Of Rock and Sand: A Critique of Josiah Trenham’s Appraisal of Protestantism
Introduction
In his attempt at growing the Orthodox Church, Archpriest Josiah Trenham has made a name for himself as a relatively erenic interlocutor with Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical Christians of multiple stripes. In claiming common ground with them, he makes mention in an interview of his time as a student at Westminster Seminary under RC Sproul, where he became attracted to (here), if not convicted of (here), what he saw as the truth of Eastern Orthodoxy. According to his testimony, he even began his earnest search into Orthodoxy prior to going to seminary, planning his seminary studies ahead of time to coordinate with this specific search (here). He was even known at seminary for not likely continuing in the faith of his seminary (here). The significance of this background seems to be that, although Trenham states to have come from a Reformed background, it is clear from his testimony that he had notably departed in spirit from Reformed Christianity already during those formative and vulnerable years at seminary, even being open to this in college prior to attending seminary. Thus it must be kept clear that although he was trained at a Reformed Seminary, he was not committed to being Reformed at the time, but in fact committed from beginning to end in a critical process that almost predictably resulted in the decisive rejection of Reformed Christianity.
Now, to be sure, I am not accusing Trenham of any dishonesty because of the foregoing, but his position is quite different from that of, say, someone who had faithfully served for years as a Presbyterian pastor, converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, and then claimed common background with Presbyterians. And his book, Rock and Sand: An Orthodox Appraisal of the Protestant Reformers and Their Teachings (abbreviated RS) must be understood in this light. A person who was critical of and committed to leaving their own Reformed tradition during their seminary years cannot have their cake and eat it, too. It would be like a doubting Orthodox Christian interested in Anglicanism who attended an Orthodox Seminary while all the while exploring Anglicanism (which kind of thing happens) and then even while in seminary rejecting Orthodoxy for Anglicanism, promptly becoming Anglican after seminary and so turning around and calling Orthodox Christians to Anglicanism on the purported basis that he shares common ground with the Orthodox. Although this would not invalidate any of his particular arguments, that doesn’t quite work as “common ground.” Trenham’s claiming any sympathetic common ground merely through having a shared space with those who believed differently from him is not a truly sympathetic common ground, but rather an oppositional one, a battleground. But since I don’t want this background information to descend into ad hominem, I assert strongly that I will not draw any pejorative conclusions from the foregoing contextualization.
Turning now to the book, Rock and Sand: An Orthodox Appraisal of the Protestant Reformers and Their Teachings (RS, 3rd Edition, 2018), I will not go chapter by chapter, as a lot of it is simply relatively accurate historical information mixed with aspersions. Of course, his ad hominem against certain of the Reformers and their actions not only does not invalidate the Reformation as such, but positively invites the question of whether he assumes that perfect moral integrity is always assumed of the saints of Eastern Orthodoxy. For example, is St. Nicholas’ famous punching of Arius truly a virtuous act due to a post hoc vision that said Arius deserved it (here)? In other words, if digging up dirt on the foibles of our Fathers is fair game, should one create pages with columns devoted to each major Ecclesiastical Community that lists, scores, and then ranks all the moral failings of their respective major members, either proving or disproving the soundness of their theology by such a method? To speak only superficially of one or two examples from Rock and Sand, is Luther’s “moral capitulation” to the State unique to the Reformers (pgs 19-20), or Calvin’s involvement with Servetus (pgs 73-74), as if Orthodox Emperors and Patriarchs never engaged in arguably unethical “Byzantine intrigue” or mutilation of heretics (here)? And what of St. Vladimir, styled “equal to the Apostles” by the Orthodox, who baptized Russians on command and through “rough persuasion” (Louth, Greek East and Latin West, pg 258) and force (Meyendorff, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy, pg 324)? Or the history of Russian Orthodox capitulation to the secular government vis a vis “Tartarism” (Schmemann, Historical Road of Orthodoxy, pg 305) and “Sergianism” (here)? Since much of this, however, could be simply chalked up to the vicissitudes of history and base ad hominem, it is not worth undressing our Fathers for the sake of such polemics, and only note that Trenham’s approach here seems not much more than asymmetrical mud-slinging.
The Filioque
In order, then, to keep this critique both substantive and relatively short, I will mostly address the chapter of Trenham’s book entitled, “Heresies of Protestant Theology Proper” (RS, pgs 167-185). He begins with the filioque, which is a traditional conception of the Christian West which Trenham describes as “a diabolical and heretical attack upon the Lord God Himself” (RS, pg 171). To be fair, Trenham is only echoing the sentiment expressed in the last section of the Eastern Synodikon, a canonical document condemning those as outside the Church, and anathematized, any that would fail to assert that “the Holy Spirit proceeds out of only the Father, essentially and hypostatically” (The Holy Standards, pg 567). Of course, although Trenham cites the scholar Edward Siecienski’s benchmark historical study of the filioque, entitled, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, he fails to mention that Siecienski shows that the Eastern Fathers themselves have affirmed some version of the filioque, including (at least) both Sts. Cyril of Alexandria and Maximus the Confessor (pgs 48-49, 78, 80, 84-86)! Although Siecienski seems too greatly to distinguish between the essential and economic approach to Trinitarian theology, and thus obscuring some fairly obvious Patristic resonance between East and West on this issue, his work being cited by Trenham is, however, not a supportive witness against the filioque such that it can be construed as “a diabolical and heretical attack upon the Lord God Himself” or in any necessary way contrary to Eastern Patristic Christianity.
