The Phantom Reality of Representationism

by Ken Hamrick

This is an informal discussion of the concluding part of John Murray’s book, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Wm. B. Eerdman, 1959). As a Realist, I disagree with Murray’s Representationist view (which is also a Nominalistic Federal view).

Realism is the biblical principle of a shared identity grounded in a spiritual union or singularity of spiritual origin–and more broadly, Realism is a paradigm in which God’s justice depends on substantial reality; whereas Nominalism is the denial of any identifying union of immaterial substance within the man, Adam–and more broadly, it is a paradigm in which substantial reality is not necessary to God’s justice. Realists, from their paradigm, seek a justice that is commensurate with the facts of substantial reality and find it in a real union of immaterial substance inside Adam; whereas Nominalists see no necessity for justice to be dependent on the facts of substantial reality, but instead, include the nonsubstantial thoughts of God as sufficient ground for justice, and so they are content to locate man’s union with Adam as inside God’s mind alone.

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The Image of God

by Ken Hamrick

Of all the creatures. Man alone is a spiritual being. Man and all other creatures have bodies, but only man has a spirit. It is significant that God, inspiring His inerrant, written word, chose to call the immaterial nature in man a spirit, which is the same word He chose to describe His own nature –John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Every functional similarity of God in man that has been labeled as the image of God, such as man’s moral nature, his relationality, his dominion over the other creatures, and his reason and rationality, his personhood, etc., are only possible because man is a spiritual being. Without his own spirit, man could function in none of these ways. Because man is a spiritual being, he is a person. Only spiritual beings are persons. Animals without spirits can never be persons and men can never lose their personhood. Men are innately moral beings because they are spiritual beings.

There is another aspect of the image of God to be considered. There is a real sense in which what we gain in Christ we lost in Adam. We are spiritually resurrected—brought to life spiritually—when we are saved by Christ. Prior to salvation, we were spiritually dead—alienated from God and without the Spirit of God inside us. God sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ I suggest that Adam was created not only as a spiritual being, but also in spiritual union with the Holy Spirit inside him. As he chose to sin, the Holy Spirit left him and he spiritually died. Spiritual death is disunion with the Spirit of God who is the only Source of spiritual life.

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A Realist’s Response to Robert Strimple

by Ken Hamrick

In a recent discussion with Dr. Lane Tipton and others on the Reformed Forum Discord, I was offered Robert Strimple’s critique of Realism as “the finest… ever heard.” What follows is my informal engagement of that critique, as posted in that discussion.

You can find much of the remainder of that discussion here.

Dr. Robert B. Strimple, Professor of Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California, approaches the origin of the soul in the following lecture: https://www.wscal.edu/resource-center/trichotomy-the-origin-of-the-soul-the-covenant-of-works-part-1 beginning at 07:55; He teaches about Realism in two of his lectures: https://www.wscal.edu/resource-center/the-parties-involved-part-2 beginning at 40:20, and continuing with: https://www.wscal.edu/resource-center/the-parties-involved-part-3

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A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 2

by Ken Hamrick

Continuing from Part 1

Fesko’s misrepresentations are disturbing. As I read his section on Augustine^[23], I thought maybe he had misunderstood Augustine when Fesko claimed that Realism was about a “biological” union in Adam—that Realism claimed a physical presence of all men in Adam.

However, after Fesko described the views of Shedd and Baird (the Realist School of the 19th century), and showed that he does indeed understand that the view is about the propagation of the soul and the “co-agency” of all men while in Adam^[24], he continues for the remainder of the book to refer to Realism as “biological” and “physical transmission”—not as additional to “spiritual” or “immaterial transmission” (which he ignores) but as if “physical” and “biological” accurately described the Realistic view. Misunderstanding Augustine might be excusable, but continuing the error even after showing a basic understanding of Shedd and Baird is inexcusable! Fesko says,

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A Realist’s Review of J.V. Fesko’s ‘Death in Adam, Life in Christ,’ Part 1

by Ken Hamrick

J. V. Fesko is Academic Dean and Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California, and has written many books. I found this book^[1] to be substantive and thought provoking. It is well worth the reading—and I think it demands a response.

Fesko writes in the preface, “[…T]here are few, if any, books that treat both imputed guilt and righteousness. When it came to the history of the doctrine of imputation, there are hardly any monographs that treat the doctrine.” Fesko is a proponent of the modern Reformed view of Covenant (or, Federal) Theology, and defends that view against the main alternatives, historical and contemporary—including the Realistic view. While it is not his main purpose to engage the Realistic view, it is my main purpose in this article to address his engagement of that view, which I have found to be lacking.

