leadership, and abundant blessings. May this journal inspire many iii iv SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL 1 (SPRING 2015) to do solid, accurate, and balanced scholarship, and bring many into a closer relationship with God and a better understanding of the Holy Scriptures. May its pages guide its readers to unfolding deep mysteries of God’s Word, be a force for courageous and bold actions, and lead to faithful advancement of the mission of the Church. Let this journal grow and become a powerful theological resource for exploring God’s truth with passion and joy. May its contributions speak powerfully to the mind, answer pertinent questions, and touch the hearts of its writers and readers. Andrews University Seminary Student Journal, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1-15. Copyright © 2015 Denis Fortin. HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RISE OF ARMINIANISM AND THE PLACE OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM IN THE CALVINIST-ARMINIAN DEBATE DENIS FORTIN Professor of Theology (Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University) [email protected] Abstract This article provides a brief historical survey of some of the theological issues raised by Arminius and The Remonstrance, and seeks to identify the key theological arguments that anchor the Arminian perspective of the Adventist doctrine of salvation. Four hundred years ago, in 1610, a group of Dutch pastors and theologians published a document in which they responded to the accusations of heresy leveled against the teachings of their colleague, Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius, who had recently died (1609). This document encapsulated Arminian teachings on the doctrine of salvation in five points and subsequently became known as The Remonstrance, a French noun referring to an official and well- articulated document to protest or raise objections about a law or an edict. In the years that followed, the teachings of The Remonstrance became a rallying point for those who were dissatisfied with traditional Calvinism. In 1618, during the Synod of Dort, Reformed theologians fought against the Arminian soteriology presented in The Remonstrance and formulated their own response to the five points of Arminianism. This eventually became known as the five points of Calvinism, otherwise referred to as TULIP (the Total depravity of human beings, the Unconditional election of the redeemed, the Limited atonement of Christ only for the redeemed, the Irresistible grace of God toward the redeemed, and the Perseverance of the Saints). Subsequent decades and centuries witnessed waves of conflicts among many Christian Protestant religious groups that traced their theological roots to either Calvinism or Arminianism. The Seventh-day Adventist understanding of salvation clearly finds its roots in the Arminian Remonstrance and Wesleyan Methodism, but also brings its own unique theological nuances and contributions to this doctrine. Keywords: Calvinism, Arminius, Arminianism, Remonstrance, Salvation, Methodism, TULIP, predestination, freewill. 1 2 SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL 1 (SPRING 2015) Introduction About four hundred years ago, in 1610, a group of Dutch pastors and theologians published a document in which they responded to the accusations leveled against the teachings of their colleague, Reformed theologian Jacobus, or James, Arminius, who had died the year before. This document encapsulated Arminian soteriological teachings in five points and subsequently became known as The Remonstrance, a French word referring to an official and well-reasoned document to protest or raise objections about a law or an edict. In the years that followed, the teachings of The Remonstrance became a rallying point for those who were dissatisfied with traditional Calvinism, but more particularly with a strict unconditional predestination. Subsequent decades and centuries witnessed waves of conflicts among many Christian Protestant religious groups that traced their theological roots to either Calvinism or Arminianism. As Roger Olson has shown in his recent book Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities,1 there are major theological differences between Calvinism and Arminianism, but there are also many points in common. The Seventh-day Adventist understanding of salvation clearly finds its roots in the sixteenth-century Reformation and the Arminian Remonstrance. But eighteenth- century Methodism, which championed Arminian thought, forms the immediate theological context for the Adventist doctrine of salvation in the nineteenth century. This article presents a brief historical survey of the theological issues raised by Arminius and The Remonstrance, the Calvinist/Reformed response given at the Synod of Dort, and identifies the key theological arguments that anchor the Arminian perspective of the Adventist doctrine of salvation. I. Theological Issues Raised by Arminius and the Remonstrance Arminianism begins per se in Holland at the end of the sixteenth century. James Arminius was born near Rotterdam in 1559.2 He studied theology under some of the best teachers of his time and spent five years in Geneva (1582-1587) under the tutelage of Theodore Beza where he was exposed to the various forms of scholastic Reformed theology. In 1588, Arminius received a pastoral appointment 1Roger E. Olson, Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006). 2This biographical and historical context of Arminius’ life and teachings is taken from Richard A. Müller, “Arminius and Arminianism,” in The Dictionary of Historical Theology, ed. Trevor A. Hart (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 33-35, and J. K. Grider “Arminianism,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984), 79-81. HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RISE OF ARMINIANISM . . . 