Gerety’s Hammer Misses the Mark: A Rejoinder to Sean Gerety’s “Irrational Baptists”
Posted by deangonzales on June 9, 2009
I recently posted a brief article entitled, “God Makes a Wish: That Each and Every Sinner Might Be Saved.” The article was basically an exposition of Deuteronomy 5:29, a text that portrays God as wishing for the saving good of those who never experience that good. Such a conclusion, as the late Reformed theologian John Murray noted, supports the doctrine of the free and well-meant offer of the gospel (see Murray’s The Free Offer of the Gospel). Of course, I recognize that not every Calvinist will agree with my conclusions. Some concede that God commands all men everywhere to repent but deny that God in any sense desires their compliance with that command. The reader will find this documented in my footnotes and evidenced in the lengthy and cordial exchange I have with Ben Maas in the comment section following the post. A few disagree with my exegesis and view of the well-meant offer quite strongly. One such critic is Sean Gerety, the administrator of the blog “God’s Hammer.” Gerety feels that my article is massively heterodox and hopelessly irrational. Not surprisingly, he entitles his critique, “Irrational Baptists.” In it, he calls me a “misologist” (hater of reason) and a “paradox monger.” He also asserts, on the basis of my interpretation of Deuteronomy 5:29, “[Dr. Gonzales] believes in salvation by works as well.”
I’d like to thank Mr. Gerety for considering my post important enough to critique. I’m also glad that he included links so that his readers can read my post(s). Hopefully, they’ll read all the footnotes and all my comments where I clarify and expand on my arguments. By reading the footnotes and my comments, many questions (accusations?) Sean raises in his critique will be addressed. While I don’t mind being critiqued and certainly don’t claim to have impeccable logic, I find Gerety’s criticisms shamefully imbalanced, misinformed, and short on brotherly kindness. Of course, I don’t mind the fact that he feels quite zealous to protect the logical coherence of God’s revelation (a conviction I share), and I’m not totally opposed to his use of satire and sarcasm (I’ve used it sometimes). But it seems to me he’s placed quite a negative and, in my estimation, distorted spin on my position, drawing a number of false conclusions. Accordingly, I offer the following rejoinder in the hope that readers like Sean Gerety might read my article and understand my position in a better light.
Am I an Irrational Baptist?
As noted above, Gerety portrays me and my position as if I’m advocating “irrationalism” in the fullest sense of that term. He labels me a hater of reason when in fact I employ rational argumentation throughout my post, footnotes, and comments (note my use of “if … then,” “because of” “therefore,” “consequently,” “accordingly,” etc.). Once again, I don’t claim that my reasoning is flawless and welcome any of you to interact with my on my blog. It’s called Tabletalk because I welcome healthy discussion (even disagreement). But I don’t think I deserve the epithet “irrationalist” or “misologist.”
Consider, for example, the fact that I challenged the logical coherence of the minority report’s logical caveat against the majority report (comment #40). I made Sean aware of my caveat before he posted this critique and asked him to address it (which, for some reason, he didn’t do). The minority report reasons as follows:
Desire suggests a want or lack in the one who desires which can be fulfilled only by the gratifying of the desire. This is incompatible with the self-sufficiency of God. Desire is something weaker than the firm determination of the will. No such weak wishing can properly be ascribed to God whose will is firmly fixed and fixes all things.
Now let’s arrange their argument in the form of a syllogism:
Major premise: “Desire suggests a want or lack in the one who desires which can be fulfilled only by the gratifying of the desire.”
Minor premise: “This is incompatible with the self-sufficiency of God.”
Conclusion: Therefore, “No such weak wishing can properly be ascribed to God …”
Why should the logical syllogism above confine itself with “weak wishing”? It would seem that the all-sufficient God who needs nothing could not, according to the logic above, desire anything. He’s perfectly sufficient and does not need a world or human beings or a fall or the cross, etc (see Acts 17:24-25). Consistency of logic would seem to demand that God couldn’t desire anything except himself. Yet God created the world because He freely desired to create the world and all therein. That fact doesn’t seem to fit well with the minority report’s logic. For that reason, I question the first premise. In the realm of human experience, “desire” may suggest a “lack” in the one who desires which can be fulfilled only by the gratifying of the desire. But desire doesn’t suggest such a “want” or “lack” in the experience of all-sufficient deity. God desires, whether less strongly or more strongly, certain objectives outside himself simply because he is free to so without any constraint. For this reason, I do not find the minority report’s logic cogent. I may be incorrect, but it would be helpful if someone would graciously point out where I’m mistaken.1
Gerety also believes it’s irrational to infer an indicative from an imperative. In my article, I asserted that at a preceptive level God did not desire Adam and Eve to partake of the tree, which I deduced from God’s prohibition against eating the fruit in Genesis 2:16-16 . My reasoning went something like this:
Major premise: In Genesis 2:16-17, God says to Adam, “You shall not eat of the tree of knowledge” (imperative).
Minor premise: By inference, God commanded Adam not to eat from the tree of knowledge (indicative).
Minor premise: The Bible and common sense make a connection between issuing a command to another to comply with one’s will and having a desire that the recipient of such a command comply with one’s will.
Conclusion: God did not desire (preceptively) Adam and Eve to eat from the tree.
Gerety misapplies a citation from Luther who chides Erasmus for inferring ability (indicative) from an imperative and suggests, in the words of Luther, that I’m more stupid than “schoolboys on street corners.” He also notes,
Dr. Elihu Carranza (who wrote the workbook for Gordon Clark’s, Logic) rightly observes that propositions are alone “the premises and conclusions of arguments” simply because only propositions can be either true or false. He goes on to note that commands, questions (with the exception of rhetorical questions which are intended as propositions) and exhortations “are neither true nor false.” So, how Gonzales thinks he can infer a desire or anything else from a command is indeed a mystery?
Well, I’m not sure why it’s still a mystery especially when I provided Gerety with a lengthy explanation before he posted his critique. I agree with Dr. Carranza that imperative commands, “Do this,” or prohibition, “Don’t do this,” are in themselves neither intrinsically true or false. But that God prohibited Adam from eating from the Tree is a true proposition. From this demonstrably true proposition, we may infer the following true proposition: God desired Adam to refrain from eating from the Tree.
To substantiate my conclusion, I first highlighted God’s imperative to King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:3: “Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” Then I noted how the prophet Saul infers from this command the indicative: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (15:22) (emphasis added).
Furthermore and in order to assure Gerety that I was by no means assuming some kind of Arminian notion of libertarianism, I provided some citations from reputable Reformed scholars who agree that God’s preceptive will may be described in terms of “wish” or “desire.” John Calvin, for example, writes,
What I have said of the precepts, abundantly suffices to confound your blasphemies. For though God gives no pretended commands, but seriously declares what he wishes and approves [Latin: vult et probat.]; yet it is in one way, that he wills the obedience of his elect whom he efficaciously bends to compliance; and in another that of the reprobate whom he warns by the external word, but does not see good to draw to himself. Contumacy and depravity are equally natural to all, so that none is ready and willing to assume the yoke (emphasis added).2
Zacharias Ursinus remarks,
There are four classes of things concerning which men give commandment. These are, first, divine precepts, which God desires, that men should propose unto themselves for their observance, not, however, in their own name, but by the authority of God himself, as being the ministers and messengers, and not the authors of these precepts (emphasis added).3
Heinrich Heppe cites the Reformed theologian Abrahamus Heidanus, who asserts,
(I) Strictly speaking there is but a single will of God called beneplaciti, whereby God determines by Himself what He wills to do in and concerning the creature. The second is but the sign and indication by which He shows what He wishes creatures to do. But He does not wish them to make His beneplacitum universal; but only the things which He reveals to them, Dt. 29. 29 (emphasis added).4
Apparently, my use of logic, Scripture, and the insights of other Reformed theologians were to no avail. Mr. Gerety insists that I’m still an irrationalist and misologist.
Am I an Irreverent Baptist?
Gerety not only accuses me of irrationalism but crass irreverence. In particular, he complains about the picture of a birthday cake with candles that appears on my post. He writes,
This image alone is disturbing. Dr. Gonzales paints a picture for us of the Sovereign Lord God of heaven and earth shutting His eyes while making a wish and blowing out the candles on His celestial birthday cake, hoping against hope that His divine and holy birthday wish might come true.
When Sean expressed his disturbance with this picture prior to his critique, I assured him that the picture was only intended, like most analogies, to convey one point–the idea of expressing a wish. I pointed out to Sean that when Moses pictures God as a “Rock,” we’re not so dull as to think Moses is describing God as dense. When Calvin describes God as a nurse lisping “goo-goo, gah-gahs,” were not so juvenile as to attribute feminine gender and irrationality to God. I might add that when Sean portrays the Bible as “God’s Hammer” (the title of his website), I’m not tempted to impute sacrilege to Sean for reducing the Holy Scriptures to an ordinary hand-tool. Accordingly, when I display a picture of a birthday cake with candles, most readers will recall the idea of “expressing a wish,” which is precisely what God does in Deuteronomy 5:29. But not one reader of my post, except Sean, made a univocal comparison between God expressing a wish and a human child expressing a wish. But lest such readers like Sean should be tempted to draw such an absurd conclusion and bring God down to the level of a child, I begin the post with these important words of qualification:
When you and I make a wish, we can’t be certain it will come true. But when God makes a wish, he has both the power and prerogative to effect its fulfillment. “Our God is in the heavens,” declares the psalmist, “he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3).
As it turns out, Mr. Gerety was the only reader of my post who ascribed an irreverence to me on account of the picture, and he continues to do so even after I provided him with the necessary qualifications above.
Do I Believe in Salvation by Works?
Gerety also infers from my interpretation of Deuteronomy 5:29 that “Dr. Gonzales] believes in salvation by works.” I found this “good and necessary consequence” quite remarkable, especially since the seminary of which I am academic dean affirms,
We believe that salvation always has been and always will be through faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone. We believe that this central message of Scripture has been most clearly and accurately expounded in the Reformed Confessions of Faith
When Ben Maas challenged Mr. Gerety’s (uncharitable) inference, the latter justified his accusation by asserting, “I was just tracing out where Gonzales’ handling of the verse necessarily leads. Dr. Gonzales may not believe in salvation by works, but his interpretation of Deut. 5:29 requires it.” So here Gerety equivocates. One minute he says, “Gonzales believes in salvation by works,” and the next, “Gonzales may not … but his interpretation of Deut. 5:29 requires it.” I wonder why Sean didn’t have the brotherly courteousy to share his concern with me before making such a remarkable accusation. If he had, I would have pointed out that Matthew Henry’s soteriological reading of Deuteronomy 5:29, which I quoted, corresponded with mine.5 I also would have pointed him to footnote #4 of my post, which reads,
Expositors like John Gill seem to reject Henry’s application of this text to salvation of sinners. Writes Gill, “These words do not express God’s desire of [the Israelites'] eternal salvation, but only of their temporal good and welfare, and that of their posterity; for their eternal salvation was not to be obtained by works of righteousness done by them, but their fear or worship of God, or by their constant universal obedience to his commands. They were saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we. Their fear of God, and obedience to his will issued indeed in their temporal prosperity …” (For the Cause of God and Truth (reprint, Sovereign Grace Book Club, n.d.), sec. III, 4 [p. 5]. I agree with Gill that all men are saved by grace apart from works, I also agree that the blessing in view in the text had more immediate reference to their temporal prosperity in the Land of Canaan. Nevertheless, I also hold that God intended the people of the Old Covenant to look beyond its types and shadows of the Old Covenant to the eternal realities represented by such. Hence, their was both a temporal rest and an eternal rest (Heb. 4:1-10) envisioned in the blessing. In this way, the Mosaic covenant was not merely an administration of law but a “covenant of the promise” (Eph. 2:12). Moreover, “the fear” God desired from the Israelites in the text is nothing less than a “circumcised heart,” that is, regeneration and conversion. This God commanded of them (Deut. 10:16). But ultimately, it was an inward work only God’s grace could produce (Deut. 30:6; Jer. 32:39-40; Ezek. 36:26). Accordingly, since what God desires from the Israelites is ultimately regeneration and conversion and since such a heart-change is both the evidence of justifying faith and also a condition for eternal life (John 3:3, 5, 7; Heb. 12:14), I see no reason to confine the purview of this text to mere outward obedience and temporal prosperity. Strangely, in another place where Gill comments on this text, he seems to acknowledge that the “fear of God” in view is regeneration and conversion, and he locates the scope of the text within the scope of the covenant of grace: “that they would fear me; which is not naturally in the heart of man, is a gift of God, a part of the covenant of grace, is implanted in regeneration, and is no inconsiderable branch of it” (emphasis added).An Exposition of the Old Testament (William Hill Collingridge, 1852), 718. And though John Calvin, like Gill, interprets God’s wish anthropopathically (see below), he, nevertheless, did not limit the purview of the passage to the Israelites’ temporal blessing but applies the passage to his congregants as follows: “And so it is a very profitable warning for us when we see in this text how God wills that we should do the things that he commands us to the intent it might go well with us. Whereby we see that if we receive the doctrine with humility and desire to obey it, the end thereof cannot bee but happy so as we shall be sure of our salvation…. On the other side, let us rejoice inasmuch as we see how he procures our salvation and intends the furtherance thereof, as oft as his word is preached unto us” (emphasis added). Sermons on Deuteronomy (facsimile edition), trans. Arthur Golding (reprint, Banner of Truth, 1987), 261. [Note: Since I'm citing from a facsimile edition translated in 1583, I took liberty to update the spelling and punctuation for the modern reader.]
So, like Matthew Henry, John Calvin, and John Gill (in his commentary), I believe that the scope of this passage is not limited to outward obedience or temporal promises but has a part in “the covenant of grace,” assumes “regeneration,” and alludes ultimately to what the Promised Land prefigured, namely, soteriological blessing. Perhaps it would be helpful for my readers to know that in my doctoral dissertation I seek to refute the serious error (found in the NPP) that conflates faith and obedience in justification.
Can I Still Be Counted a Reformed Baptist?
There are other important issues I suggested Mr. Gerety should address before writing his critique. But he failed to address a number of these issues, which makes me wonder whether he was really interested in a rational and gentlemanly debate or whether he was just interested in winning an argument and painting his opponent in the absolutely worst light. For example, he represents Calvin’s and Gill’s view of divine emotivity and anthropopathisms as if they represent a monolithic Reformed consensus. “This is all Calvinism 101,” Gerety tells Ben Maas, “something one would have hoped even the dean of a purportedly ‘Reformed’ seminary would know.”
In response, let me point out first that the “anthropopathic” hermeneutic has been employed by Jewish Rabbis, the Early Church Fathers, and the Medieval Schoolmen long before Calvin or the Reformed stepped on the scene. So it is not a distinctively “Reformed” or “Calvinist” hermeneutic. Second, every Reformed interpreter (myself included) agrees that there is discorrespondence between divine and human emotivity. The real question in debate is “How much discorrespondence is there?” I demonstrate in my essay “There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”? that not all Reformed scholars have agreed. There is, in other words, a considerable Reformed dissent from the approach that posits such a huge discorrespondence between divine and human emotivity so as to render God incapable of inward feeling vis-à-vis his creation. Charles Hodge, James Petrigru Boyce, Benjamin Warfield, and others think some older Reformed divines went too far in pressing discorrespondence. Robert Reymond, for example, has this to say about the question of divine emotivity as it relates to the WCF’s assertion, “God is … without body, parts, or passions” (II, 1):
Whenever divine impassibility is interpreted to mean that God is impervious to human pain or incapable of empathizing with human grief it must be roundly denounced and rejected. When the Confession of Faith declares that God is “without body, parts, or passions” it should be interpreted to mean that God has no bodily passions such as hunger or the human drive for sexual fulfillment.6
Of course, I’m aware (sadly) that Reymond doesn’t accept Murray’s (and my) interpretation of Deuteronomy 5:29 or the well-meant offer. But his general view of divine emotivity corresponds nicely with mine. Like Reymond, I affirm that God does not have human body, parts, or passions. Conversely, I also affirm, with Reymond, that God enters time and space and that within the matrix of human history God is able to respond emotively to states of affairs and events without threat to his transcendence, sovereignty, or immutability.
