"Calvinism's Unassuring Assurance"?

***QUOTE***

I'm monitoring several Calvinist blog sites and continue, sadly, to note how Calvinism simply and clearly does NOT put Jesus at the center. Note the discussion by Even May about assurance of salvation. Note how he talks about salvation and assurance of salvation, but...no Jesus! How tragic.

Link: Triablogue.

It is sufficient that I believe I’m saved, and that I have adequate grounds for so believing. Or, to recast this in negative terms, it’s sufficient that I have no good grounds for doubting my salvation.

http://cyberbrethren.typepad.com/cyberbrethren/2006/01/calvinisms_unas.html

***END-QUOTE***

i) First off, I want to warmly commend Dr. McCain for his excellent taste in reading material (“I'm monitoring several Calvinist blog sites”). At least he knows where the action is.

ii) He attributes to Evan (not “Even”) something that I (Steve Hays) said.

iii) In the post which he hyperlinks, I was not attempting to lay out the grounds of assurance in Reformed theology. Rather, I was responding to an antinomian critic of Reformed theology. My replies were pegged to his objections. That’s how polemical theology works. Your replies parallel the objections you’re responding to. A pretty elementary point.

It’s true that my reply wasn’t centered on Jesus. That’s because my opponent wasn’t centered on Jesus. I was tracking his own line of reasoning.

iv) Notice that Dr. McCain doesn't show where my reasoning is fallacious. Instead, we have his formalistic appeal to Christocentricity. All he ever does is to talk "about" putting Christ front and center without actually doing so.

BTW, this is a typical defect of sacramentalism. If you think that you’ve localized Christ in a wafer, like a fly in amber, then the way to be Christocentric is to dispense the communion elements. You end up with vending machine piety. Just pop your God-pill once a week for your regular dose of spiritual vitamins and minerals. Far from being Christocentric, it’s quite perfunctory.

v) As a matter of fact, I have discussed the grounds of assurance from my own starting-point in a recent post.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/10/election-assurance.html

You will see that the discussion is Christocentric from start to finish.

vi) It would also be nice to see if Dr. McCain, who’s very fond of attacking others, is capable of offering a positive alternative. Does Lutheranism have a doctrine of assurance? Does its version improve on Calvinism?

I trust that Dr. McCain will not refer the reader to the sacraments since a Lutheran can be a validly baptized church member and regular communicant of the Eucharist, validly administered, yet still be a nominal believer or eventual apostate. The pioneers of liberal Bible criticism were Lutherans from the cradle of Lutheranism.