A second problem with the section on the filioque is that although Trenham dates it back to at least the 5th Century and St. Augustine (Siecienski dates its beginnings as early as the 3rd Century and Tertullian, pgs 51-52), noting that by 447 and 589 it was affirmed at local Western Church councils in Toledo (pg 168-169), this affirmation is problematic in that if the Schism between East and West happened, say, in 1054, then that gives a span of roughly six centuries (and longer if we take Siecienski’s dates) where the filioque existed mostly untroubled as a doctrine in churches in communion with the East! That is a long time for “a diabolical and heretical attack upon the Lord God Himself” to be accepted without the East demanding Church discipline, or a widespread rejection of Augustine, or a formal rejection of Toledo. Noting that the problem with Nestorianism in the East provoked such an intense, rightful, and immediate reaction to that heresy, it is amazing that the filioque existed so long without provoking a similar reaction, despite predating Nestorius! Moreover, we know from the Seventh Ecumenical Council that canonical issues from the West were well known and in large measure canonized by said Ecumenical Council. If the filioque was such a diabolical heresy, then either the Eastern Church was in error in allowing such blasphemy to go unchecked, or it was not such a Church-dividing error as later Eastern theologians (e.g. Photios) made it.
A third problem regarding the section on the filioque is Trenham’s criticism of St. Augustine’s Trinitarian theology, that it is “without patristic precedent” (RS, pg 168) and “without patristic support” (RS, pg 169). Having seen that Trenham refers to Siecienski’s work twice in this section, it is noteworthy and disappointing that Trenham, although acknowledging that Augustine would be “grieved” at an accusation of innovation (RS, pg 169), does not mention or seem to take seriously that Siecienski traces a “precedent” for the filioque in the West to at least St. Ambrose (The Filioque, pg 58), if not Tertullian, as mentioned above. Although Augustine took a Scriptural cum philosophical mode of explication, it is unfair to say it was without any “precedent” or “support” and so to posture as if it were merely a philosophical, “metaphysical problem” he was after (The Filioque, pg 59). As Siecienski states, Augustine began his trinitarian “reflections with recourse to both” Scripture and the Tradition (The Filioque, pg 59). Incidentally, it is also perhaps worth noting that the psychological analogy Augustine used is also in some measure used by such Eastern theologians as Nikitas Stithatos, St. Gregory of Sinai, and St. Gregory Palamas (The Philokalia, Vol. 4, pgs 140, 218, 363, respectively).
Ecclesiology
Moving ahead to Trenham’s discussion of ecclesiology (we will discuss his section on soteriology below), by calling the filioque “a diabolical and heretical attack upon the Lord God Himself,” Trenham actually takes the Orthodox position that the Protestants and Romanists are, as the last section of the Synodikon pronounces, outside the Church and anathematized (The Holy Standards, pg 567). This is more extreme than even Trenham likely wants to acknowledge, for to be anathematized means to be formally proclaimed accursed by God, and with the authority of the keys that the Church possesses it means that they have shut heaven off to the Romanists and Protestants. In fact, as Trenham puts the Confession of Dositheus as an Appendix to his book, it is noteworthy that Dositheus declares with, frankly, as much ecumenical authority as was available to him at the time, which is the same as is available to the Orthodox Church today, “That the dignity of the [Orthodox] Bishop is so necessary in the Church, that without him, neither Church nor Christian could either be or be spoken of” (Decree 10, pg 199). In other words, the Orthodox position is that the Protestants and Romanists are neither truly Christian nor are their ecclesiastical communities part of the saving life of the undivided and indivisible Orthodox Church, but rather outside of the Ark of Salvation. Thus Trenham’s attempt to call Protestants and Romanists “Christians” (RS, pg 167) is therefore unfounded. It is in this way dishonest when Trenham claims that the Orthodox Church is “not condemning them [Protestants and all non-Orthodox] as being non-Christians” (RS, pg 182). As Trenham quotes St. Theophan the Recluse, they are “far” from the “saving truth” (RS, pg 189).
