The fruit of the Federal Vision?
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RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
I.e. about:
4) Playing up paradox in theology, so that logical contradictions to the Confessions are a mark of truth: Van Til
5) Engaging in typically Arminian exegesis of Biblical passages to promote the contradiction and paradox: Van Til
6) Conflating faith and works: Van Til
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For 4 and 5 the best place to start is Herman Hoeksema's series of articles, I believe in The Standard Bearer, which were republished by the PRC seminary, and later brought back into print by the Trinity Foundation, The Clark-Van Til Controversy. This came out in the 1940s, I think, and while it gets started on the Clark business toward the end it it more concerned with Van Til and company and their paradox theology, and what Hoeksema argues is outright Arminianism. He also discuses their exegesis.
And of course various followers of extreme Schilderite views (i.e. taking some of his tendencies beyond what he ever said), of Shepherd, of the New Perspectives, etc. have invoked Van Til over the years when they were cornered with some argument that their views were logically contrary to the Confessions. Contradiction, they protest, is a good thing! So taught Van Til and they learned that at Westminster Seminary! Note that some Canadian Reformed people were arguing this way about the covenant views long before the Federal Vision reared its head.
As for 6, this is Van Til's own argument and sole point in defense of Shepherd at one of his examinations.
See: http://www.vantil.info/articles/cvt_shepherd.html
and note that Frame was in on this also.
"Here faith and works are identical. Not similar but identical. The work is faith; faith is work." Van Til's own words.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Van Til critqued some aspects of Schilder in *Common Grace and the Gospel.* So he can't be called an extreme Schilderite (not saying you said that, I am just distinguishing from the Schilderites and Van Til). I am not denying his defense of Shepherd, just throwing in a few pennies here and there.
Both Van Til and Clark were hopelessly out of touch and irrelevant by the 1950s, and unfortunately their views have been kept alive by various true believers and irresponsible institutions.
It is some Canadian Reformed people who combine the two. The Canadian Reformed appear to have taken some of Schilder's themes and run with them in a way that he did not. Schilder, for example, held to the Covenant of Works as basic to the Reformed structure of covenant theology, but the idea got around among some people who thought they were following him the he did not believe in the COW.
The strange ideas that have blossomed in the Canadian Reformed churches and the surprising parallels to various Klinite and Federal Vision ideas would make for discussion topics in themselves. I think there more to explore here on how odd covenant theologies develop once they become unhinged at one place or another.
Anyway, it is another of my opinions the Kuyper and his common grace (as the foundation of a theology of culture instead of the Covenant of Works) may have been the earliest source of this whole disturbance in covenant theology.
RamistThomist
Puritanboard Clerk
Would you make a causal connection between Van Til and Kline? Many Klineans today (see Robin's "connect the dots theology" on PB) are very critical of Van Til's biblical fervor: that christianity speaks to all of life. Most Van Tillians, similarly (Frame, Bahnsen, Rushdoony, North), were very critical of Kline. Yet Meredith Kline dedicated *The Structure of Biblical Authority* to Van Til.
javajedi
Puritan Board Freshman
Just to correct the statement I made above. The New Horizon articles do not mention Shepherd my name. Professer Venema does say this about Wright:
... he [Wright], like many New Perspective authors, rejects the idea that the justification of believers requires the imputation of Christ's righteousness.
I had just listened to some lectures by Venema from sermonaudio where he does mention this about Shepherd.
Hence my confusing the two.
I am not saying that there is a causal connection, merely that it is another thing that came along and got into the mix.
There is a great chapter on all these developments in Jorge Ruiz's doctoral dissertation, but I have not worked through it properly myself, partly because Amazon doesn't seem to manage to send me the French dictionary I ordered last fall.
North and other Reconstructionists were critical of Kline's arguments against Bahnsen's theolomy, but used his covenant treaty stuff (or rather Mendenhal's which somehow Kline gets credit for). Also at this time Jordan was going around recommending Kline's books, Images of the Spirit especially. Jordan and Bahnsen did not agree at all on hermeneutics, especially regarding this so-called interprative maximalism.
