timfost
Puritan Board Senior
I know that conversations on atonement can evoke strong opinions, so I’m hoping that my question can remain focused. I would like to ask/discuss how a strict particularist view of the atonement is reconciled with contingency and second causes (WCF 3.1).
Fesko writes in his Theology of the Westminster Standards:
He continues to set up the views that were represented in the formulation of the Westminster Standards:
He also explains:
Having set up the foundation that the Standards allow for views other than strict particularism, I would like to understand the following question. (For the sake of full disclosure, I do not advocate strict particularism, but am trying to understand it.)
Question
How does strict particularism reconcile contingency (hypothetical necessity, WCF 3.1) without acknowledging that Christ in some way died for every person sufficiently? In strict particularism, even the hypothetical belief of the non-elect would not save them since there is no sacrifice available for them, correct? I can’t figure out how the standards from a particularist perspective reconcile this without Edwards’s later denial of contingency in favor of philosophical necessity.
Thanks in advance for your help. Again, I’m hoping that this discussion can stay focused. I’m asking the question sincerely and do not intend to defend my understanding of Christ’s satisfaction in this post. I simply want to understand the answer to this question from a particularist view.
(Thank you, Rev. Winzer, for the book recommendation! It's been very thought provoking.)
Fesko writes in his Theology of the Westminster Standards:
[F]ew early modern Reformed theologians saw themselves as the disciples of Calvin or as Calvinists. The term Calvinist was originally created as a term of derision in an effort by the opponents of the Reformed churches to isolate and brand them as sectarian. Hence , if read through the alien grid of the TULIP, early modern views are distorted, and fine nuances that were once carefully argued are lost with the ham-fisted separation between five-point and four-point Calvinism, as if Calvin were the standard and taught a strict doctrine of limited atonement, and all other views fall under the category of universal atonement. Consequently, it is necessary, first, to briefly set out the various views on the extent of the satisfaction of Christ and then, second, to determine to what extent the Standards accommodate these views, if at all.
He continues to set up the views that were represented in the formulation of the Westminster Standards:
[T]hree of the four views were represented at the assembly (e.g., hypothetical universalism, sufficient-efficient, and strict particularism).
He also explains:
These points in the Confession do not specifically advocate hypothetical universalism. In fact, the Standards lean in the direction of strict particularism, given the absence of the sufficiency-efficiency distinction. But neither are they written in such a manner as to preclude or proscribe hypothetical universalism.
Having set up the foundation that the Standards allow for views other than strict particularism, I would like to understand the following question. (For the sake of full disclosure, I do not advocate strict particularism, but am trying to understand it.)
Question
How does strict particularism reconcile contingency (hypothetical necessity, WCF 3.1) without acknowledging that Christ in some way died for every person sufficiently? In strict particularism, even the hypothetical belief of the non-elect would not save them since there is no sacrifice available for them, correct? I can’t figure out how the standards from a particularist perspective reconcile this without Edwards’s later denial of contingency in favor of philosophical necessity.
Thanks in advance for your help. Again, I’m hoping that this discussion can stay focused. I’m asking the question sincerely and do not intend to defend my understanding of Christ’s satisfaction in this post. I simply want to understand the answer to this question from a particularist view.
(Thank you, Rev. Winzer, for the book recommendation! It's been very thought provoking.)
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