Trenham claims: “We are simply making an ecclesiological affirmation” (RS, pg 182), but this is fundamentally contrary to what he clearly outlines. For how sincere is it to call “Christian” those whom he and the Orthodox claim hold in the filioque “a diabolical and heretical attack upon the Lord God Himself”? He claims: “We know where the Church is and is not” (RS, pg 182), and to argue that there are Christians outside the Church is literally nonsensical. For to be Christian is concurrently to be engrafted into the Body of Christ, the Church, and so if one is not in the Church then they are not in the Body, and if not in the Body then they are not of Christ. The deeper falsehood that Trenham engages in is the claim that “Ecclesiological exclusivity is not just an Orthodox reality but a Protestant one” (RS, pg 182). As a graduate of Westminster Seminary he should most definitely know better, because the doctrine of the invisible church precisely maintains that one need not be, say, Presbyterian in order to be saved. As Chapter 25 of the Westminster Confession states:
I. The catholic or universal Church which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
In other words, the Westminster Confession does not make an exclusive identity between its visible, Presbyterian administration and the Church as the Body of Christ, for:
IV. This catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the Gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them.
This is why Reformed, Evangelical, Protestant Christians such as Presbyterians do not automatically assume that non-Presbyterians are condemned. As Heinrich Bullinger also states in the (also normative) Second Helvetic Confession, “the Church Militant upon the earth has always had many particular churches. Yet all these are to be referred to the unity of the catholic Church” (Ch. 17, from The Book of Confessions: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church, 5.128, cf. 5.131). Moreover, as Bullinger states further on, “we cannot deny that God was in the apostolic Church and that it was a true Church, even though there were wrangling and dissensions in it” (Ch. 17, 5.133, cf. 5.137). For “Unity consists not in outward rites and ceremonies, but rather in the truth and unity of the catholic faith” (Ch. 17, 5.141). This is why a Reformed Baptist like Charles Spurgeon can praise an Arminian Methodist like John Wesley (here). The Orthodox affirm, however, unlike the Protestants, an a priori exclusion and condemnation of all non-Orthodox, and so sectarian exclusivity actually inheres in Orthodox ecclesiology, as Trenham readily admits is an “Orthodox reality” (RS, pg 182) (and as is equally the case in Romanist and Oriental Orthodox ecclesiology).
Thus when Trenham asserts that “Protestantism is anything but one,” and that it “has only grown in its divisive nature” (RS, pg 182), he demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the Evangelical vision of Church unity. Administrative diversification within the Evangelical churches is not normally considered, and certainly is not a prioristically, at the risk of damnation. For as Francis Turretin, to take a respected theologian from within Trenham’s former tradition, states, “whatever things constitute the church properly so called are internal and invisible: election and effectual calling, union with Christ, the Spirit, faith, regeneration and the writing of the law in the heart, the reasonable (logikos) and spiritual worship” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 3, pg 35). Notice how much fuller entry into the Church is according to actual Protestant thought than Trenham relates when he misrepresents the doctrine of the invisible church as simply meaning that “individuals become members of the Body of Christ simply by ‘receiving Jesus into their hearts’ or ‘praying the sinner’s prayer’ as an act of faith, without any association whatsoever with a concrete church community, a clergyman, or sacraments” (RS, pg 183). Given that Trenham claims Westminster Seminary as his alma mater, the fact that he misrepresents Protestantism on this point so egregiously is inexcusable. Turretin rather states that “each believer is bound to unite himself with the church under peril of eternal death” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 3, pg 39). This is utterly opposed to Trenham’s statement. The Protestant position is quite simply that “believers alone constitute the church, since they alone are known to God, nor can they be certainly and distinctly known by anyone else, [therefore] it is clear that the church is rightly called invisible” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 3, pg 33).
It is thus clear that Protestant ecclesiology regarding visible administrations is not exclusivist, even when it may and does condemn certain visible institutions. In this way, even hypothetically, despite the fact that certain Reformed confessions may hold the Romanist sect to be false, and likewise the Orthodox, it is still entirely possible according to Reformed ecclesiology to be in a Romanist or an Eastern Orthodox administration and still be within the invisible Church and so saved. It is therefore false to portray the Protestants as sectarian. To claim that the Protestants have an exclusivist ecclesiology is to utterly misunderstand and misrepresent Protestantism, and so is patently false, for the separation of visible churches does not presuppose that those in other administrations are necessarily outside the Church. Evangelical Christianity re-envisions how Church unity can manifest in the world, on a more Scriptural basis, not reducing the Church Militant to triumphalistic visible administrations.
Soteriology
Moving on to Trenham’s representation of Protestant soteriology, he appears to want to compare apples with oranges rather than apples with apples. For example, on the one hand he states, and rightly so, that “in the Holy Scripture and in the writings of the Holy Fathers salvation is a grand accomplishment with many facets, a great and expansive deliverance of humanity from all its enemies: sin, condemnation, the wrath of God, the devil and his demons, the world, and ultimately death” (RS, pg 174). But, on the other hand, regarding “Protestant teaching and practice, salvation is essentially a deliverance from the wrath of God” (RS, pg 174). If he is comparing how there are many lay folk among the Protestants who think of salvation very simply as deliverance from the wrath of God, then perhaps he ought to compare that with what lay folk among the Orthodox believe. It has been jokingly said by Orthodox priests that the laity think the Trinity is Jesus, Mary, and St. Nicholas (or St. George)! Orthodox laity are as tragically unaware of the “many facets” of the “grand accomplishment” of salvation as many of the laity everywhere. This tragedy even exists among many of the clergy everywhere, too. But notice what actual Protestant teaching is about salvation, using again Trenham’s former tradition’s confessional document, the Westminster Confession, here Chapter 10, Of Effectual Calling.
I. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.
Note that the foregoing does not describe deliverance as merely “from the wrath of God.” But note even more closely what Westminster Confession’s 20th Chapter 20, Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience, affirms:
I. The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the Gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, and condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind.
It affirms precisely as being present to Protestant belief what Trenham denies is present to Protestant belief! And this is not some obscure writing; it is perhaps the most famous of all Reformed confessions, one Trenham was supposedly trained in and familiar with. Not a fluke, either, Bullinger in the Second Helvetic Confession states similarly, that “our Lord reconciled all the faithful to the heavenly Father, made expiation for sins, disarmed death, overcame damnation and hell, and by his resurrection from the dead brought again and restored life and immortality” (Ch. 11, 5.076). That Trenham could misrepresent Protestantism so flagrantly is deeply problematic, and considering his background it is difficult not to see it as intentional. The text of Rock and Sand relies in this way on the gullible and uninformed to not know any better, and confirms the ignorant in unfounded prejudice.
Union and Justification by Faith Alone
Another real problem is Trenham’s misrepresentation of the great Protestant doctrine of justification being by faith alone. Neither he, nor Dositheus in the Appendix, accurately represent the doctrine of faith alone. Trenham even refers to the Epistle of James as evidence against faith alone (RS, pg 175), as if the mere presence of that word is a decisive indicator of what justification by faith alone means, or as if Protestants do not know about that verse. Note again what the Westminster Confession states on the subject in Chapter 16, Of Good Works: “II. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits... of a true and lively faith.” In other words, they are organically produced by a true and lively faith. This means that lively faith necessarily has works. As Bullinger in the Second Helvetic Confession puts it: “Works necessarily proceed from faith” (Ch. 16, 5.119). Bullinger here, in the same Confession, also speaks of the Epistle of James, noting aptly:
In this matter we are not speaking of a fictitious, empty, lazy and dead faith, but of a living, quickening faith. It is and is called a living faith because it apprehends Christ who is life and makes alive, and shows that it is alive by living works. And so James does not contradict anything in this doctrine of ours. For he speaks of an empty, dead faith… (Ch. 15, 5.111)
The Protestant position of justification by faith alone therefore cannot mean that faith can be dead and without works, only that works are not a principle by which man is justified before God. Rather, “we teach that truly good works grow out of a living faith by the Holy Spirit” (Ch. 16, 5.115). And this is not an arbitrary, extrinsic outgrowth, but one that presupposes union with Christ, for “because faith receives Christ our righteousness and attributes everything to the grace of God in Christ, on that account justification is attributed to faith” (Ch. 15, 5.109). In other words, uniting one with Christ, and therefore justifying, saving faith necessarily produces works because of the Holy Spirit that is received. And so good works do not produce salvation, but vice versa, for Christ is salvation, and salvation, i.e. Christ in us, gives birth to good works necessarily. As Chapter 13 of the Westminster Confession states:
I. They who are once effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Good works, in other words, require justification, which presupposes a new spirit, i.e. union with Christ, the Word and the Spirit regenerating and dwelling in them, in order for good works even to be possible. As the Second Helvetic Confession puts it, “it is necessary for us to be righteous before we may love and do good works” (Ch. 15, 5.110). It therefore makes zero sense to say that good works can result in justification, for justification is good works’ presupposition and cause, through union with Christ.
The 14th Chapter of the Westminster Confession, Of Saving Faith, states:
II. By this faith, a Christian believeth to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein; and acteth differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.
Notice that works, i.e. obedience to the commands and sanctification, are necessarily together with saving faith. The distinguishing factor for Protestants is that good works are not considered a cause of justification. It is justification received by faith, Christ’s work being the cause of justification, received by faith, not received by one’s own works, where saving faith receives Christ, and therefore justification together with all His benefits, not least being the Gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit, these necessarily being the cause of good works as an effect of the salvation received through living faith and in saving union with Christ. Or as John Knox, along with others, in the Scots Confession states in Chapter 13:
The cause of good works, we confess, is not our free will, but the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, who dwells in our hearts by true faith, brings forth such works as God has prepared for us to walk in.
Regarding how this reality characterizes the believer, the 15th Chapter of the Westminster Confession, Of Repentance Unto Life, further affirms:
III. Although repentance be not to be rested in, as any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof, which is the act of God’s free grace in Christ; yet is it of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it.
