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Jan 27, 2025

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Cherish, Don’t Cling: Stephen Charnock’s Gnostic Flirtation

Make no mistake – The Puritans, though frequently mischaracterized and maligned, occupy a crucial place in Reformational thinking.  Their commitment to Christ, His Word, and advancing God’s Kingdom rightly shames much of today’s evangelicalism. The Puritan esteem for God’s law coupled with their zeal for civic-mindedness has informed many about the indispensability of public righteousness.

These salient features may explain their continuing popularity among certain swathes of Reformed Christianity.  Publishers like Banner of Truth with its “Puritan Paperback” series[1] have placed great gems in the hands of many and are particularly favored among Reformed Baptist brethren.  

Yet, good goods make bad gods.  Let me explain.  When we find a strand of thinking edifying, we sometimes consume it in droves, concluding that if author X is good and he’s part of Y-school or promoted by publisher Z, then all of X’s writings, or everything from Y school or publisher Z’s entire catalogue is faithful, orthodox, and equally beneficial.  We can get intellectually lazy by simply assuming something is good because it’s adjacent to something that in fact is beneficial.[2]  Hence the trap door opens.  Let’s get to the gist.

One must be wise and discerning in choosing one’s heroes, whether persons, periods, or publishers.  Consider one Puritan luminary, Stephen Charnock (1628-1680).  Charnock penned many deep theological works.  Perhaps best known is his The Existence and Attributes of God, published posthumously in 1682.  There is much gold in his reflections.  Yet, like mining and refining real gold, there can be dross as well.

A modern collection of Puritan theology includes excerpts from Charnock.[3]  Such works, including this one, serve as excellent entry points for becoming familiar with, understanding, and appreciating Puritan theology.[4]

Yet the Scriptures command us to “test the spirits” – even those of the time-tested Puritan Divines.[5]

A Puritan Theology includes Charnock’s list of 10 of God’s attributes.[6]  These attributes supposedly can be apprehended in nature, a form of “natural theology.”[7] Attribute 8 addresses the “spirituality” of God stating: 

“(8) the spirituality of God, insofar as God is not visible, “and the more spiritual any creature in the world is, the more pure it is”;”[8]

This language conveys an inchoate Gnostic impulse by labeling and identifying the “spiritual,” that is, the non-corporeal with something “more pure.”  This formula at best expresses dualism, a form of Platonism,[9] and at worst, embraces Gnosticism, discrediting the material Creation as something “beneath or below” the “best existence” of pure non-materiality.  This too obviously overlooks that the most spiritual creature to ever exist – Satan – is both wholly spiritual and wholly evil, not pure.  Put differently, being spiritual, that is, lacking a material existence, does not necessarily equate to being morally pure.

Charnock also asserts, under the heading “What is God? This:  

“If God exists, He must necessarily be immaterial or incorporeal, since material is by nature imperfect.[10]

This formulation too emanates dualistic and Gnostic echoes.  Notice the implicit degradation of the sinless material Creation, the Incarnation, as well as the bodily resurrection and Ascension of Christ.  And, of course, this too denigrates the final state, which is utterly “material” yet sinlessly perfect.[11]  God is not perfect because He’s a spirit.  He is inherently perfect in His very nature.  As the Westminster Divines phrased it answering the question, “What is God?”

God is a Spirit[1], infinite[2], eternal[3], and unchangeable[4], in his being[5], wisdom[6], power[7], holiness[8], justice[9], goodness, and truth[10].[12]

The Larger Catechism expands this explanation to explicitly articulate God’s perfection as part of His being, not a consequence of Him being a spirit:

God is a Spirit1in and of himself infinite in being2, glory3, blessedness4, and perfection5; all-sufficient6, eternal7, unchangeable8, incomprehensible9, everywhere present10, almighty11, knowing all things12, most wise13, most holy14, most just15, most merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth16.[13]

Now, consider Charnock’s formulation applied to Christ.  Jesus, as the eternal Son of God, became God incarnate. How can He be fully God, fully man, fully physical and material, the spotless lamb of God, and yet remain sinlessly perfect, if being material is by nature imperfect? If Charnock is correct that the physical and the material are by nature imperfect, then Christ must, in some way, have been imperfect – a conclusion that is patently heretical, and leaves us deep in our sins without hope.

APR also ties God’s immutability to His being non-material, that is, a spirit:  

“…Charnock explains that if God were not a spirit, He could not be infinite; or, positively, because He is a spirit, He is also an independent being who is illimitable and immutable, and His immutability depends upon His simplicity.”[14]

Predicating God’s immutability on His being non-material is demonstrably false.  Fallen angels and demons are likewise spiritual, yet they are limited and do change:  they fell.  God’s immutability stems not from His spirituality, but rather from His being the Creator with aseity, not a creature. 

Charnock uses this same Gnostic premise regarding God’s omnipotence to assert that:

“…every substance, the more spiritual it is, the more powerful it is.[15]

Let’s test this.  Is Satan, who is wholly spiritual, more powerful than the incarnate Christ who has a material existence?  Clearly not.  Jesus, while in the flesh, defeated Satan the spiritual, that is, the non-material, creature.[16]  And, Jesus, who ascended bodily, reigns in the flesh at the right hand of the Father doing what?  Combatting, defeating, and powerfully subjecting every enemy:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “God has put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when it says, “all things are put in subjection,” it is plain that he is excepted who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.[17]

Charnock flirts with Gnosticism as he scholastically probes the Godhead.  His intentions are admirable:  fully set forth God as He is.  However, in pressing his explication, he backs into problematic formulations that rest on pagan philosophies and categories more than Christian theology – often a temptation of scholasticism, whether Catholic or Protestant.

All this said: Please do read and study the Puritans, including Charnock, but do so remembering that they are fallen humans too.  Their insights remain profitable, but fallible at points.  No Puritan died for your sins.  In other words, cherish, but do not cling to them.  Cling instead to Christ because in Him is life and He “gives life to whom He will.”[18]


[1] https://banneroftruth.org/us/store/series/puritan-paperbacks/?srsltid=AfmBOootGWlB0Hr9Cvwutf5Lx7KsVzExsNkQ5hcUhBKF9xIr6GKZJ6ox

[2] Rarely if ever, does everything an author pens hit a “home run.’  

[3] Joel R. Beeke and Mark Jones, A Puritan Theology for Doctrine and Life (2012), available here:   https://archive.org/details/puritantheologyd0000beek/mode/2up – hereinafter, “A Puritan Theology”.

[4] Another such valuable book is J.I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness:  The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (2010).  Naturally, no school of thought or slice of Christianity comprise the “entire enchilada” of what we need to know and how we ought to live.

[5] 1 John 4:1

[6] A Puritan Theology, (“APT”), 17

[7] Concerning the deficits of traditionally formulated natural theology, see N.T. Wright, History and Escahtology:  Jesus and the Promise of Natural Theology (2019).  Crituing natural theology is not the focus of this Dicta edition.

[8] APT, 17

[9] See, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Respectable Paganism:  Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche Walk into a Culture , , , (TruthxChange Platforms, January 20, 2025)

[10] APT, 60

[11] Rev. 21 and 22

[12] WSC, Q & A 4

[13] WLC, Q & A 7

[14] APT, 61

[15] APT 75

[16] Matt, 4:11. Ironically, Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit.

[17]1 Cor. 15:25-28

[18] John 1:4; 5:21

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