Mark,
Why do you continue to insist on theological diversity on some things but not on others? Isn’t it strange that you can find a variety of Reformed voices on baptism, justification, ecclesiology, and the Mosaic Covenant, for instance, but then you go straight to a “thus sayeth the Lord” — you know, pound the Bible — when it comes to the imitation of Christ? I think it is. And surely you must be aware that when you recommend the reading of Scripture you are promoting a book that has a variety of theologies and any number of interpretations. Is the study of the Bible as diverse as your voices from the Reformed past?
But you may find you are in good company when it comes to Reformed diversity. Perhaps you’ve heard of Oliver Crisp’s new book, Deviant Calvinism. In his interview with Christianity Today he sounded like you:
One is the question of free will and salvation. Reformed theology is often identified with determinism—the idea that God determines everything, and we don’t really have free choice. From my eating Corn Flakes for breakfast to my having faith in Christ, all of these decisions are determined by God, and if we’re not automatons or robots at least, my decisions are only free in some very minimal sense. Well, historical material suggests there is a broader way of thinking about this within Reformed theology.
Two 19th-century Reformed theologians come to mind. The first is William Cunningham, who was a professor at the University of Edinburgh and one of the founding fathers of the Free Church of Scotland. He wrote an important essay on this topic, arguing that the Westminster Confession neither requires nor denies “philosophical determinism,” as he called it. He believed the Confession is conceptually porous on the matter and doesn’t commit its adherents to determinism, though it doesn’t exclude it either.
And the Southern Presbyterian John Girardeau argued at length against the influence of Jonathan Edwards on the topic of determinism. Whereas Edwards was a determinist all the way down, so to speak, Girardeau argued that the first human pair had a real undetermined freedom to choose between alternatives in original sin, and that fallen humans still have such freedom with respect to mundane choices like which political party to vote for, or whether to slap grandma rather than kiss her. But we don’t have this freedom in regard to salvation, he argued. That is beyond our reach and must be a work of God. Girardeau appealed to John Calvin over Edwards in defense of his views. He also appealed to the Reformed confessions, including the Westminster Confession, which certainly allows, in my opinion, that Adam and Eve had this freedom in their original estate.
But I wonder if your motive for emphasizing diversity is the same as Crisp’s? Are you as interested in the breadth of contemporary communions as Crisp is who is a member of the PCUSA (not exactly a unified church)? For instance, Crisp says:
My Reformed heritage is important to me, and I am an evangelical. I would characterize my approach to theology as about building bridges to those of other persuasions, and seeking to be a patient listener and charitable interpreter, while taking a clear line on particular issues in keeping with the tradition of which I am a part. There is a long history in Reformed thinking of doing just this, so I do not see any tension between a centrist theological view and confessional Reformed thought.
Whatever you own motivation for doing this, I sure hope you agree that when it comes time to vote on the floor of presbytery or General Assembly, you don’t abstain because you are aware of all the diversity in the room. If that were the case, then perhaps you would not be in the PCA but would still be in the PCUS which as you know became the PCUSA.
Old Life 
I was radicalized by my first and only PCA General Assembly – such was the diversity and soft broad-mindedness in the room.
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I should say that I meant theological and ecclesiological diversity — not racial diversity, because there was practically none of that.
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White Southerners and White Southerners who have moved to the North is not diversity?
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They lost me at winsome. I asked them to spell it, I got “win_some, get it.” I told him to, ‘get the F outta here”. He said that wasn’t it, but he’d help me, I reminded him to keep it at arms length. It’s been a struggle ever since.
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Curses, outcranked again!
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I don’t know if it is still on his Facebook page, but before he unfriended me (a few more years of therapy, and I’ll be okay) Mark posted an ad for an intern. The litmus test was that any serious candidate must agree with his book on antinomianism 100%. I noted it had been edited multiple times – becoming more intense and rigorous with each edit. For someone advocating the imitation of Christ, that doesn’t strike me as particularly humble.
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Jesus speaks for Himself.
A lot more should look up what He said.
I know I should do it a lot more than I do daily.
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Chris, well Jesus did throw around the language of “fool” and “hypocrite.” Maybe Mark channels that side of Jesus when he is in imitation mode, then Richard Muller when he wears his historical theology cap. Love hopes all things.
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Yes, I too speak from experience — having moved a lot within Puritan circles (but that was back in the days when I was in the UK).
I suppose the difference between Reformed Puritans and Charismatics or Pentecostals is the difference between the conservative and liberal Puritans? 😀
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Chris, I believe just about every point on that “ad” that you reference was meant to be a joke and intentionally written to be made funny. But, alas, one can’t tell jokes anymore, because someone will take them and run.
