Crack-potteries

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Why is N.T. Wright so consistently misrepresented by writers in the Reformed world? Surely if Wright's theology were orthodox such criticisms would be less common. Does the widespread nature of such claims imply that there is some substance to the claims made against Wright? Are these misrepresentations indicative of a failure to communicate on Wright's part?

I have been asked these questions on many occasions. I think that there are good reasons why Wright has been consistently misrepresented by certain writers in the Reformed camp. Here are just a few:—

Wright's Reformed critics are not sufficiently immersed in Wright's own theology to be able to treat it on its own terms. Frequently, by placing Wright's theology within the conceptual frameworks provided by their own theologies (or by the confessions) problems result that are seen to be easily reconciled and dissolved when one approaches these statements in terms of Wright's own theology (imputation is a classic example here).

Many of the Reformed authors who criticize Wright make some clearly counter-factual claims concerning Wright’s theology that can be easily exposed by anyone who has read Wright in much depth. Some of these claims are nothing but supposed implications of the position put forward in What St Paul Really Said. The inner logic of Wright’s theology has not been understood and when Wright’s statements are explored in terms of the critic’s own theological logic, bizarre heresies emerge.

We should also recognize that many of the traditional dichotomies that have decisively shaped traditional forms of theology are rejected by post-modernist (in distinction to 'postmodernist') theologians. Subjective/objective, ecclesiology/soteriology, forensic/participatory, declarative/transformative, internal/external, individual/corporate are all dichotomies that have been complicated, problematized or rejected.

When one is accustomed to framing one's theology in terms of these dichotomies one will find it difficult to understand the work of someone who does not. When so many of these dichotomies have traditionally framed a particular doctrine, the result of a rejection of these dichotomies may look remarkably like a total rejection of the doctrine itself, although the new epistemological environment may provide for its working in remarkably analogous ways.

Traditional Reformed doctrines of justification have been decisively shaped by all of the dichotomies listed above and more besides. Wright frames his doctrine of justification in a significantly different way, as would many in the so-called (and largely mythological) ‘FV movement’.

It seems to me that many of Wright’s Reformed critics lack the epistemological teeth and juices necessary to break down and digest a system of theology as anti-modernistic as Wright’s. It would be like trying to understand Einstein without moving beyond the framework of Newtonian physics in any way at all.

People are pressed to reach conclusions as soon as possible and not given the time to properly apprehend and mentally process Wright on his own terms. Understanding Wright properly is a matter of delayed gratification; it can take many hours of study. One will probably not understand Wright by reading a quick potted treatment in someone like Waters (or myself). One has to be disciplined and focused. One also has to be open-minded for quite some time before one is qualified to make up one’s mind. Keeping one’s mind open really is quite an achievement in the Reformed world at the moment, where one is expected to be able to jump to a pro or anti position after a quick skim of What St Paul Really Said.

http://40bicycles.blogspot.com/2005/06/why-is-wright-so-misrepresented.html

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In order to take the measure of Alastair Roberts’s argument, let’s see if we can break it down:

a) Roberts knows what Wright is talking about.
b) Reformed critics don’t know what Wright is talking about.
c) They make some clearly counterfactual claims about Wright.
d) They don’t know what he’s talking about because they transplant him into their own conceptual scheme.
e) Or because they’ve read too little of him.
f) Or because they’ve read him too hastily.
g) Their conceptual scheme consists of such modernistic dichotomies as Subjective/objective, ecclesiology/soteriology, forensic/participatory, declarative/transformative, internal/external, individual/corporate.
h) These dichotomies are rejected by postmodern theology.
i) Rejecting the modernistic dichotomies in which the doctrine has traditionally been framed looks like one is rejecting the doctrine itself. But that is not necessarily the case.

Now, is there anything missing from Roberts’ argument? The only thing missing is an actual argument. For the only thing that Robert’s has offered the reader is a string of threadbare assertions without a single supporting argument to back up any of his claims.

And all this is done in a tone of smug superiority without any hard reasoning to justify the superior airs.

To turn this string of question-begging assertions into a serious argument, Roberts would need to present a stepwise argument—something along the following lines:

a) Identify some representative Reformed critics.
b) Compare and contrast their reading of Wright with Roberts’ own reading.
c) Expose their clearly counterfactual claims.
d) Document how little they’ve read of Wright.
e) Document how superficially they’ve read him.
f) Document how they transplant him into their own conceptual scheme.
g) Show that the only reason they reject Wright is because they don’t understand him, and not because they do understand him, but disagree.
h) Demonstrate that all these traditional dichotomies are indeed modernistic rather than Scriptural.
i) Demonstrate how these modernistic dichotomies are epistemically inadequate.
j) Demonstrate an epistemically superior alternative to each and every one of these modernistic dichotomies.
k) Demonstrate that the doctrines are themselves distinguishable and divisible from these modernistic dichotomies.