Reformed Dogmatics (Volume 1-5) by Geerhardus Vos & Richard B. Gaffin Jr

Author:Geerhardus Vos & Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. [Vos, Geerhardus & Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexham Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

For this reason, it is better to say that knowledge and assent are not two different acts, but two sides of one and the same act. They work reciprocally on each other and are simultaneous, and we cannot say that the one is independent of the other. In the same moment that the one begins to be active, the activity of the other begins. Furthermore, knowledge is the receptive and more passive, assent the expressive and more active side of the act of faith. And for the consciousness, both are fused together as an indissoluble unity.

38. Show that according to Scripture assent belongs to faith as an essential part.

John 3:33 reads, “The one who receives his testimony has sealed that God is true.” Here the verb lambanein is used—literally, “to long for something in order to take it.” This expresses very precisely the more active side of assent. It is still more than a receiving; it is an accepting and assimilating (cf. also Col 2:5–6).

39. Is this assent an act of the intellect or an act of the will?

This is very difficult to decide. One could say in general that the decision on the truth or the reality of a thing is due to the intellect. Everything about whether it is true or untrue belongs to the sphere of the intellect and not under the jurisdiction of the will. This is why many discuss the assent of faith as a purely intellectual act, certainly an act of the enlightened intellect effected by God’s Spirit, but with that still an act performed by the capacity of the intellect. In fact, some go even further and draw not only assent in its entirety but also trust within the intellect, so that they insist on viewing the whole of faith not as an act of the will but as an act of the intellect. Now, it is certainly clear that knowing as such, when faith is excluded, is a purely intellectual act. The conviction that this or that conclusion follows from premises does not include an act of the will. It is otherwise when the testimony of another is the ground on which I assent to the truth. A moral element is present in that assent. This appears, above all, in such cases where my assent to testimony that someone gives stems from an antecedent trust in general that I place in his person. Man in his sinful condition has an inclination to withdraw into himself, and this sinful, selfish directing of his will also reveals itself in his intellectual life. If now he does not seek the basis for a judgment of the intellect within himself but in another, then that is a turning from himself and a resting in another. We believe that this does not occur without the will. The assent of faith is an act by which man submits to the authority of another. That demands an act of the will. Of course, the expression of the verdict itself—“this or that is true”—is reserved for the intellect.

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