General Features of the Westminster Confession of Faith of Rev. Paolo de Petris

The Westminster Confession of faith with the short Catechism has for more than three centuries represented the basic creed of many churches belonging to the Reformed tradition and has exercised a significant influence in Congregational and Baptist traditions ⁽¹⁾. With reference to the influence of the Westminster Confession in America, Sydney Ahlstrom wrote: the Reformed tradition was the religious heritage of three -fourths of the American people in 1776", and that the impact of the Confession, both on the east coast and the frontier "defied calculation⁽²⁾.

Admittedly, the influence which Ahlstrom referred to, was due in large measure to the fact that the Confession was not written solely by academics, but by ministers who desired to give Scriptural instruction to their congregations, to clear away heresy and to demonstrate the doctrinal unity of the Reformed Churches of the British Isles and the Continent.

Notwithstanding  the authority of the Westminster Confession has in this last century decreased to such a point that it no longer holds the same place in the life of the Church as it did in the past. Even though many churches have continued formally to maintain their allegiance to it, deep reservations have nevertheless been expressed. Some have introduced modifications in the text of the Confession itself by altering certain passages, by eliminating others and by adding new chapters. Some have taken formal action to define the sense in which they interpret certain passages or to preclude certain inferences that might be drawn from them. In other cases brief statements have been adopted, which even though they are not to be regarded as substitutes for, but rather as interpretations of, and supplements to, the Westminster Confession, do in fact constitute an implicit revision of it ⁽³⁾.

There are several causes for this disaffection that in some cases border on real embarrassment.

In the first place, on the basis of the assumption that the Church lives in a very different situation today than it did in the past, many have believed that one ought to concentrate on essential beliefs rather than on those which are peripheral⁽⁴⁾.

Others have emphasized that the methodology of the Westminster Assembly was based upon the assumption that Christian faith could be adequately embodied in propositions and forgot that the incarnation means that all propositional theology at best approximates the truth ⁽⁵⁾ .

These are not the only criticisms that have been addressed. As Georges Hendry pointed out⁽⁶⁾ , the Westminster Confession of faith has been charged:

1) to be too legalistic.

2) to have given in to the temptation to deliver categorical answers to all questions that could be raised concerning the faith.

3) to tend to see everything in terms of black and white.

4) to have the tendency to view the drama of redemption as one that is played out between God and the individual.

Admittedly one of the most significant reasons at the basis of this disaffection has to do with the strong emphasis given by the Westminster Confession to the doctrine of predestination. In fact, when some hear this word darkness descends on them and they seem to sink into the infinite abyss of the hidden God, who before all times, even before the fall and the beginning of creation, beyond good and evil, decided to destine some to eternal blessedness and others to eternal damnation. The cry of John Milton I may go to hell, but such a God ( as that of the Calvinistic teaching) will never command my respect, was expressive of such thinking.

An example of these perplexities is the book " The Westminster Confession for today", in which George Hendry states that: the awesome doctrine of the double decree, or double predestination, which has been regarded as the distinctive feature of the Reformed faith, is no longer held by the Presbyterian Churches in the form in which it is set forth in the chapter III of the Westminster Confession ⁽⁷⁾ .

Even from a historical point of view the Westminster Confession has been neglected by the historians of thought and also by Church historians because it was not creative but simply repetitive of a theological perspective that was about to end. Admittedly on the basis of these and other similar criticisms a certain cultural aversion to the thought and style of the Puritans has played a significant role.

The Westminster Confession of faith was indeed the culmination of a great period of theological activity that started on October 31, 1517, when Luther posted his ninety-five theses. If one looks at the theological achievements of the Reformation during the first half of the sixteenth century, one cannot help but recognizing a meaningful watershed between this period of time and the following one. While the first period was deeply characterized by renewal, by expectancy and even by a new understanding and discovery, the period following the death of John Calvin was marked by conservation rather than innovation, and by careful examination and precision. While the Scots Confession of 1560 and the First Helvetic Confession were marked by a certain disjointedness, the Canons of Dort, as well as the Westminster Confession and the Helvetic Consensus formula were conceptual and logical.

