The Classical Theism of William Ames in the Marrow of Theology

INTRODUCTION

Protestant Christianity has been characterized in recent years by vigorous discussion about classical theism. Classical theism is the theological tradition reflected in the Catholic creeds and Reformed confessions which articulates the doctrine of God in precise scholastic language and affirms the doctrines of Divine aseity, simplicity, immutability and impassibility. It has been the subject of recent attention due to the writings of Reformed theologians like Richard Muller, Paul Helm and James Dolezal. Dolezal’s 2017 book All That Is In God in particular has increased awareness that prominent evangelical and Reformed theologians deny or redefine tenets of classical theism. It is not an exaggeration to say that the resulting controversy has exposed a serious rift within contemporary Protestantism.

Dr. Carl Trueman argues that widespread departure from the tenants of classical theism in Protestant Christendom is no matter of indifference. To the contrary, it amounts to betrayal of historic Protestantism and orthodox Christianity:

Scholarly work in historical theology has unearthed the deep roots of Reformation Protestantism in the work of earlier theologians and exegetes. And a rising generation of younger Protestants realize that much of conservative Protestantism has paid lip service to historic Christian creedal orthodoxy but has had little idea of what the Creeds really taught and why. “Scripture alone” was meant to be a means for regulating the church’s tradition; too often it has become the justification for reinventing the faith every Sunday. The debacle that has been the modern evangelical doctrine of God, with its unwitting rejection or catastrophic revision of catholic doctrines such as the Trinity, divine simplicity, and divine impassibility is only the most obvious. 

 If Trueman is correct in diagnosing a serious crisis of theological error concerning the doctrine of God then how might this be remedied? Surely any solution must include reengaging with the historic Protestant tradition by discerning what our Reformed and Puritan fathers believed about the doctrine of God and why. 

In this regard the Marrow of Theology by the Puritan theologian William Ames (1576–1633) is of great value. This concise systematic theology was designed to prepare gospel ministers to teach Reformed doctrine in an understandable, practical and experiential way. Due to its logical structure, focus on practical Christian living and warm piety the Marrow shaped generations of ministers in the English Puritan movement, the Dutch Further Reformation and New England Congregationalism. In this work Ames clearly affirms the tenants of classical theism in a way that is careful to highlight the Biblical grounding of these doctrines and to explain the way in which they apply to Christian faith and practice. For these reasons, it is a work that the contemporary church can greatly profit from.

In order to demonstrate how helpful and compelling the Marrow’s classical theism is, the following study will examine chapter 4 of the Marrow entitled “God and His Essence.” Ames’ teaching concerning the purpose of revelation and the definition of God’s essence will be given particular attention.

I. The Purpose of Revelation

Ames is especially known as an adherent of the philosophy of Ramism which treats theology as a practical rather than a merely theoretical discipline. Dr. Jan van Vliet explains the historical significance of Ames in this regard:

Theology, for Ames, is all about right living. No doubt Ames was one of the earliest theologians to unwittingly democratize the science of theology, a change of massive proportion to the church of the day which has appropriated theology as the exclusive domain of its own educated elite. In this he much advanced the stream of thinking begun by William Perkins, that religion must be practical, established this as a key tenet of the Reformed tradition. 

This conviction is evident in that Ames begins chapter 1 of Book I by defining the nature of theology as “the doctrine of living to God” (I.1.1). The rest of the Marrow is organized to emphasize the relation of each doctrine to the Christian life. Thus chapter 2 divides this “life lived to God” into the two branches of faith and observance (II.2.1.)  - the former of which will occupy the remainder of book I. Chapter 3 is devoted to faith as such, which Ames defines as “the resting of the heart on God, the author of life and eternal salvation so that we may be saved from all evil through him and may follow all good” (I.3.1). It is after Ames’ careful explanation of the nature and exercise of faith in chapter 3 that he arrives at the doctrine of “God and His Essence” in chapter 4. 

In his 1968 Introduction to the Marrow, Ames scholar and translator John Eusden provides a helpful summary of how this section on the essence of God relates to the Marrow as a whole: 

Using a scholastic pattern familiar to the Reformed tradition, Ames writes of three modes of divine being. God is known in his essence (essentia), his subsistence (subsistentia), and his efficiency or working power (efficentia). The first two are usually linked together in... the Marrow and are held to comprise God’s sufficiency, of divine completeness. God’s essence receives the least emphasis, for it is the least likely to be grasped by human minds - and practical theology. 