Notice that regarding repentance, which as a turning away from sin(s) causes someone “to turn from them all unto God, purposing and endeavouring to walk with Him in all the ways of His commandments” (Westminster Confession 15.2), that again there is necessarily a following of the commandments, i.e. good works, for none may expect pardon without it. Therefore, it is false, if not dishonest on the part of Trenham, to claim that Protestants affirm justification by faith alone in any gross, reductionist sense. It is Trenham who is engaging in reductionism. For it is clear that according to Protestantism good works are necessary, just not as a cause for justification, and for the simple reason that it puts the cart before the horse. One could also look to Chapter 19, Of the Law of God, for affirmation of this clear position:
V. The moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it: neither doth Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.
It is thus decisively clear that good works are inextricably necessary for the Protestant Christian, only not “to be thereby justified” (Westminster Confession, 19.6). One might also read approximately the last third or quarter of Martin Luther’s “The Freedom of a Christian” for a Lutheran affirmation of the same.
That this all flows from union with Christ, and not merely a backward look at the historical fact of Christ’s death and resurrection, is made abundantly clear in the Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 64-90, not to mention Confessional Reformed authors throughout the Reformation era past and present, from John Calvin to John Knox to Heinrich Bullinger to John Owen to John Flavel to Thomas Boston to Jonathan Edwards to John W. Nevin to Herman Bavinck to A.W. Pink to T.F. Torrance to Robert Letham, J. Todd Billings, Michael Horton, and many more, showing that the normative Reformed view of salvation is not merely “winning a court room declaration of pardon” (RS, pg 175). Nor is it what Trenham also asserts further on: “In Protestant theology the focus is reduced to being saved from God Himself by taking refuge in God.” (RS, pg 176). That this is such a gross and inexcusable misrepresentation of Protestant theology should now be abundantly clear.
Sundry Issues: Synergism, Prayer, Theosis, Scripture
It is difficult to go on recounting the profound misrepresentations of Protestantism found in Rock and Sand, but it seems next to necessary given that so many have accepted Trenham’s presentation as accurate. He also misrepresents monergism (although not mentioned by name) when he states that Orthodoxy, as opposed to Protestantism, teaches that one uses their own human will to hold fast to the word of truth (RS, pg 176). The doctrine of monergism concerns the divine act of regeneration, which once it has occurred enables the human will to be exercised together with grace. As the Second Helvetic Confession states of the regenerate person’s will, “the will itself is not only changed by the Spirit, but it is also equipped with faculties so that it wills and is able to do the good of its own accord” (Ch. 9, 5.047). And although it can be understood variously, synergism follows a monergistic regeneration according to Reformed thought, for “the regenerate, in choosing and doing good, work not only passively but actively. For they are moved by God that they may do themselves what they do” (Ch. 9, 5.048). Thus a Protestant works out their salvation with fear and trembling, as per Scripture, but what they do not do is work for their salvation with fear and trembling. Yet Trenham again conceals this, and does not accurately relate the Reformed doctrine of union with Christ, justification by faith alone, regeneration, or monergism.
He also claims that the kind of fullness of truth in Orthodoxy which produced the Philokalia is in principle unknown to Protestants (RS, pg 177), even though it is typical for laity to be discouraged from reading it. Perhaps he has not read the many excellent treatises on prayer and mortification, such as John Owen’s works on the same, or Anthony Burgess, or Henry Scougal, or Walter Marshall, or Andrew Murray, or A.W. Tozer, or any number of authors as found in Protestantism, but it is certainly not true that Protestants do not produce texts with great insight into prayer or the process of sanctification. In fact, Protestants have produced an abundance of quality literature on far more subjects than the Orthodox, not to mention that Philip Schaff, the editor responsible for the famous Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers sets, was himself a German Reformed Christian working with Anglicans. It is even arguable to say that the very subject of Patristics is largely a Protestant phenomenon, following Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Calvin, Vermigli, Gill, Pusey, Schaff, and so on, who reached past the Romanist magisterium and the Medieval scholastic manuals by returning not only to the Scriptures but to the Fathers, also a movement that continues to this very day in a very lively ongoing Patristic retrieval. The Church Fathers are as much the patrimony of Protestants as for Orthodox.
Sadly, Trenham misrepresents the richness of doctrine related to the Protestant view of the Atonement, calling it “the usual Protestant reductionism applied to the Cross of our Savior,” and by giving only a single quotation from the Westminster Confession (RS, pg 178). As we have shown abundantly above, the Reformed view of the Atonement is quite rich, especially as related in the Westminster Standards. And although as we have shown above that union with Christ is a major theme of Protestant soteriology, Trenham even describes Protestantism qua Protestantism as having an “immense neglect of emphasis upon… teaching salvation as union with Jesus Christ” (RS, pg 178). Since we have already shown how false this is, and unless he wants to quibble over what he means by the phrase “neglect of emphasis,” it does not need to be repeated here. It only needs to be reiterated that Trenham is either grossly misinformed, grossly misled, or grossly deceptive as regards the reality of Protestantism. Within the Larger Catechism, questions 64-90, following especially Question 66 (echoing Question 30 of the Shorter Catechism), there is essentially a 26 Question/Answer section unpacking the implications of our union with Christ:
Question 66: What is that union which the elect have with Christ?
