Norman Shepherd on the OPC report.

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As one of my students noted to me, Doug Wilson has recently (on his blog) come out in favor of the active obedience of Chirst (he cites the gospel of Matthew as his primary inspiration). It's okay to deny it, he says, but if you do you're really missing out on great stuff. This is an improvement, but it makes it a second blessing for the Illuminati.

The rest of them (e.g., Lusk, Barach and Jordan), at the moment of this post (6:37 AM Pacific) still reject the imputation of the active obedience of Christ.

On union, it's only suggestive, but I did post some distinctions on some threat recently. There's a bit from Witsius who speaks about union in 3-4 different ways. I find those distinctions quite helpful.

I don't recall what Wilson said about faith, but for most of them anyway have us united to Christ through baptism.

Union is quite important to our theology, but it isn't faith. WCF 11.1 and HC 21 don't substitute union for faith. Baptism is very important, but it isn't faith. Only faith is the instrument in the act of justification.

It's good to see Doug moving toward orthodoxy on this point, but caution is in order. If his theological movements were a car on a freeway, he would probably be pulled over for a sobriety test.

rsc
 
Originally posted by tewilder
Originally posted by Contra_MundumBut the larger question is: Why are we merging catgories? What is to be gained by failing to distinguish between things that differ?
...
... But this is again a failure to distinguish.
Well, the FV would say that they are not merging categories or failing to distinguish things that differ. They would say that you are reifying artificial scholastic distinctions.
And every time they utter post-modern jargon like this, they visibly distinguish themselves from the Confessional church, with its doctrinal definitions. Rev. Winzer's comment about "spiritual men" is relevant. So I say: "Blab away." Either the denominations will spew them out, or us.

Abolishing distinctions ("real" or otherwise) means no more particulars, which means nothing left to say. So who says they get to say which ones are "artificial"? Them?
The lastest FV line is that we are united to to Christ and so everything about Christ is imputed to us, including his life, and his obdience, and his righteousness.

What this unon is always remains mysterious, and I doubt that they could explain themselves, but does that make them usual? (I have heard about union with Christ all my life, but no one has yet told me what he means by it.)
My post was addressed specifically to Ruben's query, so "the latest FV line" really isn't to the point (re. justification by faith). As many analysts have pointed out, FV is nothing if not amorphous. I am willing to accept you have and are reading their latest material, and are the better informed. Their doctrine of union, however, is tangled up in their sacramentalism.

As for your understanding "union with Christ," have you studied the WSC? Q. 30 uses the term explicitly, and the whole discussion in the Confession (chs. 8-18) on our salvation is suffused with the dosctrine. Do you own a reformed Systematic Theology text? I'm not saying UwC is something easily grasped, but it is not beyond us. Scripturally, the term "in Christ" is a key phrase. It is a doctrine that is best understood by reflection and meditation. Our appreciation for it grows as we grow in the faith, because as time goes by, our living "in Christ" itself creates a ever deepening context for our awareness and intellectual penetration.
So while the standard theology thinks in legal covenantal terms, as such, so that when we think with reference to meeting the requirements of the Covenant of Works we speak of Active Obedience, and when we think of sin and its penalty we think of passive obedience, the FV thinks of union with God. Then if you want to describe that in various aspects, these are just subsequent analytical distinctions for the sake of descriptive detail about one reality.
This is a language game, a smoke-screen. Even orthodox theologians acknowledge that there is a unity to God's decree. We can all "boil down" theology to an essential stew if we want. However, the Bible our source, does not say just one thing on every page. The Bible is full of particulars. The accusation that the WCF, and "standard theology" generally, is just imposing artificial analytical distinctions to show detail is self-serving. (Especially when these guys turn right around and use terms--sometimes the very same--to describe what they themselves wish to talk about.) The Bible itself gives us pieces of the whole so that we can analyze and synthesize. That is our creaturely lot.

Recall also all the abstract propositions that they have uttered against abstract propositions, and how they love narratives and post-modern theories of meaning.

The FV is not just twiddling with a few doctrines.
Again, my purpose was to answer Ruben more precisely than this scatter-shot (and more philosophical) assessment of FV as a movement. Dr. RSC has already alluded to the wide-ranging nature of the analysis necessary for a full-spectrum critique of the movement.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
If his theological movements were a car on a freeway, he would probably be pulled over for a sobriety test.

rsc

This is going in my quote book. One of the better polemical ones i've ever heard. Doug Wilson would be proud of ya! ;):lol:
 
Thanks, Mr. Winzer & Bruce (--and Bruce, you are always welcome to comment on anything you see fit: your posts are often helpful to me).

I understand what you are saying. I guess it depends on what question is being asked whether it is a problem or not. For instance, over against a "decisional regeneration" sort of person we might all insist that saving faith is obedient --not because the obedience is in any way the ground or instrument of justification, but because a true faith is never alone. But over against a romanist, obviously, we would emphasize that it is faith alone that is the instrument of justification.
 