Robins, by the way, was lined up to supply one of the books in North's Biblical Blueprints for Christian Reconstruction series, but his manuscript was turned down. (The job then went to Jordan, and his book got rejected, too!) Robins loves to print stuff by the monocovenantal Protestant Reformed people, who in turn are cited by Jordan as authorities for his ideas!
So this business doesn't come down to who is pals and who is feudin'. It is more a matter of the Federal Vision assembling the worst of the oddball ideas in play in a way that made a new system. They are not done yet either. There are too many incoherencies remaining and something has got to give sooner or later. For example, two different and incompatible ideas of what a covenant is.
Outside of the PCA and OPC where the FV people have to circle the wagons and fight as a team, I don't they they would hold together as a coherent movement.
ChristianTrader
Puritan Board Graduate
I lean towards thinking that Mr. Wilder is quite wrong about Van Til but he is definitely not a Clarkian.
CT
All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."
Theoretical
Puritan Board Professor
That's a great contrast! I would definitely appreciate at least a glossary of what they are trying to say, that they themselves write.All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."
NO joke !! I just can't stand reading any more about their positions, when as soon as you think you know (or read) how they define a term, or doctrine,.. no,.. no,.. no,.. you have to back up and get another nuance from some other book or article, or your misinterpreting the whole thing. Come on, give me a break! I didn't have this much trouble in High School with trying to understand the nuances in poetry.
Agreed John. I've been musing about this very subject. In the recent thread about the historic use of the term conditional election, it was very easy to understand how Owen used the term. People might initially recoil at the term if it has fallen out of common usage today but, after reading him, we know he's not talking the way the FV movement is.
I had posted the interaction that Rev. Winzer had on this subject with some of us on one of the FV blogs. Rev. Winzer was explaining that the term was historically Reformed. They liked that part. What they didn't like was when he concluded, from the FV's own writings, that they were applying the benefits of the truly elect to the conditionally elect. He was useful as a tool to obscure, temporarily, that they're teaching heterodoxy. "Look," they could cry, "conditional election is a Reformed term!" Rev. Winzer was amused that they were quoting him because in the same context he was condemning their teaching.
Why can't they just define what they mean by conditional election. They just talk about it having a sense to it like real election. Maybe it's not Diet Pepsi where there are no calories but it's like Pepsi One with 1 calorie.
What I find so dreadful about their tactics is precisely what you point out: they won't simply define their terms. They acknowledge they are not like Owen so where do they stand on that term?
Personally, I don't think they want to answer the question. It is much easier for them to simply keep saying: "Nope that's not it either."
By the way, did we meet when I visited TX in December?
I had posted the interaction that Rev. Winzer had on this subject with some of us on one of the FV blogs. Rev. Winzer was explaining that the term was historically Reformed. They liked that part. What they didn't like was when he concluded, from the FV's own writings, that they were applying the benefits of the truly elect to the conditionally elect. He was useful as a tool to obscure, temporarily, that they're teaching heterodoxy. "Look," they could cry, "conditional election is a Reformed term!" Rev. Winzer was amused that they were quoting him because in the same context he was condemning their teaching.
Why can't they just define what they mean by conditional election. They just talk about it having a sense to it like real election. Maybe it's not Diet Pepsi where there are no calories but it's like Pepsi One with 1 calorie.
What I find so dreadful about their tactics is precisely what you point out: they won't simply define their terms. They acknowledge they are not like Owen so where do they stand on that term?
Personally, I don't think they want to answer the question. It is much easier for them to simply keep saying: "Nope that's not it either."
By the way, did we meet when I visited TX in December?
First, I love the Pepsi analogy ! I'm a big fan of analogies and illustrations. Second. Yes, I do believe we did meet back in Dec. I'd post a pic so you can put a face with the name, but I'm still quibbling with how that works. haha.
This has been my argument from the beginning! If they have something so important to add, define it, so everyone can incorporate it into theological discussion in a sound way. It makes almost every discussion about FV or NPP fruitless and very unedifying, because it has no hope of leaving you with a clear and solid standing on just what the position is. Too much sleight of hand, or rather, sleight of nuances. So I’ll wait for the Theological Dictionary to come out.
