Moving on to chapter 6, you say that “Berkhof’s statement of the issue is not correct. Arminians do not believe that God intended by the atonement to save all people” (103).
Yet on p106, you say that “universal atonement matches the plain Biblical assertion that God wills the salvation of all.” So, God wills the salvation of all, but God did not intend the atonement for the salvation of all. This is less than self-explanatory. Who is confused--you or Berkhof?
In attempting to reconcile a universal atonement which falls short of universal salvation, you say: “The answer is that the expression of God’s desire for all men to be saved must be understood in the light of his (more basic) desire that all men have, as created in his image, the freedom of choice to decide for or against him” (109).
This calls for quite a number of comments:
i) To begin with, you suddenly drop the “plain Biblical assertion” for something that is not plainly asserted in any of your Arminian prooftexts. And if you need to qualify the force of your own chosen prooftexts, then in what sense do they prove your point?
If they don’t assert universal atonement in distinction to universal salvation, then do you have a single direct prooftext for your distinctive position?
Unless you have some independent grounds for your position, your appeal assumes what it needs to prove. For if your prooftext, as it stands, cannot prove you position, but must be modified in light of your position, then you appeal is question-begging. It only proves your point on the assumption that it can be suitably retrofitted consistent with your assumption. Rather than proving universal atonement, you have glossed it in light of universal atonement. This is viciously circular.
ii) Apropos (i), you are no longer exegeting 1 Tim 2:4 or 2 Pet 3:9. You are, instead, glossing the verses in light of some harmonistic device that is extraneous to the text before you.
iii) Where does the Bible ever say that man’s will is more basic than God’s will?
iv) Where does the Bible ever unpack the imago Dei in terms of freewill?
v) You position boils down to the contention that God cannot save sinners. He can save the willing, but not the unwilling. But, of course, they are unwilling because they are sinners.
Like homeowners who keep the plastic wrapping on their lamps and sofas, you have a doctrine of the atonement that works just beautifully as long as it never comes into contact with an actual hard-bitten sinner. This is a theological system for the art museum, and not the mean streets of the world.
On p110, you cited a number of the standard prooftexts for your position. Some of these I’ve dealt with already, and others I will address at a later point.
But to comment on a few, how does 1 Jn 2:2 prove your point? Has our Lord adverted the wrath of God for everyone in the world?
How does Rom 5:18 prove you point? Have all men (without exception) been justified?
How does 2 Cor 5:14,18-19 prove your point? Has our Lord reconciled everyone in the world to God?
Oh, yes, you may drag in your potential/actual distinction to cut these verses down to size, but you cannot find that distinction in the verses themselves, or the surrounding context. Far from proving you point, it looks like you have to spend a certain amount of time defending your position against the otherwise unqualified force of the very verses you invoke. Each one must be cut-and-tailored for the Arminian to squeeze into while squeezing out the Calvinist and the universalist. Isn’t this special pleading from start to finish?
On p112, you bring up Mt 23:37. How is this incompatible with Calvinism? Mt 23:37 alludes to a conditional covenant with the house of Israel (v38; cf. Jer 12:7; 22:5). This is preceptive, not decretive.
On p113, you cite Rom 14:15 and 1 Cor 8:11 to prove that Christ died for the damned. Now, Paul is dealing here with cases of conscience. Do you really imagine a true believer is damned just because he suffers from an overly-scrupulous conscience? Is this what you think that Paul is saying here? Is that Paul’s idea of pastoral theology? Is that your idea of pastoral theology? Is that the sort of advice you give the weak brethren when they come to you for counseling? Do you confirm their worst fears by sending them home with the warning that they are teetering on the brink of hell? If anything, that admonition would push them right over the edge.
Boy, and people say that Calvinism is stern! Your Arminian theology is entirely too harsh for a hardnosed Calvinist like me! Seriously, I find much more sensible the interpretation offered by John Stott, Romans (IVP 1994), 365-66, and Craig Blomberg, 1 Corinthians (Zondervan 1994), 163. I should add that neither of them is going to bat for the cause of five-point Calvinism.
It is true that apollunai is commonly used with reference to the final judgment, but to read the eschatological context back into the bare meaning of the word when the controlling context is absent is simply fallacious.
In this same connection you bring in 2 Pet 2:1. Here, however, Peter is comparing false prophets in the OT to false teachers in the NT. The false teachers were “purchased” in the same generic sense that the false prophets were “redeemed” when God delivered the Exodus generation from Egyptian bondage.