Answer: The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; which is done in their effectual calling.
Therefore, rather than ignoring union with Christ, Protestant theology makes it the fountain from which all saving graces flow into the heart of man, including justification by faith alone. This is why his further claim that Protestants neglect theosis is another falsehood (RS, pg 180). Theosis is essentially a Greek word for sanctification, i.e. the process of becoming progressively holy through a participation in the holiness of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). This is famously associated with the Patristic statement of St. Athanasius (or perhaps earlier), that “God became man, so that man might become God” (RS, pg 180). Since there is no impartation of divine essence to make man God by nature, what this doctrine means is essentially that man becomes God-like by being transformed into His image in a progressive holiness through union with Christ. Because Christ is God, and because as a single divine Subject Christ took on human nature, in our union with Christ via His human nature we are also made to participate in His perfectly divine nature. Giving this a Greek term, theosis, and mixing in a generous portion of Semi-Pelagianism, which some today style covenant nomism (i.e. getting into the covenant by grace and staying in by works), does not mean that Protestantism as such ignores theosis and the reality of such transformation via union (although correcting for the Semi-Pelagianism). Gratefully, as Protestantism is not in any way implicitly opposed to learning from the Church Fathers, one can find in Systematic Theology textbooks by Reformed theologians such as Robert Letham an entire section on theosis.
It is perhaps not worth touching on his misrepresentation of Sola Scriptura, which rather than diminishing the Church’s authority is actually the basis of all authority in the Church, the doctrine simply maintains that the Scriptures are the only infallible authority in the Church, not that they are the only authority. It is precisely the Word of God that gives a relative or derived authority to the Church because she is His Bride “which always hears and obeys the voice of her own Spouse and Pastor; but takes not upon her to be mistress over the same” (Scots Confession, Ch. 19: The Authority of the Scriptures). To show, however, that councils, unlike the Scriptures, are fallible, one need only contrast the Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus 2 (449) and Chalcedon (451) in order to show that Councils are quite fallible, or the Council of Florence (1431-1449), or Vatican 1 and 2.
Real Presence in the Eucharist
Trenham also falsely claims of Calvin, that he “rejected the Lutheran affirmation of the real presence” (RS, pg 81). Although it is known that Calvin did not accept what some call the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation, it is a horrid slander to assert that Calvin denied the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He also misrepresents Zwingli as claiming “that the elements of the Eucharist were bare signs and empty symbols” (RS, pg 82). Trenham also inexplicably states of Calvin, that “virtually no one, including his own followers for the last five hundred years, have been able to understand what receiving Jesus’ Body and Blood spiritually means” (RS, pg 82). To begin by addressing the accusation against Zwingli, perhaps Zwingli's own testimony, written shortly before his death in a letter to King Francis I, will suffice:
We believe that Christ is truly present in the Lord’s Supper; yea, we believe that there is no communion without the presence of Christ. … We believe that the true body of Christ is eaten in the communion in a sacramental and spiritual manner by the religious, believing, and pious heart. (Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Vol. 1, pg 375; cf. pgs 368-369)
This testimony directly contradicts Trenham and proves that he misrepresents Zwingli as affirming that elements were bare signs and empty symbols, or that such a doctrine would have been acceptable to the Reformers. It is also worth recalling that Heinrich Bullinger was the successor to Zwingli in Zurich following his death, and he also affirmed real presence, as recorded in the Second Helvetic Confession where he states that “the signs and the things signified are sacramentally joined together” (Ch. 19, 5.180), and such that “by the work of Christ through the Holy Spirit they also inwardly receive the flesh and blood of the Lord” … for “Christ Himself… is the principle thing in the Supper” (Ch. 21, 5.196). Heinrich Bullinger makes himself yet clearer, saying that in the Supper “the body and blood of the Lord… are spiritually communicated to us” (Ch. 21, 5.198). Also: “From all this it is clear that by spiritual food we do not mean some imaginary food I know not what, but the very body of the Lord given to us” (Ch. 21, 5.201). And, “there is also a sacramental eating of the body of the Lord by which not only spiritually and internally the believer truly participates in the true body and blood of the Lord” (Ch. 21, 5.203):
Therefore, when he now receives the sacrament, he does not receive nothing. For he progresses in continuing to communicate in the body and blood of the Lord… And he who outwardly receives the sacrament by true faith, not only receives the sign, but also, as we said, enjoys the thing itself. (Ch. 21, 5.203)
Now, this clearly states that in the Lord’s Supper Christ is truly present and received by the faithful. And although Trenham states that no one knows what this means, Bullinger rather states:
The sun, which is absent from us in the heavens, is notwithstanding effectually present among us. How much more so the Sun of Righteousness, Christ, although in his body he is absent from us in heaven, present with us, not corporeally, but spiritually… Whence it follows that we do not have the Supper without Christ, and yet at the same time have an unbloody and mystical Supper (Ch. 21, 5.205).
