This collection of nine essays examines aspects of the life and work of the major “Old Princeton” theologian, Charles Hodge (1797–1878). The book casts light on Hodge and on the key period in American history and culture in which Hodge maintained and promoted his interpretations of Reformed theology. The “primary thesis” of the volume, says McGraw, is that Hodge “self-consciously sought to defend and transmit Reformed orthodoxy into an American context, reflecting the persistence and change of ideas” (11). This means Reformed Orthodoxy was tightly woven into Hodge's thought, as well as are “changes resulting from issues that arose within nineteenth-century America.” (11).
This is an important examination. The pieces show Hodge's stalwart adherence to the seventeenth-century Reformed Orthodoxy developed after the death of John Calvin. Hodge's appropriation and advocacy for a robust Reformed scholastic theology are shown in these pieces as are also “a distinctively American twist in Hodge's ideas” (11). Overall, this produces a more nuanced view of Hodge than may typically be found in treatments of this premier Princeton Seminary theologian, best known for his three-volume Systematic Theology (1871–1873).
The areas explored here, after an historical introduction to Hodge, are Hodge's use of philosophy, his definition of theology as a science, his doctrine of God, his use of personhood language in relation to the Trinity, his treatment of the imputation of Adam's sin, his explanation of offices in the church, along with his controversial defense of Roman Catholic baptism, and his viewpoint the presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper. These technical discussions help locate Hodge within Reformed Orthodoxy as a whole. They also show how he distinctively responds to contemporary theologians and issues in the contexts of his American setting and thus how he managed to transmit and transform important theological ideas. The editor wishes to open doors to further conversations, hoping this volume's broad approach will help in constructing “a more complex and far-reaching context for Hodge's thought than many have attempted up to this point. Expanding this context will better help readers understand how older ideas both carried over and shifted in nineteenth-century America” (13).
While all the chapters share in this overall purpose and approach, it is perhaps a bit surprising to read Scott Cook's, “More Modern than Orthodox? Charles Hodge and the Doctrine of God.” If one would think of a doctrine where Hodge might be “most in line” with historic Reformed Orthodoxy, surely the doctrine of God would be a good candidate! But Cook maintains that “at some point, Hodge sounds more like a Reformed Orthodox theologian, while at others, his doctrine seems to be completely foreign to the Westminster Divines, Turretin, and Reformed Orthodoxy” (111).
To show this “complex relationship with Reformed Orthodoxy and Modernism in his theology proper” (111), Cook focuses on Hodge's use of philosophy as well as his doctrine of God. This leads Cook to say that “the basic assertion of this chapter is that Hodge's doctrine of God is more Modern than Orthodox” (112).
In terms of philosophy, after surveying aspects of philosophy in Reformed Orthodoxy, Cook indicates “Hodge was indebted to one main philosophical influence, namely Scottish Common Sense Realism” (117; SCSR). In particular, instead of referencing Thomas Reid (1710–1796), “the most significant figure in the development of SCSR,” this philosophy was mediated to Hodge through the thought of Sir William Hamilton (1788–1856). Hamilton was known for attempting to “fuse Immanuel Kant's Copernican Revolution in epistemology with Thomas Reid's direct realism” and highlighting human consciousness (118). Hamilton stressed “the role of consciousness in philosophy” and emphasized it as “a vehicle to emphasize the mind's role in the knowing process (Kant) and [to] create a realistic structure of knowledge by removing ‘ideas’ as a mediating concept between the mind and extra mental objects (Reid)” (118). This is what “Hodge found attractive.”
Cook sees Hodge's “unwavering commitment” to this Hamiltonian conviction to be the reason “why Hodge never considered the classical notions of simplicity or immutability to be viable; entertaining doctrines that appear to be out of step with the consciousness of man was, in his view, to open the Pandora's box of skepticism” (120–121). Hodge used SCSR, in contrast to Reformed Orthodoxy's use of Aristotle and other ancient sources, thus often finding “the Orthodox doctrine of God to be too transcendent, dangerously close to pantheism” (121).
On divine attributes, Cook considers the following: Divine simplicity; Divine Infinity, Immutability, and Eternity; and Attributes of Knowledge and Will. Hodge's modifications of Reformed Orthodoxy's teachings on these issues were, claims Cook, motivated by a concern for the “dangers of theological pantheism” (113). The individual attributes Cook examines demonstrate Hodge's distinct directions. When it came to divine simplicity, which was strongly upheld by the Reformed Orthodox, Cook says Hodge's position is “incoherent in general,” while stressing a “real distinction between the attributes within the divine essence”—varying him from Orthodoxy. For Cook, this is a result of Hodge's SCSR view on human consciousness wherein “mankind could not believe such things about God that found no direct analogy in human beings” (132). Relatedly, Hodge believe that “too much transcendence would make God an abstract absolute being, rather than the living God of Scripture [. . .] If God did not reflect the parameters of human consciousness, then man could not know God” (135). Further, to guard against Pantheism, Hodge emphasized that “the knowledge and wisdom of God are as similar to man's knowledge and wisdom as possible” (143). Thus, writes Cooke, “One may fairly say that while the Scholastics emphasized the qualitative and quantitative distinction between God and man regarding knowledge, Hodge emphasized the quantitative dimensions while muting the qualitative one” (144).
As Cook writes, “While he claimed to present no novel ideas in his theology, significant novelty lay at the core of his doctrine of God [. . .] Charles Hodge was moved by modern influences far more than he realized” (148).