“Agorazo” is not a technical term for Christian redemption. And it doesn’t bear the same specialized import as it would in Reformed dogmatics. You are committing yet another semantic anachronism.
Your argument would only work if Peter were using the word to denote the same concept as the doctrine of redemption in Reformed theology. But the Petrine usage is at several removes from Reformed usage.
It is also uncertain whether “despotes” has reference to the Father or the Son.
You recycle Sailer’s old argument that “unlimited atonement is the view that best accounts for the blame attached to men for rejection of Christ” (118). You and Sailer cite Jn 3:18; 8:24; 2 Cor 6:14; 2 Thes 2:11-12; 1 Jn 5:10-11; Rev 21:8.
This might have the makings of an impressive argument. Unfortunately, none of your prooftexts say as much as you need they to say to cinch the argument. None of them state that the unbelievers in view are guilty for failing to believe that Christ died for them.
To the extent that they even spell out the grounds of condemnation, they either have reference to the person of Christ (Jn 3:18; 8:24; 1 Jn 5:10), or his work on behalf of believers (1 Jn 5:11).
Both points go to the character of the opponents in 1 John. On the one hand, they deny that Jesus is the Anointed Son of God, come in the flesh. On the other hand, they deny that Christians are entitled to enjoy the assurance of salvation by the blood of Christ.
You cite Rom 3:22-25 to show that the provision is as broad as the sin. Once again, though, this either proves too much or too little. Paul doesn’t speak in terms of bare provision. He says that all are justified (v24).
Again, you fudge on the idea of provision. You fail to make provision for unbelief. Unbelief is sin. So you fail to make full provision for sin. A provisional atonement that is contingent on faith, where no provision is made for faith itself, or the absence thereof, is not a universal atonement, but a terribly truncated atonement. You might as well give a blind man a roadmap.
Moving on to chapter 7, you devote several pages to an analysis of the cosmic usage in 1 John. At one level, this marks an advance over the customary appeal, in which the meaning of kosmos is treated as self-evident.
To summarize your results, you say that in 1 John, kosmos is used as an antonym for believers, and a synonym for unbelievers. You also draw a distinction between a personal and impersonal import. To this I’d say the following:
i) This is quite uncharacteristic of Arminian theology, which ordinarily defines kosmos as “everyone.” I don’t say that as a criticism of your position. But it marks a wide departure from the usual appeal.
ii) You don’t show how the usage in 1 John compares with the usage in the Fourth Gospel.
iii) Are the personal and impersonal significations related in some more general way, or are these two distinct and independent senses of the word?
iv) What do the lexicographers have to say? Among another meanings, Loux & Nida define kosmos as the world-system or worldly standards (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 41.38). This is similar to Cottrell & Turner, who give, as one meaning, human and supernatural rebels against God, along with the systems under their control (Linguistics & Biblical Interpretation, 176).
Both BDAG and the EDNT lay stress on this ethical dimension. In Johannine usage, the kosmos stands for the fallen world-order, and all that this entails.
Is this personal or impersonal, and is there a uniform meaning to which the usage of John and 1 John are correspondent?
Instead of the personal/impersonal, distinction, perhaps an abstract/concrete distinction would be more helpful. The personal/impersonal relation is disjunctive in a way that is not necessarily so with the abstract/concrete distinction. For an abstraction may be a generality based on a representative sampling of concrete instances.
The “fallen world order” is an abstract concept, but it derives from personal instances. Moreover, it carries an ethical connotation, which again, has a personal origin in the character of sinful agents.
Is there one word or word-group in English which best captures the abstract and moral overtones of kosmos? If we were to render kosmos as the “worldly” “worldling,” “worldliness,” and “worldly-minded,” I think that these variant forms of the basal noun (world) would offer a consistent and sensical meaning in most all of its Johannine--and not a few of its Pauline--occurrences. And this is quite compatible with Reformed theology.
You quote Nicole quoting Murray as taking kosmos in an exclusive rather than inclusive sense: “Christ is the only propitiation available to anyone in the whole world” (124).
You, however, draw the lines quite differently: “John’s purpose is to say that believers, even when discussing the benefits of Christ’s atonement death for themselves, must remember that he also died for the whole world, including the lost” (132).