Bullinger, as confessed in one of the most important Reformed Confessions, clearly does understand how Christ can be present with us spiritually while remaining corporeally in heaven, an analogy also used by other classical Reformers such as Johann Heidegger (Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pg 641). That Trenham would assert that Calvin’s followers could not understand Calvin’s position is simply bluster.
Typical of the Reformed view of the Eucharist:
Christ’s body and blood are things present in the supper neither locally nor in any physical way, but truly and really, without any fiction, united with the bread and wine by a sacramental union, on a mystical analogy and relation which is not fictitious but the true and real conjunction of the pact. (Crocius, quoted by Heppe in Reformed Dogmatics, pg 642)
In short, “he is present totus (whole), not a totum (whole thing)” (Bucan, quoted by Heppe in Reformed Dogmatics, pg 642).
Interestingly, the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Dositheus committed the Orthodox Church to affirming (Decree 17), declares that the accidents of bread and wine remain, only the substance of the bread and wine being removed. And so to say that Christ is locally present “in” the accidents of the bread and wine is a mistake, for accidents are “in” the substance, and so even according to transubstantiation one is not to look upon the accidents of the bread and wine as if they themselves, as accidents, are the substance of Christ’s local, corporeal presence. For the accidents remain, only the substance is purported to change.
Regarding the doctrine of real presence, Calvin himself states:
Although it seems to us incredible that Christ’s flesh should get through to us where the live places are so far apart, as to be to us for a food, we should remember how far the secret power of the H. Spirit transcends all our senses, and how foolish it is to think of measuring His transcendence by our scale. So what our mind fails to understand let faith conceive, that the Spirit does truly bring together things which spatially are disjoined. (quoted by Heirich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, pg 649)
In fact, contra Trenham, Calvin affirmed that he was in agreement with the Augsburg Confession, affirming “all that is contained in the so called Augsburg Confession” on this issue, even affirming the words: “In the holy supper, with the bread and wine are truly given Christ’s body and blood” (Calvin, quoted by John Nevin in Coena Mystica, pg 64). Calvin here concludes: “We say accordingly, lest our senses should be mocked with bread and wine, that to their outward figure is joined this true effect, that believers there receive the body and blood of Christ” (Calvin, quoted by John Nevin in Coena Mystica, pg 64). B.A. Gerrish, in his study entitled Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharist Theology of John Calvin, also found that Calvin’s position affirmed real presence, stating that according to Calvin: “The bread and wine received in the Sacrament were for him signs and guarantees of a present reality: the believer’s feeding on the body and blood of Christ” (pg 165, cf, 159, 166).
Not only is Trenham therefore directly wrong to say that Calvin “rejected the Lutheran affirmation of the real presence,” it is also clear that Calvin was not merely a mediating presence between Luther and Zwingli in the sense Trenham asserts, as he also got Zwingli wrong. Bavinck even argues: “Calvin put himself on Luther’s side and said that Christ is present in the Supper and is received there” (Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4 , pg 558). Bavinck himself, writing in the early 20th Century, not incidentally also himself affirmed the real presence:
With the signs of bread and wine, Jesus gives his own body and blood… the table of the Supper brings about true communion between Christ and believers, a communion not just with the benefits but above all with the person of Christ, both in his human nature and in his divine nature. (Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4, pg 576)
Returning to Calvin: “The bread thus is of right termed Body; since it not only represents this, but actually offers it to our use” (Calvin, quoted by Nevin in Coena Mystica, pg 61). For Christ becomes ours in “the sacred Supper, where Christ offers himself to us with all his blessings, and we receive him in faith” (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, ch. 17, section 5). Thus, according to Calvin, in the Eucharist we receive the true body of Christ because He is truly present in it, for we receive there “the true and substantial communication of the body and blood of the Lord, as exhibited to believers under the sacred symbols of the Supper, understanding that they are received not by the imagination or intellect merely, but are enjoyed in reality as the food of eternal life” (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Ch. 17, Section 19). Let the matter of Calvin himself be settled.