Moreover, I find that those Reformed divines who employ the hermeneutic of “anthropopathism” are not always completely consistent in their applications. When God wishes for the obedience and blessing of those who never experience such blessing (Deut. 5:29), John Gill takes great pains to urge the reader not to interpret the statement literally but “after the manner of men.” God’s “wish” is reduced to a kind of non-emotive approbation of obedience in the abstract or, in the case of Calvin, a kind of indicative rebuke against superficial devotion. However, when John Gill comes to David’s great sin, which God decreed but which God also censured, he writes,
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord…. the murder of her husband, which he was accessory to, as well as the death of many others, and the marriage of her under such circumstances, were all displeasing to God, and of such an heinous nature, that his pure eyes could not look upon with approbation.7
Where’s the anthropopathic qualifier Gill found so necessary to insert in Deuteronomy 5:29?! After all, did David do exactly as God decretively desired? Why then does Gill feel at liberty to describe God as “displeased” when according to Gill’s system God must in reality feel nothing but pleasure towards all that happens? Or does Gill expect his readers to interpret his own comments anthropopathically too?
Calvin also equivocates. On the one hand, he wants to relegate God’s grief in Genesis 6:6 to a mere accommodation and render it void of any genuine emotive content. On the other hand, he wants the text to highlight (really not figuratively) “God’s hatred and detestation of sin” and to serve as a warning to his readers: “unless we wish to provoke God, and to put him to grief, let us learn to abhor and to flee from sin.” Wait a minute, Dr. Calvin. You just said that God couldn’t really feel anger or grief. Yet, after cautioning your readers against predicating any genuine emotivity to God, you turn around and insist that through such “figures of speech” we’re supposed to ascribe “hatred” and “detestation” to God—both of which are emotive in nature! Moreover, you want you readers to flee from sin lest they “provoke” God and “put him to grief.” I thought you just told us that God is untouchable? If God is only happy, how can he hate, detest, be provoked, and put to grief? Can’t have it both ways. For these reasons, I agree with Charles Hodge who asserts that emotivity is an essential part of a moral being. A God who is apathetic towards sin—whether in the abstract or whether considered in terms of concrete particulars—cannot also be holy, just, good, and true.
Am I a Heretical Baptist?
After reading Gerety’s post (and presumably mine), one of his readers even charges me with teaching Open Theism! I found that quite amazingly naïve and seriously mistaken. And yet, to demonstrate my willingness to be accountable, I invited Mr. Gerety and any of his concerned readers who suspect me of Open Theism, Romanism, or Arminianism after reading through my posts on the well-meant offer and divine emotivity (with all the footnotes and comments) to contact the board members of my seminary and file a complaint. Or, if they simply have questions that need clarification, I encouraged them to post those questions under the appropriate posts on the seminary blog. I will do my best to clarify any ambiguity or correct any misstatement I might make in a post.
The best part of Gerety’s post is the lengthy comment left by Ben Maas. As noted above, Ben debated my position on the well-meant offer on the RBS Tabletalk forum. Like Gerety, Ben does not find all of my arguments persuasive. Unlike Gerety, Ben understands my position and does not misrepresent me. Mr. Gerety and I can agree on one thing. As Gerety put it in a brief comment left on my blog (linking to this post): “Praise God that there are men like Ben Maas.” Gerety is thankful that Ben doesn’t bow the knee to an irrational God. I join him in this. Yet I’m also thankful that a guy like Ben Maas has not condescended to Gerety’s level of argumentation, which, in my humble estimation, is neither the best display of logic nor of Christian charity.
For these reasons, I believe Gerety’s “hammer” missed the mark. I trust he’ll use more caution in the future lest he cause damage to himself and to others.
Bob Gonzales, Dean
Reformed Baptist Seminary
- Some might suggest that the minority report is only referring to non-determined desires in the major premise. I would respond, first, by noting that even decretive desires are not-yet-fulfilled desires in their pre-creation state. In human experience, not-yet-fulfilled often denote a prior state of need, lack, or want. So I don’t see how the insertion of “non-determined” or “weak wishing” rescues the major premise. Here is how I would construct the syllogism: major premise-Scripture predicates desires of God that are actuated in history (because decreed) and also desires of God that are not actuated in history (because not decreed); minor premise-Scripture portrays God as independent of creation and as completely self-sufficient; conclusion-Desire predicated of God, whether determined (decretive) or non-determined (preceptive), cannot, by the very nature of the case, suggest a want or lack that can be fulfilled only by the gratifying of the desire since God is by nature independent or self-sufficient. A more common argument goes something like this: God desires certain states of affairs. God is absolutely sovereign. Therefore, all God’s desires must come to futurition. I fail to see, however, why God must actuate every state of affairs that he might find intrinsically good and desirable. For my fuller response, see comment #40 of my post. [↩]
- John Calvin, Secret Providence, trans., by James Lillie, Article 7, John Calvin’s reply. [↩]
- Zacharias Ursinus, The Commentary of Dr. Zacharias Ursinus on the Heidelberg Catechism, trans., G.W. Willard (Phillpsburg N.J.: P&R, 1994), 519-520. [↩]
- Heirnich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 87. [↩]
- Writes Henry, “The God of heaven is truly and earnestly desirous of the welfare and salvation of poor sinners. He has given abundant proof that he is so: he gives us time and space to repent, by his mercies invites us to repentance, and waits to be gracious; he has sent his Son to redeem us, published a general offer of pardon and life, promised his Spirit to those that pray for him, and has said and sworn that he has no pleasure in the ruin of sinners.” Commentary on the Whole Bible (reprint, Fleming H. Revell Co., n.d.), 749. [↩]
- A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 179. [↩]
- John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, en loc. [↩]
June 9th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Bob,
I see your opponent has cited Gill as an expert. I would challenge Gill’s expertise and competency to exegete these verses. I would argue that his comments are completely out of line with the mainstream Reformed exegetical tradition on these verses (with one exception)which therefore disqualifies Gill as a reliable exegetical guide on many of these these verses. He truly was, as Spurgeon said, the head of hypercalvinism.
For example, Gill on the Ezekiel passages:
“Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God; and not that he should return from his ways and live? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth; wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye;” (Ezekiel 18:13.) all which cannot be said of an eternal death; dying in his iniquity, is the same with dying for his iniquity, as it is rendered in verse 26, and designs some severe temporal calamity or affliction; which is often in Scripture called a death, Exodus 10:17, 2 Corinthians 1:10, and 2 Corinthians 11:23; such as captivity, in which the Jews then were, of which they were complaining, what was owing to their sins, and from which they were capable of being recovered. “This answer, it is said, contradicts the express words of the prophet about twenty times;” though not one single instance of it is given. Gill, Cause of God and Truth, Eze 18:24.
David: For Gill these verses have no proper salvific import at all.
Gill:“for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” which is to be understood, not of an eternal death; since the deaths here spoken of was now upon them, what they were complaining of, and from which they might be recovered, (Ezekiel 18:22,23); but temporal calamity and affliction, as in (2 Corinthians 1:10 11:23); and so in the following words. Gill, Commentary Eze 18:31
Gill: That these exhortations are not made to all men, but only to the house of Israel; and therefore do not contradict the preparation of saving grace for some few only, as the Israelites were;… The repentance here exhorted to, is not to be understood of an evangelical one, which is a repentance unto life, and unto salvation; but of a national one, for national iniquities, and to prevent national judgments, with which they are here threatened; seeing it is the whole house of Israel, the whole nation, and every one of them, who are exhorted unto it… The ruin the house of Israel was in danger of through iniquity, and which they might escape by repentance and reformation, was not eternal but temporal; so iniquity shall not be your ruin,… This sense of the words may be confirmed from the advantages proposed to such who turned from their sins and transgressions, verses 27, 28, as that such an one should save his soul alive; not with an everlasting salvation, for no man can save his soul alive 96 in that sense; but with a temporal one, as did the Ninevites, by their repentance and reformation: it is also said, that he shall surely live, not a spiritual and eternal life; for he is said (Ezekiel 33:19.) to live by his doing that which is lawful and right; whereas, no man can live spiritually and eternally by so doing; but it intends a civil life, in the comfortable enjoyment of outward mercies. It is moreover added, he shall not die, which is to be understood not of an eternal death, but of a temporal one, or of a death of afflictions, as has been observed under the preceding section. Gill, Cause of God and Truth, Eze 18:30. [See also his Gill, Commentary Eze 18:26.]
To some up, the call to repentance is not a call to evangelical faith. They are called to a mere national repentance, external repentance. The death is not eternal but merely physical. The verse is limited only to the House of Israel, and cannot be generalized. It therefore tells us nothing about the compassion of God in itself.
David: How a person cannot see this as classic hypercalvinism with its denial of duty-faith I don’t know.
There is some more of this, but this should do. So whats happening in your chat with your opponent? He is saying you are deviant, and to do that he claims Gill as a measure by which he judges your deviancy. The irony is that Gill is the deviant one here. He is the one who stands opposed to the Reformed tradition on this verse. To use Gill to judge you and to mark the boundaries of Reformed orthodoxy is tragic. The other thing is also that your opponent cannot sustain any of his distinctives in any mainstream Reformed theology, and yet he mocks your claim to being Reformed.
David
June 9th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
Hey Bob,
Here is that exception I spoke of above.
John Owen is another source your opponent uses to judge your orthodox credentials. But again, I would challenge Owen’s ability to exegete this passage. When he wrote Death of Death, he was young and it was his second book. Later he modified his severe reading of these verses as his thought and theology matured.
So in his early days, he resorted to an extreme reading of this passage:
John Owen:
…Fourthly, To those are added that of Ezekiel 18:23, that God hath no “pleasure at all that the wicked should die;” and, verse 32, “no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.” Now, though these texts are exceeding useless to the business in hand, and might probably have some color of universal vocation, but none possibly of universal redemption, there being no mention of Christ or his death in the place from whence they are cited; yet because our adversaries are frequently knitting knots from this place to inveigle and hamper the simple, I shall add some few observations upon it to clear the meaning of the text, and demonstrate how it belongs nothing at all to the business in hand.
First, then, let us consider to whom and of whom these words are spoken. Is it to and of all men, or only to the house of Israel? Doubtless these last; they are only intended, they only are spoken to: “Hear now, O house of Israel,” verse 25. Now, will it follow that because God saith he delights not in the death of the house of Israel, to whom he revealed his mind, and required their repentance and conversion, that therefore he saith so of all, even those to whom he never revealed his will by such ways as to them, nor called to repentance, Psalm 147:19,20? So that the very ground-work of the whole conclusion is removed by this first observation.
Secondly, “God willeth not the death of a sinner,” is either, “God purposeth and determineth he shall not die,” or, “God commandeth that he shall do those things wherein he may live.” If the first, why are they not all saved? why do sinners die? for there is an immutability in the counsel of God, Hebrews 6:17; “His counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure,” Isaiah 46:10. If the latter way, by commanding, then the sense is, that the Lord commandeth that those whom he calleth should do their duty, that they may not die (although he knows that this they cannot do without his assistance); now, what this makes to general redemption, I know not.
Thirdly, To add no more, this whole place, with the scope, aim, and intention of the prophet in it, is miserably mistaken by our adversaries, and wrested to that whereof there is not the least thought in the text. The words are a part of the answer which the Lord gives to the repining Jews, concerning their proverb, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Now, about what did they use this proverb? Why, “concerning the land of Israel,” verse 2, the land of their habitation, which was laid waste by the sword (as they affirmed) for the sins of their fathers, themselves being innocent. So that it is about God’s temporal judgments in overturning their land and nation that this dispute is; wherein the Lord justifieth himself by declaring the equity of these judgments by reason of their sins, even those sins for which the land devoured them and spewed them out; telling them that his justice is, that for such things they should surely die, their blood should be upon them, verse 13, — they shall be slain with the sword, and cut off by those judgements which they had deserved: not that the shedding of their blood and casting out of their carcasses was a thing in itself so pleasurable or desirable to him as that he did it only for his own will, for let them leave their abominations, and try whether their lives were not prolonged in peace.
This being the plain, genuine scope and meaning of this place, at the first view presenting itself to every unprejudiced man, I have often admired how so many strange conclusions for a general purpose of showing mercy to all, universal vocation and redemption, have been wrested from it; as also, how it came to be produced to give color to that heap of blasphemy which our author calleth his fifth proof. Owen, Works 10:386-387.
David: Owen in an over-reaction adopts such a severe reading of this passage too, a reading which is rejected by all the leading Reformed systematicians and exegetes, Turretin, a’ Brakel, and many others. Later in his life he did exhort his congregants to repent by citing these verses, so he himself broke his own plain interpretation of this verse. Again, early Owen is not a competent exegetical guide on these verses. His interpretation goes way beyond any appeal to anthropopathic language–which is valid–to the point of distorting the text. And so to use Owen on this point to challenge your orthodoxy is not credible.
As Iain Murray says of Kregal books, its irresponsible to publish early Pink’s dispensational thought, when he had come to reject it later, its irresponsible to cite Owen on this point when he clearly came to reject this severe reading later in life.
David
June 10th, 2009 at 9:03 am
David,
Thanks for the comments from Gill and Owen, as well as your commentary. As I’ve written elsewhere, I do think some of the early Reformed and Puritan exegetes and theologians read too much discorrespondence into texts that ascribe feelings and desires to God. Nevertheless, since Calvin himself sometimes explained what appears to be a preceptive desire on the part of God that isn’t decreed (e.g., Deut. 5:29) as an anthropopathic expression, we can’t accuse Sean or others who hold his position of being “Hyper-Calvinists” at least with reference to their interpretation of Deuteronomy 5:29. In this case, they appear to follow Calvin’s discorrespondence hermeneutic.
On the other hand, I did cite a text from Calvin (above) where he appears to describe a preceptive command in terms of a divine “wish.” Moreover, I seem to recall coming across commentary from Calvin in which he affirms that God has a salvific posture towards all humanity though he only chooses to save some. Isn’t that how Calvin interprets John 3:16, for example? Can you provide our readers with any citations from Calvin that might support the idea of a free and well-meant offer of the gospel?
Thanks,
Bob Gonzales
June 10th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I see you take offense if someone calls those of your ilk “paradox mongers” or “irrationalists,” however it is evidently A-OK when Amyraldians like David “One Note” Ponter barks that Gill is “the head of hypercalvinism.” What disgusting, hate filled, and dare I say, irrational prattle. I mean, look at this one trick pony, he even brings up Ezekiel 18 to support is crass and refuted universalism even though the passage was not even discussed in our exchange. Pathetic.
June 10th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Sean,
1) I do think “paradox monger” and “irrationalist” is imbalanced and extreme. I’m aware of few reputable theologians who would affirm and advocate the absolute abandonment of all reason.
2) If someone holds the same position as Amyraut with respect to the atonement, I don’t think it unfair or improper to use that term in describe that person. In all honesty, I’m not sure I know Amyraut’s position on the atonement precisely. I only know that I affirm a particular design (not merely result) in Christ’s atoning work. So I affirm limited atonement. On the other hand, I’m unconvinced that a text like John 3:16 only has reference to the “elect world.” And if I’m not mistaken, there have been other, non-Amyraldian Reformed theologians have have argued that texts like John 3:16 express some kind of universal divine goodwill or salvific stance towards fallen humanity as a whole. That’s why I asked David for any historical evidence along those lines, knowing that he’s a librarian and has access to such materials.
3) As far as David’s reference to Gill as “the head of hypercalvinism,” I think that’s a matter for debate. You’ll note above (comment #3) that I don’t think the mere fact that Gill employs a strongly discorrespondent anthropopathic hermeneutic makes him a “hyper-Calvinist” for the reason that Calvin sometimes employed this hermeneutic. In one sense, the term “hyper-Calvinism” can simply refer to one who goes beyond Calvin in emphasizing certain truths distinctive of Calvin’s teaching. On the other hand, I’m aware that the label can have negative connotations, e.g., someone who doesn’t care about or preach the gospel to lost people. Here again, I’m not an expert on John Gill and I welcome your input, just as I’ve invited David to provide any information from Calvin that might relate to the question of the free and/or well-meant offer of the gospel.
4) You’re correct to say that Ezekiel 18 was not directly discussed in my post or our exchange. It was, however, discussed in the comment section of my post. And I so think that it functions as the flip-side of Deuteronomy 5:29. Hence, it is a text worthy of discussion vis-a-vis the well-meant offer. On the other hand, I don’t believe any text of Scripture can or should be used to support true universalism, i.e., the idea that everyone will eventually be redeemed, or the Arminian form of hypothetical universalism, which makes God’s decree contingent on a libertarian version of human free will. If this is what you mean, I agree with you.
Thanks for your input.
Bob Gonzales
June 10th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Spurgeon’s “disgusting, hate filled, and dare I say, irrational prattle” regarding Gill:
Spurgeon: For good, sound, massive, sober sense in commenting, who can excel Gill? Very seldom does he allow himself to be run away with by imagination, except now and then when he tries to open up a parable, and finds a meaning in every circumstances and minute detail; or when he falls upon a text which is not congenial with his creed, and hacks and hews terribly to bring the word of God into a more systematic shape. Gill is the Coryphaeus of hyper-Calvinism, but if his followers never went beyond their master, they would not go very far astray. Spurgeon, Commenting on Commentaries, p., 9.