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Realism & Retroactive Identity in Christ

By Ken Hamrick

John Murray’s treatment of sanctification, particularly his essay, “The Agency in Definitive Sanctification,” makes some surprising inroads toward grasping the believer’s retroactive, realistic identification with Christ.[1] He does not go as far as to acknowledge that the reality of the spiritual union of Christ in the believer brings a title to all that Christ accomplished just as if the believer had accomplished it. Instead, he prefers to call it a mysterious “divine constitution.” But he does recognize the “tension” between the historical objectivity of Christ dying and rising again, and the fact of the believer subjectively dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ—and that the two are often spoken of in the New Testament as if they were one and the same events. The believer did not die to sin until coming to Christ in faith; and yet, the power of that dying to sin is firmly grounded in the once-and-for-all quality of Christ’s death—as if the historically objective death of Christ somehow became an historically objective fact of the believer’s life once he came to Christ.

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Realism & The Fall: A Response to Steve Farish

By Ken Hamrick

The Winter 2017 issue of The Founders Journal contains a brief, informative article on Original Sin, by Steve Farish, entitled, “The Fall Brought Condemnation and Corruption.”[1] To his credit, he does not present only the representationist “party line,” but also tries to present the realist side and its problems. This is commendable. But as a realist, I would like to engage Mr. Farish on some of his points. The realist perspective has much more to offer than he has presented.

From the start, Mr. Farish defines the realistic view in a way that no realist would: “The Realistic View […] understands Paul in Romans 5:12 to mean that all human beings were physically present seminally in Adam at the time of his sin […], so that when Adam sinned, all human beings literally and physically sinned in him.” The terms, “physically present,” and, “physically sinned,” utterly miss the point of the realistic view.

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Origin of the Soul: A Defense of Paternal Traducianism

Also posted at SBC Open Forum.

By Ken Hamrick

Was your soul newly created for you by God, or was it passed down to you from the previous generations, much like your DNA was, and originally came from Adam? This may seem an obscure question, but it is actually foundational to most of theology. Whether or not you have ever considered the question before, the theology that you hold has built much of its doctrinal understanding upon an assumed answer to this question—and most have assumed that the soul is newly created by God in every case. The paper that follows is an excerpt of the current draft of a much larger work in progress, entitled, Mechanics of Atonement: Restoring Reality to Imputation. There is heavy emphasis on Turretin, since I have not found a more thorough argument than his. [Note: Although early theologians, such as Turretin, refer to the “soul,” it is in a dichotomistic way that is interchangeable with “spirit.” Early tradition used the term, “soul,” almost exclusively to refer to the immaterial component of a man, reserving the term, “spirit,” for the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this was to avoid confusion between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit. The Bible does use “spirit” as well as “soul” when referring to man’s immaterial component or nature (the inner man as opposed to the outer man). Both words are used interchangeably throughout this paper, except where otherwise specified.]

[20,000 words] The spirit is what make us most like God, and makes us everlasting beings. Continue reading “Origin of the Soul: A Defense of Paternal Traducianism” →

Fuller & Inability: A Centrist Response to Tom Nettles

An Addendum, incorporating the Rejoinder, was added, 11-25-2014.

by Ken Hamrick
[13,200 words…] The focus of the debate between Calvinists and Traditionalists returns ever more often to Andrew Fuller. His theology is ideally suited to bringing the two closer together—not merely by a spirit of cooperation, but closer in doctrinal view—the usual argument over his meaning notwithstanding. There is indeed a middle ground, and it is more Biblical than either side alone. It simply needs to be well articulated, and Fuller is as articulate as they come. It is true that Fuller thought of himself as a standard Calvinist; but his arguments go well beyond Calvinism and toward the center with a Biblical depth and penetrating clarity that has given his writings great value across the last two centuries. Of course, Calvinists want to proudly include this bright light in their number, since he defeated the Hyper-Calvinism of his day and was instrumental in founding the Baptist Missionary Society. But to do so, they must paint over those differences in which he shined the brightest.

Dr. Tom Nettles, a Calvinist and professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently posted a series of articles on Fuller, at the Founders Ministries blog. Having “taught on Fuller for three decades,”^[1] Dr. Nettles seems to have been prompted to post these latest articles by the prospect, offered by Traditionalists, that Fuller’s teachings can be used as a bridge by which Calvinists can become Non-Calvinists.^[2] As a Baptist Centrist (one who holds to both unconditional election and the freedom of men to “choose otherwise”), I see Fuller as a bridge by which both sides can gain a better understanding.

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Who is Guilty of Adam’s Sin? A Centrist Response to Adam Harwood

Also posted at SBC Open Forum and at SBC Voices.

by Ken Hamrick

Adam Harwood spoke at the 2013 John 3:16 Conference, and the paper he presented there is available on the conference e-book at SBC Today. Like Dr. Harwood, I deny that anyone is born condemned for Adam’s sin; but unlike Dr. Harwood, I find in Scripture such a real union of mankind in Adam as to justify the inheriting of all the temporal penalties for Adam’s sin, including the spiritual death and depravity that all are born into Continue reading “Who is Guilty of Adam’s Sin? A Centrist Response to Adam Harwood” →