This process of consolidation, clarification and elaboration of faith ( which has been termed a form of modified Scholasticism because of its similarity to medieval Scholasticism) was inevitable and became necessary as soon it was realized that technical aspects of theology were essential. From this point of view the Westminster Confession of faith is exemplary because it was able to integrate very conveniently doctrine and practice. Its language was carefully defined, precise, logical and technical. Its theology was clear. No other confession of that period achieved this level of theological competence. As Georges Hendry is forced to admit, the Westminster Confession possesses great merits. It could not have held its place in the Presbyterian Churches for so long if that were not so ⁽⁸⁾ .  Modern theologians such as Barth and Tillich have paid tribute to the technical excellence of the theology of the seventeenth century ⁽⁹⁾ .

Admittedly this process of consolidation, clarification and elaboration was made possible by some historical events. Once the Council of Trent provided the Roman Catholic Church with precise and clear definitions, one felt the need to deal more specifically with the questions involved. The same thing can be said in regard to the theological debate between Supralapsarians and Infralapsarians. Specifically the question that stirred up that period of time was whether God elected some and rejected others apart from any consideration of their merit, simply because it was His sovereign pleasure to do so, or whether He contemplated the human race as fallen and sinful when He made the choice, electing some to life and passing by others whom He left to a just condemnation for their sin.

The Assembly of Westminster carried on the work of clarification and elaboration of these issues in a state of complete isolation from any political and social events of that time. Its compilers deliberately tried to use a language abstracted as much as possible from history and experience as well as to avoid any peculiar theology. On the basis of this effort there lay the conviction to construct a perennial theology that could be exempted from the flow of time.

Notwithstanding, and in spite of its abstractedness and logicality, the Westminster Confession belongs to the period in which it was born. It couldn't be otherwise, inasmuch as every human achievement is not understandable apart from its own historical, political and cultural background.

In his research, Barry Howson has shed light on the historical and political events that preceded, accompanied and followed the compilation of the Westminster Confession, by emphasizing that its origins reach far back into the Puritan movements and especially into the conflict that opposed the Puritans to the Stuarts Kings, James I and Charles I. Since it is not my intention to dwell much on this particular point, I'll try to trace the theological coordinates through which it is possible to understand the work of the Westminster Assembly.

In the above perspective the aim of this paper will be directed firstly to focussing on some elements that have been often neglected, and then to examining the perspective of the Westminster Confession on the question which drew the attention of its authors; This means the problem of election and predestination.

Purposes and goals of the Westminster Assembly.

It is well known that the goals which a confession tries to achieve can be reducible to three:

1) To express the opinion of the Christian community with regard to the doctrines contained in the Holy Scripture. It is likely that the Apostle's Creed came into existence for these kinds of reasons.

2) To provide a summary of Christian doctrine in view of religious instructions.

3) To shed light in a period of controversy on particular elements of the Christian faith that run the risk of being called into question.

It is worth adding that, although these three goals or purposes often recurred in the history of the Christian Church, nevertheless they can exist either separately or together, in the sense that more than one of them may be served by any single creed.

Admittedly the same thing can be said for the Westminster Confession of faith. In my opinion the most salient purpose that its signers had in mind was prevalently the last one. In a period in which the values of the Reformation were imperilled, the purposes, that the solemn League and Covenant committed the signers to, were:

1)To endeavour the extirpation of popery, prelacy..... , superstition, heresy, profaneness;

2)To endeavour the preservation of the reformed religion in Scotland and the reformation of religion in the Kingdom of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed churches;

3) To endeavour to bring the churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, confession of faith, form of Church governments, directory for worship and catechising, that we, and our posterity after us, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us ⁽¹⁰⁾ .

As it is clear from these statements the intention of the Assembly was to reform the church and to provide a theologically viable and ecclesiastically workable system of church government to take place if the established order was swept away by Parliament. Polity and the doctrine of the church were at the centre of its work; but within the context of seventeenth century thought, it was inevitable that the new ordering of the church would also point to the ordering of a new society in England.