All methodologies aside, I'd be very happy to see (but never will) the FV guys and the NPP guys come out with their own Theological Dictionaries, so all the "quibbling" over words, and nuances can stop. It’s getting really annoying to keep reading about who is calling who a liar, based off of reading the wrong books, by their authors, the wrong way. Luther at least looked over his works, and answered "Here I stand, I can do no other, God help me."
Very true.
Notice, however, that this is not true just of these people, but of the Emergents and others. This is the contemporary mind.
So what we are facing in a larger shift. In the era in which the Confessions were written there was a match between the way people were trained to think by their educations and the way they expressed ideas in the Confessions. That is no longer the case. The way of thinking of the Confessions does not fit the culture. People are inclined to think that the problem is the Confessions, that there is something culture-bound and wrong about them.
I think that is the larger problem, and that it explains some other things, such as why their is such an affinity between some of the FV people and the Emergents and groups like that.
First, as an aside, the link to the Jordan essay that started off this topic is now dead. Wonder why. http://www.puritanboard.com/images/smilies/smug.gif
Let's think, however, why the Theological Dictionary or Systematic Theology is unlikely to come from them.
1) The FV method is to use Confessional language, or when that is not available, some statement from an unimpeachable old Reformed theologian to mouth their own ideas through. In other words, they have employed deception from the beginning, and a switch to clarity would be a revolution for them.
2) I have noticed that FV, NPP and Shepherd people claim to pull off great improvements of clarifications in one part of theology, when what they have done is to move all the problems to a different area of theology that they are not dealing with. This is not possible while engaging in clarity and systematic thought.
3) A large amount of self-deception is involved on the part of some of the FV people. Their very commitment requires that they not think clearly.
4) There are a variety of incoherent elements in the FV theology. I think the most striking is the use of a Schilder type of idea of covenant, as membership in the visible church, which is public, formal, judicial (consisting of being entered into the church records by the elders upon baptism) and external, and another idea of covenant, a la Ralph Smith, that is relational, mystical and hidden, consisting of participation in the divine life of the Trinity.
5) There are also cultural, or sociological divisions in the FV. There are those who were educated in seminaries, especially in the older days, who were initiated early into the ideas of Van Til, and who have a background in Christian Reconstruction, and there are those who were educated in universities, were initiated into deconstruction and post-modernism, and feel attracted to the Emergents.
What holds the FV together may be that they are a subculture within Presbyterianism, and that gives them a common identity based on us vs. them sort of thinking. Put them outside the Presbyterian churches, and this sense of common identity and ties would be much diminished, the FV people would go their separate ways ecclesiastically and theologically.
wsw201
Puritan Board Senior
I'm not going to hold my breath for the FV Dictionary either or any formal systematic. These folks don't like being restricted to the definitions and terminology of the Standards (though many of these men have vowed to adopt and receive these Standards as their own confession of what the Scriptures faithfully teach), so why would they ever want to restrict themselves to any type of formal dictionary or system of thought? It's a lot more stimulating to be cutting edge and playing "Reformed Theologian" bingo.
Going back to the Bible; not being restricted by man made confessions that don't cover enough of what the Scriptures actually teach, is really nothing new. These type of attacks on the Reformed Church have been going on for centuries. Old Side / New Side, Old School / New School, and the various other "movements" such as the rise of Arminianism and liberalism. Now its FV and NPP. How many times will the Church ignore its own history?
Going back to the Bible; not being restricted by man made confessions that don't cover enough of what the Scriptures actually teach, is really nothing new. These type of attacks on the Reformed Church have been going on for centuries. Old Side / New Side, Old School / New School, and the various other "movements" such as the rise of Arminianism and liberalism. Now its FV and NPP. How many times will the Church ignore its own history?
FYI. While the link given for the Jordan article is not working, I have been informed the article is in print in the January 2007 issue of Biblical Horizons.
Really, is there a link to it on-line?
This thread has been linked on a blog which is why the view count is so big.
http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh....html#5913589043366360887#5913589043366360887
It's the February 21, 2007 post.
This thread has been linked on a blog which is why the view count is so big.
http://mysite.verizon.net/~vze2tmhh....html#5913589043366360887#5913589043366360887
It's the February 21, 2007 post.
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