Anti-nomians and Neonomians.—In reading the works of English and Scottish theological writers one often comes across references to Anti-nomians and Neonomians. Dr. A. A. Hodge, in his Popular Lectures on Theological Themes, gives the following clear and concise definitions.
“There are two forms of anti-nomianism,” he says, “but they are the same thing. One has been called Neonomianism, and the other, Anti-nomianism.”
Anti-nomianism is the doctrine that Christ has so satisfied the law for us that it is abolished; that having gone to Christ we are washed, cleansed, and we may do as we please, because Christ in every sense so fulfilled the law that it has no more dominion over us. It is common for Arminians to charge Calvinists with holding this doctrine. But all true Calvinists repudiate the doctrine and join with the Apostle in saying of the man who says “Let us continue in sin that grace may abound his damnation is just.”
*These short gleanings are taken from Dr. Hodge’s Popular Lectures on Theological Themes. Dr. Hodge was one of the eminent theologians which gave a world-wide reputation to Princeton Theological Seminary, for, though he did not attain to the stature of his eminent father, Dr. Charles Hodge, his fame spread through the Calvinist world.
Neonomianism is a substitution of a new and lower law for the infinite law of God. The law is the absolute perfection which God has put before us. When it is thought the law is lowered it follows that a lower doctrine of sin is taught as a consequence.
Another view is that God, for Christ’s sake, has substituted a new law, and that, in place of the law of absolute perfection, the law has been so adjusted to the nature of man in his present state. It is in connection with this view that the teaching of the so-called higher Christian life and Perfectionism meets us. But that is a subject that requires more than a passing reference in a short article like this.
However unfamiliar these terms may be to many of our readers there was a time in some of the theological discussions, such as the Marrow Controversy, when they were familiar enough to the serious minded men and women who discussed with intelligence doctrines that are now relegated to trained theologians, with the result that our religious life and reading have lost the robust virility of other days, and have given place to an anaemic theology that satisfies neither a sanctified understanding nor heart.