In pursuing this purpose one can single out two different phases.

In the first period that covers approximately ten weeks, the Assembly was ordered by Parliament to revise the thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England in order to free and vindicate the doctrine of them from all aspersions and false interpretation, this means to make them more explicitly Calvinistic.

Fifteen of these Articles were consequently modified or amended even though not noticeably. Art. I on the Trinity remained intact. In Art. II, regarding the Son of God, the word 'all' before ' actual sins of men' was taken away in order to emphasize the Calvinistic particularism. Art. III discusses the interpretation of Christ's descent into Hades. Art. VI omitted the mention of the Apocrypha. Art. VIII omitted the mention of the three ecumenical creeds because of the unwillingness of the Assembly to adopt a rule of faith except for Scripture.

The second period started when the Assembly interrupted this work of revision after having received an order of Parliament, Oct. 12,1643 to frame a confession of faith for three Kingdoms, according to the Solemn League and Covenant. This fact is in itself remarkable inasmuch as it demonstrates clearly that the Assembly was not an ecclesiastical synod but derived its authority from Parliament. In fact, it was Parliament which nominated all the members, with the exception of the Scotch commissioners who were appointed by the general assembly and then were admitted by Parliament. As P. Schaff rightly pointed out, it was the State authority that fixed the time and place of meeting, prescribed the work and paid the expenses (allowing to each member four shillings a day), chose the prolocutor and scribes, filled the vacancies and reserved to its own authority all final decision, reducing thus the Assembly to an advisory council⁽¹¹⁾ .

In fact the purpose of the Assembly was not to act in the name of the church but only to advise the Parliament about certain matters which were proposed to it. The Assembly was explicitly prohibited from exercising any jurisdiction, power, or authority ecclesiastical whatsoever ⁽¹²⁾ . And it couldn't have been otherwise since the continuation of the medieval idea of unity between the Church and the State made it unthinkable for people in this period of time to make a clear distinction between their religion and their politics. The two spheres of activity were in the process of becoming separated, but the separation had not yet happened. As Perry Miller pointed out with regard to those who settled on Massachusetts Bay, Puritans did not initially want to change the medieval unity between the Church and State⁽¹³⁾ .  Still less did English Puritans want to change the fundamental shape of society inasmuch as their immediate purpose was to change the pattern of the Church, but not its relationship with the State.

Admittedly, the fact that the members of Assembly were appointed by the Parliament, brought about an agreement of views, even though the doctrinal differences among the members were marginal. Although the strongly anti-Arminian Scotsman Baillie could write we had long and tough debates about the Decrees of election, he concluded that all is gone right according to our mind ⁽¹⁴⁾ . There were no Arminians, Pelagians, or Antinomians in the Assembly. The members were all Calvinistic, with more or less rigour who sought to provide a statement of faith that could prevent any further ingress of Arminianism into the Church of England. Once the Solemn League and Covenant were adopted and approved by the Scottish and English Parliament, the Assembly took a new direction and devoted a major proportion of its time to discussing the questions of church government and worship. Even though the debate on these issues was much more serious and heated, the Confession - after two years and three months - passed the Assembly and Parliament by a very great majority. No other symbolical book cost so much time and labour, except for the Tridentine and Vatican Decrees. No other confession of faith has had such clear, concise and exhaustive statements.

Another important factor is that the Westminster Confession was not framed on the model of any continental confession, but it followed in the tracks of the English Articles. It consists of 33 articles that embrace all the leading articles of the Christian faith from the Creation to the Final Judgement, and its more important themes are substantially reducible to four: The Holy Scripture, the Lordship and Sovereignty of God, the Covenant and the Christian Life.

Even though the largest part ( approximately 2/3 of the Confession) has to do with an analytical description of the Christian life and of its responsibilities in the world, the core of the Westminster Confession of faith lies elsewhere and precisely in the doctrine of Predestination and in Covenant Theology.

