In the preceding articles, we have established a clear pattern of error in the theology of the “Reformed Fringe” podcast. We began by identifying their foundational semantic error in redefining the name Elohim. We then demonstrated how this error stems from a flawed, anti-confessional hermeneutic, which we saw applied with destructive effect in their interpretation of Genesis 3—an interpretation shown to be not only exegetically unsound but also ethically compromised by plagiarism. We have measured their theology against the unified witness of the early church fathers, addressed their evasive public response, and exposed the resulting Christological heresy. We now arrive at a crucial juncture: to measure their “Reformed” theology against the clear and settled doctrines of the Reformed tradition itself. This article will argue that the theological framework of “Reformed Fringe,” by redefining Elohim as a shared ontological category, does not merely elevate angels but catastrophically demotes the one true God, placing Him on a continuum with His creatures in a way that fundamentally violates the foundational tenets of Reformed theology as articulated by the tradition’s most competent expositors throughout its history.
The Reformed Doctrine of God as a Being Sui Generis
The Reformation’s Fountainhead: Calvin on Divine Uniqueness
The bedrock of classic Reformed theology is its unwavering commitment to the absolute, ontological uniqueness of God. God is not merely the most powerful being on a continuum of spiritual entities; He exists in a category of one. To be God, in the Reformed understanding, is to be a being sui generis—of His own kind. John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, lays this foundation with definitive clarity. For Calvin, God’s true nature is found in those attributes that are unique to Him, which he calls His “incommunicable properties.” He insists that God’s “immensity and spirituality” separate Him from all creatures, and that “His eternity and self-existence” belong to Him alone.[1] It is these attributes that constitute the divine essence, an essence that cannot be shared or participated in by any creature.
Calvin understood that Scripture sometimes applies divine titles to creatures, but he recognized this as a metaphorical or analogical use that in no way compromises the Creator-creature distinction. In his commentary on Psalm 82, where human rulers are called “gods” (elohim), Calvin explains that this is because “God has invested judges with a sacred character and title.”[2] He continues, “the name gods is to be understood of judges, on whom God has impressed special marks of his glory.”[3] For Calvin, the title denotes their God-given office and authority; it does not imply a shared divine nature. To mistake this metaphorical title for an ontological reality is to fundamentally misunderstand the grammar of Scripture and the nature of God Himself.
The Scholastic Formulation: Turretin on God’s Incommunicable Essence
The great Genevan scholastic, Francis Turretin, building on Calvin’s foundation, provides the classic formulation of this doctrine. He explains that the distinction between God’s communicable and incommunicable attributes is essential because it clearly delineates between the one True God and all false gods. Turretin is meticulous on this point:
As to the former [essential communication], we say all the properties of God are equally incommunicable, no more capable of being communicated than the divine essence… They are predicated analogically… but concerning creatures only secondarily, accidentally and participatively.[4]
This is the non-negotiable starting point that the “Reformed Fringe” abandons. When Doug Van Dorn asserts that the name Elohim represents a “communicable attribute that all kinds of entities could possess,”[5] he is not offering a minor interpretive tweak; he is taking a wrecking ball to the very foundation of the Reformed doctrine of God.
The Modern Dogmatic Affirmation: Vos and Bavinck
This commitment to God’s absolute uniqueness is the consistent and non-negotiable heartbeat of modern Reformed dogmatics. Geerhardus Vos states with definitive force that we cannot even give a proper definition of God’s being, because “every definition presupposes a higher concept of genus,” but “there is nothing higher than God.”[6] To place God in a “class” with other beings is a logical and theological impossibility. Herman Bavinck reaffirms this, arguing that the “Fringe” proposal is precisely the kind of mythological “confusion” that is a pagan alternative to the Christian doctrine of God. His corrective is the Reformed doctrine of God’s simplicity: “the one, simple, uncompounded essence of God”[7] dwells equally and fully in each person.”
