Posted by Mark
on August 17, 2009
Small Posts /
5 Comments
Over at Michael Bird’s blog, he’s doing a three view interview about the atonement. Ben Witherington III takes the Arminian line, Michael Jensen takes the Amyraldian line, and Paul Helm takes the Calvinist line.
It’s an interesting few short posts. Michael Jensen has a go at John Owen for his Calvinism (it would be interesting to see what Carl Trueman or perhaps even John Webster thinks on this issue), Paul Helm brings up the pesky Trinitarian problem for those Amyraldians, and Ben Witherington focuses on the love of God.
What’s interesting is that each person takes their position to be the biblical position! So, interestingly enough the texts of Scripture can be used to argue each position. Perhaps another question worth asking is, which position is internally consistent and comes from the text. If, we let Scripture interpret Scripture and find coherent results, then that is the best option. To my mind, the Amyraldian (eg, one of the many problems: isn’t unbelief itself a sin Michael? Mark 9:24, Rom 4:20… And if so, then hasn’t Christ died for that sin?? Therefore shouldn’t all be saved despite their unbelief?) isn’t internally consistent over against the Calvinist position which is, and the Arminian position simply denies the sovereignty of God over man.
So, even though I reckon Michael’s a nice guy and a good lecturer at my own college, I’m siding with Paul Helm on this one! 
Sorry Mike, but I think there are too many problems with the Amyraldian system of soteriology!
Tags: amyraldianism, arminianism, atonement, calvinism
Posted by Mark
on April 16, 2009
Uncategorized /
8 Comments
There’s a certain slipperiness and jelly-like quality to what’s being called The New Calvinism. Terms like Reformed and Calvinist are wobbling around like they’ve been served up for dessert. But is this a bad thing?
Well it seems that with the growth in the Young, Restless and Reformed types, there’s an umbrella-like movement rising with seismic results – just ask Time magazine. Embracing Baptists, Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed types, other traditions, and even Anglicans (yep, that’s me) – this movement seems to have a fairly large theological scope. The main bounds are the 5 points of Calvinism (Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistable Grace, and Perserverance of the Saints). So, the main ingredients are the same for these types, but it wobbles around a bit depending on things like baptism etc.
Others, like R. Scott Clark, have preferred the more stable dessert of Calvinism. It’s a solid jelly (and no, I wouldn’t go as far as to say a frozen chosen jelly!), a one size and colour fits all jelly. In the above-linked article, Clark says:
“If Mark Driscoll presented himself for membership in St Peter’s in Calvin’s Geneva, he would have been rejected. Why? He doesn’t believe the faith confessed by the church. He would have been rejected by the consistories and synods in the Netherlands, France, and by the sessions in Scotland. They would not have recognized his confession as Reformed.
The ugly truth is that too many Reformed folk are too excited that a prominent leader in evangelicalism, someone with increasing visibility in the media, identifies himself as Reformed. Pastor Driscoll feels comfortable co-opting the adjective “Calvinist” because real Calvinists, those who actually believe and practice what Calvin believed and practiced, let him use it.“
So, should the New Calvinism be a hard or soft jelly? A wobbly, yet palatable dessert for many – or a harder and more refined treat? Or bluntly, must one go beyond TULIP and sign up to a certain bunch of confessions in order to use the word Calvinist or Reformed?
Personally, I like John Frame’s (as usualy, such a helpful and gracious theologian!) stance towards these sorts of issues:
“I look forward to the time when God will equip his church to write new confessions. The Reformed confessions of the 16th and 17th centuries are wonderful documents that have served the church well. But we need confessions that speak to the issues of our own time: abortion, postmodern ideology, egalitarianism, new spiritualities, ecumenism, the gifts of the Spirit, common grace, the precise role of the Mosaic law the status of non-Christian religions, the obligation of Christians to the poor, the nature of worship, biblical standards for missions and evangelism, and, indeed, the nature of confessional subscription. We need confessions also that can state the old Reformed and biblical doctrines in contemporary language and support those doctrines with the biblical scholarship that has developed over the last 400 years. Perhaps we are not ready yet to write new confessions, granted the spiritual immaturity of the contemporary church and the proliferation of denominational division. But if we are ever to reach the point at which new confessions can be written, we need to train pastors and teachers for the church who are able to develop doctrinal formulations from the Word of God itself. And we need to graduate students who understand that the 16th and 17th century confessions are not the final word, that there is much more that God calls us to say to the church and to the world.”
Perhaps we can settle for a slowly hardening jelly?
Tags: calvinism, driscoll, frame, heidelblog, reformed