This use of technical scholastic language and concepts is important to the tradition of classical theism. A newcomer to Ames’ theology might wonder if it is really possible for a subject like the classical understanding of the essence of God to be presented as an especially practical doctrine without compromising the lofty and difficult doctrines of classical theism. Yet Ames does precisely this, which makes chapter 4 particularly worthy of study.

Ames’ combination of practical pedagogy and scholastic rigor are evident in his introduction to the subject of God and His Essence at the beginning of chapter 4: 

In the preceding we have dealt with faith. Logic now requires that we deal with God who is the object of faith. That this may be done the more precisely we shall first speak of the knowledge of God. (I.4.1)

With this statement Ames is expressing the controlling principle that guides his approach to theology proper. For Ames, this is to be studied so as to understand the object of our faith: God as He is the author of salvation and eternal life. Ames is eager to avoid treating the polemical and philosophical aspects of the doctrine of God in a way that the practical import to the believer is not clear.

Ames then proceeds with a helpful summary of the doctrine of divine incomprehensibility that clearly marks Ames as within the classical theism tradition: “God, as he is in himself, cannot be understood by any save himself” (I.4.2). For Ames, no natural theology or complex argument is required to establish this truth that creaturely understanding can never fully attain the knowledge of God as He is in Himself. Rather, he simply quotes 1 Timothy 6:16 which refers to God as “Dwelling in the inaccessible light, whom no man has seen or can see” (I.4.2). Ames is inviting his readers to reflect seriously upon the meaning of this didactic statement by the Apostle Paul in its full implications. It teaches the impossibility of creatures acquiring knowledge of God “as he is in himself” due to the difference between His Divine existence and creaturely existence. This Scriptural teaching should be taken as the logical starting point of theology proper, Ames argues.

Ames proceeds to cite two other important Biblical passages that must also be taken into consideration: 

As he has revealed himself to us, he is known from the back, so to speak, not from the face. Exod.33:23, You shall see my back parts; but my face cannot be seen. He is seen darkly, not clearly, so far as we and our ways are concerned. 1 Cor. 13:12, Through a glass, darkly, after a fashion. (I.4.3)  

These quotations (from Jehovah’s special theophany to Moses in Exodus 33 and Paul’s teaching concerning the Christian believer’s limited knowledge of Divine realities, respectively) disclose an apparent paradox which must be confronted. Eusden makes the following helpful comment about how to understand William Ames’ teaching concerning the knowledge of God:

Ames warns his readers that they must be aware of inescapable limitations in their search for an understanding of God. Like Calvin (and Luther, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, and Augustine), Ames speaks of God as both revelatus, revealed or known, and absconditus, hidden or unknown. In this life we are confronted by Deus absconditus - not that God is withdrawn, but that he is veiled and always beyond our powers of conception.

While knowledge of God as He is in Himself (ie: God’s “face” or  the truth seen “through a glass darkly”) is impossible it is nevertheless possible to know God as He has revealed Himself. This is explicable and even comforting if seen in the context of the frailty and finitude of human understanding to which God graciously condescends in His self-revelation. 

This emphasis in Ames’ teaching is evident in his explanation of anthropomorphic language or “anthropopathy” which involves instances where the Bible uses language about God as though he possessed human-like characteristics that are not to be interpreted literally:

Since the things which pertain to God must be explained in a human way ανθρωποπαθεια, anthropopathy, is frequently used. And because they are explained in our way for human comprehension, many things are spoken of God according to our own conceiving rather than according to his real nature.  (I.4.4-5)

Ames especially has in mind passages that are contrary to the Divine nature (ie: limitation, composition, change etc.) Such divinely ordained revelation is “according to our own conceiving” so that it corresponds to how we are to think about and relate to a God. Yet anthropomorphic language by definition cannot be taken “according to his real nature” so as to overturn the tenants of orthodox theism.

For critics of classical theism this can seem counterintuitive or even impious. Is it not the case that we should trust what the words of the Bible say as unequivocally true of God? From Ames’ perspective, this kind of objection misses the real purpose of revelation:

We cannot know him otherwise as we live now, nor do we need to know him otherwise to live well. Exod. 33:19,20. What has been revealed of God suffices us to live well. Deut. 29:29, The things that are revealed are revealed to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (I.4.6-7) 

Ames’ distinction between God as He is and God as revealed can be misunderstood. He does not at all by this distinction imply that God has revealed Himself untruthfully. After all, he believes that God’s Word itself recognizes this distinction in passages like Deuteronomy 29:29. His point is that the truth about God that is revealed is not for fueling academic speculation or satisfying curiosity. Instead, we are to use what is revealed about God for the purpose of directing the human heart to God in faith so as to live to His glory. Thus Ames writes: 

What can be known of God are his sufficiency [sufficientia] and his efficiency, or working power [efficientia]. Romans 4:21… These are the pillars of faith, the bases of consolation, the incitements to piety, and the surest marks of true religion. (I.4.8-9).