3 in Amsterdam and in 1602 became professor of theology at the University of Leiden. Arminius soon found himself at odds with two of his university colleagues, Franciscus Gomarus and Lucas Trelcatius. During the decade or so before his university appointment, Arminius had begun to shift his understanding of the Reformed doctrine of predestination and the debate that his views initiated at the university occupied the remainder of his life. In 1608, he argued for his orthodoxy in his Declaration of Sentiments, a document he offered to the Estates General of Holland.3 In this document he presented his views on predestination, human free will, divine grace, assurance of salvation, the divinity of Christ, and his justification for his request to revise the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism. Of all the topics he addressed in the Declaration predestination receives the lengthiest treatment and he clearly stated his divergence from the Reformed theology of his colleagues. “The document presents three Reformed views of predestination—the supralapsarian, a modified supralapsarian position, and the infralapsarian—and rejects them all in favour of a fourth position, Arminius’s own.”4 Supralapsarianism Supralapsarianism is the form of the doctrine of predestination that Arminius was most at odd with and in order to understand his position and the theological contributions he made, we need to understand what he was against. Calvinist theology laid great emphasis on the sovereignty of God, which was a concept borrowed from Augustine. God is said to be perfect in all respects of his nature, possessor of all power, righteousness, and holiness. He is eternal and completely self-sufficient. Therefore, he is not subject either to time or to any other beings, nor is he to be reduced to spacio-temporal categories for human understanding and analysis. To his creatures God must always remain mysterious, except insofar as he reveals himself to them. This philosophical understanding of the nature of God, taken from Greek Aristotelian and neo-Platonic philosophy, had some important implications. According to this perspective God is timeless and exists in timelessness; hence, he cannot do anything new for this would reduce him to a set of imperfect and human categories. “Zwingli and Calvin both had emphasized that everything that happens—including the fall of Adam and Eve and the election of some humans to salvation and others to damnation—is decreed by God. In other words [...] nothing at all happens or can happen accidently or even contingently. Everything that happens outside of God himself happens by divine decree. God foreknows 3James Arminius, A Declaration of the Sentiments of Arminius in The Works of James Arminius, London ed., trans. by James Nichols and William Nichols (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1996), 210-275. 4Müller, 34. 4 SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL 1 (SPRING 2015) what will happen because he foreordains everything that happens, and he foreordains because he decrees it all from eternity.”5 Therefore, Reformed theology at the time of Arminius wondered and speculated about the order of these eternally foreordained divine decrees. Theologians asked themselves what could have been the ultimate and first decree in the mind of God, the eternal decree that would bring the most glory to God. “They agreed that all of God’s decrees are simultaneous and eternal because they accepted Augustine’s notion of eternity as an ‘eternal now’ in which all times— past, present and future—are simultaneous. For God, they believed, there is no separation or even succession of moments. Everything is eternally present.”6 Since God exists only in timelessness, God cannot respond to a human situation, like the fall. What appears to us as God’s response to human life has always been decided of all eternity in the mind of God and God has preordained of all eternity, before the creation of time, everything that has happened in regards to the plan of salvation. Reformed theologians speculated over the logical order of these decrees, not their chronological order. At the time of Arminius, they had somehow figured out and established the order of these divine decrees into different schemes. Arminius took issue with the supralapsarian scheme of these decrees. These decrees of God are named in reference to the fall of humanity, particularly when was ordained the decree to save the elect. Supralapsarianism argues that the decree that brings the most glory to God is the salvation of the elect and the damnation of others, and this decree must logically have been in the mind of God before the decree to allow or ordain the fall of humanity (from the Latin supra before, and lapsa fall). The logical order of the supralapsarian decrees is: 1. To predestine some to eternal life in heaven and some others to eternal damnation in hell; 2. To create both the saved and the reprobate; 3. To allow the fall of humanity; 4. To provide atonement and salvation only for the elect; 5. To give salvation only to the elect. 5Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 457. Based on Eph 1:11 where Paul refers to the plan of him “who works all things after the counsel of His will,” God’s decree is a theological concept for the comprehensive plan for the universe and its history which God’s sovereignty established in eternity. The Westminster Shorter Catechism provides this classic definition: “The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Question 7). See Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1919), 3:677. 6Olson, Story of Christian Theology, 457. HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RISE OF ARMINIANISM . . . 