Ive only been repeating Spurgeon’s own judgement.
David
June 10th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hey Bob,
I would never accuse Gill of being a hypercalvinist because he held to the use of anthropomorphic language and categories. Every party admits that the principal marker of hypercalvinism is the denial of duty-faith. Even David Englesma accepts that.
Thomas Nettles has conceded that this is a marker for hypercalvinism and if Gill denied duty-faith then he was a hypercalvinist.
You can find documentation for Gill’s categorical denial of duty-faith here: http://www.theologyonline.org/blog/?cat=91
See also Phil’s Primer see also Daniel’s Thesis, as well as the published online seminal work by Toon:
The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, 1689-1765
David
June 10th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Gerety portrays me and my position as if I’m advocating “irrationalism” in the fullest sense of that term. He labels me a hater of reason when in fact I employ rational argumentation throughout my post, footnotes, and comments (note my use of “if … then,” “because of” “therefore,” “consequently,” “accordingly,” etc.).
If you’re not an irrationalist in the “fullest” sense of the term, will you please admit that you are an irrationalist in some sense of the term? You have told me that the solution to this problem is supra-logical, meaning that it is not logical. Please just be honest and let the irrationalist label stick when it fits.
Just because you are not consistent in your abandonment of reason does not mean you are not irrational.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Hey Bob,
I don’t want to litter your cite with links galore.
But for all the Reformed theologians who have taken a universal reading of John 3:16, anyone can go here: Meta-Links (Indexes) scroll down to the index page to the John 3:16 section. You will see Calvin, some Westminster divines, C Hodge, Dabney and many others.
Also with regard to Calvin’s idea that God has a salvific posture to the world at large, see his comments on John 3:16-17 and 12:47-48 for example.
Also scroll down the index page to the section: God’s Will for the Salvation of all Men. Do control F to find Calvin on such verses as 2 Peter 3:9, Matt 23:37, and Psalm 81:13.
Also I have reposted Calvin here: Calvin on Christ seeks the salvation of the world and reprobates
If you want me to post some of this in block, Bob, I will await your permission, as Calvin said all a on this topic.
There should be no dispute regarding Calvin’s position on this.
David
June 10th, 2009 at 11:46 am
David,
Thanks for the citation from Spurgeon regarding John Gill. I think my readers should remember the following when reading Spurgeon’s assessment:
1) Spurgeon was only a man and his assessment is only his personal opinion.
2) Spurgeon’s opinion appears, at least to me, overall positive. He finds few equals to Gill among the commentators with whom he was familiar.
3) Spurgeon’s allusion to instances of poor exegesis on the part of Gill seem to be given as exceptions to the rule.
4) Though Spurgeon speaks of Gill as “the Coryphaeus [i.e., leader] of hyper-Calvinism,” it doesn’t appear that Spurgeon himself is actually labeling Gill a hyper-Calvinist but rather suggesting that some of Gill’s followers “went beyond their master” and became hyper-Calvinists.
5) Thanks for the links you provided in order to provide documentation of possible hyper-Calvinist imbalances in Gill. I will try to read them soon. Of course, as you pointed out with John Owen, it’s possible for a man’s theology to change over time. So I wonder if there might not be counter-examples that someone could offer.
6) For my readers, here’s a site that contains some or all (?) of John Gill’s works online: http://www.pbministries.org/books/gill/gills_archive.htm
Bob G.
June 10th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Bob,
I know you are dealing with a lot of comments, but it seems you enjoy continuing the discussions as far as they will go, so in that light I would appreciate your response to my comment on Sean’s blog regarding Waldron’s defense of limited atonement.
You have repeated several times that gagging the bible consists of rejecting the “plain” and “clear” meaning of a passage because of a commitment to a coherent system of theology.
Waldron in his lecture (40:25) says the following when dealing with the apostasy passages: “I was reading Death of Death… and I came across this passage (on screen, not mentioned) and he’s quoting the King James. I read this verse and I said ‘It can’t possibly say that. It must be the King James version.’ So I looked it up in the NAS. It said the same thing. I said ‘It must be something different in the Hebrew.’ I looked at the Hebrew. The Hebrew said the same thing. What am I talking about? Well this: these passages are speaking in the language of appearance and profession not the language of inward reality. The Bible uses the language of appearance and profession…”
Now, it is very clear that Waldron rejected the “plain” and “clear” meaning of the passage in question because it did not fit with his system of theology. Shouldn’t Waldron admit that universal atonement and limited atonement are both true and admit that it’s just something our “puny minds” cannot understand, rather than twist the text into an implausible meaning and gag the bible?
June 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
1) I never said you advocate the “abandonment of all reason,” just the linchpin and governing principle of all Reformed hermeneutics. I stand by what I wrote, but it’s nice to be able to point out the hypocrisy of you complaining about me correctly identifying you, while you allow Amyrauldians like Ponter to continue to libel Christian men through the aegises of the admittedly inconstant and theologically confused, Spurgeon. Of course, “One Note” Ponter forgot to add that Spurgeon also said of Gill: “the world and the church take leave to question his dogmatism, but they both bow before his erudition…for good, sound, massive, sober sense in commenting, who can excel Gill?”
2) Oh, I’m quite convinced that Ponter could make Gordon Clark out to be an Amyrauldian if given half a chance.
3) What you consider a matter for debate, I consider gross slander the kind of which has been recently hurled at your own James White. I see you have no qualms about perpetuating the same distortion seeing that neither White, Gill or the others Ponter defames as “hyper Calvinists” go beyond Calvin when it comes to the extent or purpose of the Atonement. Another good reason for you to spend some time reading Raymond Blacketer’s exoneration of Herman Hoeksema (another man viciously libeled by Ponterites as a “hyper Calvinist”), The Three Points in Most Parts Reformed: A Reexamination of the So-Called Well-Meant Offer of Salvation.
You should stop listening to librarians and start paying attention to actual scholars in this debate.
4) While you’re playing with Ponter concerning Ezekiel, perhaps you can also chew on:
Calvin:
”If it is equally in God’s power to convert men as well as to create them, it follows that the reprobate are not converted, because God does not wish their conversion; for if he wished it he could do it: and hence it appears that he does not wish it.” Commentary on Ezekiel, 248.
Turretin:
”lthough God declares that he ‘does not will the death of the wicked, but that he turn from his way and live,’ it does not follow that he has willed and planned from eternity the conversion and life of everyone, [even] subject to any condition, for … it is certain that this refers to God’s will as commanding, not to the will of his good pleasure….” Institutio Theologiae Elencticae, 437.
Gill:
”The expostulation, Why will ye die? is not made with all men; nor can it be proved that it was made with any who were not eventually saved, but with the house of Israel, who were called the children and people of God; and therefore cannot disprove any act of preterition passing on others, nor be an impeachment of the truth and sincerity of God. Besides, the death expostulated about is not an eternal, but a temporal one, or what concerned their temporal affairs, and civil condition, and circumstances of life….” The Cause of God and Truth, 24.
Gordon Clark:
”Ezekiel 18 presents several difficulties. Verses2, 4, and 20 could in isolation be taken as contradictory of Romans 5:12-21…. Another difficulty, one that occurs in several books of the Bible, including Romans 2:10, 14, 25, occurs in Ezekiel 18:19, 21, 22, 27, 28, 31. These verses, in both books, sound as if some men could merit God’s justification on the basis of their own works of righteousness. But the context in Romans and Galatians and elsewhere teaches justification by faith alone. Now, if these contexts so completely alter the superficial meaning of the verses in question, one must be prepared to alter the Arminian interpretation of verses 23 and 32…. Therefore the contiguous verses in Ezekiel, the context of the book as a whole, and the references in the New Testament indicate that God has no pleasure in the death of Israel….Ezekiel 33 contains similar statements, which must be given the same interpretation.” Predestination
June 10th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Brandon,
You want me to admit that I’m an “irrationalist” in some sense of the term. Here are the basic usages according to Dictionary.com:
First, I don’t affirm the adoption of #1, #2, or #3 as virtuous. I believe that as the imago Dei we have a responsibility to think in a way that corresponds (analogously, not univocally) to God’s revealed truth.
Second, I do admit, as I did in my post, that my arguments may not always be fully coherent. For example, all sinful attitudes and behavior has a “non-rational” basis. So to the extent that I sin, I think and behave in a way that is irrational. That is quite different, however, from endorsing a system or theology of irrationalism.
Third, regarding my reference to “supra-logical,” I don’t recall the context in which I may have used that term in discussion with you. The prefix supra- denotes “above” or “beyond” in contrast with the prefix ir-, which is a privative. So, as I indicated above, I am not against the human use of logic. Human logic is, I believe, one facet of the imago Dei. And in this respect, we are to be like our heavenly Father. Nevertheless, God is able to comprehend fully how all the myriad dimensions of created reality relate to one another and to the Creator. Since comprehending all the relations of creation to creation and creation to God is part of the function of logic and since human logic is finite, I incline towards the view that our logical capacity is finite. In that sense, God’s logic is supra-logical in that it surpasses human logic.
Hope this helps.
Bob G.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Men,
First, I do think it’s helpful when you can provide citations (or links to citations) from authors like Calvin, Gill, Owen, etc., in order to help us ascertain their views. Once again, though, let me caution everyone to beware of inflammatory language.
Second, we have to (1) make sure we’re interpreting a theologian’s statement in context, (2) allow for the fact that theologians were not always perfectly consistent (as the Bible) and, therefore, they may say something in one place that seems or in fact does contradict a statement they make in another place. This is just part of human fallibility.
Third, I’m in favor of trying to read theologians whom I have reason to think are genuine believers and not rank heretics in the best possible light, that is, in the judgment of charity. So though I sometimes may disagree with an interpretation of Calvin or Gill, I still have high respect for them and am certain that their gifts excel mine. I feel the same way about men such as Spurgeon, Dabney, and John Murray. Simply because they might agree with me on the free and well-meant offer doesn’t mean I accept all their exegesis or theology uncritically. They made mistakes too.
Fourth, Brandon would like me to address the Waldron citation. Here is it in full:
It’s important to note that Waldron is not against the use of the analogy of faith when interpreting the Bible. He’s only against its abuse.
Brandon, I think both Waldron and I would see the attempts of some Reformers and Puritans to employ what I’d call “the strong discorrespondence anthropopathic” hermeneutic as stepping over the line of the proper use of the analogy of faith in some instances. Where this line should be drawn in every instance is a matter of debate. I certainly think Arminians, for example, step over this line when they mis-exegete passages of Scripture in order to fit into their libertarian system.
So the question for debate really boils down to this: is a person’s view of “the faith” as taught in Scripture (1) completely accurate? and (2) does it demand a given interpretation of a particular text?
It’s certainly possible that Dr. Waldron and I are not consistent. That is, our view of God, his nature, his decree, his providence, etc., allows for the idea of non-decretive desires that have a preceptive character. Hence, we don’t feel the need to adopt less plausible readings of texts like Deuteronomy 5:29 or Ezekiel 33:11. But we are certainly not infallible, and I welcome constructive criticism. So thanks for raising this issue and helping me to clarify.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
June 10th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Hey Bob,
For the sake of your readers and your request above:
Calvin in context is always better than Calvin out of context.
For a list of all of Calvin’s relevant comments on the Ezekiel passages, go here:
Calvin on Ezekiel 18:23, 31-32 and 33:11: Relevant Comments
Calvin says God does desire the salvation of all men by will revealed, though this is through means, not apart from means (ie it is conditional). This desire is anthropomorphic, that is, analogical, not univocal.
Turretin in context is always better than Turretin out of context.
I do not have all this posted at the C&C site yet. But check out his comments in his Institutes 1:229, 389, and 1:408.
From Turretin, the willing is according to the revealed will, (euarestias, it respects all sinners (contra Gill) and we also know that Turretin held that the approving and commanding will indicates what God wishes and desires, see: Turretin on God Desiring and Wishing that All Men be Saved.
Notice also that Turretin says God wills through a condition, which is exactly what Calvin said.
On Spurgeon’s comment that Gill hacks and hews his way through the text, see as an example Spurgeon’s comments on the “able doctor” here: Spurgeon on 1 Timothy 2:4. I think by calling him “able” he was being sarcastic.
I know posting links means folk are less likely to click over and read, but I think its better than posting massive blocks.
I say blocks because an author in context always rebuts claims about an author taken out of context. The drawback is, it requires a reader to stop and think and read for a few minutes.
As to Clark… err pass on that.
Thanks,
David
ps, I checked out the Greek on Spurgeon’s phrase, head. You know Biblical languages far more than I do. Yet I do think to be the leader and head of a group means you are part of that group.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Oh one addition: Just in case, Turretin on the Ezekiel passages doesn’t simply say God does not will their salvation, but that he does not will it by secret will, but does will it by revealed will.
David
June 10th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Bob,
I appreciate the attempt, but it didn’t really answer anything. Please answer this question directly. Why don’t you accuse Waldron of gagging the bible when he rejects the plain and clear meaning of a passage of Scripture because it contradicts his system? Waldron is doing the exact same thing as you are accusing others of doing in regards to the “well-meant offer.” Waldron’s argument rests on an appeal to the law of non-contradiction, but you have demonstrated that we should not push our laws of logic beyond the plain meaning of Scripture because God is supra-logical and we should rest in that. Waldron should embrace the paradox of universal and limited atonement and affirm both, should he not?
June 10th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Brandon,
Your question is legitimate but something of a red-herring. But I’ll reply anyway out of courtesy.
(1) The potential of abusing the interpretive principle of the analogy of faith, against which Waldron cautions, is real and therefore his caution is appropriate regardless of whether he or I or you or anyone is always consistent in demonstrating the balance he enjoins.
(2) I haven’t had the time to listen to the sermon to which you allude. So I’m in no position to “accuse Waldron” of anything.
(3) I do think Calvinists have sometimes deprived certain texts of their more plausible reading in order to “protect” limited atonement. I for one agree with Donald Carson’s exegesis of John 3:16 and 2 John 2:2. The “world” or “whole world” in these texts simply refers to the whole of fallen humanity. Thus, John 3:16 shows God’s salvific stance towards fallen humanity and not merely his saving design for the elect. Nevertheless, in light of passages like Romans 8:18ff., I also affirm a particular design (not just result) behind the atonement.
(4) I believe the Scripture is not illogical but logical, all its parts cohere. We may have difficulty as finite and sinful human beings explaining and demonstrating and fully comprehending all aspects of Scripture’s logical coherence.
(5) Apparent contradictions between propositions of Scripture are just that-apparent, not real. By further study and deeper reflection, theologians are sometimes able to suggests models that resolve the apparent contradiction. In other cases, resolutions (that are satisfactory to all) are harder to come by. Some of the debates in church history, even among the Reformed, make this abundantly clear.
Once again, Brandon, the fact of the matter is that the analogy of faith can and is sometimes abused and texts of Scriptures are distorted due to the doctrinal bias of the interpreter. Hence, Waldron’s caution is in place. The fact that Waldron may fail to live up to his standard infallibly doesn’t negate the standard any more than my failure to live up to all the precepts of God negates the validity of those precepts.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
June 10th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Bob,
I appreciate you indulging me. I understand that it could be a red-herring, but I did not understand how you could avoid the conclusion I mentioned.
If you affirm (4), that we are just not omniscient, and (5), that apparent contradictions can be removed by study and deeper reflection, then I’ve got no major qualms, perhaps just some differences of interpretation that we as fallen human beings can work out. But everything else you have written has contradicted (I feel like I can’t even use that word anymore in this discussion) those statements. But thanks for your response.
June 11th, 2009 at 10:46 am
David Ponter remarks:
“Calvin in context is always better than Calvin out of context.”
The fact of the matter is that the so-called “Moderate Calvinism” or “Calvin and Calvinism” blog takes all manner of scholastic quotes OUT OF CONTEXT. Not only that, loose unguarded pre-Remonstrant and pre-Amyrald statements by the early Reformers are quoted anachronistically to “prove” Ponter and his good friend [Tony] Byrne’s Unlimited Limited Atonement position. I have done a bit of preliminary work on this topic some time ago on my own blog here (http://puritanreformed.blogspot.com/search/label/Amyraldism%2FNeo-Amyraldism).
Tony Byrne has been proven not to be able to quote me properly even (http://puritanreformed.blogspot.com/2008/02/wow-tony-misquotes-me.html), so why should anyone trust him to correctly quote those who have gone on to glory? With such inability to even comprehend my position, why should anyone think Ponter or Byrne can quote any person correctly in context except by chance?
