Douglas, I’m up to the part on hermeneutical considerations, where I was most keenly interested in what you were going to say about the Reformed Tradition. But before we get there…
I thought you did a very good job laying out the building blocks of interpreting a text. In particular, there were three important pieces you brought to the table. One was that we need to read things such that they make sense within a flow of an argument (at least, that should be our preference). The other was to make us step back and start to think through whether a word or set of words might have a very different set of connotations in the first century than they do in the sixteenth.
The third piece was one that I especially resonated with,
and that was the often unacknowledged power of the system on the lower layers of theological interpretation. This gets ramped up in any number of ways (including saying that ‘the gospel’ is at stake)–all of which are question begging. Having spent far too much of my life trying to have biblical-exegetical questions in the conservative Reformed world, I can testify to the fact that the concern to allow the text to speak, and the danger that it will become a dummy to the system’s ventriloquist is not a bogeyman but the reality of a large and growing swath of American conservative Reformed Christianity (how’s that for a series of qualifiers?!).
I am very glad that you put all these issues on the table.
But I wasn’t happy with the investigations into Luther and Calvin. Not that you aren’t right about the things they say, but that I’m not sure you’ve dealt the the looming objection to your project.
If I understand you correctly, your point is that Luther and Calving both contain “mixed” systems. They promote the system of “justification theory” as you outline it, and they also promote a system of election, depravity, etc.
Why didn’t I find this helpful? First, it seemed that if this was all you need to say, it could have been dispensed with in one sentence: “Yes, the two things you associate with Calvinism are both present in the Reformers; i.e., justification theory and that series of doctrines tied to predestination/election.” Calvinism in my worlds typically connotes TULIP or something close to it. That it’s present in Calvin is not all that significant.
The more important argument that needs to be addressed is not whether both dynamics are present, but how they are related. Thus, for example, you cite Institutes 3.1.1, where Calvin talks about the need for the Holy Spirit to unite us to Christ, as an example of the latter, “alternative”/participatory theory. But you’ve also talked about his later discussions of justification as embodying what you call “justification theory.”
But what you haven’t done is to get into Calvin’s system and see how these two are related; you haven’t delved into how, in fact, justification is subordinated to union with Christ soteriology! This is the great argument the Reformed Tradition has to make against your project, not simply that both elements are present in both Paul and the Tradition, but that they are fit together into a coherent system.
Under your justification theory, there’s no way to integrate the two, but Calvin has done so. Now, he might be confused, but he still needs to be addressed (it seems to me). For example: under your understanding of justification theory, Calvin is bound to place justification fully within the free choice of a non-regenerate person. But why is it that he not only takes up justification after union with Christ (3.1.1.) but even after sanctification?! For a Reformer, this might seem to be selling the farm on justification. But Calvin can do this because it’s a function or facet of his union with Christ soteriology.
In my estimation, the only way to make a compelling case against the Reformers at this point is to show that their system must fall apart as its given. This has been my concern all along with your articulation of justification theory. Why must your articulation of the theory be correct? And does the fact that it is clearly not the justification theory of the Reformers (with the possible exception of Melanchthon) not take away some of the power from the argument?
We need to wrestle with a couple other points related to this: (1) what if such a mixed theory is Pauline? (2) what if in promoting a mixed theology of grace and choice Paul is simply reflecting the theological possibilities of early Judaism? and (3) what if in this early Judaism is accurately embodying the apparently mixed theology of the Old Testament?
I’ll outline those concerns in my next post.
Disclaimer: Eerdmans sent me a gratis copy of this book, but without the stipulation either that it would be reviewed or that it would be reviewed favorably.