Originally posted by crhoades
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
If his theological movements were a car on a freeway, he would probably be pulled over for a sobriety test.

rsc

This is going in my quote book. One of the better polemical ones i've ever heard. Doug Wilson would be proud of ya! ;):lol:

I have to admit, that was funny.
 
Originally posted by turmeric


So they do believe in Christ's active obedience?

Now they do. Defined their own way.

Mark Horne recently noticed that Jesus is the new Israel. As new Israel, Jesus fulfills the covenents with Israel. But, that turns out to be active obedience. As we are incorporated in Christ this active obedience is imputed to us.

So, now he sees that he believes in the imputation of active obedience in a covenantal sense. The big danger here is that Horne may begin to see as well the point of the Covenant of Works, and then he could tumble into orthodoxy and the Federal Vision will have lost one of their spokesmen.
 
Originally posted by R. Scott Clark
I don't recall what Wilson said about faith, but for most of them anyway have us united to Christ through baptism.

Here's Wilson on faith:

Now this fides salvifica does not cause obedience in the way that a billiard ball striking another one causes it to move. It is not mechanical. Rather, it brings about obedience organically, the way life in a body causes that body to breathe. As a body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead (Jas. 2:26). This is why saving faith necessarily lives and acts. One of the principal acts performed by such saving faith is the act of trusting in Christ alone for both justification and sanctification.

Think of it this way. Saving faith is a mother who always bears twins"”"”justification and sanctification, in that order"”"”so that we can see easily that when justification is born, his mother does not die, but rather brings his younger brother obedience into the world. But we cannot forget an important part of the illustration. The "œ"œmother"""”"”faith"”"”is trusting and obedient in how she gives birth. Saving faith is the alone trusting instrument of justification, and, immediately following, that same saving faith the alone trusting instrument of sanctification, and reveals itself always as a faith working through love. Saving faith that does not trust and obey is a saving faith that does not exist. We never have raw faith without trust, and then, a moment later, trust arrives.

As mentioned earlier, the historic Protestant understanding of fides salvifica sees it as consisting of an inseparable unity of assensus, notitia, and fiducia . It is the essential nature of fiducia to trust gladly in everything that God has spoken in His Word"”"”whether law or gospel, Old or New Testaments, poems or prose, odd-numbered pages or even. This means that fides salvifica is related to ongoing fidelity, trust or obedience in the same way that a body is related to breathing. Without a body, there is nothing to breathe with. Without breathing, there is something that needs to be buried.

Fides salvifica receives all of Scripture as good news from a gracious God. In a general sense, all is gospel. But the Scripture does contain what might be called the Gospel proper, the good news of Christ´´s death, burial, and resurrection. This is why the Protestant scholastics also said that there was a fides evangelica that specifically trusts in the revelation that God gives to us in the gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the faith exhibited when someone hears the gospel preached.

Notice, a faith that saves "is related to ongoing fidelity, trust or obedience in the same way that a body is related to breathing." I can hardly think of any clearer expression of salvation by faith and works. Notice too how Wilson disparages simple belief; "We never have raw faith without trust, and then, a moment later, trust arrives." For Wilson faith is doing and it's our doing through faith that saves us. This is Romanism.

And, another from Wilson that will warm Dr. Clark's heart ;)



Faith Unplugged
Topic: Auburn Avenue Stuff

I guess I should be pleased that I caught up with Peter Leithart. The April edition of The Trinity Review is a chapter from a book called Not Reformed At All, which presents itself as a response to my "Reformed" is Not Enough. I am tempted to write another book entitled And Both Are Too Much.

One striking thing about this piece is the repeated use of the phrase "justification by belief" (instead of "justification by faith") This highlights, as I suppose, the, um, heterodox Clarkian approach that wants us to be justified by assent to propositions.

So then, we are living in a time when assensus can be severed from fiducia, and the fiducia thrown away like it was a wrapper, and this can be done in the name of a defense of Reformed orthodoxy! Maybe LaHaye and Jenkins are right and it is the last days.

You have to be impressed by this clever slight of hand. Belief and faith are the English derivatives taken from the Greek and Latin translations of the same Greek word; pistis. Yet, in Wilson's theology faith and belief are different animals entirely, as should be evident from his discussion of faith above. Keep that in mind next time Wilson or one of his cohorts insist that we are saved by faith and even faith alone. Wilson denies salvation by mere (what he calls "raw") belief alone and he even avoids the tautological use of the traditional definition of faith in the process. He has a very clear purpose for the fiducial aspect of faith and that has to do with our own "ongoing fidelity" that saves us. Touche'.

[Edited on 9-15-2006 by Magma2]
 
[quote
It's good to see Doug moving toward orthodoxy on this point, but caution is in order. If his theological movements were a car on a freeway, he would probably be pulled over for a sobriety test.

rsc [/quote]

Too funny!:lol:
 
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