In fact, in the latter half of the 19th Century, John W. Nevin proved beyond any shadow of a doubt in his two works, The Mystical Presence: And the Doctrine of the Reformed Church on the Lord’s Supper and Coena Mystica: Debating Reformed Eucharistic Theology, that Calvin and the Reformers after him affirmed real presence in the Eucharist. Charles Hodge, the famous 19th Century Princeton theologian, unwisely published a polemic against Nevin’s first book on the subject, and in Nevin’s second book found that “Nevin demolished the arguments of Hodge and Hodge chose not to reply” (Linden DeBie, Editor’s Introduction to The Mystical Presence, pg xxix). Nevin demonstrates that among the Reformed Confessions, such as the Gallic (also called The French Confession of Faith, and prepared by Calvin, Article 36), the Belgic (Article 35), and the Westminster (Ch. 29.7), the doctrine of the real presence is there (The Mystical Presence, pgs 103-108). Among those we might also include the Scots Confession (Chapter 21) and the Irish Articles of Religion (Article 94). Moreover, in such notable Reformers after Calvin he also found that Ursinus, Owen, and Hooker all affirmed the doctrine of the real presence (ibid). We might also include Bucer (Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4, pg 559), Beza, and Vermigli, especially as Vermigli was praised by Calvin as having stated the doctrine most completely: “The whole was crowned by Peter Martyr [Vermigli], who has left nothing to be desired” (Calvin, quoted in The Oxford Treatise and Disputation on the Eucharist, pgs xxx-xxxi). According to the declaration and insistence of Vermigli, the bread and wine as “symbols signify, offer, and most truly exhibit the body of Christ” (Treatise on the Eucharist, pg 124; cf. Beza, A Clear and Simple Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, pgs 158-163).
Turretin, discussed above, also affirms real presence, stating that by God’s power sacraments as instrumental signs positively unite the thing signified with its sign, and “from this reality of union flows the presence by which the things signified become also present together with the signs to those using them lawfully… inasmuch as the things signified are present by their signs” (Vol 3, pg 349). In fact, according to Turretin these signs are not only not bare signs or symbols, but in their union with the signified, i.e. Christ’s body and blood, their presence is made “most real” (Vol. 3, pg 350).
One could also profitably mention Thomas Boston, the early 18th Century Puritan who taught in his Complete Body of Divinity regarding the giving of bread and wine in the sacrament: “This signifies Christ’s giving himself, with all his benefits, to the worthy receiver, which is really done in the right use of this sacrament” (Thomas Boston, Union with Christ, pg 116). Again there is an affirmation of real presence, but not only real presence but also real union with Christ. His doctrine of union with Christ is, in fact, intimately tied together with his sacramental theology. Beza makes a similar point, which also speaks to the above discussion of union with Christ, when he states:
The internal material or actual substance of the sacrament is not only whatever flows down to us from Christ, but most of all Christ Himself. We must become one with Him before we draw anything from Him. (Beza, A Clear and Simple Treatise on the Lord’s Supper, pg 159)
The import of this is that Trenham is so far wrong on Calvin and the Reformed doctrine of the Eucharist that it is a disgrace.
As a last example, from Trenham’s alma mater, the Westminster Confession states, in Chapter 29, Of the Lord’s Supper:
VII. Worthy receivers outwardly partaking of the visible elements in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually, receive and feed upon Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.
It is therefore clear that the doctrine of the real presence is central to the Reformed Christian faith, and was not concealed from him as clearly put forth in his former Confessional document. For one “really and indeed” does “receive and feed upon Christ crucified.” One cannot “really… receive” and still hold to an absent Christ. Hence, real presence.
Conclusion
I will simply close by pointing out one last false claim, that “the Protestant Reformers denied the four characteristics or marks of the Church articulated in the Creed” (RS, pg 181). Not only do the Presbyterians publish the Nicene Creed (with the four marks of the Church) among their official ecclesiatical literature, such as “The Book of Confessions” and even their hymnals, so do Reformed Study Bibles such as the Reformation Study Bible and the Reformation Heritage Study Bible. It is also printed together with the Three Forms of Unity as used in many Reformed Churches, including some Baptists, not to mention that Anglicans also retain the Nicene Creed. Moreover, the Lutheran Book of Concord contains the Nicene Creed with its four traditional marks of the Church. The problem, of course, is how these four marks are interpreted, which for Trenham and the Orthodox (and the Romanists and the Orientals) is a sectarian interpretation that excludes from salvation all those outside of the visible administration of the Eastern Churches. This is completely unlike the Protestants, who affirm even when condemning some visible administrations that salvation is not contingent upon being in communion with this or that visible Church.
In the end it therefore seems a wonder just who Archpriest Josiah Trenham is talking about when he’s talking about Protestants. Despite certain accurate historical details he includes, in the major interpretive areas discussed above Trenham is either uninformed, misinformed, or purposely misleading for the sake of his rhetorical aim to grow the Orthodox Church. Sadly, too many enter the Orthodox Church under the very kinds of false pretenses such as given by Trenham’s presentation. Caricature and strawman are the main diet offered to the inquirers and catechumens, and unfortunately Trenham’s work capitalizes on such malignant portrayals. It is also regrettable that many confirmed in Eastern Orthodoxy will read his work and be confirmed only further in unsubstantiated bias. But there is also hope, that many will not be misled by such superficial and uninformed criticisms as offered by Trenham. And it is my prayer that this critique may contribute in some small measure to clarifying and defending honestly the Protestant position, sharing its riches and potential, warning the vulnerable about misrepresentations such as Trenham’s, calling people out of the Orthodox and Romanist sects, and inviting people into the truth of the Gospel as maintained in the confessional Protestant churches, to the glory of God alone.
-The Reformed Ninja
