B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought [Paperback]

Gary L. W. Johnson (Author), Mark A. Noll (Introduction), David B. Calhoun (Foreword)

Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: P & R Publishing (June 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596380373
• ISBN-13: 978-1596380370
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #673,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The American Theologian, January 19, 2008

By 

Jacques Schoeman (SA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: B. B. Warfield: Essays on His Life and Thought (Paperback)

A great biographical read.

BB Warfield (d 1921) of old Princeton Seminary, was a towering figure in the defense of the doctrine of Scripture and the re-affirmation of Reformation principles, in a time of turmoil and contest in North America. His work is irreplaceable to those pursuant in Calvinism.

'The soul is therefore in unbroken communion with God, and in the body of intelligible truths reflected into it from God, sees God.' p 58 BBW So how does God change a life? John 8:31,32 The orthodox view is that God presents us with biblical truth that we either conform to, or reject.

Paul Kjoss Helseth Chapter 2:
It appears that in the aftermath of the Enlightenment, the need for a reasoned apologetic found its ablest expression in the consistently Reformed theology of BBW. Combatting the Enlightenment rationale made Warfield's distinctive apologetic indispensable.

BBW's soteriology conjoined Calvin's 'inner-witness of the Spirit' authentication with 'right reason'. The cognitive relationship between cause and effect that plays out in the believer's soul, requiring both the mind to be informed by God's Word, and confirmed by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, effects salvation. The engagement with 'right reason' BBW held as preparatory to salvation, as God has revealed Himself, His ways, and His will most clearly and fully in the writings of the Old and New Testaments. Says Helseth: 'It was driven, on the other, by the prospect of upholding the foundational principle of Augustinian and Reformed piety, namely, that 'it is God and God alone who saves, and that in every element of the saving process'. We must conclude that Warfield was neither an overt nor covert rationalist who undermined the sovereignty of God in salvation by emptying saving faith of its subjective and experiential components.' p 71

Thus reasoned the brilliant theologian, and defended, not dispensed with, the high view of Scripture.

Paul Kjoss Helseth Chapter 5:
Paul Helseth presents BBW's concern for progressive orthodoxy within the Presbyterian church's own ranks, stating that Christianity is not a mystery religion 'casting men back upon their religious experience, corporate or individual, as their sole trustworthy ground of religious convictions.' BBW, Studies in Theology p 658. The modern experience-focused Christian substitutes 'his religious experience for the objective revelation of God recorded in the written Word.' Ibid, p 651 Thus revivalism theology misrepresents the work of the Holy Spirit and reduces, importantly, the supernatural Christian faith to a natural phenomenon, creating an unshakable practical belief in the capacity of humans for moral action.

Stephen J Nichols Chapter 7:
BBW and Gresham Machen were consolidated not only in their theological views, but also their rise to position in old Princeton, and in that they were both from southern gentility. So Nichols dashes to their defense and raises our hopes again in their valor and bravery, by refuting their full allegiance with fundamentalism. Indeed, both had serious doubts as to its origins, and identified fundamentalism as dispensational pre-millennialism. Says Nichols:

'...Warfield's animosity to all things Arminian, especially revivalism and 'holiness teaching'. Riddlebarger points to lengthy reviews by Warfield of John Miley's Systematic Theology, Andrew Murray's The Spirit Of Christ, RA Torrey's What The Bible Teaches, and Lewis Sperry Chafer's He That Is Spiritual as proof of his contention.' p 175 BBW found their writings theologically flawed and their conversion methodology suspect.

'They held to a view of God and His providence that allowed them to accept, though not blindly or unreservedly, the advances of the scientific community.' p 178 Thus BBW and Machen joined fully with the community and their social engagement was contra-fundamentalism. Importantly, 'Warfield's and Machen's theological method, centered on the Bible, avoided a naive biblicism. Facile in the languages of the Bible, the Latin of the church fathers, medievalists, and Reformers, and the French and German of current European biblical scholarship, Warfield and Machen brought a depth and dimension to their work that were simply lacking among fundamentalists unable to work in any language other than English and dependent on the English Bible for exegesis.' p 179

'Warfield's own thought and writing bear this out.' p 181

Gary L W Johnson Chapter 8:
Church historian, Mark Noll, places the controversy of the Bible's authority reaching American shores in the early 1880s, p 5. James T Dennison traces the spurious rise of Charles Augustus Briggs 'as early as the 1870s', p 199. Interesting. 'The two could not co-exist. On this, at least, Briggs and Warfield agreed.' p 201

Johnson's investigation reaches an early crescendo when he too cites Riddlebarger's comments on BBW's intense dislike for 'popular works by highly visible leaders with Arminian and revivalist leanings and who were associated with the emerging fundamentalist movement.' p 209 Warfield's criticism of Andrew Murray came in the form of 'a fully developed Schleiermacherite' whose perfectionist claims were based along similar lines of the current parlance of 'the anointing': 'Mr Murray's mystical tendency shows itself especially in laying too great stress on the duty of being conscious of the Spirit's working within us, and in an odd insistence on the duty of exercising 'faith in the indwelling' as the source of life.' BBW, quoted from Dr Kim Riddlebarger, The Lion Of Princeton, p 198 This was not libel, but polemical by design, combined with shrewd calculation to caution the unwary.

These essays reveal the great intellect, the astute theologian and biblical expositor who was revered by some of the greats to be the greatest of their generation. BB Warfield inspired a generation of leaders that became famous for the articulation and defense of orthodoxy. No more noble testimony than that can be summoned.