June 11th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Well, when we take Daniel and others out of context, we’re just doing the will of God in every sense of the term. You say, “you ought not to do that!” Why? Because you say so? Or because it is the will of God that I not do so? God says not to lie or bear false witness, but does he really desire my compliance? Does he really mean it? Apparently not, so what’s the problem?
Please put the following in context for me, since I am would only twist it out of context if I touched it
It seems to me that Jonathan Edwards is saying that Christ became flesh, labored, suffered and rose again, in some sense, “for the salvation” of “such as are not elected.” I’m a half-witted gargoyle, so it seems to me like Edwards’ is saying what he has said elsewhere
Bunyan seems like he’s saying the same thing:
Please put these quotes in context for me. Lead me by the hand as with a child. I am unable to walk with this literature. I stumble. I beg for your illumination
*Returns to Eating his Gerber* lol
Tony
June 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Tony,
Thanks for those citations from Edwards and Bunyan. I really like the one concerning God desiring the conversion and salvation of reprobates in the person of Christ.
Bob G.
June 13th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Tony,
I am sure you can blast off multiple quotes promoting your hobby horse of Amyraldism. I am not going to play your game of quote mining, but to look at the quotes IN context and in detail.
I have shown your acontextual reading of Bunyan on General Love and Grace here (http://puritanreformed.blogspot.com/2008/02/anachronisms-of-neo-amyraldians.html). Will you concede that you err at this point? Let us focus on this one post first before considering others. For if this one quote of yours is misquoted, then why should we bother to check out whether the other quotes are indeed quoted correctly?
June 13th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Tony,
with regards to your Bunyan quote on God’s grace, you said
My response back in February of last year dealt with your eisegesis and miscitation of the source. As the book is in the public domain, it does not need a lot of time to read the relevant contextual portions. This was what I said back then, and continue to do so now.
June 13th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
This whole thread has a “Deja Vu” feeling for me, but anyway, good response Daniel, I have been there and got the t-shirt which is well worn!, but rather you than me try to convince Tony and David from there one issue cause. No Sir.
Others are welcome to read material at my blog relating to these issues and particularly Tony Byrne and Ponter’s position.
Mark
June 13th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Hey Bob
I thought I might point you to a brief post I have here: Bullinger and The Man who Thought he was a Robot.
If you scope out that post, you will see that part of what I do there is challenge the idea that we can not draw any sure conclusions of the Reformers view on the extent of the atonement because to do would be anachronistic.
Here are three of the points, from that post which have some relevance here:1) Just because a topic was not debated, does not mean a given person could not have had an opinion on a given subject. Or that they could not have explicitly meant what they quite apparently said.
For examples, we would be stupid if we said that prior to Augustine, the early church had no settled understanding of eternal security, or before Athanasius, the early church had no proper understanding of the deity of Christ, that they had no need to be careful in their terminology. Or that we could not make warranted inferences from these men before the issues were debated.
2) However, we do know the topic of limited atonement was debated in Bullinger’s time. It was clarified by Prosper in the 5thC. It was debated again by Gottschalk in the 9thC. It was settled and clarified again by Lombard in the 12thC. Lombard’s synthesis was reaffirmed by Thomas in the 13thC. We know that Bucer debated it in the 16thC, in some form or another. We know that Trent condemned limited atonement in the 16thC. So the issue was known to the Reformers.
We also know unlimited expiation was being defended in the 1570s by Kimedoncius no less: against the Socinians and Universalists.
Jacob Kimedoncius, The Redemption of Mankind: Three Books: Wherein the Controversy of the Universality of the Redemption and Grace by Christ, and his Death for All Men, is Largely Handled, trans., by Hugh Ince, (London: Imprinted by Felix Kingston, 1598), Epistle to the Most the Excellent and Renowned Prince, and Lord, the Lord Frederike the Fourth, 9 [pages for introductory epistles manually numbered from the first epistle.]
That indicates the issue was already getting attention before then, in order to warrant Kimedoncius’ dedication of an entire book to the defense of the doctrine. We know that Ursinus is defending, what Richard Muller calls a non-speculative hypothetical universalism, against the Socinians (recall Richard Muller identifies Ursinus, along with Bullinger and Musculus as holding to this form of non-speculative hypothetical universalism).
I can add today 2 other points:
3) The allegation that we can not with certainty discern the position of the early Reformers on the basis of their alleged ‘unguarded’ statements is a two-edged sword. If it holds good for one side of the question, then it holds good for the other side of the question. For example, if the so-called unguarded statements which seemingly speak to an unlimited redemption and expiation, then likewise any statements which seem to indicated a limited expiation and redemption. When bloggers assert this rule against one side of the question, but happly go about trying to prove the other side of the question from the same sources, they are being capricious and hypocritical.
4) Such an allegation may find a place in the thinking of bloggers, at the academic level–which should be of more concern than “bloggers,” all the leading academic contributors do believe that certain positions regarding the Reformers can be discerned. For example, Richard Muller is quite convinced that men like Musculus, Kimedonius, Aretius, Zanchi, Ursinus and many others held to a form of what he calls non-Amyraldian hypothetical universalism and universal redemption. . Michael Thomas is another author that comes to mind. Roger Nicole is quite convinced on his side that Calvin held to limited expiation. Jonathan Rainbow likewise. Peterson has shifted ground on this too, conceded that the doctrine of limited atonement was debated in the time of Bucer (here he confesses Rainbow has persuaded him on this point. Keep in mind, too, Calvin spent a year with Bucer in Strasbourg.
To conclude, the fact that a topic was not hotly debated at a given point in time, or by given men of interested, in no way proves that these given men, at that time had no firm self-conscious opinion on the matter. That they did not argue a theological point for something does not preclude them from asserting that theological point. Its time that certain “bloggers” get beyond this naive assertion regarding anachronism and engage the primary sources directly, using public and testable rules by which a given man’s thought on the extent question and be ascertained.
And finally, if there are any further thoughtful concerns of queries on this topic I will be happy to converse more.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Firstly, we must note that Ponter did not even engage in my alternative interpretation of John Bunyan’s work as quoted by his good friend Tony Byrne.
Let us now look at Ponter’s attempted defense of his quote-mining methodology.
1) There is no disagreement with this particular point per se. However, having a pre-controversy position on a subject does not mean that that position has exactly the same nuances and qualifications even meaning as the post-controversy position even if both position statements utilizes the exact same words. Neither does it mean that the person espousing this position would hold to that position under different circumstances. Sentences are said and written in a particular historical and worldview context, and must be interpreted accordingly.
We need not look too far to the example of Augustine to see this reality, who pre-Pelgian was very much for the idea of free-will, like the rest of the Church Fathers, but altered his position when the Pelagian controversy started. It could very well be surmised that the initial patristic emphasis on free will occurs as a reaction to the fatalism in Greek religious mythology and philosophy (ie stoicism) and therefore the patristic emphasis must be read in this light: not as a denial of God’s sovereignty but as a denial of fatalism.
Ponter’s point here therefore fails to take into account the authors’ Weltenshauung and prevailing Zeitgeist of the period these pastors and theologians live. Much like how Augustine changed his position due to his shock at Pelagius’ heretical reasoning, it could very well be the case that the pre-controversy positions and sentences utilized by these saints were proper in their time, and they would be shocked if they were to see how such language is being used today to promote error, in the same way as Augustine was shocked by Pelagius’ promotion of autonomous free will.
This is why context is so important when reading sources; not only for the Bible but for all texts. Historically, it seemed to escape the notice of Ponter and his fellow Neo-Amyraldians that most of these pastors and theologians and reformers were living in a vastly different world from today. Theirs was a Christian world, and especially in the case of the Reformers and Puritans, a Christian world even extending to the Christian nature of the State! Theirs also was a world of inclusion of the whole of society into the Visible Church, and thus any reprobates within would still be considered as being covenantally inside the Church. If the Neo-Amyraldians desire to prove God’s desire for reprobates to repent, writing about God’s desire for reprobates within the Covenant to repent is absolutely insufficient! What is required is for such as living in Christendom to write about God earnestly desiring the reprobates among the Turks (as was known as the major enemy of that time) or the heathen to repent, which I doubt they would be able to find one single example.
Theologically, we have already mentioned the idea of the Visible and Invisible Church, external and internal inclusion in the Covenant of Grace. The Neo-Amyraldians ignore this basic fact presupposed especially in Reformed and Presbyterian (and even Lutheran) circles, which shows the little attention they pay to the worldview of the authors of their quotes.
2) Ponter here thinks that those of us who accuses them of anachronism and states that the early Reformers utilize “unguarded” statements are in a dilemma created by our false reasoning. What Ponter seem to forgot is that I at least have given a viable alternative interpretation of the text by Bunyan which was quoted by Byrne, which takes into account the context of Bunyan’s book. Nobody that I know is arguing, and definitely not me, that the views of the early Reformers or anyone for that matter, cannot be known because of their use of “unguarded” statements. What we DO assert, however, is that the possible use of such unguarded statements mean that work must be done in trying to understand the author’s train of thought in their work and how they themselves define and utilize the terminology found within their book. That is why we have been emphasizing again and again the issue of CONTEXT, CONTEXT and CONTEXT. Only when we have taken into account their particular jargon and idiosyncrasies can we then understand the meaning of what they say, NOT merely importing our “modern” definitions into their writings in acontextual quote-mining.
3) As argued, nobody is saying that the positions of the Reformers cannot be discerned. What we are arguing for is a proper interpretations of their writings that takes into account their entire worldview and utilization of terms instead of importing our definitions and concepts into the words they say. This by the way is what makes reading works of the Reformers, Puritans and other saints gone by hard! It is not just the language barrier of the “thees” and “thous”, but the cultural and ideological landscape barriers that must be overcome. With the rapid change in society and the deconstruction of Christian Western culture, the barriers are made even harder, but not impossible.
One thing that is hoped is that Ponter and Byrne would engage the primary sources, not merely quote senteces which seem to teach their pet doctrines. I have done so for the one case of John Bunyan, and we shall see whether Ponter or Byrne desire to truly interact with the arguments or are they desiring only to play the elephant-hurling game they have been playing so far.
June 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Dear Bob,
I have answer your argument critiquing the Minority Report on my blog here. Suffice it is to say that you have misconstrued the argument in the OPC Minority Report.
June 14th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Dear Bob,
I have answered your argument critiquing the Minority Report on my blog here. Suffice it is to say that you have misconstrued the argument in the OPC Minority Report.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
[...] expand on that post. What I will do here is post a series of rebuttal points to certain claims made here. The wider context to that can be found [...]
June 14th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
See my detailed response here: Musculus and the Man in the Leaky Boat.
David
June 14th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Daniel,
Not to be rude, but I’m doing a great work and don’t have time to come down and visit your blog. Honestly, I’m in the middle of a writing project and have to have a manuscript into the publisher soon. So I don’t have lots of time to spare.
Suffice it to say, I do not accept the minority report’s premise that the violation of God’s preceptive will equals a “frustration” of God’s will. Here’s how I stated it on Sean’s blog in response to one of the defenders of the “minority report”:
Moreover, regarding divine emotivity and anthropopathic language, I’ve addressed where I believe a number of the Reformers and Puritans were, frankly, wrong. Consequently, I side with Reformed theologians like Hodge, Warfield, Reymond, Horton, Frame, and Ware. Once again, here’s the response I left on Sean’s blog:
For a fuller articulation of my position, see “There Is No Pain, You Are Misreading”: Is God “Comfortably Numb”?
Daniel, I have developed my premises and conclusions above based on the exegetical data derived from Scripture. I am perfectly willing to debate the biblical data. You can go to any one of my posts where I engage the biblical data and give me exegetical reasons why you think I’m wrong. However, when it’s all said and done, I’m much less concerned about what Calvin and the Puritans say as I am about what Moses, Christ, and Paul say. So gird up your loins like a man and use the Bible–and by that I don’t mean simply quote what others say about the Bible. If you’re not competent to exegete Scripture from the original languages and engage in grammatical-historical exegesis in order to form the very premises from which you endeavor to base your conclusions, then you’ll be wasting my time and yours.
If this is not the kind of discussion you enjoy, then I advise you find someone with whom you can discussion your syllogisms. You’ll note that on the header of our site, there’s a Bible in the middle of the round-table. Not Calvin’s Institutes, though we esteem them highly. Not The Works of John Owen, though we think we was a great thinker and promote much (but not all of his writings). Not Hodge’s Systematic Theology, though we love the man and his great contributions to ST. Not even the London Baptist Confession of Faith, though we find it an excellent but not infallible summary of the teaching of God’s word. No, we simply have an open Bible. That’s the final court of appeal on this blog site. That’s how Calvin and the Puritans would have wanted it (WCF, LBCF 1.10).
Blessings,
Bob Gonzales
June 15th, 2009 at 11:11 am
David:
my response to your non-response can be found here: David Ponter, Neo-Amyraldians and double standards.
June 15th, 2009 at 11:29 am
Bob,
thanks for your response.
First of all, I must respectfully contest your last two paragraphs. While I have no problem turning to the Scriptures, indeed am glad to do so, the issue you have brought up in your rejection of the minority report is logical unsoundness. In other words, your argument is not based on Scripture per se, but on the logical soundness or lack thereof of the argument found in the minority report.
Secondly, David Ponter and Tony Byrne has been flooding the Internet with quotes from various Reformers and theologians of ages gone past. This is the realm of historical theology, which is not based on Scripture per se either.
So I simply must disagree with you sir with regards to your statement about wanting to go to Scripture. If you are indeed intent to “go to Scripture”, may I suggest you refute the minority report’s position according to Scripture and not logical soundness, and representing the argument using wrong premises? Also, please ask Ponter and Byrne to do the same also. Please ask them to desist from their philosophical arguments and historical quote-mining activity.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Dear Bob,
I most certainly do not deny that God’s preceptive will can and has been frustrated. The issue is this: Does that will constitute “desire”, or rather, as the Bible puts it, his commands and rules (Ps. 119:4, 7)?
With regards to Deut. 5:29, is that an expression of God’s desire for Israel to be saved, or God’s “wish” and preference of that state of affairs? Furthermore, isn’t it true that representatives of the group “Israel” do indeed have such a mind to obey God and His commandments? So therefore, if we interpret the word Israel colllectively and indefinitely as in “anyone who is an Israelite”, then such a wish can be said to be fulfilled.
As for Eze. 33:11 (and 18:23, 32 also), surely we can read that to say that God does not desire that the wicked as a group perish, so therefore God WILL indeed save representatives of the wicked from their sins? Isn’t that what we see in the case of Jonah and the Ninevites for example, in which wicked people are saved from their sins? Isn’t that the same form of reasoning that Reformed orthodoxy has always given to passages such as 1 Tim. 2:4?
With regards to divine impassibility, I will pass the opportunity to put foward my position, as I do not feel the urge to draw diagrams now. Suffice it is to say that I do not think that God needs to react to our actions and change emotions accordingly. Why can’t we believe in a God with affections but not passions? It seems to me that you have not considered that option at all, instead postulating a paradox of ‘ “impassible” from the perspective of his transcendence and “passible” from the perspective of his immanence’, which may very well prove to be an illogical contradiction.
As for a God who we can interact with and genuinely feel our pain, isn’t the entire incarnation whereby God the Son took upon Himself a human nature meant to solve that problem? After all, this is what Scripture itself teaches in Heb. 4:14-16. Since only Jesus as a high priest can symphatize with us, can we not infer that God alone is unable to interact with us (have passions) in our human manner?
June 15th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Daniel,
I’m a busy man and don’t have time to address questions or objections I’ve already addressed. So please take the time to read over the following comments (below) where I demonstrate (1) that the Bible does in fact speak of preceptive “desires, and (2) that texts like Deuteronomy 5:29 and Ezekiel 33:11 are not referring to mere abstract ideas of which God approves (a rather Platonic concept) but concrete historical affairs viewed intrinsically (that is, in themselves, apart from the full scope of history). See the following from “God Makes a Wish”:
Comment 8
Comment 15
Comment 18
Comment 24
Comment 28
Comment 33
Comment 40
Furthermore, please note the following post with examples of Reformed divines (not just Calvin) defining God’s preceptive will in terms of “wish” or “desire”: Does God Want Sinners to Comply with His Law and His Gospel
Regarding your suggestion that we “believe in God with affections but not passions,” I think you need to read John Owen and Stephen Charnock, both of whom treat passions and affections as synonymous and refuse to predicate such of God. Even Muller, though he begins by distinguishing affections from passions and treats the former as positive and the latter as negative, is forced to admit that the Reformed orthodox like Owen objected even to “affections.” For some of the linguistic confusion surrounding the terms “passions” and “affections,” see my Yes, We May Be Passionate: A Friendly Response to Dr. James Renihan’s “Are You Passionate?”
