The Federal Vision

Enloe said:

<< Steve, sure the process of appeal is bottom-up and there's nothing wrong with you pointing out examples of a condemnatory direction in many appellate motions. Nevertheless, you seemed to be saying in your post that the PCA and OPC had already formally as denominations condemned FVism. But given the conciliarist context of the Presbyterian form of government and the fact that this theology has been placed into the stream of decision ultimately culminating in a publicly-binding ministerial decision by the GA, it ain't over until the GA decides. If I misread you, I apologize.

I'm not ducking any question about what the adherents of FVism will do if their respective GAs condemn it. As I said, I belong to neither the PCA nor the OPC, so I won't have to face that decision. I pray for those who will, for it will no doubt be a very hard day, if it happens.

Your comparison of Trent nuancing Tetzel as an analogy for FVism nuancing some other "damnable error" is really over the top, as is your statement "There is no honest way of squaring FVism with the Reformed doctrine of justification and its logical corollaries." First of all we'd have to know what YOU mean by "FVism" (there is a great deal of confusion out there about it), for what you mean may not be what any given FV leader means. The position has several different varieties, some of which may be problematic but some of which clearly are not. Rich Lusk, for instance, has overwhelmingly, I think, documented that the actual real-live Reformed tradition about baptismal efficacy is far broader and nuanced than the very narrow tradition being unreasonably promoted by most of the FV critics as "the" Reformed view of baptism. And are you sure you want to label other aspects of the position, such as Wilson's quite biblical "To a thousand generations" view of covenant children is a "damnable error"?

You mention justification, but again I'd wonder where you're getting your information from and how you understand "the FV view" of it. I have yet to hear a single person involved in any capacity with things FVish deny that justification is by faith alone in the sense that the Reformation defined the term "justification." Rather, what I hear from many of them is that the term "justification" is not in Scripture itself limited to the theological usage of the Reformed Confessions, and that this means it is biblically possible (and orthodox) to speak of justification in ANOTHER sense than the Confessional one. It is not, in other words, that the Confessional sense is wrong (again, I've heard no one say that), but only that it does not exhaust the biblical data. I find it hard to imagine that an argument like this ought to be summarily dismissed as "damnable error", especially when the exegesis of Romans and Galatians that supports such an absolute black / white judgment is so shallow when set next to the exegesis of, say, Wright or even Ridderbos. I will tell you what I see in my own personal experience with FV critics, and it is this. Most of the loudest, angriest individuals denouncing FVism are essentially Radical Baptists (including many who pretend to be Presbyterians) whose "Reformed" Faith is little more than an unbalanced attachment to TULIP (i.e., "unbalanced" as if that was the sum total of biblical teaching on salvation), some half-understood, Christologically-contextless slogans about monergism, and, really the most important thing, an absolutely fanatical obsession with demonizing "Romanism" and pretending to see a creeping slide toward it under every mode of thinking that requires them to do a little bit of hard thinking outside the restrictive boxes they learned in seminary.

I'm not sure of your own objections to FVism (or, again, what you take "FVism" to be), but based on what I know of it and of what I've seen of your views on baptism and ecclesiology here on your blog, I cannot help but say that your judgments of it as "damnable error" strike me as over-confident and over-hasty. I wonder if in your zeal for destroying "damnable error" you realize that in many respects you might wind up lopping off whole branches of the Reformed Faith in the name of presenting only one very narrow branch of it as being the whole thing. >>

Hi Tim,

These are all good questions. Since I’m facing down a deadline at the moment, I can’t respond to all of them at the moment. I probably won’t get around to some of them for a couple of weeks or so. For the time being, I’ll address the ones I have time for.

1.Since you have your sources, and I have mine, and since you think your sources are better than mine, it would be more efficient, all around, if you just give me the names and links to the material you think puts the best face on FVism. That way I’ll be arguing on your own turf. Otherwise, we’ll just end up talking at cross-purposes, “for what you mean may not be what any given FV leader means. The position has several different varieties…”

2.Deut 7:9 (cf. Exod 20:6) is hyperbolic. Is God more likely to place the elect within families? Yes. Does this general policy justify a favorable presumption in any particular case? No, because we know there are exceptions, but we don’t know where they are in advance of the fact. The OT gives many examples of reprobate sons of elect fathers and elect sons of reprobate fathers—not to mention the larger phenomenon of Israel’s national apostasy. Likewise, we have the historical example of Presbyterian denominations going over to the Unitarians. Likewise, we have current examples of liberal or liberalizing (one-time) Reformed denominations like the CRC, RCA, and PC-USA.

3. Baptismal justification (a la Owen) is incompatible with sola fide. That doesn’t make it right or wrong (although I think it’s dead wrong), but sola fide it isn’t. The fact that one can find both in Luther (to take Owen’s example) just goes to show that Luther is trying to ride two different horses. I’m not Lutheran.

4.The Pauline doctrine of justification isn’t limited to the occurrence of that particular word-group. True. Likewise, the Reformed doctrine of justification is a theological construct. It derives from more than merely Pauline usage of that word-group. Rather, it derives from the Pauline flow of argument. Dogmatic usage is generally more specialized than Scriptural usage.

Whether, therefore, the Westminster version follows the contours of the Biblical paradigm can only be determined at a conceptual equivalence level rather than a lexical equivalence level.

5.Since to say that the Westminster Confession is simply wrong, especially on a central plank like justification, is an open invitation to be defrocked, I’d hardly expect church officers in the OPC or PCA or other suchlike to be so tactless.

