Quote:
Originally Posted by Civbert  Quote:
Originally Posted by SemperFideles JOwen,
You should have titled the thread: John Robbins Denounces Calvinism. | You know, I've heard this before. It came from defenders of FV. |
First, even a broken clock is correct two times a day. There is a certain irony that, in this thread, you would point to the FV. They were the first I thought of in consideration of your reckless handling of Confessional documents.
I think this post pretty much summed up for me your approach to Reformed orthodoxy:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Civbert Quote:
Originally Posted by SemperFideles Turretin on the eternal generation of the son {note: this took a LOT of work to format into bbcode so I hope you guys benefit from this}:
TWENTY-NINTH QUESTION - Was the Son of God begotten of the Father from eternity? We affirm.[list=I][*]This question will demonstrate his personal distinction from him, his ineffable and eternal generation.[*]The question is whether he was begotten of God from eternity, and whether he may be called Son on account of the secret and ineffable generation from the Father. This we affirm. | If it's ineffable there's no point in speaking about it. Ineffable means incapable of being expressed in words.
Turretin is going to take a while to digest. So far he seems much more obsure than Scripture. Phrases like "a generation made without time" seem inherently self-contradictory. How can somthing be made without time? While we are supposed to affirm that Chirst was not made, Turretin is saying Christ's was generated with a generation that is made without time. Now we have the generation of the generation of an eternal being. This is supposed to clear things up??!? |
I told you before that your epistemology does not allow for some answers to be satisfactory to you. What was very telling in the previous thread is that you are ignorant of the issue of Eternal Generation but your approach to the thread was to
assume first that Reymond's approach was the orthodox view because, after all, he is a source you
trust. You match in epistemology. In contrast, the whole Reformed faith leading up to Clark is under a cloud until it is re-worked according to a "proper" theology.
Reymond's statements for you,
a priori, were trustworthy while the man (Turretin) whose Systematic Theology was used for centuries as
the textbook was
a priori something you did not trust until you researched it more. Even Princeton utilized Turretin as the textbook until Hodge wrote his in close correspondence to the great work of this man. Your attitude: Eh, seems kind of speculative to me. Frankly, your dismissive attitude spoke volumes.
I appreciate these threads because it allows me to underline where you stand on this as it will happen any time a Clarkian merely
asserts that their view is the Confessional view. Why, of course it must be Confessional, a Clarkian just said it was Confessional.
You would never accept a secondary source that called Clark a rationalist to be proof enough for you. You would insist that Clark be able to speak for himself.
This is the strange irony of people who complain about others who twist things and then don't have the consistency in themselves when their sacred cow is being gored. I find it ironic, for instance, that Doug Wilson complains about liberals who treat the Constitution like a living document and insists that we read the Federalist Papers and the like but then gives quarter to a Wilkins who simply asserts that the WCF allows for his view or that the framers of the WCF were silent on it.
I simply haven't got the patience for this kind of duplicity. For somebody who gives such a seat to a reasonable approach to the Scriptures you don't have a very reasonable approach to men who are simply asserting that their view is the Confessional view. They don't appeal to any framers or any Puritans that agreed with them but, on the basis of language, they turn the WCF into a "living document", and you fall in line without critically examining their claims.
Now, you may conclude that the Reformers were wrong for having a non-Clarkian epistemology and definition of faith but, at that point, your are disagreeing with the Confession and you cannot appeal to the Confession for your view. You have to take an exception to it and say they are wrong. You can't simply equivocate on words and dishonestly assert the Confessions states what you believe.
This, Anthony, is very much what the FV does so if you think I sounded like an FV man simply because I stated the obvious about the Calvinistic understanding of faith then I have a hard time accepting that as a critical assessment considering your facile treatment of the issue of faith vis a vis the Confessions.
If you want to make a case that Robbins' view of faith is Confessional then build your case on primary source material. I simply do not find an article that does not interact with Reformed history to be credible for the argument.