The Bible teaches both the transcendence and the immanence of God. There are NO contradictions between these doctrines. Some aspects of classical theism have overemphasized God’s transcendence and failed to account adequately for God’s immanence. This imbalanced has been recognized and acknowledged by a number of Reformed theologians, including Hodge, Warfield, Reymond, Horton, Frame, and Ware. I agree with their assessment.
To assert that Jesus can sympathize with us but that God is unable to sympathize with us is just plain unbiblical, no matter how you cut the pie (Ps. 103:13; Isa. 63:9; Hos. 11:8).
Hope this helps.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
June 16th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Hello Bob,
thanks for your response. I can see that more knowledgeable people than me are pushing you on your logical inconsistencies over at Gerety’s blog.
Anyway, you did not represent my position properly. Nevertheless, I have other stuff to attend to also so I am sure the time you would otherwise spend on me could be spend defending your irrational position elsewhere in the blogosphere. I would most certainly return to your blog when I face these issues again.
God bless,
Daniel.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Daniel,
I find it a little disingenuous that you would write an entire post seeking to refute my position and provide my readers with a link to that post but then turn around and refuse to engage in argumentation because there are “more knowledgeable people than [you] pushing me” on another blog. If you’re so humble and lacking in knowledge then why did you (1) write a blog trying to refute my position and (2) exit this post by insinuating that your time’s too precious to deal with my “irrational position.”
In all honesty, I don’t have time to rehash the same arguments over and over again. So there’s honestly part of me that is happy you don’t want to discuss the issue. I do have other pressing responsibilities. And if you have other, more important responsibilities, then by all means don’t waste your time here. Nevertheless, I would ask you to at least have the Christian courtesy not to exit by slinging mud. I have yet to hear an argument that cogently (1) precludes the idea of non-decretive desires predicated of God and ascribed to God in Scripture or (2) precludes divine emotions predicated of God and ascribed to God in Scripture.
If you come up with one, let me know.
Your servant,
Bob Gonzales
June 17th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Earlier, I quoted Bunyan saying the following:
What is my actual claim? It is that Bunyan thinks that God is in fact willing to save the non-elect (”those that perish for ever”), but NOT that God purposes to effect their salvation. Bunyan continues by saying the following:
Observe what Bunyan is saying above. Even though it is true that God is willing to save the reprobates by means of compliance to gospel commands, it is not the case that he is resolved to save them apart from their closing with Christ (i.e. repentance and faith, or the means of salvation). Bunyan goes on to show that God only effectually wills the salvation of the elect since he works in them so as to give them the condition of faith, a new heart, the fear of God, and persevering grace. No one should misconstrue Bunyan’s teaching to mean that 1) God is not willing to save the non-elect in the revealed will of the gospel or 2) that he thinks God is willing to do this apart from compliance with its conditions. He continues:
Notice again that Bunyan is repeating his point, i.e. that there is a sense in which God is “heartily willing” that the reprobates “should close with the tenders of the grace held forth in the gospel.” If that doesn’t describe the well-meant offer, then nothing does! God is HEARTILY WILLING that those who finally perish should close with the gospel. God doesn’t deny them grace without a cause. They persist in their disobedience, so he does not owe them enabling grace. They are abusing the grace already given them. Bunyan’s point here is the same as W. G. T. Shedd’s:
Now, notice what Daniel Chew says:
One has to be careful because Chew uses loaded language to describe what he means by “common salvific grace.” He says, “Bunyan does not believe in God having any form of intent of saving the reprobate (’common salvific grace’).” As one suffering from theological cyclopsis, he can only think of God willing something in the sense of a purpose to effect (intent in that sense), so he packs the idea of “common salvific grace” with that very notion, and then denies that it is in Bunyan. We’re only claiming that Bunyan thinks God is willing to save the reprobates inefficaciously according to the revealed will, NOT that we’re claiming that Bunyan thinks God has an intent or purpose to effect their salvation.
Chew continues:
This is clearly false. The quote proves MORE THAN the fact that he believes the gospel is to be proffered to all. It proves that God is HEARTILY WILLING THAT THOSE WHO PERISH SHOULD CLOSE WITH THE GOSPEL CONDITIONS. In other words, as Dr. Gonzales has been repeating in many posts now, God is seeking their compliance to his commands with a view to their ultimate well-being.
Chew continues:
Again, be careful with Chew’s terms. He’s packing “salvific grace” with the notion of effectual grace or with God’s purpose to effect salvation. He misrepresents our claims again. Of course God is withholding effectual grace from those who finally perish (Bunyan agrees), otherwise they would be saved. What God does, however, is express a willingness to save the reprobate means of the kind of grace they are already receiving through the gospel offer itself (where Chew disagrees). Since they abuse this non-effectual grace, God cannot be blamed for not granting “further grace” (Bunyan’s own terms) to overcome their resisting self-will.
Chew continues:
Chew calls us “hypothetical universalists,” or “Neo-Amyraldians,” and yet he’s the one making Bunyan’s teaching totally hypothetically here. Bunyan said that God “is willing to save those that finally perish,” and Chew completely distorts that to mean that “God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able to use this grace to bring themselves unto salvation.” How in the world does one leap from Bunyan’s “God is willing to save those that perish,” and that He is “heartily willing they should close with the tenders of the grace held forth in the gospel,” to Chew’s hypothetical “God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able…”? After all of these contortions, he actually has the nerve to accuse us of “eisegesis”! I trust that the readers of this blog can see what is happening with the primary sources. Chew should just say that Bunyan is wrong in what he says about God’s will, instead of twisting his statements to express some mere hypothetical notion that God would not prevent them, were they able to comply.
Chew would never speak like Bunyan and say that God is in fact “heartily willing” that “those who perish forever” “should close with the tenders of the grace held forth in the gospel, and live.” He should be honest with this fact and just say that he thinks Bunyan was wrong.
June 17th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Chew said:
Here is the straw man. None of us think that Bunyan is teaching that God “resolves” to effect (or intends in that sense) the salvation of those who finally perish. Again, Chew, unlike Bunyan, can only think of God willing something that necessarily comes to pass. If it does not come to pass, then God cannot be said to will it. Bunyan, on the other hand, can speak of God as “heartily willing” that “those who finally perish” “should close with the tenders of grace held forth in the gospel.” So, just because Bunyan goes on to teach that God only resolves to effect the salvation of the elect, it does not follow that Bunyan did not say that God is truly “willing to save those that finally perish for ever.” Consequently, Bunyan’s statement above is not damaging to our position it all. He can speak of God’s will in a similar way as John Preston:
Or, Bunyan can speak in a similar way as <a href=”http://theologicalmeditations.blogspot.com/2007/07/william-perkins-quotes.html”William Perkins (but with more force):
Chew cannot allow for God to truly will what He nills to effect. Such an idea is “irrational.”
Chew finally says:
I have already treated this above. Chew is changing Bunyan’s “God is willing to save those that perish,” and that He is “heartily willing they should close with the tenders of the grace held forth in the gospel,” to a hypothetical “God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able…”? Chew should not only be critical of Bunyan’s terminology of grace and offers being given to the reprobate, but he should also be critical of Bunyan’s clear teaching that God heartily wills their salvation. Instead, he converts Bunyan’s statements as if he is getting into other logically possible worlds, i.e. in another logically possible and hypothetical world, God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able to comply, etc. Just acknowledge what Bunyan is really saying and reject it as something you think is unbiblical. That’s the honest thing to do.
Again, Chew would never want to speak like Bunyan does here:
Bunyan is clearly talking to lost individuals and affirms that:
1) Christ is their Saviour.
2) Christ weeps to see their souls going on to destruction.
3) Christ is more afflicted at the thought of the loss of their souls than they are.
4) Christ is a loving Son that should his love and died for them.
5) These lost sinners are being offered His grace and favour.
Are we really to think that Christ their Saviour weeps at the thought of their destruction, is afflicted by their loss, died for them, offers His grace and favour to them, but is NOT giving them a “well-meant” offer of salvation?! Frankly, only deliberate blindness can miss this in Bunyan. Reject his teaching as unbiblical rather than try to suggest that he is not teaching that God heartily wills the salvation of those who finally perish. Or, at the very least, show some degree of respect for our interpretation of Bunyan. After all, it is the very same interpretation that Dr. Richard Muller gave in his lectures at Mid-America Reformed Theological Seminary. He even acknowledges that Bunyan (along with Musculus, Zanchi, Ursinus, Kimedoncius, Bullinger, Twisse, Ussher, Davenant (and others in the British delegation to Dort), Calamy, Seaman, Vines, Harris, Marshall and Arrowsmith) taught a non-Amyraldian form of “Hypothetical Universalism” (his label for it) in Reprobation Asserted.
Now that we have dealt with Bunyan, I am curious to see what you will do with the Jonathan Edwards quotes I provided above. As for Bunyan, we will just have to agree to disagree. What is your interpretation of the Edwards quotes above???
June 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
You can delete the above entry, Dr. Gonzales. It had html errors, etc. Use this one instead:
Chew said:
Here is the straw man. None of us think that Bunyan is teaching that God “resolves” to effect (or intends in that sense) the salvation of those who finally perish. Again, Chew, unlike Bunyan, can only think of God willing something that necessarily comes to pass. If it does not come to pass, then God cannot be said to will it. Bunyan, on the other hand, can speak of God as “heartily willing” that “those who finally perish” “should close with the tenders of grace held forth in the gospel.” So, just because Bunyan goes on to teach that God only resolves to effect the salvation of the elect, it does not follow that Bunyan did not say that God is truly “willing to save those that finally perish for ever.” Consequently, Bunyan’s statement above is not damaging to our position it all. He can speak of God’s will in a similar way as the Puritan John Preston:
Or, Bunyan can speak in a similar way as William Perkins (but with more force):
Chew cannot allow for God to truly will what He nills to effect. Such an idea is “irrational.”
Chew finally says:
I have already treated this above. Chew is changing Bunyan’s “God is willing to save those that perish,” and that He is “heartily willing they should close with the tenders of the grace held forth in the gospel,” to a hypothetical “God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able…” Chew should not only be critical of Bunyan’s terminology of grace and offers being given to the reprobate, but he should also be critical of Bunyan’s clear teaching that God heartily wills their salvation. Instead, he converts Bunyan’s statements as if he is getting into other logically possible worlds, i.e. in another logically possible and hypothetical world, God would not prevent them from being saved if they were able to comply, etc. Just acknowledge what Bunyan is really saying and reject it as something you think is unbiblical. That’s the honest thing to do.
Again, Chew would never want to speak like Bunyan does here:
Bunyan is clearly talking to lost individuals and affirms that:
1) Christ is their Saviour.
2) Christ weeps to see their souls going on to destruction.
3) Christ is more afflicted at the thought of the loss of their souls than they are.
4) Christ is a loving Son that should his love and died for them.
5) These lost sinners are being offered His grace and favour.
Are we to really think that Christ their Saviour weeps at the thought of their destruction, is afflicted by their loss, died for them, offers His grace and favour to them, but is NOT giving them a well-meant offer of salvation?! Frankly, only deliberate blindness can miss this in Bunyan. Reject his teaching as unbiblical, rather than try to suggest that he is not teaching that God heartily wills the salvation of those who finally perish. Or, at the very least, show some degree of respect for our interpretation of Bunyan. After all, it is the very same interpretation that Dr. Richard Muller gave in his lectures at Mid-America Reformed Theological Seminary. He even acknowledges that Bunyan (along with Musculus, Zanchi, Ursinus, Kimedoncius, Bullinger, Twisse, Ussher, Davenant (and others in the British delegation to Dort), Calamy, Seaman, Vines, Harris, Marshall and Arrowsmith) taught a non-Amyraldian form of “Hypothetical Universalism” (his label for it) in Reprobation Asserted.
Now that we have dealt with Bunyan, I am curious to see what you will do with the Jonathan Edwards quotes I provided above. As for Bunyan, we will just have to agree to disagree. What is your interpretation of the Edwards quotes above???
June 18th, 2009 at 5:23 am
Dear Bob,
my response was to your interpretation of the argument found in the Minority Report, not your arguments on the emotions of God whether ad infra or ad extra. While I am sure it would be interesting to refute your protrayal of a God with mood swings, this was not what my blog post was addressing.
With regards to what you ask, I have yet to hear of how the term “non-decretive desires” can be a non-contradiction in the first place given the sovereignty of God. Secondly, you have yet to prove that the mere fact of God having emotions must mean that such involves ad infra and not ad extra changes.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Tony:
My response would be forthcoming within the next couple of days
June 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Daniel,
Respond to the Edwards quotes above. We now want to see to see how you will interpret those.
Also, since you’re in the habit of name calling and speaking disrespectfully to us [even to Dr. Gonzales], I do not look forward to these exchanges with you. Since you don’t even talk to us as if we are Christians, I want to wrap this up as quick as possible. There’s no need to produce a long dissertation here in response to the Bunyan material above, and then demand that I respond to it on your time table [as you recently said on your blog: "Byrne having seemingly being silenced, his good friend David Ponter comes to the rescue..."]. I know you’re saying to yourself, “they do not want to [or can't] respond to me since I am such an intellectual powerhouse.” No, Daniel. It’s because you’re a hateful person and you show nothing but disrespect for us. And you will not change, so even these comments to you are in vain.
So, just move on to Edwards now, so we can get this over with as soon as possible. Do not expect me to respond to anything else you say about Bunyan. As I said above, we will just have to agree to disagree on him. Others can read what is above and make up their own minds.
Thanks,
Tony
June 18th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Mr. Gonzales, my brother, I have only now visited Mr. Garety’s site and read through the main entry and some of the interaction that took place there. I apologize if my comments appear to be a late (and rather anti-climactic) reaction, but I would like to say a few things here nonetheless.
First, I reiterate my sincere appreciation of your interaction with me. It has been most intriguing and helpful. Second, I have noted over the years as I worked through the subject of apologetical methodology that those who most admire the work of Gordon Clark seem, for some reason not altogether clear to me, to be united in their strange sense that it is Biblical to sneer at others. Dr. Clark was not himself so disdainful, as I recall, though John Robbins, Vincent Cheung (and Mr. Garety apparently) as well as others have taken up this sour attitude. In each case, they badly misappropriate the Biblical texts which they feel justify their lack of kindness and remain continually in danger of being or becoming hateful toward the brethren and proving themselves (according to I John) to have no place in the family of GOD.
It is, to put this another way, easier to question the legitimacy and orthodoxy of a profession that is based in unrepentant disdain for certain brethren than it is to question a profession based upon the notion that GOD gives His heart in some small measure to lesser “goods” He esteems though not as highly as what He chose to bring to pass. Nowhere do the Scriptures teach disdain toward anyone in our royal household.
Even if you were every bit as weak in faith and learning as Mr. Garety believes, the clear Biblical teaching is that he should stoop low to accomodate the immaturity and weak faith of his brother, even going so far as to cut away some of his own liberties for a time, to build you up so that we might all together finish the race and attain the prize as a whole people. Mr. Garety forgets that Christ is not merely interested in his own salvation but in the salvation of a whole Church, a whole household, and He has determined not to lose a single one as all are precious to Him, even if Mr. Garety could dismiss a few without great concern. Rather, may the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering in full…
I would have difficulty calling myself a “Van Tilian” though that is perhaps more accurate than any other label I could contrive. Yet, unlike Mr. Garety’s stereotype of Van Tilians (ironically based upon the fallacy of a hasty generalization taken from too small a sampling), I do not accept Van Til’s remarks, as I have understood them, on the supposedly apparently contradictory nature of much of Scripture. It is one thing to say, “I do not see how doctrine X and doctrine Y can possibly cohere” and quite another to say that no one can resolve the problem. At that point, Dr. Van Til (precious as he was and now is) was simply speaking on his own authority in pride. Indeed, this notion seems to contradict his own teaching on limiting concepts.
Still, Dr. Clark’s theology and view of logic was hardly without its own vital cracks, particularly in his strange distaste for inductive reasoning. Pure rationalism leaves one with nothing at least as obviously as the notion that irresolvable apparent contradictions remain for us in the Scriptures. But the arrogance of both men toward one another, I think, has simply spawned most tragically a spiteful feud between their intellectual children.
Dr. Clark was brilliant but those who follow him, for all their love of formal logic (and apparent blindness to the work being done in informal logic) have utterly missed the Biblical teaching that logic is a kind of love and that without love, what they refer to as “logical” is not precisely because it contains the inherent contradiction of affirming GOD with the tongue while denying Him in the heart. They reason, where they do not love, to an idol and not to our beautiful Yahweh.