Therefore all the truth that is necessary to live to God is found in the Bible in a form adapted to the specific context of human experience and duty. When this is recognized the language and logic of revelation can be used according to God’s intention.

II. The Definition of the Divine Essence

While Ames does not base the authority of any doctrine upon human writers, his chosen means of articulating Biblical truth is in continuity with historic Protestant scholasticism and classical theism. This includes the concept of essence which is important in this tradition. Richard Muller notes that the word essence (“essentia” in the latin) within classical metaphysics refers to “the whatness, or quidditas, of a being, which makes the being precisely what it is.” However, he notes that when Protestant theologians refer to the Divine essence it is used in a more specific sense:

God is the only necessary, self-existent being, or in other words, the only being in whom esse, or existence, and essentia, or essence, are inseparable; it is of the essence or ‘whatness’ of God that God exists. Thus the essence of God, as distinguished from the divine attributes (attributa divina), can be described as independent or self-subsistent spirit. This view of the divine essence coincides, the scholastics notes, with the biblical self-description of God (Exod. 3:14) as the one who is. 

As will be shown, how Ames articulates this classical doctrine of the divine essence is instructive for the contemporary Christian church. 

In chapter 4 Ames makes the important point that the object of saving faith is comprehended under God’s sufficiency and efficacy, respectively. The former he defines as follows:

The sufficiency of God is his quality of being sufficient in himself for himself and for us. Therefore he is called all-sufficient, Gen. 17:1. The sufficiency of God is the first reason why we believe in him: He is able to give us life. Rom. 4:20. (I.4.10-11)

This framework is suitable for preparing his reader to rightly receive the doctrine of the Divine essence in its relation to saving faith. With this goal, the burden of Ames in chapter 4 is to demonstrate how classical theism and practical piety are consistent and complementary. 

The first section where Ames addresses how to define the Divine essence is section I.4.13-14 which references a number of relevant Scriptural passages and the hermeneutic which leads him to affirm the doctrine:

The essence of God is that by which he is absolutely the first being. Is. 44:6, I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god; Rev. 1:8, 21:6, and 22:13, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. This essence is indicated by the name Jehovah or the Lord. (I.4.13-14)

For Ames, the classical theist conception of God in which He is first Being in an absolute sense does not owe to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas on Aristotle. The substance of what was articulated by these human writers in this regard was already revealed by the Old and New Testament writers. Of particular importance is Ames’ insistence that the tetragrammaton itself speaks of this truth in that He is “I am that I am.” In section I.4.15-17 Ames further proceeds to deduce from God’s essence the necessary corollaries of the doctrines of absolute oneness and unchangeableness. 

Ames then provides further clarity concerning the definition of God’s essence in sections I.4.32-34. Each progression in the argument of this section is worthy of notice. He writes:

What God is no one can perfectly define except one who possesses the mind of God himself. But an imperfect description follows which we can understand and comes close to explaining the nature of God. (I.4.32)

Thus before giving the definition of the essence of God he is careful to caution against unworthy conceptions of God. Specifically, we must not imagine that human comprehension is equal to the task of summing up God’s Divinity in a univocal fashion. Nevertheless, revelation affords a definition which has a definite correspondence to the truth. This is clearly building upon his preceding argument concerning the purpose of revelation in relation to the doctrine of God.

Having given this qualification, Ames continues by offering the following definition with proof texts: “God is spirit having life in himself. John 4:24; God is spirit; and 5:26, The Father has life in himself” (I.4.33). On the face of it, this definition might appear simple to the point of oversimplification. How much about God’s essence can one really derive from two well known phrases from John’s gospel? Yet Ames persuasively contends that these two Scriptures establish four very important doctrines which in combination constitute a helpful definition of the Divine essence.