But is that John’s purpose? D. A. Carson has a very different take, based on his reconstruction of the opponents: “John is confronting a crisis precipitated by the secession of some members who have been powerfully influenced by some form of protognosticism...In this light, the so-called tests are...[given] to reassure believers that their fidelity to the gospel, along the lines indicated, was itself reason enough to enable them to regain their quiet Christian assurance,” “Reflections on Assurance,” Still Sovereign, T. Schreiner & B. Ware, eds. (Baker 2000), 274.
On this view, John’s purpose is not to exhort believers on how they ought to view unbelievers, but rather, to reassure unsettled believers that, contrary to the protognostic heresy of the false teachers, Christ is the sole and all-sufficient Savior.
In good Arminian fashion, you discuss prevenient grace. But you only offer three prooftexts for your view (Jn 6:44; 16:8; Acts 16:14).
Yet none of them show that God’s grace is merely enabling, but resistible. In Acts 16:14, the divine action not merely enables Lydia to believe, but terminates in faith.
You quote the first clause of 6:44, but not the second, which assumes the success of the operation. You also disengage v44 from vv37,39.
You construe 16:8 as having subjective reference to the inner moral suasion of the Spirit, whereas it is far more likely to have reference to the objective witness of the inspired Apostles, who assume and resume the prophetic mantle of the covenantal law-suit.
Frankly, this whole sections is as a fine a specimen as any of someone who begins with his theological belief-system, then goes trolling about in search of a prooftext.
In chapter 10, you cite several Johannine verses to prove the priority of faith to regeneration.
As to Jn 1:12, the distinction between huios and tekna is that John reserves the former for Christ, and the latter for Christians.
You also ignore the relation of v12 to the relative clause in v13, the purpose of which is to trace the phenomena of v12 back to its wellsprings in the will of God.
I’d add that your interpretation also makes a hash of Jn 3:1-8, which is an expansive gloss on of Jn 1:12-13.
As to 1 Jn 5:1, the perfect participle could just as well be rendered, “whoever believes in God will have been begotten of God,” or, more idiomatically, “has already been begotten of God.” That is not the only possible rendering, but it’s grammatically unimpeachable.
At best, the verse is ambiguous, and therefore neutral on this question. And on the one occasion where John does clarify the causal relation, regeneration takes precedence (3:9).
Even I. H. Marshall, a doctrinaire Arminian who affirms the priority of faith, doesn’t share your interpretation of 5:1: “Faith is thus a sign of the new birth...Here...John is not trying to show how a person experiences the new birth; his aim is rather to indicate evidence which shows that a person stands in the continuing relationship of a child to his Father: that evidence is that he holds to the true faith about Jesus,” The Epistles of John (Eerdmans 1984), 226-27.
For a man who has taught NT Greek over the years, you are oddly insensitive to Greek grammar. And you are just as tone-deaf of spiritual metaphors. The point of procreative imagery is that we can do nothing to beget our own existence.
Death/resurrection imagery serves the same purpose as birth/rebirth imagery. The dead cannot bring themselves back to life.
Jesus, John, and Paul employ these metaphors because this transparent picture-language conveys an instantly and unmistakably clear idea.
You cite Jn 5:24 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. But to redeploy Marshall’s own distinction, is faith a cause of regeneration, or a sign of regeneration?
Far from supporting the Arminian contention, this verse supports the inamissibility of grace. As Andreas Kostenberger observes, "Jesus' statement that believers 'have' eternal life in the here and now, having 'crossed over from death to life' already in the past (5:24; cf. 1 Jn 3:14), ran counter to contemporary Judaism, which considered the attainment of eternal life to be a future event," John (Baker 2004), 188.
You also cite Jn 12:46 to prove the priority of faith to regeneration. However, this conveniently ignores the predestinarian context of Jn 12, where unbelief is attributed to judicial hardening (vv37-41).
For the standard monograph on Isa 6 and its NT appropriation, cf. C. Evans, To See and Not Perceive (Sheffield: JSOT 1989).
Moving on to chapter 11, you say that the Calvinist is prying into the secret things of God when he infers the perseverance of the saints from the covenant of redemption (Jn 5:30,43; 6:38-40; 17:4-12). You also say that “nowhere is there direct indication that such a covenant was made, and even more important is the fact that the terms of such a covenant are not revealed--especially not whether those promises were or were not conditional” (189).
By way of reply,
i) Calvinists are not appealing to the secret will of God, but to the revealed will of God. You yourself cite some of the prooftexts, only to brandish the above disclaimer.
Well, what is your alternative interpretation of Jn 5:30,43; 6;38-40; 17:4-12?