I am currently teaching on the subject of Biblical logic and reasoning and, though I am no doubt hardly an authority on these subjects, I do believe that you are not as infatuated with “mystery” and “apparent contradiction” as Mr. Garety describes. But I wonder…
…whether more humility with regard to your sense of the proper interpretation of certain passages might not be necessary. What I mean to say is that, when we are confronted with an apparent contradiction, it is obvious that somewhere (on one side of it or the other) we have made an error in judgment or discernment of meaning or perhaps have included a false assumption that must be reconsidered. Surely then we cannot maintain the apparent contradiction because we have chosen to insist in ourselves that, whatever else might be wrong, our assumptions about GOD’s meaning in expressing certain apparent emotions is a priori the “obvious” meaning of the text and cannot be in error.
I am assuming that you have adopted your current position because you believe it does not leave us with the insupperable difficulties that other points of view would. But how could adopting apparent contradictions in order to retain your interpretation resolve more problems than it creates? And if you would rather not “tamper” with a “sacred mystery,” ought you not first to be sure that it is not a mystery of your own devising?
Perhaps you believe that, without coming to your conclusions, we would be left without any sincere feeling of urgency in regard to the lost or that we would be left with a virtually impersonal GOD who lacks “desires.” Perhaps you think that so much of the invitation of GOD to those who are perishing would be diluted of all meaning unless we assume that a “well-meant offer” must presuppose that GOD truly desires the salvation of those who would come to Him. There are others, of course, who would equally object to your view that GOD does not hold out any hope that the reprobate might accept His offer. They argue that this is a simple parody of an “invitation,” all an act on a great stage without any sincere intention.
What is required for an offer to be “well-meant” or sincere? Does it require the open-ended possibilities of a contingent future, as some believe? Does it require a sincere hopefulness in the one offering? Does it require a whistful longing? How is hopefulness (or wishfulness) meaningful apart from “not seeing,” as Paul explains (Romans 8:24), for who hopes for what He sees or wishes against what He already knows?
Isn’t all that is required simply the capacity, in some sense, that an invitation could (in terms of natural ability) be accepted? If man has the kind of ability that leaves him without excuse to accept GOD’s offer or His general call, even if He is not offering it to most because He yearns against His own certain knowledge that such people will accept it, does that make it any less sincere as an invitation? Only an artificial and rather arbitrary requirement would insist upon this and perhaps such a requirement is unbiblical…
I assure you that I reject the caricature of a LORD who is “impassable” in a strict sense, I reject the notion that GOD has no desires and leave it to those who follow Socrates to insist that desires must imply a lack or need. I believe that GOD’s general call to all mankind is sincere and “well-meant” in the sense I outline above. Yet, I deny your conclusions. Is it possible that what you are trying to hold onto does not actually necessitate GOD’s conflicted longings?
Tampering with mysteries is hardly an act against that which is sacred when it comes to the Word of GOD precisely because the Word was not meant to relate mysteries impossible to apprehend but to be understood and to instruct His people so that the simple might become wise. These things which have been revealed are for us and our children and none of us are inviting the world or our families into an ancient mystery cult (as I am confident you would agree).
Rather than relish mystery, perhaps we should relish understanding which is certainly the attitude of the sacred writings, and not insist that two sides of an apparent contradiction “must” somehow both be true. Rather, isn’t it obvious that at least one of them must be a misinterpretation?
June 18th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Still, Dr. Clark’s theology and view of logic was hardly without its own vital cracks, particularly in his strange distaste for inductive reasoning. Pure rationalism leaves one with nothing at least as obviously as the notion that irresolvable apparent contradictions remain for us in the Scriptures. But the arrogance of both men toward one another, I think, has simply spawned most tragically a spiteful feud between their intellectual children.
I think you’re more of a Vantilian than your little tongue lashing let’s on. For example, Clark’s “distaste” for inductive reasoning is because it is always fallacious with the one exception is a complete induction (a luxury even the most rigorous of inductive arguments of science cannot claim). As for disdain, I do disdain the false teaching that the Scripture do not cohere, that the analogy of faith must be curbed and that it can somehow lead to an “irresponsible reading of Scripture.” I disdain the reckless violations of the Ninth Commandment that wrests the work of Calvin, Turretin and others by transforming these men in to universalists rather than the uncompromising particularist they so clearly were. I disdain those who are in positions of power and responsibility when they teach this sort of nonsense and demand men submit on the basis of their own authority while imputing confusion to God and his Word. I disdain the false piety that asserts both sides of a contradiction are both truth but that we are to have faith in faith that there are no contradictions for God. In short, I disdain the Vantilianism that has so clouded Dr. Gonzales’ mind.
Beyond that, I am constantly amazed how Vantilians love men rather than God and turn a blind eye at the disparagement of His inerrant Word by attributing to it antinomy and irreconcilable paradox to Him rather than their own stupidity and ignorance. FWIW I’ve witnessed this same thing in the now virtually lost battle over the Federal Vision in the PCA, OPC and other P&R denominations as men are embraced as “brothers” who unrepentantly advance a completely different gospel.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Tampering with mysteries is hardly an act against that which is sacred when it comes to the Word of GOD precisely because the Word was not meant to relate mysteries impossible to apprehend but to be understood and to instruct His people so that the simple might become wise. These things which have been revealed are for us and our children and none of us are inviting the world or our families into an ancient mystery cult (as I am confident you would agree).
Rather than relish mystery, perhaps we should relish understanding which is certainly the attitude of the sacred writings, and not insist that two sides of an apparent contradiction “must” somehow both be true. Rather, isn’t it obvious that at least one of them must be a misinterpretation?
We can certainly agree on this. Of course, what you and I might think is obvious is not at all obvious to those who have bought into Van Til’s central epistemic claim and the core of his entire doctrine of truth and Scripture. You miss the entire religious and experiential element in all this. The fact that we are confronted with two contradictory truths is what they mean by paradox. It’s a paradox because these truths are believed to be resolved mystically in the Godhead. This is where the Creator/creature distinction is most directly apprehended, felt, touched, and experienced. This is where our finite knowledge comes in contact with the supra logic of incomprehensible One. More importantly this is where we bow before the ontological Trinity, the ultimate irrationality of the Christian faith, as we embrace with passion the paradox of the Trinity; the God who is both one person and three persons in the same sense and at the same time as we plumb the depth of the one and the many.
While old timers might have appealed to mystery as cover for their own ignorance, that is no longer necessary. With the advent of Van Til’s epistemological framework, this antichristian notion of mystery as you have correctly identified takes on entirely new and existential hew. This is the new religion.
But what do I know? I’m just one of those mean and nasty Clark guys on the blogosphere with their feet dangling above hellfire if not already in it. I’m not the Dean of a supposedly Reformed seminary.
June 18th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I understand your points, Mr. Garety, and I understand to some degree your feelings. Whether you accept it or not, I disdain these hypocrisies as well. I see and believe that the notions that there are irresolvable (to us) contradictions in the Scriptures and that two sides of a contradiction need to be ebraced “as both true” (as though that were even possible without equivocation), the Federal Vision heresy, the views of N.T. Wright on Christ, the love of men more than our most precious LORD and a host of other recent futilities are obviously teachings arising from the Sunday schools of hell. They are meant only, by the diabolical adversary behind them, to confuse and restrain people from taking the Scriptures as the masterfully definitive voice of GOD that they are.
Nevertheless, there are two sides to this adversarial stratagem, just as one can stray from the path of righteousness on either the left or the right. Knowledge in Scripture does not consist merely of our “meditations” but also our “practice” (Psalm 119:97-104) just as one can have “all knowledge” and yet without love we are nothing. Therefore, I also disdain arrogance, the proud insistance that we have nothing to learn from those “in error,” and the hypocrisy of some who eagerly cast the sins of others into their teeth but cannot stand the slightest inquiry into their own faults. I especially disdain the absurdity of “justifying” a Pharisaical sense of superiority toward all who are not members of one’s favorite traditions by using Biblical texts that have no connection to any such attitude.
I agree that we have no right under heaven to embrace as “brothers” those whom our LORD, through Paul, would label “anathema,” yet before you strike out at the heel of every passerby not of your kind perhaps you should consider the irony of your position on inductive and presumptive reasoning, given that you have already made an abundant practice of these forms of reasoning. From the evidence you have gathered, you have drawn an obvious inductive conclusion about the inward state of the heart of Mr. Gonzales and the nature of his genuine beliefs.
If you had a healthier appreciation for the rudiments of inductive rigor you might have realized that something more was needed before you were justified initially in stating so confidently that you had found him out and spotted one just like so many others you’ve known from the sort of irreverant groups which you labelled above. If you are correct that induction is always fallacious (and this means I suppose that it is bad?), then why do you make such use of it for apparently prejudicial purposes?
As for Dr. Clark and those who carry on his battles today, it is obvious to the rest of us that inductive reasoning is “fallacious” in the sense that it is not true by definition. All this means is that induction is not deduction – that it leads only to contingent probabilities – which is hardly news. This does not mean, however, that it does not lead to knowledge for a “fallacy” is not a false bit of reasoning, it is merely a different kind of relationship between premises and a conclusion that lacks the eternal steadfastness of logical necessity. When a logician points to a fallacy, he does not say, “This makes your argument false.” He knows it makes the argument simply “unproven” in a deductive sense alone.
Given that most of your daily reasoning from moment to moment is formally abductive, you would be in trouble if Clark’s bias against anything short of apodictic certainty were actually sound. Nevertheless, for all these claims, you still make much use of the methods you formally disown, just as you are doing as you read through this post and assume you catch my meaning.
When Paul encountered the rejection of a teaching as fundamental as justification by faith in the churches of Galatia (quite a large area), he did not immediately presume that these people were false professors but warned them, as brothers and sisters, not to continue to embrace the false gospel they had come to believe. If Paul could still judge these people as wayward Christians when they had compromised so profoundly and fundamentally, perhaps you should step back and recall a little perspective here in the midst of a conversation over whether GOD might discern certain states of affairs which He did not choose to actuate as desirable and, in doing so, that He might desire them.
Here, in this place, we are very far from Galatia.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
As for Van Til, like so many of his students, I believe you have misunderstood him. Certainly there are those who would love to run away into the sunset of irrationality because of his most unfortunate remarks (rather rare in his overall work) regarding apparent contradictions. Others I believe, like yourself, treat his contemplations on GOD’s superiority to “logic” as though Van Til meant logic-in-itself rather than simply our practice of deductive reasoning. As you have already demonstrated, you would agree that we must be skeptical of our use of logic when it leads to apparent contradictions in GOD. That is, after all, what you have been complaining about in Mr. Gonzales and it was Van Til’s whole point as far as I’m aware.
Van Til could certainly have used an editor and written some of these things much more clearly, but Clark’s commentaries are certainly no less problematic these days with his attitude toward faith which creeps too close for comfort to mere intellectual assent. I don’t believe that was his actual position, but there are those who abuse his work to advocate “free grace” in their mishandling of the Scriptures as well.
If Van Til really taught that GOD existed within some “supra-logical” realm, then I would leave behind Van Til at that point completely, for he would have compromised fundamentally with the very philosophical systems (pagan, scholastic, etc.) which he spent the greater part of his life refuting. But I think that this is not what he intended.
Personally, I have little patience with “mystery” precisely because there’s not much you can say about it. I think that, most often, it is a cover for our logical stumblings and it is only vanity that makes us pretend to have been dancing when we stumble. But I accept also that there are “mysteries” in a different sense, things which are difficult to imagine because they are so very different than anything in our experience. The Trinity is not at all apparently contradictory, but I confess that I find it difficult to explain what exactly it is outside of the usual technical formulae.
But, as long as it isn’t contradictory, it remains meaningful. We may then share this appreciation for rigor or clarity but I still remain firm that your proud attitude is not at all logical. Formal logic is a discipline akin to taking principles of language learning and ignoring everything else, proffering a neat package of rules to follow for English usage. That will lead to comical results because there are exceptions to virtually every such rule. Formal logicians don’t like to deal with this and simply restrain their subject to what is elegant and clear… and students of formal logic often find it difficult to work within natural language contexts that don’t often operate like the prepackaged syllogisms in their logic textbooks.
That is why I prefer informal logic which examines the actual way logic works in the messy linguistic contexts in which most people communicate. For instance, you made much of a quotation by Luther mocking those who assumed that an imperative could possibly imply an indicative. Luther thought it was beneath even the reasoning capacities of a child to miss this… Whatever Luther arrogantly presumed about the matter, he was quite wrong. Inperatives can, in fact, imply indicatives and can be used in natural language contexts as part of an argument as a number of logicians have shown. It isn’t so very common, but it does occur.
To write to the board of RBS and demand something like, “Dr. Gonzales is academically irresponsible, so fire him!” would give an excellent example of what I mean. There is clearly an implied argument (per the conclusion indicator, “so”) in this command, which would run something like this:
“The fact that Dr. Gonzales is academically irresponsible means that you, the board, have an obligation to fire him.”
The same, contra Dr. Carranza, is true even of questions and exhortations, as the Biblical manner of making use of questions with an expected negative answer readily demonstrates. In that case, supposing that an imperative could imply an indicative cannot be dogmatically denounced as plainly stupid. Formal logic simply pays little attention to the exceptions, just as there are exceptions even to the “fallacious” nature of certain fallacies (like appeal to authority or appeal to pity or even ad hominem). Christ made ample use at times of the ad hominem circumstantial.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Benjamin,
I’m sorry I’ve been preoccupied with church and seminary responsibilities that have greatly limited my time and ability to respond to your comments. I hope, Lord willing, to have time perhaps tomorrow or next week to respond. However, I did want to express my appreciation for your manner of argumentation and ability to ascertain my real position more accurately than Mr. Gerety who seems to have a penchant to read his opponent’s position in the worst possible light. Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection, certain disciples had drawn false inferences from a statement he had made concerning the apostle John. As it turns out, their inference was faulty. Yet, John still refers to them as “brothers” not “heretics” (John 21:20-23).
Of course, if I’m teaching or promoting heresy, I deserve to be treated firmly and frankly. I am, in fact, disqualified from the ministry. The fact, however, that some Reformed scholars have supported (1) the connection between God’s preceptive will and a preceptive wish or desire (click here), (2) a divine emotivity that is analogous (not univocal) to human emotivity, and (3) the notion of God taking pleasure in states of affairs that he doesn’t ordain (after all, if God can know states of affairs that he doesn’t ordain, e.g., , why can’t he reveal his approval or disapproval of such states?) while not proving my position to be true should at least give Mr. Gerety pause before he treats me like a heretic.
To be clear, for your sake and the sake of my other readers, let me quickly affirm what Mr. Gerety accuses me of denying:
(1) I affirm that all the facts and/or propositions of both general revelation and of special revelation (i.e., the Scripture) do in fact cohere.
Of course, I also believe that our sin and even our finiteness may preclude us from comprehending completely and precisely how the myriad facets of created reality and revealed truth cohere. After all, since all facts and events and revealed truths are interrelated and since only an infinite mind can now all facts, events, and the full-meaning of every revealed truth as well as how every facet of general and special revelation cohere, shouldn’t we allow (due to our creatureliness) the possibility that our comprehension of all the varied connections between the myriad facets of created reality and revealed truth may have some gaps? So the fact of coherence I do not deny. The how of coherence, I do not profess to know in every single case. And, on the basis of Scripture’s teaching on God’s infinitude and omniscience in contrast with human finitude and limited knowledge, I’m inclined to allow for paradox and mystery. Even so, I do not believe every explicit or implicit proposition in Scripture is ipso facto paradoxical or en toto mysterious. Besides, if I really believed that affirming God could have non-actuated desires in addition to decrees necessitates the embrace of real incoherence and contradiction, why would I expend so much time and energy presenting arguments to demonstrate that the propositions are coherent when viewed from the right perspective?
(2) I affirm the legitimacy of employing the analogy of faith, that is, the appropriateness of using the clearer and more well established teaching of Scripture to guide our interpretation of less clear texts.
In fact, I acknowledge that we must sometimes adopt a less plausible reading of Scripture when the rest of Scripture clearly demands it. My only contention is that the analogy of faith can be abused. The Church of Rome is a prime example. Arminians also take employ certain texts that seem to support “free will” in order to gag other texts that support God’s sovereignty. So I’m not against the analogy of faith. I only warn that it can be abused. Whether or not I am the one abusing it or whether whose who deny such things as the well-meant offer or divine emotivity is what is being debated.
(3) As far as breaking the 9th commandment, I can only say that I have no intention of misrepresenting Calvin, Turretin, or others.