6.The new perspective is contra-confessional. This shouldn’t even be an issue. You bring up Wright. There’s no question that Wright regards the new perspective as a revolutionary reinterpretation of Paul which overturns the Lutheran-cum-Calvinist reading of Paul.

7.The real question, then, is whether Calvin and the Westminster Divines got it right, or whether their interpretation represents an understandable, but culture-bound mistake.

If the Westminster reading of Paul is systematically misguided, as Wright would have it, then the Confession needs to be revised.

8.Ridderbos is not a Calvinist. He is, of course, a product of the Dutch-Reformed tradition, but he, like Berkouwer, left that behind many many years ago. And Wright has never been a Calvinist. Indeed, he’s openly hostile to Calvinism.

That doesn’t automatically mean that their exegesis is wrong. But if they’re right, then Calvinism is wrong.

9.One could argue that insofar as sola fide is something which Calvinism shares in common with certain other theological traditions, it is not a Reformed distinctive. However, I’d have to qualify that, for sola fide is consistent with Reformed theology in a way that is not the case with other traditions which nevertheless embrace it.


10.And even if it were not a Reformed distinctive, it is a Reformed essential, just as an orthodox Christology, while not a Reformed distinctive, is a Reformed essential.

11.BTW, which work of Ridderbos are you alluding to? His Paul: An Outline of His Theology? At those points where his exegesis departs from traditional Reformed exegesis, I find him unpersuasive.

Prescinding his premillennialism, Schreiner’s Paul: Apostle of God’s Glory is Christ is a far superior overview of Pauline theology.

12.As to Wright, one could say many things:

i) It is unclear to me why Wright is the darling of FV-types rather than other representatives of the new perspective such as Sanders, Esler, and Dunn.

I suspect it’s because Wright’s frequent broadsides against members of the Jesus Seminar has given him a conservative reputation which, in turn, allows his “Reformed” followers to take safe cover under that the shadow of his stalwart image.

Liberal and conservative are relative terms. Wright is a conservative in a liberal denomination, which makes him a moderate in a conservative denomination.

ii) I own a number of his books. He’s the sort of writer I alternately agree and disagree with from one paragraph to the next.

I’ve written a lengthy negative review of his What St. Paul Really Said (entitled “Reinventing Paul”).

His commentary on Romans, by turns, good and bad.

I readily grant that the conflict with Rome is not simply a repeat performance of Paul and the Judaizers. However, as I also point out in my essay “Of anathemas: Pauline & Tridentine,” the Reformed argument was always an argument from analogy, not identity, so Owen’s best efforts to rehabilitate the image of Rome seriously misses the mark.

13.I agree that there’s more to Calvinism that TULIP. But at least until fairly recently, most Reformed Baptist seminarians have attended Presbyterian seminaries—although that may be changing as Calvinism enjoys a resurgence in the SBC.

Hence, I hardly think that what you ascribe to “Radical Baptists” and “pretend Presbyterians” (whatever you may mean by those designations) can be attributed to their seminary education.

I’d add that “demonizing” Rome is a deeply entrenched and widely attested Presbyterian tradition. If you deem that to in error, then you deem the Presbyterian tradition to be in error at this point. That’s your prerogative.

But I observe you and other “Reformed Catholics” constantly playing both sides of the fence here. On the one hand, I see “Reformed Catholics” incessantly bashing the Reformed Baptists as less than truly Reformed because they broke with Calvin over the sacraments; on the other hand, I see them playing up the diversity of the Reformed tradition to make allowance for their own break with Calvin or the Confession when it serves their purpose.

14.What you mean by “demonizing” Romanism, or my “immoderately” anti-Catholic stance I don’t know, since you don’t explain yourself.

Rome is far and away the largest church in Christendom. This means that if Rome obscures the true Gospel, then this presents a huge impediment to the salvation of hundreds of millions of human beings.

That’s why I, and better men than myself, make Rome one of our polemical priorities.

To put a sharper point on things, Rome is both better and worse than Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism. Like the other three, it holds a major share in the religious affiliations of mankind. Unlike the other three, it is possible for a Roman Catholic to be saved. But also unlike the other three, folks are taken in by a false gospel who would never be taken in by an open adversary of the faith. That’s why, let us say, Gnosticism was a much more serious threat to the church than someone like Marcion.

15. It is true that a Presbyterian is, in a sense, predisposed to accept FVism whereas a Reformed Baptist is predisposed to reject FVism. And it’s also true that since I’m closer to the RB end of the spectrum, that’s an additional reason for me to characterize FVism as heretical.

However, I reference William Young’s article to show that FVism is firmly at odds with Old School Presbyterian theology as well.

16.Remember, too, that I’m not a card-carrying Reformed Baptist. My position on the sacraments is somewhere between Zwingli/Bullinger and the Baptist/Anabaptist segment of the theological spectrum.

17. And this brings us to another point. There are many different ways of grounding infant baptism. There is no logically or historically necessary relation between paedobaptism and sacramental efficacy. Besides the RB package and the Presbyterian package, there is also the Zwingli/Bullinger package, whose Reformed and Reformational pedigree is impeccable.

Or, let’s take yet another package: what about someone like John Owen or Jonathan Edwards whose ecclesiology is essentially Baptist, but whose sacramentology is essentially Presbyterian?

Who is lopping branches off the tree? You or me?