I've been extremely busy of late with work travelling to/from HI or Tampa, FL for a month and a half. I wondered if this would come up on the Puritan Board and then heard James talking about it.
As an admission, I've listened to James White for about 16 years. I think I've listened to very podcast as it's in my workout list. I obviously disagree with him on a lot of things (I'm no antipaedobaptist and think he's a little too focused on some things) but I also have the benefit of hearing a body of work and the assets and liabilities of a man's work.
It's for that reason that I agree with James White but don't agree with some of the ways he critiques the issue.
On the positive side of a "Christian tradition" I think the 20th Century especially saw a lot of departure from well-work Doctrines of God that defined the basic "catholic faith". Those departures include some Reformed Systematic Theologians.
When the Eternal Functional Subordination controversy reared its head I was on the side of the theology and metaphysics of the catholic faith.
That said, I wasn't on its side simply because it is the "tradition". Vic pointed out that the LBCF decided to edit out the notion of GNC. In one sense, the Baptist tradition has less of a term to stand on confessionally than the Reformed notion of GNC.
I do think that the problem that White is poor identifying is that men are essentially saying: "You need to either agree with Thomism or you are departing fro the catholic tradition." There may be some truth to that but that is a very poor way to preserve the catholic tradition.
Men have (and continue to) demonstrate both an exegetical AND a GNC derivation of these essential catholic truths. There is a lot of sloppiness and laziness of men enamored with Thomistic ideas who aren't willing to connect those ideas to the GNC logic of it all. It's just a lazy accusation that the men who wrote the LBCF adopted these categories and, if White doesn't adopt them, then he's departing from his Confession.
Now, White could maybe demand something more but he's also got men who have otherwise been his allies for many years suddenly mocking his call for Sola Scriptura.
White has even said: "Hey, I can get along with people who are saying let's be careful about what we say regarding ad intra versus ad extra ideas." Thus, he's willing to live with those who might see that certain things are more dangerous than others.
But the reality is that nobody is cutting either any slack on this. Either one accepts Thomism or you're just a yokel and White is asking men to put up some exegesis (and I imagine he might be willing to hear some GNC) but all he gets sort of an idea that you have to do hermeneutics according to the great tradition and that it demands Christian Platonism.
In one sense, one could argue that, until every critic of James White listens to everything he has ever said or written on theological matters then they have no business in criticizing him about what he says or refuses to say because, in the balance, he is not trying to put forward a systematic or dogmatic theology that denies essential Christian categories. He might be more sloppy than some prefer for a popularizer and Apologist but, in the main, he's trying to get men to agree with their own Confession that every doctrine needs to either be expressly or neceessarily derived from Scripture. That's not an unreasonable requirement.
Why do I say that a criticizer has to read everything James writes? Because getting your arms around the Christian tradition on these difficult metaphysical things is not any easier. Most of us operate with enough knowledge of theology and history to trust the fences as we see the consequences of those who have historically colored outside the lines. Few of us have studied Church history and how they derived principles from Scripture and used metaphysical language to preserve those ideas to box out those who denied the full divinity of the Son and the Spirit. It's "easy" to just quote something from Aquinas about God's attributes having no distinction ad intra but that ought to be a matter of sublime reflection rather than some sort of prideful bludgeon that we think we can use as if we understand it given our creaturely capacity.
And, for all his faults, White has great assets and he is correct in warning people not to become too enamored with someone and do the work of demonstrating that the "catholic tradition" they are extolling can be properly teased out so as not to embrace all the things that Thomas otherwise "proved" that we might rightly reject. That requires hard work and not Twitter threads from men too young and too inexperienced to have done all the hard work necessary. If they had then they'd be taking the time to explain how these ideas are GNC deductions rather than just mocking a man who has labored long without compromise.
White, as we all do, has feet of clay. He's confident in things he sometimes should not be but so are many of us with strong convictions. He's just not willing to become a Thomist fan boy because it's the "obvious" catholic hermeneutic. If White were a systematic theologian writing books that systematized and memorailized a clear departure then I could understand a scholarly critique. But he is not. He is an apologist and is willing to affirm what his Confession states and is even willing to grant to others the idea that they think we need to include all the necessary cautions about what divine simplicity necessarily implies. So, to those who think they have it figured out, do the GNC work if you think he's missing something and show the necessary connections. If it requires that all of Thomas be read and sorted through then that's not much of a solution.
Sorry about any typos due to my vision.
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