The Demotion of God by Categorical Error
A Misuse of “Communicable” Power
One might object that a great theologian like Herman Bavinck does, in fact, classify “omnipotence” among God’s communicable attributes.[8] This is true, but what the Reformed tradition means by this is a world apart from the “Fringe” proposal. For Bavinck and the tradition, the “communication” of power is strictly analogical. It refers to the delegated authority and finite power that God grants to creatures, such as the authority of magistrates or the might of angels. This power is a faint echo, a created reflection, of God’s own infinite power. It is a communication of effect, not of essence.
The “Reformed Fringe,” however, takes the label “communicable” and uses it to argue for a shared ontology. They build their entire system on the premise that God and angels belong to the same class of being (elohim), differing only in rank. This is a gross distortion of the Reformed doctrine. For the Reformed tradition, the analogical communication of an attribute like power presupposes the infinite ontological chasm between the Creator and the creature. For “Reformed Fringe,” it erases it.
The Catechetical and Pastoral Witness: Ursinus and à Brakel
This unified witness is found not only in high dogmatics, but in the catechetical and pastoral theology of the Reformed tradition. Zacharias Ursinus, the primary author of the Heidelberg Catechism, is unequivocal in his exposition of the divine nature. He insists that God is “Different from all creatures and things.”[9] Wilhelmus à Brakel, in his magnum opus The Christian’s Reasonable Service, directly confronts the semantic error at the heart of the “Fringe” thesis. He affirms that the name Elohim “is not a common name to which others have equal claim, but it is a proper name exclusively belonging to God,” and when the name is applied to angels or human rulers, it is used only “in a metaphorical sense.”[10]
A Departure, Not a Development
The theology of “Reformed Fringe” is not, as they might claim, a development or a recovery of a lost aspect of the Reformed tradition. It is a departure from its most central and foundational commitment. To adopt their system is to abandon the theological grammar of our own fathers in the faith. Are we truly to believe that Calvin, Turretin, Ursinus, à Brakel, Vos, and Bavinck—these giants of the Reformed faith—all fundamentally misunderstood the biblical doctrine of God? Did they, in their exhaustive and Spirit-guided labors, somehow miss the key to the Scriptures that Jon Moffitt and Doug Van Dorn have now presented as their own, having plagiarized it from the late Michael Heiser? Or is it not far more likely that it is our “Fringe” speculators who have departed from the faith once for all delivered to the saints, trading the clear, ontological distinction between the Creator and the creature for a mythological worldview that has more in common with the ancient pagan imagination than with the sober exegesis that has always been the hallmark of the Reformed tradition? A theology that demotes the one true God into a class with His creatures is many things, but it is not, and can never be, Reformed.
Key Terms/Concepts
- Divine Simplicity: The doctrine that God is not composed of parts. His essence and attributes are one, and He is identical with His perfections. This guards God’s absolute uniqueness and distinction from all composite creatures.
- Communicable/Incommunicable Attributes: Incommunicable attributes are those unique to God’s essence (e.g., aseity, immutability, infinity) of which there is no created analogy. Communicable attributes are those for which a faint, created analogy exists in humans (e.g., wisdom, love), but these are not shared in essence.
- Sui Generis: A Latin term meaning “of its own kind/genus.” In theology, it signifies that God is unique and does not belong to any class or category of beings that also includes creatures.
- Analogical vs. Univocal Predication: A term is used univocally when it has the exact same meaning in different contexts. It is used analogically when it has a similar, but not identical, meaning. Reformed theology insists that perfections are predicated of God and creatures analogically, never univocally.
[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John McNeill, trans. Ford Battles (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1.13.1.
[2] John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Bellingham: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 334.
[3] John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms (Bellingham: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 330.
[4] Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James Jr Dennison, trans. George Giger, vol. 1 (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1992), 3.6.2.
[5] Doug Van Dorn and Jon Moffitt, “The History of the Word ‘God,’” Reformed Fringe, 24 August 2025, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reformed-fringe/id1673785890?i=1000723422818, 11:15.
[6] Geerhardus Vos, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. and trans. Richard Jr Gaffin, vol. 1 (Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2012), 5.
[7] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 287.
[8] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 287ff.
[9] Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans. G W Willard, Fourth American Edition. (Cincinnati: Elm Street Printing Company, 1888), 125.
[10] Wilhelmus à Brakel, The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 87.