My citations of Calvin, Turretin, and other Reformed authors supporting a connection between God’s preceptive will and preceptive desires or wishes are self-evident. Of course, it’s possible that these writers are, as one of Mr. Gerety’s friends suggested, misspeaking at this point. I can allow for that. Indeed, I’m of the conviction that neither Calvin nor his successors were always perfectly consistent or accurate (else their writings would be infallible). So it’s possible that I might be citing the “mistaken Calvin” while my opponents may be citing the “correct Calvin.” Whatever the case, I wish Mr. Gerety would show a little modesty and desist from accusing me of being “unReformed” simply because I don’t, in his view, adhere to the “real Calvin.” What do we do, for example, with Calvin’s comments on 2 Peter 3:9?
Calvin, in this text, seems to support that God desires but does not decree the salvation of all mankind. Of course, Calvin may be wrong. I guess it’s possible that I may be misreading Calvin. But if so, I’m not misreading him intentionally.
(4) I am a seminary professor and pastor. However, contra Gerety’s charge, I do not ask my students or sheep to accept what I teach on the basis of my authority.
That’s Romanism. Instead, I constantly remind my people that I’m fallible. I repeatedly ask them to open their Bibles, like the Bereans of old, to see whether what I’m teaching is so. Of course, I do have influence as a teacher and I will have to answer for what I teach (James 3:1). That makes me tremble. And in light of that, I agree with Benjamin’s exhortation to me to remain teachable and open to the possibility that I’m wrong.
(5) Finally, I do not believe, as Gerety charges, that “both sides of a contradiction are both truth but that we are to have faith in faith that there are no contradictions for God.”
First, I deny real contradictions. Second, I think many if not most apparent contradictions can be explained and shown coherent. Third, I don’t teach we should have faith in faith. I teach that we should have faith in revealed truth, which I accept the Bible to be on the basis of its self-attestation and self-authenticating quality. Fourth, I affirm that there are no contradictions in God and, as a consequence, there are no contradictions in his revelation. As I said before, our sinfulness and even our finiteness my hinder our ability to comprehend fully how every particular event or instance of reality or particular revealed truth coheres with every other event or instance of reality or particular revealed truth. That everything in God and his work coheres is not in question. Exactly how everything in God and his work coheres is in some instances beyond a human being’s full comprehension and, in that sense, mysterious in my opinion.
Well, that’s all I can say for now. I do want to continue the discussion with you, Benjamin. You, like Mr. Ben Maas, have challenged my thinking with some helpful counter-arguments that prompt me to rethink and even make minor adjustments or clarifications in my thesis. And you both have argued in a calm, reasonable, and winsome fashion. Mr. Gerety, on the other hand, claims to be a “reasonable” man. But his arguments often appear governed more by his agitated emotions than by clear-headed reason and a brotherly disposition.
I hope to return soon with further replies.
In Christ,
Bob Gonzales
June 19th, 2009 at 10:54 am
If you had a healthier appreciation for the rudiments of inductive rigor you might have realized that something more was needed before you were justified initially in stating so confidently that you had found him out and spotted one just like so many others you’ve known from the sort of irreverant groups which you labelled above.
First, it’s Gerety and not “Garety.” It’s even in my tag line after all. Second, I have no idea what you are going on about? You claim to have read the exchange between Dr. Gonzales and myself, yet I’m not to take him at his word when he cites Van Til, Frame, James Anderson, the poor soul who runs THEOparadox and others in support of his belief in the innate incoherence of Scripture? Clearly he supports his belief in the “mystery and paradox” of the WMO through the epistemological infrastructure provided by Van Til and his followers. If that’s not the case, then I’m hard pressed why he would provide specific works by these men in a footnote to explain precisely what he means by “mystery.” Besides, Dr. Gonzales says below, “if I’m teaching or promoting heresy, I deserve to be treated firmly and frankly.” I do believe Dr.Gonzales is teaching and promoting heresy and needs to repent. Do I think it rises to the level of Federal Visionists and their follow travelers in the NPP movement, not at all (or, better, not yet), but these movements didn’t spring up and continue to flourish in a vacuum. Which is why I have not focused my time specifically on the idea of God’s supposed universal desire for the salvation of all, but rather on the underlying philosophy Dr. Gonzales has used to support his confused doctrine. However, if your manner and tone, which is clearly more agreeable to Dr. Gonzales, ends up producing the above mentioned and desired result, where I’m just written off just a belligerent mean and nasty cuss, praise be to God.
But, notice below, even here Dr. Gonzales says I have a “penchant to read his opponent’s position in the worst possible light.” He then cites John 21 as an example that, I can only imagine, justifies calling those Federal Visionists who teach a doctrine of salvation by works and faith “brothers.” Well, the only reference I made in this connection was to the PCA’s otherwise excellent report and others who continue to identify those advancing the false gospel of the FV as “brothers.” While I certainly don’t want to put Dr. Gonzales comments in the worst possible light, he does provide another apt example why Vantilianism has been utterly crippling in the fight to effectively deal with and expose, much less remove, such gross and soul destroying heresies like the FV from P&R denominations. It would seem Dr. Gonzales would be right there extending the right hand of fellowship while citing John 21. I don’t know about you, but this type of thing would certainly give me pause if I were shelling out cash to be trained by the men running RBS. We’re not as far from Galatia as you might think.
In all, I think I’ve treated Dr. Gonzales as he wished to be treated, firmly and frankly, and if you or others think that I’ve strayed from the path of righteousness or that I’m just arrogant, mean, and nasty (or as one guy on my own blog suggested that I’m lost), I guess I’ll have to live with it and cleave to the Lord’s undeserved mercy and forgiveness like the rest.
As far as your other claim that I have misunderstood Van Til I have heard it all before. It’s like all those who complained (actually howled) that John Robbins similarly misunderstood Van Til when he wrote his booklet, Cornelius Van Til: The Man and the Myth. Well, the more I continue to read and study Van Til and the works of his many followers the more I think Dr. Robbins was guilty of understatement. Similarly, and to your claims about Clark, specifically about his definition of faith which he correctly defined as an assent to an understood proposition (I think you understood him better than you think) and the relationship of induction to knowledge, I’ve been around those bushes before as well, but I think they’re a bit too far off topic to pursue here.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Sean writes:
I do believe Dr.Gonzales is teaching and promoting heresy and needs to repent. Do I think it rises to the level of Federal Visionists and their follow travelers in the NPP movement, not at all (or, better, not yet), but these movements didn’t spring up and continue to flourish in a vacuum. Which is why I have not focused my time specifically on the idea of God’s supposed universal desire for the salvation of all, but rather on the underlying philosophy Dr. Gonzales has used to support his confused doctrine…. He then cites John 21 as an example that, I can only imagine, justifies calling those Federal Visionists who teach a doctrine of salvation by works and faith “brothers.” Well, the only reference I made in this connection was to the PCA’s otherwise excellent report and others who continue to identify those advancing the false gospel of the FV as “brothers.”
Bob replies:
Sean thinks my affirmation that God preceptively desires the salvation of all men but doesn’t decretively desire the salvation of all men necessarily leads to the errors of the FV and the NPP. This charge is unwarranted and false.
(1) R. Scott Clark supports the Free Offer and a generally Vantilian epistemology yet is a vigorous opponent of both the FV and the NPP. Second, I refute the error that conflates faith and obedience as the instrument of justification in my dissertation. Third, Reformed Baptist Seminary offers a Polemics course in which departures from sola fide and the NPP are opposed and refuted. I am in full agreement with our seminary’s rejection of these false teachings.
(2) I find it a little amusing that Gerety would find a committed Baptist in danger of succumbing to the hyper-covenantalism of the FV. Classical infant baptism is bad enough. The FV version is even less credible and, in my opinion, dangerous. Indeed, I might argue that anyone who does not believe in believer baptism but who advocates paedo-baptism is on the slippery slope that leads to presumptive regeneration and/or to the Roman ex opere operato view of the sacraments. One might even argue that Gordon Clark’s view of faith as purely mental assent to a proposition is the great Mother of Easy-Believism. But slippery slope arguments only suggest possible connections and do not prove necessary connections. They would not stand up in a court of law and, therefore, I don’t use them as warranted accusations against others.
It’s undeniably true that I included works from Van Til, John Frame, and James Anderson in a footnote on the question of paradox and mystery. Does this mean I agree with every detail of their teaching on this or any other subject? No. No more than my citation of Gerhard von Rad or Walter Brueggemann in a commentary on Genesis of necessity proves that I agree with their neo-orthodoxy. I do find Ben Mass’s and Benjamin’s assessment of Van Til’s epistemology to be more even-handed and, may I say, “rational” than Sean’s. Sean yells that he understands Van Till and dismisses him en toto as “paradox monger,” “irrationalist,” and “heretic.” Perhaps Sean’s red face, clenched fists, and scatter-gun anathemas may sway the minds of some. But he only undermines his cause in my view and I find his version of Christianity very unattractive. He certainly hasn’t, in my humble opinion, exemplified the spirit Paul enjoined:
Benjamin and Ben Mass, speak on, and I’ll listen. Sean Gerety, you’ve lost credibility. Whip up the constituents of your blog into an anti-Van Til frenzy if you like. But your contributions to this discussion are quite marginal and of little consequence at this point.
Bob Gonzales
June 19th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Thank you, brother Gonzales, for your patient response to me and to Mr. Garety and, though otherwise it would be to me a sad affair that you must point out the obvious in your responses in order to be treated fairly, I believe that this experience and the many others you will no doubt have in the future as a dean of a seminary are strengthening to the soul in GOD’s good measure, to the hope of glory.
The statement you made above…
Besides, if I really believed that affirming God could have non-actuated desires in addition to decrees necessitates the embrace of real incoherence and contradiction, why would I expend so much time and energy presenting arguments to demonstrate that the propositions are coherent when viewed from the right perspective?
…was to me precisely a telling piece of evidence that you hardly fit the mold Mr. Garety attempts to force you into. Besides, it is rather important for men like Garety and myself to remember that, in the end, you really do not owe us an explanation for your beliefs. You do perhaps owe something to the students under your care and to the men you oversee, but you hardly have to expend so much time explaining yourself to me. I only hope that others for whom it matters even more are able to profit from our exchanges and I am sure that this is the most important reason why you bother with all this. In that case, I perfectly appreciate why you might lack the time to continue at certain stages.
As for the analogy of faith, I agree that it is only generally helpful and cannot stand as an axiomatic principle impossible to question. We cannot become “system men” or slaves of an adopted (and especially extra-biblical) hermeneutic but rather should be a thinking people because that is what the Yea and Amen would have of us. I also fully affirm a “well-meant” offer and divine emotivity. I simply question how these are being structured in your own teaching, just as you would question how they are structured in mine, which hardly makes this a dialogue about possible “heresy.” As I said before, we are a long way from Galatia.
It is also of importance to note that Mr. Garety and I are hardly in the majority on these points, at least as far as I can discern. This moves me to consider deeply whether I am wrong (which is part of the reason I have engaged you on this matter), but it does not of itself cause me to falter. Only thoughtful honest meditation and argumentation will do that. But I suspect that your quotations from historical giants among our people are given precisely as you read them. I do not think that each and every quote that you have made use of is expressing quite what you believe it is, but in the main I think they do. But, of course, such things are best left to establishing your orthodoxy more than the strength of your position, elsewise we would be forced (you and I) to consider why we are not paedobaptists.
I have also gained much from our exchanges and would be grateful for whatever time you can afford to give me in future. May our LORD be praised for His enduringly sweet tenderness toward us and for the gentleness that made David great (Psalm 18:35).
June 19th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Mr. Gerety, I apologize most sincerely for consistently mistyping your name. Although it was not done intentionally, it is not a sign of respect. I shall endeavor to be better about it in the future. Please disregard my spelling of it above in my response to Mr. Gonzales as I hadn’t read your correction till just now.
I must say, before entering into what I hope shall be a brief response, that I do not understand why you would balk at the tone of others, given your justification of harshness on your own website. Doubtless there is little room for complaint on your end of things or do you judge others now, and in doing so, “condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things” (Romans 2:1)?
It is true that my tone toward you is different than it is toward Mr. Gonzales. Wherever Mr. Gonzales may have failed those under his charge, you have failed even more for I see more Pharisaism in you than in him. Indeed, perhaps there is more Pharisaism in myself than in either one of you, but if so then even I can recognize a fellow self-righteous soul when I see one.
By “self-righteous,” of course I am not commenting upon your Reformed orthodoxy but only upon the fact that you seem most eager to root out heresy where perhaps even less of it exists than in your own house, metaphorically speaking. I won’t throw out the oft oversimplified and abused reference to removing the log from your own eye here, but it is clear that you have little respect for the crafty nature of Satan’s devices in your own life and the manifold wiles of a depraved heart.
But, now that I mention justification, if Dr. Clark did actually believe, as you say, that the Biblical teaching on faith was no more than mere intellectual assent to certain propositions and that is the “faith” which brought him to Christ, then I profess without guilt that he is in hell to this day. However, I do not think we need to accuse him of so blatant a heresy (certainly far worse than anything Mr. Gonzales has said, and much more far-reaching given the scope of Clark’s fame).
I prefer to believe at present that Dr. Clark, though I haven’t studied him sufficiently to be absolutely confident in this, really intended only that to “understand” certain propositions in Scripture one had to really give onself over to them wholly as Biblical faith entails, that without love and “practice” one’s meditations do not lead to “understanding.” Just as in I Corinthians 2, the “natural man” does not accept or “understand” the things of the Spirit of GOD, thus I assume Clark reasoned that such a man would have to be regenerated before he could truly “understand” the Scriptures. I doubt he would disagree with me that faith is more than bare assent but involves drinking deeply of Christ and that is what I believe he meant by insisting upon faith as “understanding.”
Perhaps I am wrong, but as with Mr. Gonzales, I prefer to give Dr. Clark the benefit of the doubt. That is, after all, the way of love in I Corinthians 13… But, if I prove to be wrong about Mr. Gonzales and learn of my ugly errors, I would be happy to publically repent and sincerely apologize to you, Mr. Gerety, for my serious faults in our exchange.
As for Van Til, if your record here of interpreting others according to your prior expectations reflects upon your approach to Dr. Van Til’s work (especially when you take a simple remark about John 21 and turn it magically into a welcome embrace on Mr. Gonzales’ part of FV heresies), then I can imagine that your studies of Van Til have brought you little profit. However often you may have gone round about on this issue, you haven’t done so with me and so I cannot have much confidence that you did not simply dismiss what you failed to understand and dogmatically insisted upon your impressions.
If you can point the way to exchanges where you demonstrated that I and others fail to appreciate the true nature of Dr. Van Til’s errors, then I would be glad to read them and stand corrected… But, till then, I think it suffices simply that I do not hold to those perspectives myself and, in giving full credit to the laws of logic and their vitality, I have yet to see that Dr. Van Til, as a whole, denied their proper place and cast GOD into the mold of a “supra-logical” being as contentless and absurd by implication as, say, Allah.
Also, if you have resolved the problem of using induction to repudiate induction, I would be grateful for a link to your analysis of this. I’ve already read the Clark-Mavrodes exchange where, especially in the festschrift in Clark’s honor, he did not even come close to addressing the main problem adequately.
If nothing else, Mr. Gerety, you can either assume a victory everytime you estrange even the brethren or you can ask yourself whether perhaps you have misunderstood the Biblical passages regarding how to treat those of our priestly and royal household. How does GOD, our Father, want you to treat His children?
June 19th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Just FYI this will be my last post on this blog.
. Gerety, I apologize most sincerely for consistently mistyping your name. Although it was not done intentionally, it is not a sign of respect.
Apology accepted and I didn’t think anything of it, just that I couldn’t understand your continued misspelling it since my name was right there.
I must say, before entering into what I hope shall be a brief response, that I do not understand why you would balk at the tone of others, given your justification of harshness on your own website.
I haven’t “balked” at anyone’s tone, yours included. I think “tone” is all too often used as a straw man and is more often in the ears of the beholder. I honestly don’t know what you think you were reading, but I wasn’t complaining about anything so trivial as anyone’s tone?
By “self-righteous,” of course I am not commenting upon your Reformed orthodoxy but only upon the fact that you seem most eager to root out heresy where perhaps even less of it exists than in your own house, metaphorically speaking.
Again, I think you have things completely backwards. I didn’t come looking to “root out” anything. Gonzales came looking for me and offered his post about God making a wish and blowing out his cosmic candles in response to something I had written in response to the Tony Byrne inspired slander of James White as one of your so-called “hypeeeerCalvinists.” A pretty nasty weasel word that some have even tagged me with.