Admittedly the centrality of predestination in regard to other doctrines is evident even from its collocation inside the confession. Whereas Calvin discussed predestination after he had worked through the doctrine of the Christian life and just before the chapter on the resurrection, the Westminster Confession dealt with it after the doctrine of God and before the doctrine of creation, in the widest context of the Sovereignty and Lordship of God. Notwithstanding, this centrality ought not to be exaggerated to such a point to believing that the doctrine of predestination played the role of being a kind of speculative platform from which it would have been possible to deduce all other doctrines. As K. Barth recognized, in the Westminster Confession   it was not a matter of deducing all doctrines from the doctrine of predestination , but to bring it  into direct relationship with the doctrine of God" and to "place it at the head of all other doctrines; and this meant that in it they found the first and decisive word which we have to receive and proclaim in respect of the will of God in relation to creation; the word of which we have always to take in account in everything that follows⁽¹⁵⁾ .

In a general perspective the Westminster Confession went indeed beyond the two Helvetic Confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Scotch Confession and the Thirty -Nine Articles, but it didn't go a whit further than the Canons of Dort, the Lambeth Articles and the Irish Articles. In fact, on one hand it affirmed straightforwardly election, reprobation and limited atonement, on the other hand in following the Synod of Dort it avoided some of the hardest formulations of these matters. Even though its theology represents a development from that of Calvin, it can't be assumed that such a development was a legalistic and scholastic corruption of Calvin's teaching.

Chapter III, "of God's Eternal Decrees," Chapter V, "Of Providence,", Chapter IX, "Of Free Will " and Chapter XVIII, "Of the Perseverance of the Saints" are closely connected. They present a logical chain of ideas which make up what is technically called the Calvinistic system in which two elements are worth noting:

1) the growing emphasis on election and the doctrine of the decrees of God on double predestination, and

2) the view according to which election precedes grace, so that the interpretation of the Person and Work of Christ turns out to be subordinated to the doctrines of the decrees, with the further consequence that grace is conceived to be limited to the redemption of the elect.

Therefore, the doctrine of the decrees of God,( expressed by the phrase "It pleased God.... according to the counsel of His own will"), as it was worked out by Theodore Beza, became the major treatise on the whole perspective of Creation, on Providence, the Covenants, Revelation, Redemption effectual Calling etc. Admittedly this perspective entails some risks. When the doctrine of the decrees is the major premiss, Torrance wonders, don't we see the influence of the pragmatic Western legal mind with its preoccupation with the How. We think that this remark is groundless inasmuch as the risk of falling into legalism is inherent in every theological statement.

The main points in which the doctrine of predestination were articulated reproduced substantially more or less the conclusions reached at the Synod of Dort (commonly remembered with the help of the acronym Tulip):

The Westminster Confession has been repeatedly charged to have taught the awesome doctrine of double predestination. There is a semblance of truth in this statement even though it is not completely the truth.

Admittedly it is true that the Westminster Assembly refused to pass the predestination over in silence, but it is also true that it refused to put the predestination to life on the same level of predestination to death. One needs only to read Chapter III: By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life and others foreordained to everlasting death.

The words used here are neither synonymous nor identical. While the word predestined is connected only with everlasting life , the word foreordained is used only in reference with everlasting death. In essence what the Westminster Confession stated was that the elect are predestined to life though they don't deserve it, while the reprobate are condemned to death because they do deserve it. There is a certain logical inconsistency behind this asymmetry. If the cause of the election to everlasting life resides only in God's will, one can't help inferring that the cause of the foreordination to everlasting death can't reside elsewhere than in the same divine Will. The attempt to reconcile the two horns of the dilemma fails to explain how God's absolute decrees have no casual effects upon the sinful actions of men.

One of the most important features of the theology of the seventeenth century was the discovering of Covenant Theology. This element is in itself meaningful inasmuch as the notion of covenant underlies the entire Bible and represents the common denominator of God's intervention in the history of the people of Israel. One needs only to remind oneself of the covenant made by God with Abraham or that made with Israel after its delivery from Egypt. The idea of a covenant between God and His elect, parallelling the covenant between God and Israel in the Old Testament started to assume a major function and came to dominate Reformed Theology of the seventeenth century to such an extent as to represent its central nucleus.