And how could the promises be conditional if this is a covenant between the Father and the Son? Although it is possible for a covenant between God and man to be conditional, inasmuch as the human party may commit breach of contract--unless he is preserved by God’s grace-- yet how can a covenant between two divine parties ever be liable to nonperformance?
And you continue to assume, without benefit of argument, that conditionality implies uncertainty. That is a non-sequitur. It all depends. In contract law, you may have a surety (e.g. Heb 7:22!) to makes good on the contract if the second party defaults.
This represents a failure on your part to get inside the head of the opponent. For an Arminian, conditionality implies uncertainty because the outcome ultimately hinges on the weak reed of freewill. Of course, that is not the framework within which Reformed theology would embed conditionality.
You utterly maunder the meaning of Jn 17:11-12. The apostasy of Judas is no evidence that the prayers of Christ for his people are ineffectual. In this very verse (12) the reader is told that Judas’ betrayal was a prophetic necessity--referring back to 13:18-19. The Fourth Gospel is at pains to point out that Jesus chose Judas in full foreknowledge of his impending apostasy and treason (6:64,70-71; 13:10-11,21). It is essential to Johannine theology that Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, is faithful in keeping his spiritual charges from defection (Jn 6:37-39; chapter 10; 17:11-12a).
Moving on to chapter 12--by way of a general observation, Calvinism doesn’t deny that members of the covenant community can and may commit apostasy. Rather, Reformed theology distinguishes between a gracious remnant and a graceless mass of nominal believers. In addition, the NT letters are addressed to a mixed multitude of true believers, immature believers, and nominal believers.
Now, you may reject these distinctions, but for you to bring up examples of possible or actual apostasy (p200) is in no way incompatible with the Reformed doctrine of perseverance.
BTW, there is a parallel distinction, is there not, in Arminian theology--at least the Wesleyan variety? John and Charles did not think that all churchmen were true believers. To the contrary, they thought the Church of England was full of Pharisees. They preached the doctrine of the New Birth to baptized communicates of their own denomination. Indeed, they viewed themselves as having been gospel hypocrites before undergoing their own awakening, did they not?
On Gal 5:4, what the Galatians are in danger of defecting from is not the experience of justification, but the doctrine of justification.
On Jn 10:27-29, you say “it assumes that they remain his sheep” (201). Yes, and no. It assumes that they will, indeed, remain his sheep because he will preserve all those whom the Father entrusted to his safe-keeping. If the promise is conditional, it is conditional, not on the sheep, but the shepherd. That’s the whole point of the passage. Therein lies the assurance.
On Rom 8:29-30, you describe this as a “picture of what happens for those in whom God’s purpose is fully accomplished, without even discussing the question of whether any condition is required for any part of it to be accomplished” (202).
No, what it expressly says is that God’s purpose will be accomplished for the elect from start to finish. And if this carries a faith-condition, then that condition will be met in each and every case.
Moving on to chapter 13, you rest your objection to perseverance on two pillars: Heb 6:4-6 and 2 Pet 2:18-22.
On Heb 6:4-6,
i) The fundamental flaw in your reading of the text is the way in which you jump right into the middle of the letter (6:4-6), and therefore miss the comparison between OT and NT apostates.
But in order to understand this passage we must go back to where the author introduces the apostasy motif. Because the author is addressing Messianic Jews who are tempted to revert to Judaism, he draws a parallel between NT apostasy and OT apostasy. This comparison is introduced in the first of five apostasy passages (2:1-4). Then in 3:6-4:13 he elaborates on the character of the OT apostates. By the way in which our author structures his own argument, therefore, this precedent is paradigmatic for the case of NT apostasy. And his remarks in 6:4-6 will allude to this passage. If there were a radical discontinuity in the religious experience of OT and NT apostates, then our author’s analogy would break down at the critical point of comparison.
ii) What does the author mean by having a share in the Holy Spirit (6:4)? Before we can attempt a specific answer we must first ask about the general contours of our author’s pneumatology. He doesn’t have much to say on this subject, but what he does tell us is confined to the external rather than internal work of the Spirit (2:4; 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). There is a possible reference to his agency in the Resurrection (9:14).
The point, rather, is that both the Old and NT apostates had a share in the ministry of the Spirit by virtue of his agency in the inspiration of Scripture. More precisely, both groups had been evangelized (4:2,6).
When you cite verse like Gal 3:14, you are using Hebrews to channel Pauline theology. This is a category mistake. The author of Hebrews never penetrates beneath the phenomenology of faith and categories of cultic holiness. He does not share St. Paul’s interest in depth psychology, perhaps because that is not germane to the purpose of his letter, which is concerned with covenant theology and Messianic Judaism.