The first two of these insights are derived from Christ’s words to the Samaritan woman in John 4:24:

He is called spirit, first (negatively), because he is not a body; second (analogically), because in spiritual substances are many perfections which which adumbrate the divine nature more than any bodily thing can. (I.4.34)

Ames makes two important points in this section. The first is that Christ’s words necessitate that God’s essence is immaterial. This teaching concerning God’s spirituality forces Christians to interpret all Biblical passages that speak of God possessing physical characteristics as anthropomorphism, as Ames has previously argued. But the second insight is what distinguishes Ames’ classical theist position from lesser conceptions of the Divine essence: even the term “spirit” is to be understood as only analogous to the truth about God. In other words, it cannot be considered univocally true of Him in the sense that God is merely conceived of as the same order of being as the angelic spirits. Ames grants that angelic beings have relative superiority to other creatures in that they possess a kind of creaturely simplicity and immortality which can be said to be analogous to the Divine perfections. At the same time, it must be recognized that this is only an analogy because the Divine perfections are not identical to what is found in any creature.

Ames continues by noting four insights which are to be derived from Christ’s words in John 5:26:

He is called living, first, because God works by himself, not being moved by another; second, because the vital action of God is his essence; third, because he is the foundation of all being and of vital operation in all living things. Acts 17:25, 28, He gives to all life and breath to all things. In him we live, move, and have our being. (I.6.35)

He is said to live in himself, because he receives neither being nor life from any other source in any way. (I.4.36)

Here the tenets of classical theism become much more explicit. The first and fourth insights constitute a clear articulation of the doctrine of divine aseity which posits a radical independence and self-sufficiency such that God does not depend on anything else to be fully God. The second insight is the related doctrine of pure actuality, a somewhat difficult concept that Dr. James Dolezal explains in his book All That Is In God;

God’s aseity also entails that He is perfect and purely actual in being. Because He depends on nothing outside Himself, one can only conclude that God simply is that act of existence by which He is. Classical theists insist that God is being, not becoming. He has no passive potentiality or capacity by which He might become more or other than He is. This means that even His relation to the world as its Creator and Sustainer does not produce any new actuality in Him… That which is pure act is dynamic and utterly full of being and life. 

The third insight is the utter dependence of all creation and creatures for being and life upon God as Creator. Lest the reader suppose that such lofty metaphysical claims are illegitimately imposed on the Bible, Ames draws a connection between John 5:26 and Paul’s speech to the pagan philosophers of the Areopagus in Acts 17 in which the Apostle is manifestly speaking about the metaphysical implications of Christian theism to derivative life and being.  

In this way Ames gives a definition of God’s essence that is at once Biblical and scholastic. But what of the practical import of these weighty doctrines to the life of faith? Ames writes the following in this connection:

Hence the chief title of God, by which he is distinguished from all idols, is that he is the living God, Deut. 32:40; Ps. 84:2; Jer. 5:2. (I.4.37)

Therefore our faith, seeking eternal life, rests in God alone because God is the fountain of all life. Joh. 5:26 (I.4.38)

In this can be seen the exceptional strength of the Marrow in not only clearly presenting the theology of classical theism, but also grounding these teachings in one of the most prominent of Biblical themes (ie: that the Lord is the living God) and noting that this is revealed with a clear purpose (ie: that faith would rest in God as the Author of eternal life.) Eusden makes the following helpful comment about this: 

The sufficiency and living quality of God are the characteristics which set him apart from all idols and other representations of divinity. Ames insists that God is not only a life-having spirit, but a life-producing spirit. His creative, life-producing power has no limitation of space to time; this assertion, Ames believes, is the foundation of the Christian belief in eternal life. In faith we apprehend a life everlasting because of its creation by an eternal living spirit, a life for which the present is but one phase.

CONCLUSION:

There are three dangers when teaching about the doctrine of God. The first danger is being so philosophical as to do disservice to genuine heart religion. The second danger is watering down precise scholastic terminology so as to distort the orthodox doctrine of God. The third danger is failing to set forth a sound hermeneutic of Scripture that grounds one’s teaching in authoritative revelation. Ames avoids these dangers by emphasizing that both mind and heart are to be engaged in the correct apprehension and use of sacred truth as set forth in holy writ. The Protestant church would therefore do well to engage with the Marrow of Theology in order to recover our tradition of classical theism.

- Benjamin Hicks

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ames, William. The Marrow of Theology, trans. John Eusden (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 

1997).

Dolezal, James. All That Is In God: Evangelical Theology and the Challenge of Classical 

Theism (Grand Rapids MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2017)

Muller, Richard. Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids MI: 

Baker Academic, 2017).

Trueman, Carl. “Turning Inward,” First Things, December, 2019, accessed April 20, 2020, 

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/12/turning-inward.

van Vliet, Jan. “William Ames: Marrow of the Theology and Piety of the Reformed Tradition”

 PhD dissertation, Westminster Theological Seminary, 2002.