In the Westminster Confession Covenant-theology was elaborated in the form of two covenants.

According to Chapter VII, II the first covenant made with Adam was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his prosperity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

Since this covenant of works was broken by man's disobedience, a second covenant of grace was made necessary wherein Lord freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that ordained unto life His Holy Spirit, to make them a willing and able to believe (Chapter VII, III).

The importance of Covenant-theology should not be downplayed, because it acted as a counterbalance to the doctrine of predestination. As a matter of fact, whereas the doctrine of predestination led theologians to stumble into the infinite abyss of the hidden God, Who, before all time, destined some to eternal blessedness and others to eternal damnation, Covenant-theology directed attention upon the working out of God's decrees in history and human experience. The consequences of this formulation were substantially two: On the one hand the apparent cold scholasticism of the theology of the seventeenth century was humanized by a perspective which shifted attention to the concrete facts of history. On the other hand, with its emphasis on human responsibility, Covenant-theology attached value to human response toward the gracious initiative of God, which was in danger of being lost.

As we have seen before, predestination ( of which Covenant-theology is a sheer corollary) was elevated by the Westminster Confession above all other doctrines, so that it became the central nucleus of protestant theological perspective of the 17th century.

During these decades there has been much discussion on the causes of the predestinarian conception of grace. By phenomenologists of religion it has been emphasized that at the basis of this experience there has always been a sense of awe, terror, fear of the sacred, or, to put it in Rudolph Otto 's words, a numinous feeling in face of the mysterium tremendum . As R. Otto goes on to observe, such awe quickly becomes a sense of dependence that self abasement and the annulment of personal strength and claims and achievements in the presence of the transcendent in which   the numen, overpoweringly experienced, becomes the all in all, disclosing the weakness of individual choice in opposition to the omnipotence of the will that determines all ⁽¹⁷⁾ .  At any rate, whichever may be the causes of the predestinarian conception of grace, this feeling of absolute dependence might seem to be utterly irrelevant to the business and concerns of this world. How, it might reasonably be asked, could such a sense of the numinous have any influence upon mundane affairs?

On the contrary, the role played by this doctrine in the history of the Christian Church has been significant. To understand how and why predestination could have reached such importance, one has to keep in mind that the doctrine of predestination came to dominate Reformed Theology in concomitance of increasing persecution. In a time in which the existence itself of Protestantism was at stake, the sense of being elected formed the battle cry of great new awakenings and served as a rallying-point to countless heroes of the Church militant. Paul Wernle ⁽¹⁸⁾ wrote that the Calvinist ethic produced a particular type of person, the "hero." In fact the word "hero" became the most frequent earmark of Christian life. The believers were called to cultivate a spirit of invincible fortitude and courage, which might serve to sustain them under the weight of all calamities.

Together with this conviction the principle by which the individual couldn't lose the state of grace led to a further consequence. Since the Calvinist knew that his calling and election were real, he was free to give all his attention to the effort to mould the society according to the will of God by entering fully into the life of the world in order to transform it. In light of the consideration that the all created order was the "Theatre of God's Glory", the arena of divine action, believers were actively involved in God's purpose for carrying on His purposes in history. It became the battlefield of Christian vocation and the sphere in which human beings had to realize the purposes of God.

In confirmation of these considerations one needs only to remind oneself that the Puritans believed that England was God's elected nation for the accomplishment of His purposes and that the English were entrusted to establish the New Jerusalem in England. This sense of being the "elect people of God" was heightened as the Puritans entered the new promised land, America, and the metaphor of Christians as soldiers in conquest of the new world became the most important and dominant designation of Christian life.

However, apart from any historical influence, other elements have to be kept in due consideration, which have to do with the subjective feeling of the believers.