5 The Remonstrance In 1610, just one year after the death of James Arminius, five articles of faith based on his teachings were drawn up by his followers. The Arminians, as his followers came to be called, presented these five doctrines to the States of Holland and West Friesland in the form of a Remonstrance. The Arminian party also insisted that the Belgic Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism (which was the official expression of the doctrinal position of the Churches of Holland) be amended to conform to the doctrinal views contained in the Remonstrance. They wanted to see changes made to five particular doctrines of the Reformed faith as understood by supralapsarianism. Before going any further, we should note that Arminius and the Remonstrants did not reject the philosophical foundation of Reformed theology. Their understanding of God’s eternal nature, of eternity, and of the need of eternal divine decrees remained intact. What they challenged was the nature of these decrees, their logical order and their biblical and historical foundation. Arminius and his colleagues were Protestant scholastic theologians just as much as other Reformed theologians at the time. By the eighteenth century, however, when John Wesley championed an Arminian understanding of salvation, this philosophical understanding of eternity and of God’s relationship with humanity was no longer as prominent and did not concern theologians to the same extent. What were the five doctrinal points or objections of the Arminian Remonstrance? God’s election of people is conditional to their response. The first point of contention with traditional Reformed theology was its unconditional predestination. Arminians had difficulty accepting that God would decide from all eternity who would be saved and who would not. Moreover, if God would of his own will decide to save some, then why not save all humankind? In this sense Arminianism viewed Calvinism as fatalistic. The Remonstrants also had difficulty with the antinomian tendencies of Calvinism or the seeming complacency of the people. If God had already determined who would be saved, why should people make much efforts at keeping the commandments of God or in being strict about church standards? For Arminianism this attitude had also a negative impact on missionary and evangelistic endeavors. Why preach the gospel if God has already decided who will be saved? Furthermore, Calvinism’s view of predestination was opposed to human freedom and human reason, key concepts of the Renaissance view of humankind. In contrast to Reformed unconditional predestination, the Remonstrance states that God, foreseeing who would believe in Jesus, has predestined the elected people to salvation and that one’s salvation is determined by one’s acceptance of God’s offer. Arminianism affirms that God desires all persons to be saved but an individual has to believe in the salvation Christ has provided in order for her to be 6 SEMINARY STUDENT JOURNAL 1 (SPRING 2015) saved and to benefit from salvation. A key text for Arminians is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Christ died for all sinners. The Remonstrance objects to Calvinism’s view of limited atonement, that Christ atoned for the sins of the elect only. Arminianism affirms that Christ’s sacrifice of atonement on the cross was made for all of humankind who has ever lived or will ever live. Yet, the benefits of this universal atonement are applied only to the believer. Human freewill is restored by the Holy Spirit. The Remonstrance also specifies that because of the fall of Adam and Eve, the nature of human beings is sinful and that of themselves no one is able to do good or even to believe in God. Even a person’s will is affected by sin. However, God has given to every human being a measure of his grace to enable them to accept the influence of the Spirit. Through this divine intervention, called prevenient grace, human beings have a free will and are able to believe in God because the Holy Spirit works in all of them. It is therefore the work of the Holy Spirit to effect a transformation in a person’s heart in order for them to rightly understand, think, will, and effect what is truly good. Grace can be resisted. In article four the Remonstrance explains that God, through his Holy Spirit and his grace, accomplishes all the good that a person may do or conceive. However, the grace of God can be resisted. People may resist the operation of the Holy Spirit in one’s life and God does not force anyone against their will to accept his salvation. Believers may persevere in the faith or fall from grace. The last article goes on to say that the Christian may have the victory over sin through the assisting grace of the Holy Spirit. If the individual who is tempted to sin desires the help of Christ, he/she will have the victory. In the last part of the article, the statement becomes blurry, and the writers did not seem to know for sure if it was possible for one to fall from grace, although it cited a few biblical references that support this concept. However, later Arminianism took the position that one’s perseverance in the faith is a condition for salvation. Synod of Dort Calvinism reacted strongly to the Remonstrance and its five Arminian articles. What Arminianism promoted was tantamount to a redefinition of what Reformation theology had stood for against Roman Catholicism. The Reformers had stood firmly against the possibility of humankind to earn even a little part of their salvation and believed Roman Catholicism had accepted during the Middle Ages an anthropology based on Pelagianism, that human beings are not totally depraved but could operate parts of their salvation. The Reformers believed that this view of humankind was the basis of Roman Catholic sacraments and of a works- oriented salvation scheme.