Besides, I never claimed to possess an error-less theology and appreciate the many even painful corrections I have had to make in my own thinking since coming to Christ and I’m sure will continue to make until I go home. I like to think even our own PC and effeminate age for iron to sharpen iron still requires a little friction. Up until now, Dr. Gonzales made it clear that while he could dish it out (and he has), he could take it too. Either I was wrong and I will apologize for hurting his feelings or feigning the wounded duck is just another debate tactic. After all, you didn’t see me complaining when Gonzales compared me to, of all disgusting things, a politician!
But, now that I mention justification, if Dr. Clark did actually believe, as you say, that the Biblical teaching on faith was no more than mere intellectual assent to certain propositions and that is the “faith” which brought him to Christ, then I profess without guilt that he is in hell to this day. However, I do not think we need to accuse him of so blatant a heresy (certainly far worse than anything Mr. Gonzales has said, and much more far-reaching given the scope of Clark’s fame).
You’re not the first person to claim Clark is in hell. Thankfully that decision is not yours.
Just as in I Corinthians 2, the “natural man” does not accept or “understand” the things of the Spirit of GOD, thus I assume Clark reasoned that such a man would have to be regenerated before he could truly “understand” the Scriptures. I doubt he would disagree with me that faith is more than bare assent but involves drinking deeply of Christ and that is what I believe he meant by insisting upon faith as “understanding.”
Clark rejected the traditional three-fold definition of saving faith as being tautological with the addition of fiducia as being nothing more than a case of defining a word with itself. Which makes sense once you drop the facade of the Latin. To believe someone is to trust what they say. Belief and trust are synonyms and the tri-fold definition adds a psychological element to the biblical idea of belief that not only is without any Scriptural warrant, but can easily be subverted by those who would controvert (and who have controverted) justification by belief alone (some of whom are disingenuous and dishonest enough to even claim that faith and belief are no derived from the same Greek word, pistis). As Clark rightly noted, the difference between faith and saving faith are the propositions believed and not some additional element that is supposedly wrought in the person who believes. Further, assent properly understood is never something either feigned or “mere” as you’ve described it.
Perhaps I am wrong, but as with Mr. Gonzales, I prefer to give Dr. Clark the benefit of the doubt. That is, after all, the way of love in I Corinthians 13… But, if I prove to be wrong about Mr. Gonzales and learn of my ugly errors, I would be happy to publically repent and sincerely apologize to you, Mr. Gerety, for my serious faults in our exchange.
Pick up a copy of Clark’s What is Saving Faith and find out for yourself. Seeing you judged Clark to be in hell above, I would think you would have an added incentive to make sure you know what you’re talking about.
As for Van Til, if your record here of interpreting others according to your prior expectations reflects upon your approach to Dr. Van Til’s work (especially when you take a simple remark about John 21 and turn it magically into a welcome embrace on Mr. Gonzales’ part of FV heresies), then I can imagine that your studies of Van Til have brought you little profit.
What was that about the log in they eye? How is it that you twist and misconstrue nearly everything I’ve written? Am I just not being clear enough for you? I didn’t suggest that Gonzales is “part of the FV heresies,” but his remarks *explain* why Vantilians are unable to effectively do anything to halt its spread even within their own denominations. They’ve accepted and embraced any number of other so-called “biblical paradoxes,” even those like the WMO that touch at the heart of the biblical scheme of salvation, that they no longer have any epistemic ground by which they can rightly oppose one more biblical paradox – especially one wrapped in the ambiguity of FV rhetoric. The fact is they have no epistemological reason to fight any of these men and will more often than not chalk up the charade of everyone from Doug Wilson to Peter Leithart to Norm Shepherd to everyone in between to the fact that these men are “just not being clear enough” in their understanding and articulation of the central doctrine of the Christian faith. The same doctrine that Luther rightly claimed the church stands of falls. These men are paralyzed and the philosophy of Van Til is to blame whether you, Gonzales or R.S. Clark are willing to admit it.
However often you may have gone round about on this issue, you haven’t done so with me and so I cannot have much confidence that you did not simply dismiss what you failed to understand and dogmatically insisted upon your impressions.
Well, this isn’t my blog and I can tell Dr. Gonzales is not at all happy I’m here. Besides, I would prefer to stay on topic even if you don’t.
Also, if you have resolved the problem of using induction to repudiate induction, I would be grateful for a link to your analysis of this. I’ve already read the Clark-Mavrodes exchange where, especially in the festschrift in Clark’s honor, he did not even come close to addressing the main problem adequately.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion no matter how wrong, but in my view Clark demolished Mavordes and brilliantly defended the core of his epistemology which he rightly labeled at the time of that exchange as “the Westminister principle.”
June 20th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Thank you for trying to help me see what perhaps I do not, Mr. Gerety. I shall, in hopes of furthering clarity and understanding, offer a few brief remarks…
Mr. Gerety: I honestly don’t know what you think you were reading, but I wasn’t complaining about anything so trivial as anyone’s tone.
I’m sorry to misunderstand you. My perspective was colored by phrases like “your little tongue lashing” and “if you or others think that. . . I’m just arrogant, mean, and nasty” and the statement, “However, if your manner and tone, which is clearly more agreeable to Dr. Gonzales, ends up producing the above mentioned and desired result, where I’m just written off just a belligerent mean and nasty cuss, praise be to God,.” If these do not express a sense of offense at my tone, then I apologize for too hasty a judgment.
Mr. Gerety: I didn’t come looking to “root out” anything.
Again, perhaps I read you too hastily when pondering the implications of statements like:
“I do believe Dr. Gonzales is teaching and promoting heresy and needs to repent. . . . I have not focused my time specifically on the idea of God’s supposed universal desire for the salvation of all, but rather on the underlying philosophy Dr. Gonzales has used to support his confused doctrine.”
and
“I disdain those who are in positions of power and responsibility when they teach this sort of nonsense and demand men submit on the basis of their own authority while imputing confusion to God and his Word. . . . In short, I disdain the Vantilianism that has so clouded Dr. Gonzales’ mind.”
If these are not attempts to “root out” heresy in Dr. Gonzales’ mind, then perhaps I should honestly try harder to understand your rather unique expressiveness.
Mr. Gerety: How is it that you twist and misconstrue nearly everything I’ve written? Am I just not being clear enough for you? I didn’t suggest that Gonzales is “part of the FV heresies”. . .
Ironically, you misconstrued the very quote you were responding to. I never accused you of lumping Mr. Gonzales into the camp of those who are “part of the FV heresies.” What I said was that you “take a simple remark about John 21 and turn it magically into a welcome embrace on Mr. Gonzales’ part of FV heresies.”
And this is, in fact, exactly what you did:
“[Gonzales] then cites John 21 as an example that, I can only imagine, justifies calling those Federal Visionists who teach a doctrine of salvation by works and faith “brothers”. . . . It would seem Dr. Gonzales would be right there extending the right hand of fellowship while citing John 21. I don’t know about you, but this type of thing would certainly give me pause if I were shelling out cash to be trained by the men running RBS. We’re not as far from Galatia as you might think.”
Mr. Gerety: “You’re not the first person to claim Clark is in hell. Thankfully that decision is not yours.”
You don’t know how thankful I am about this fact as well. Yet, I didn’t say that Clark was in hell. What I said was that, if he were really the man I understood you to be describing (which I don’t believe), then he would be in hell. And, at that point, I really wasn’t speaking on my own authority.
Mr. Gerety: “As Clark rightly noted, the difference between faith and saving faith are the propositions believed and not some additional element that is supposedly wrought in the person who believes.”
I think that the doctrine of infant baptism and the historical development of children’s confirmation that often arises to further the purposes of that baptism are responsible for such degraded thinking. Whether that is the case or not, I can only hope that you have described Dr. Clark carelessly… and, more importantly, I hope this is not a view you share.
Mr. Gerety: “These men are paralyzed and the philosophy of Van Til is to blame whether you, Gonzales or R.S. Clark are willing to admit it.”
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how driven by prejudicial interpretations. At any rate, I am no more ignorant than you of this controversy and have had lengthy discussions full of quotations from Van Til’s works with plenty of people who held the same view you’ve expressed. In the end, it hardly matters. By GOD’s grace and mercy, Van Til’s work is not canonical anymore than Clark’s or the Westminster Confession. What is most important is what people believe today and I doubt there are many out there given over so completely to Van Til’s ideas that they are as slavishly attached to them as you seem to fear. If they fall into any of his actual errors, it will be because they wanted to and they walked into them with open eyes… just as you prefer to fall into Clark’s for your own reasons.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:42 am
One other thing… I thank you for the book recommendation. I will read Dr. Clark’s work, as you suggest, because I would really like to know whether I have misconstrued him as a brother in Christ.
June 20th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Tony:
let me rephrase your last comment in this meta:
“I don’t care even if you show that my interpretation of Bunyan is wrong; it is irrelevant, so EVEN if you can do so, please engage the Edwards quotes”
I think this prove my point on who is and who is not open to correction.
June 20th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Tony,
let me rehrase what you have said in your last comment:
“I do not care whether you can prove that my quotation of Bunyan is wrong; it is irrelevant, please engage my Edward quote now.”
I think your attitude is indeed very revealing, as I have mentioned here.
June 20th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Daniel,
Neither of your above comments deal with my Edwards quotes, as I expected. Put those “in context” for us please.
I just read the post on your blog and it’s only more accusations with an abundance of exclamation points. There is nothing there that deals with Edwards either. We look forward to your interpretation of the Edwards quotes.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:11 am
[...] had said this: Now that we have dealt with Bunyan, I am curious to see what you will do with the Jonathan Edwards [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 4:23 am
Tony:
the response seems to take on a life of its own, but the first installment is already in, here. The full response should be done hopefully by tomorrow.
June 27th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hi Honey,
I just read some things by D.A. Carson that I thought were helpful to this discussion:
“(Sometimes) we leave precious little scope for mystery, awe, unknowns…It becomes important, then, to decide just where the mysteries and the certainties are. Christianity that is nothing but certainties quickly becomes haughty and arrogant, rigid and unbending…Conversely, Christianity that is nothing but mystery leaves nothing to proclaim, and makes faith indistinguishable from blind credulity.” (Carson, How Long, O Lord?)
May God continue to help you find the balance!
I love you and thank God for you!
Your wife
June 27th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I appreciate Mrs. Gonzales’ encouragement of balance. It is refreshing, yet it is a most curious statement by Carson that she chose… I wonder, would Carson say that “Christianity” in the mouth of Paul or Christ became “haughty and arrogant, rigid and unbending” because the faith they expressed was founded in clear “certainties”? Will we be full of such gross hypocrisies as these when we are glorified because we no longer experience doubt and ignorance, confusion and ambiguous tensions?
If not, then why suggest that a faith with “nothing but certainties” necessarily leads to such serious vices? Doesn’t the testimony of Scripture that knowledge without love is nothing necessarily imply that there is such a thing as knowledge coupled with love? And does it follow that knowledge necessarily breeds a loveless Christian? I know our Christ did not require a little “mystery” to keep Him from the sin of pride.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Benjamin,
The citation my wife posted was culled from Donald Carson’s How Long, Oh Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil (p. 27). The book provides a biblical study on the subject of evil and misery along with a compatibilist theodicy (on a more popular level).
You seem somewhat troubled by Carson’s remarks, particular when he says, “Christianity that is nothing but certainties quickly becomes haughty and arrogant, rigid and unbending.” I’m not certain why you’re stumbling over Carson’s comment, except perhaps that you don’t see it in the larger context.
(1) In context, Carson is referring to a “Christianity” that claims to have “all the answers” to God’s dark Providences in this life. In other words, he’s referring to a view that disdains ascribing any degree or kind of “mystery” to God’s providence.
(2) Carson’s aim is not to laud ignorance but to promote humility–such as befits a mere creature (Rom. 11:33-36). Indeed, we will never–not even in heaven–comprehend God’s ways fully. Accordingly, our understanding and explanation of God’s ways will never exceed that which he sees fit to reveal (Deut. 29:29).
(3) In case you’re worried, Carson clearly doesn’t promote anything close to an existential, neo-orthodox, or postmodern epistemology. Note his counterpoint: “Christianity that is nothing but mystery leaves nothing to proclaim, and makes faith indistinguishable from blind credulity.” Read also his excellent critique of postmodern thought in The Gagging of God: Christianity Confronts Pluralism.
Hope this helps to clarify.
Blessings,
Bob Gonzales
June 28th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Daniel,
I just browsed through your “first installment” and there is nothing there that interacts with the bulk of my Bunyan quotes above. More importantly, your “first installment” has absolutely nothing dealing with the important quotes by Jonathan Edwards above. We look forward to you putting those quotes “in context” for us. Frankly, there’s nothing in your “first installment” that prompts me to interact with it, since it doesn’t put Bunyan in context for us and it is utterly silent on Edwards. If you’re virtually going to write a research paper as a response [and put it on your own blog], with footnotes and all, then at least deal with the extensive sources quoted above. For instance, I quoted from Bunyan at length and made the following inferences from the citation:
Are these inferences correct based on what is said in the quote by Bunyan? If not, why not? Do these inferences, assuming they are correct, argue for God giving well-meant offers to them? Or that God is giving ill-meant offers to them? Certainly God is not giving non-meant offers to them. So which is it, according to Bunyan? These are the things we want to know. All else constitutes a red herring. We also want to know the same things about the Edwards quotes. Engage the sources themselves, since you claim you can inform us as to their proper “context.” Please try to do that in your next or complete “installment.”
Tony
June 28th, 2009 at 7:58 am
Obviously, in my inferences from Bunyan, “should his love and died for them” is meant to say “showed his love and died for them.”
June 28th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Here’s another way of stating my inferences from Bunyan:
According to Bunyan’s address to unregenerate sinners, Christ “their Saviour” so “weeps” and is so “afflicted” to “lose their souls” and to “see them going to destruction” that “he shows his love” by “dying for them” and “offers” them “His grace and favour.” If that is not a well-meant offer, then nothing is.
How are these inferences wrong based on the Bunyan quote I provided [not on your own systematic assumptions]?
June 28th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Tony:
I have finished my article refuting your Neo-Amyraldian theology as well as your misquotation of Bunyan. It can be found here.
As for the Edwards quotes, I don’t see the need to interact with them. You have yet to prove that your methodology is logically valid, and I have devoted a substantial amount of space in my paper to show why your entire methodology of quote-mining is logically invalid. Even then, assuming it is valid, I am using the form of modus tollens [(p < q), ~q < ~p], using the example of Jonh Bunyan as an example, to disprove your ability to interpret sources correctly in context. Only ONE negative example is needed, and I provide at least this one example. Logically therefore, even if your methodology is valid (which it is not), the example of John Bunyan would be sufficient to discredit your quote-mining ability.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
As to why your quote of Bunyan is wrong, it is wrong because it commits the fallacy of affirming the consequence.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
As to why your quote of Bunyan is wrong, it is wrong because it commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent
June 28th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Dr. Gonzales… I’m sorry I wasn’t very clear, brother. I was passing along, checking our discussion on another post, and noticed your wife’s remark and thought it would be interesting to see her contribution. She had posted the quotation as relevant to this discussion where an appeal to mystery had been made, but I understand that Carson was following quite a different agenda in that passage.
I wasn’t “troubled” by his remark at all, just curious where a more superficial sense of it might lead, quoted here as it was, and began to ponder some of the implications of its suggestive surface out loud. I did not seriously believe he embraced such a conclusion. At most, he might have made use of an incautious phrasing, so there’s no need to defend him. I’ve profited from Dr. Carson’s work in the past, particularly his book on exegetical fallacies, and I know he’s not postmodern.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:37 am
[...] to those commands. See a survey of Reformed comment here. Gonzales has dealt with this argument here. After this comes the section on illogic, and here we see the usual anti-paradox rationalism. [...]
June 30th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
[...] willing to save” or what Tony meant by “common salvific grace,” I defer to Tony’s analysis here. It is not my aim here to cover all that, but to merely show how Mr Chew’s reading Bunyan in [...]
July 1st, 2009 at 5:10 am
As the reader can see by the links above, David has adequately responded to Chew on Bunyan. It does not surprise me that Chew didn’t want to touch the Edwards quotes above at all, but it would have been entertaining [among other things] to see him try. He won’t do it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 am
To anyone who is still interested in Byrne’s interpretation of John Bunyan, I invite you to read for yourself David Ponter’s interpretation and my interpretation, and ask yourself this question: Who is it that interprets the text according to its own context, and allow Bunyan to speak for himself? Is reading in context equals
1) Coming up with a certain interpretation of the middle section of Bunyan’s article, then categorically state that this particular interpretation of the passage in the middle of the article is the key to understanding the entire article by Bunyan?
or
2) Start at the beginning of Bunyan’s article, understanding Bunyan’s manner and terminologies, and then follow the flow of Bunyan’s thoughts from beginning to end?