Trinitarian Relationship/Covenant (concerning FV)

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Rev. Matthew Winzer: "I am not sundering, I am only distinguishing; whereas tewilder is conflating promise and condition."

There is a name for the conflation of promise and condition. Such a conflation is called a covenant. Now, who conflated these? Well, who was it that made a covenant with Adam, me or God? I say God made the Covenant of Works with Adam, and Winzer thinks I did it, for that is where the conflation is made.

MW: ""Merit" is your idea, not mine. I have nowhere said that faith merits salvation. I am using faith as an example of a non-meritorious condition in order to show you that the bare fact the covenant of works contained conditions did not make it meritorious."

So what is your point in dragging faith into the Covenant of Works?

MW: "Why have you shifted "faith" from the gospel to the covenant of works. My argument pertained to the gospel, not the covenant of works. It proves non-meritorious conditions. Hence your argument, that obedience as a condition in the covenant of works merits the reward, is null and void."

Because you did. Your argument is that faith is not meritorious, therefore the Covenant is Works has no merit.

"You assume that a fulfilled condition entails merit."

By definition. And furthermore, that is the point of creating a covenant. That is what God wanted. God <i>wanted</i> to bring about this legal/judicial/forensic/meritorius mode of relationship between God and man. It is, among other things, the precondition of the sheme of salvation, and the precondition of culture.

MW: "You agreed above that faith is a condition of the salvation offered in the gospel."

I said that faith is the instrumental ground, not the meritorious ground. I did not say the the Covenant of Grace had nothing to do with merit. On the contrary, it is about someone else meriting for us. Without the Covenant of Works being a meritorious covenant there would be no point to the Covenant of Grace.

The Covenant of Grace is made with Christ and those who are in Christ. It is about Christ being the substitute (for Adam) covenant head, so that his <i>merit</i> is accounted to those in him. If our faith took the place of Christ's meritorious obedience as the condition, making this to be a non-meritorious matter, then Norman Shepherd would be right.

But you refuse to distinguish between instruments and conditions because clarity would wreck your theology.

MW: "You agreed above that faith is a condition of the salvation offered in the gospel. You maintained above that faith is not meritorious. Hence, according to your own witness, you can allow for a non-meritorious condition."

This is a fallacious argument depending on amphiboly with the term "condition". You refuse to distinguish instruments from meritorius causes. But even if that part were valid you would still be wrong because the role of faith in the Covenant of Grace does not make the different covenant, the Covenant of Works, to be non-meritorious.

MW: "You cannot prove from Scripture or reason that if Adam had have fulfilled the condition of the covenant of works it would have "merited" the life God promised."

It <b>needs no proof</b>. For Adam to have fulfilled the condition of the covenant of works <b>means</b> that he <b>merited</b>, because that is the meaning of the word "merit". To merit is to be entitled to what is promised in a conditional promise by reason of having filled the conditions.
 
Originally posted by tewilder
There is a name for the conflation of promise and condition. Such a conflation is called a covenant. Now, who conflated these? Well, who was it that made a covenant with Adam, me or God? I say God made the Covenant of Works with Adam, and Winzer thinks I did it, for that is where the conflation is made.

I suppose the Roman Catholic could say there is a name for the conflation of justification and sanctification, called salvation. Who conflates these? None other than the Roman Catholic. Winzer says Mr. Wilder can't distinguish how different aspects of an entity function differently to produce a result.

MW: ""Merit" is your idea, not mine. I have nowhere said that faith merits salvation. I am using faith as an example of a non-meritorious condition in order to show you that the bare fact the covenant of works contained conditions did not make it meritorious."

So what is your point in dragging faith into the Covenant of Works?

I didn't drag it into it, Mr. Wilder, you did. I was showing a precedent in the way we think about covenant, that faith in the gospel is a nonmeritorious condition. Therefore there is no reason why a condition in the covenant of works should immediately be regarded as meritorious.

MW: "Why have you shifted "faith" from the gospel to the covenant of works. My argument pertained to the gospel, not the covenant of works. It proves non-meritorious conditions. Hence your argument, that obedience as a condition in the covenant of works merits the reward, is null and void."

Because you did. Your argument is that faith is not meritorious, therefore the Covenant is Works has no merit.

Perhaps you should go back and read what was actually written.

"You assume that a fulfilled condition entails merit."

By definition. And furthermore, that is the point of creating a covenant. That is what God wanted. God <i>wanted</i> to bring about this legal/judicial/forensic/meritorius mode of relationship between God and man. It is, among other things, the precondition of the sheme of salvation, and the precondition of culture.

Where is your Scriptural warrant for this? You assume that a condition must by definition be meritorious, but you have not provided any evidence to that effect. The fact that some conditions in covenants are meritorious does not mean that they all are. The fact that Christ "merited" salvation is something which He was able to do because He is the Lord from heaven. But Adam was of the earth, earthy.

MW: "You agreed above that faith is a condition of the salvation offered in the gospel."

I said that faith is the instrumental ground, not the meritorious ground. I did not say the the Covenant of Grace had nothing to do with merit. On the contrary, it is about someone else meriting for us. Without the Covenant of Works being a meritorious covenant there would be no point to the Covenant of Grace.

Faith is still a *ground* is it not, without which a man cannot be saved? The whole point, if you would be willing to listen, is that this ground IS non-meritorious. It is a non-meritorious condition. Hence there are conditions that are non-meritorious.

But you refuse to distinguish between instruments and conditions because clarity would wreck your theology.

It is rather the case that you refuse to acknowledge merely instrumental conditions.

A partial state of affairs -- the FV are charged with teaching contrary to the Confession (and rightly so), while their accusers teach contrary to the Confession by denying that faith is a condition and an instrument.

[Edited on 9-8-2006 by armourbearer]
 
ok, I have read everything and I still do not get it.

Can some please lay out an easy to understand (somewhat contradictory given FV) view of the Trinity and Covenant for FV. And then give the same view for Reformed Theologians and/or what I am supposed to believe...hehe!?!
 
<b>The Reformed View</b>

The covenant is something that God set up within the created order in order to bring about a reciprochal relationship of justice with conditions, rewards, pushishment, etc. in which God and man can have a relationship of an order that world not exist due to the creator/creature relationship alone.

Covenant is a legal instrument that sets of forensic situations as faithfulnes or unfaithfulness to the convenant is judged and pronounced.

This offends people because: 1) it is not pietististical and sanctimonious, or 2) it distinguishes too clearly between man and God in their status and responsibilities and therefore gets in the way of synergistic views of justification.

<b>The Federal Vision Vew</b>

The Federal Vision view is that convenant is a characteristic, or perhaps even the essence of the divine nature itself, and covenant is also a characteristic or even the essece of human nature as well due to being at least part of the <i>imago dei</i>. Thus covenant crosses the creator/creature boundaries and relates God and man naturally.

Covenant is a vital or a relational bond with God to which the legal and forensic is always secondary when it is there at all.

<b>Background</b>

For an introduction of the raise of the concept of convenant in scholastic thought (though with an emphasis on science) see:
Omnipotence and Promise: The Legacy of the Scholastic Distinction
of Powers, by Francis Oakley

<a href ="http://www.contra-mundum.org/books/oakley.pdf">http://www.contra-mundum.org/books/oakley.pdf</a>

The essay is somewhat difficult because the author is trying to compress a tremendous amount into a short article.

[Edited on 9-10-2006 by tewilder]

[Edited on 9-10-2006 by tewilder]
 
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