In the first place the doctrine of predestination has represented a perennial source of strength and attraction for dissatisfied persons. The Russian Orthodox theologian Nicholas Berdyaev , no friend to Calvinism or predestination, noted that to acknowledge a degree of freedom of the will greater that Calvin or even St. Augustine allowed, provides no relief at all to the situation. Freedom of the will, in giving rise to sin, sets a trap in the interests of judgement and punishment ⁽¹⁹⁾ . There is an element of truth in this statement. Admittedly, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, predestination has been comforting because it has meant that the awesome divine power, that rules over all, rescues the sick soul from its pain, whereas the claim to free will takes away all comfort by driving persons to despair over a salvation they were too weak to work out for themselves.

In the second place, the doctrine of predestination, as Max Weber pointed out, caused " a feeling of unprecedented inner loneliness of the single individual. In what was for the man of the age of the Reformation the most important thing in life, his eternal salvation, he was forced to follow his path alone, to meet a destiny which had been decreed for him from eternity. No one could help him. No priest, for the chosen one can understand the word of God only in his own heart. No sacraments......No church"⁽²⁰⁾ .  Weber's considerations are substantially right even though I don't think that the concern that moved Puritans can be reducible only to terms of personal salvation, unlike a certain piece literature, i.e. Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress, could suggest. As Roland Bainton wrote their fundamental concern was not psychological and self-centred, but theological and God-centred. The Eternal had written a drama in which they were to be the actors⁽²¹⁾ .  As a matter of fact, by reading the Westminster Confession one remains amazed at the strong emphasis given to the theme of the Glory of God, which doesn't allow any comparison ⁽²²⁾ with any of the former Confessions of faith nor even with the Irish Articles. According to the compilers of the Westminster Confession, everything existed only for the Glory of God. The task of the elected in the world was directed only to increase the Glory of God, by fulfilling His commandments. Even the social activities appeared to be preordained in majorem gloriam Dei . The same Leitmotif recurs in the Westminster Shorter Catechism where it is written that  the chief end of man is to glorify and enjoy God forever. To understand the particularity of this statement (the background of which is Calvin's motto Deus hoc fine mundum condidit ut Gloriae Suae Theatrum foret), we can compare it with one by the medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas, who asserted that "Man's ultimate felicity consisted only in the contemplation of God". Such a definition led the Reformed Theologian H. Richard Niebuhr to conclude that Roman Catholicism and Reformation Christianity disagreed not only over the question of how one is saved, but over the very purpose of life itself. Medieval religion, says Niebuhr, was focused on contemplation and lived off the premise that grace was improving nature, as the believer ascended the ladder of mystical contemplation. In contrast, the Reformation was concerned with the Kingdom of God, which was not a product of individual or corporate achievement, but the intervention of God alone⁽²³⁾ .The insistence that the individual believer was called by God to serve Him in every sphere of worldly existence gave a new dignity and meaning to the world .The world was to be treated with contempt to the extent that it was not God, and was too easily mistaken for God; yet, in that it is the creation of God, it is to be affirmed.

15. The Westminster Confession in the Church today, edited by Alasdair I.C. Heron, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh 1982, p.46.

16. The Creeds of Christendom, p. 772.

17. The Idea of the Holy, p. 89.

18. See: "Der Evangelische Glaube nach den Hauptschriften der Reformatoren" Tübingen, J.C. B. Mohr, 1919, p 219.

19. Truth and Revelation, , p. 121

20. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, p.104.

21. See: The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, The Beacon Press, Boston, 1960, p.252.

22. "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His Glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life ,and others foreordained to everlasting death" (Chapter III,III).

The predestination unto life occurs "to the praise of His glorious grace" (Chapter III, V), as well as creation was made "for the manifestation of the Glory of God's eternal power, wisdom and goodness" (Chapter IV, I).

"God upholds, directs and governs all creatures , actions and things, by His most wise and holy Providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the Glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness and mercy" (Chapter V, I).

The fall and the sin of man was permitted by God, having purposed to order it to His own glory" (Chapter VI, I).

23. 15) Quoted by Michel Horton, in the Review Modern Reformation, September October 1993, p