Likewise, regeneration is a Johannine category. You seem to be doing systematic theology under the guise of exegetical theology. But systematic theology is a higher-ordered discipline. Each author ought to be construed on his own terms, in light of his own chosen usage--both express and allusive. You need to break the habit of using one author as a prism through which to view another.
Likewise, again, the verb (metochoi), taken by itself, is theologically innocent. This is not a technical term for Christian experience.
iii) The author takes the rebellion at Kadesh as his test case (Num 14 via Ps 95). Having tasted the "goodness of God’s word" (6:5) echoes the experience of the OT apostates (4,2,6,12; cf. Num 14:43). Tasting the "powers of the coming age" has immediate reference to the sign-gifts (2:4), but this experience also has its OT analogue (Num 14:11,22).
I agree with you that the verb (geuomai) is not reducible to “tongue-tasting.” However, you commit a semantic fallacy in insinuating that the import of the verb is defined by the object it takes, and therefore varies with its variable object. Does geuomai have a humble human import in Jn 2:9, but take on a divine import in Mt 27:33?
iv) Appealing to 10:32 to explain 6:4 is an exercise in futility:
(a) If 6:4 is ambiguous, taken by itself, then that same ambiguity will infect the parallel passage;
(b) The question at issue is not whether the verb (photizomai) is a metaphor for conversion, but whether it denotes conversion in the dogmatic sense, such that you can invoke this verse to compare and contrast the doctrine of conversion in Hebrews with the doctrine of conversion in Arminian and Reformed theology. That is not something you can extract from a natural metaphor. Picture-language is too open-textured to speak with such precision.
v) On Heb 6:2,6, it is a mistake to import into the word "repentance" the full payload of later dogmatic usage. Moreover, it is evident from his usage elsewhere (12:17) that the author doesn’t use the word as a technical term for Christian conversion.
vi) As to Heb 10:29 (p115), it is anachronistic to construe "sanctify" as it has come to be used in systematic theology. The author tells us that the apostate was sanctified by blood of Christ rather than action of the Spirit. That automatically removes it from the dogmatic category. His usage is figurative and consciously cultic (9:13,20; cf. Exod 29:21; Lev 16:19, LXX). It is concerned with a status rather than a process. By taking it to mean what it would normally mean in Pauline theology, you are blending separate domains of discourse. Moreover, it also possible that the verb takes the "covenant" as its object.
I can only conclude that either you never read James Barr’s book on The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford 1961), or else it went right over your head, for you continually reproduce the word-study fallacies of Kittel and company.
vii) It is lopsided to center our analysis of Hebrews on the apostasy motif when, in fact, the letter pivots on the dual theme of threat and assurance. Moreover, the author rounds out his dire warnings on an optimistic note (cf. 6:9ff.; 10:30,39).
Furthermore, the author accentuates the efficacy of Christ’s atonement and intercession (4:14; 7:16,24-28; 8:6; 9:12,14-15,26-28; 10:12-18,22) in express contrast to the inadequacies and insecurities of the OT system (5:2-3; 7:18-29,27-28; 9:9-10,13; 10:1-4,11). He allows no room for a breach between redemption accomplished and redemption applied.
The reason that a member of the Old Covenant community could apostatize was due to the drag-factor of an evil heart (3:8,12; 7:18), whereas the New Covenant rests on the better promise of a new heart (8:10,12; 10:16).
viii) Finally, an Arminian is in no position to say that hypotheticals are meaningless. Sufficient grace is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted. A potential universal atonement is a hypothetical, often turned into counterfactual when resisted.
The metaphysical difference is that you, as an Arminian, index modality to the will of man whereas a Calvinist is indexing modality to the will of God.
On 2 Pet 2:18-22, the question at issue is not whether the apostates were one-time converts to the faith. Rather, the question turns on the content of conversion--on two divergent doctrines of conversion: the Reformed and the Arminian.
2 Pet 2:18-22 doesn’t address that specific contention. There is nothing said about the religious experience of the false teachers that rises above the level of their having been evangelized. So your appeal fails to even graze the opposing position.
By having offered such a thoroughgoing defense of Arminian theology, and attack upon Calvinism, Reformed theology is signally vindicated when the arguments for Arminian theology and Arminian counterarguments against Reformed theology are so impotent. For that we are all in your debt.
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