http://www.reformation21.org/articles/interview-with-oliver-crisp-and-his-book-deviant-calvinism.php
I have had a serious interest in Reformed history and theology for a long time. In the last decade I've been drawn to marginal or less-well-known figures in the Reformed tradition, and have been writing about them (e.g. William Shedd, John Williamson Nevin, John McLeod Campbell, John Girardeau, John Davenant, Donald Baillie, and so on).
There's a reason for that. Most of them aren't exactly topnotch.
But there is a constellation of divines who are part of our tradition, and whose work informs and fructifies it, e.g. Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, Turretin, Ames, Preston, Owen, Schleiermacher, Edwards, Hodge, Barth, and so on.
I'm puzzled by why he'd included Schleiermacher. Also, although Barth was in dialogue with Calvinism, he wasn't a Calvinist. Barth has a very idiosyncratic theology. A one-man vision.
For instance, Huldrych Zwingli believed that we are not culpable for being born with original sin, and that God graciously saves humans who have not heard the name of Christ.
But, of course, Zwingli was one of the very first Protestants. We'd expect Reformed theology to become more reflective, sophisticated, and internally consistent/developed with the passage of time.
One of the aims of the book is to challenge some of the ways in which this narrative is sometimes presented--as if there is only one acceptable Reformed view about the ordering of God's decrees, about what God intends in salvation, about the scope of salvation, and about the number of the elect.
One basic problem with how he frames the issue is his failure to distinguish between how we draw the boundaries of Reformed tradition and how we draw the boundaries of theological truth. Shouldn't our primary concern be with the correct "ordering of God's decrees, what God intends in salvation, the scope of salvation, and the number of the elect"? Shouldn't our theology aim to match reality?
I discuss various issues in the neighborhood of these claims. For instance, the worry about eternal justification: is my election and justification eternally decreed so that my change of heart on coming to Christ is merely an epistemic matter, or is such a view inherently antinomian?
That's confused. As the divine act of a timeless God, justification is, in that respect, eternal. However, God has decreed to effect justification in time. Justification is contingent on faith.
Or, to take another issue, must those who adopt a Reformed or broadly Augustinian account of the divine decrees hold to the notion that only a tiny remnant of humanity is saved, or is this scheme consistent with universalism, the doctrine that all are saved by the work of Christ?
i) That's a gross false dichotomy. Are these the only two alternatives? Either God saves everyone or else God only saves a "tiny remnant" of humanity?
ii) Moreover, this isn't just a question of ideas, but truth. Yes, it's antecedently possible for God to save everyone. But the real issue is what God has, in fact, decided to do.
Are we determined to act as we do by God in every single action we perform, or is the Reformed doctrine of bondage to sin consistent with some robust account of human freedom that, in some instances, includes a notion of alternate possibilities?
That's confused:
i) Spiritual inability due to original sin is different from inability to act contrary to what God predestined. Apart from the fall, it would still be impossible to act contrary to what God predestined.
ii) Reformed theology allows for alternate possibilities, but those are ultimately divine options.
Finally, is it the case that to be Reformed one must opt for the view that the atonement is particular and definite in scope and intention?
Again, is he asking how broadly/narrowly we should define Reformed tradition, or what is the true scope and intention of the atonement?
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