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And Chris (Caughey?) wonders why he was unfriended…
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Bob, but you have to admit that sometimes Mark thinks he’s funny when he isn’t. So go easy on Chris.
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Joke him if he can’t take a…never mind. I love everybody.
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Chris,
Not to worry my friend, MarkyMark likes to have his cake and eat it too. He loves to dish some rather delicious barbs, but doesn’t much like it in return – especially if you aren’t a card carrying member of the ObedienceBoyz, or otherwise affiliated with MarkyMarks funky bunch of wrestling mask afficionados. I am still crushed that he blocked me on Twitter for kicking up too much sand in his sandbox.
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So you’re saying Mark “sounds” like a liberal Presbyterian. And that he sounds like he’d agree with what the Catholic church says about Mary (because what Mark says about Jesus sounds like what the RCC says about Mary? Run that one by me again…. Or run that one by yourself again)
But those are just silly formal similarities, not substantial ones. You certainly haven’t demonstrated any agreement.
Did you notice that Ref21 also had a pretty non confrontational interview with Crisp? And a respectful though critical review of Crisps’s book?
Why pick on Mark? Pick on the editor.
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Mark – Perhaps it was a joke.
Bob – I don’t wonder at all. Mark Jones made it very clear that he wanted to keep potential spies from watching him. Perhaps that was a joke, too. Whether it was or wasn’t, I belly laughed. 🙂 I’m a bit too busy to worry too much about Mark.
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Paul, where is Mark’s caution?
Oh.
It’s at Old Life.
You’re welcome.
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Chris,
Take comfort in the fact that if there’s Facebook in Heaven, Jesus will never unfriend you and every post will be a “like”.
So at least there’s that.
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In good company.
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Only “antinomians” need be excluded. You can accuse anybody you want of “antinomianism” at any time they disagree that there is a “future aspect of justification”. But as for “hypothetical universalists”, you need to be very cautious about even hinting that they are not “Reformed” enough. Arminians always have an excuse, and that’s because they are only reacting to the “antinomianism” of hyper-Lutherans.
http://www.opc.org/os.html?article_id=529&cur_iss=Y
Waddington—“Dr. Fesko offers a fascinating discussion of hypothetical universalism . It is a fact that there were members present in the assembly who held this view, and the author notes the complexity of the matter and the various views that fall under the label of hypothetical universalism. My concern is not with the details of the discussion. Muller has brought this issue to our attention as well so we are familiar with it. My concern is theological more than historical. As I have already noted, it is a fact that members of the assembly held to a variety of views that can be classified as forms of hypothetical universalism.”
Waddington—However, beyond doing us the favor of reminding us that at the time of the assembly hypothetical universalism was a live option, one gets the sense that there is also at work here a theological agenda. The contemporary view is too narrow perhaps. Church history hopefully involves an increasingly more precise and improved understanding of the Scriptures and theology.
Waddington– In other words, should we try to turn back the clock and broaden our confessional views on this? Maybe so. Maybe not. That is a matter for exegetical, biblical, and systematic theology. Historical theology has done us the service of reminding us that at one point hypothetical universalism, at least in some of its variations, was acceptable. We recognize that there is development in theology and that we need to be historically sensitive to this.
Waddington–Would it be right to judge earlier formulations by later standards? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that if a later development actually is an improvement and refinement and correction to earlier views, we would not want to revert to the earlier formulations. No, in the sense that we will recognize earlier formulations as defective but not necessarily erroneous or heretical.
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My stuff is not only “winsome” but also “robust”. Yours, not so much.
http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2015/11/error-versus-heresy.php
Mark Jones on “when calling someone a heretic”—–” I would argue that Pelagianism is a heresy, but Arminianism is not. Pelagianism overthrows several fundamental articles. I would argue that Arminianism is a serious error, but it is not a heresy…..you should be very careful, indeed – when you hurl around the word “moralist”… on matters that do not rise to the level of soul-damning doctrine. ….We do not need to shrink back from lively, vigorous theological debate. Amyraldianism and closed communion and episcopacy are all errors, in my view. But, these errors are not heresies. A wall exists between my brothers who hold to any one of these views, but the wall is not so high that we cannot “shake hands” as brothers.”
mcmark– in the meanwhile, it can never hurt to use the word “antinomian” when talking to your congregation, because in this day and age those in the covenant need to be reminded that sinners who actually practice sin are “antinomian” and it’s very well possible that many in your congregation will not do the works necessary to stay in covenant and attain the not yet aspects of justification.
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Christ’s death is both punishment (for sins already imputed ) AND procurement
From Heaven He Came, 507, “Punishment God Cannot Twice Inflict”—Garry J Williams
“My argument stands against an unspecified penal satisfaction narrowed only by its application. The sacrifice for sin in Scripture is itself specific…If the penal substitution of Christ has no relation to one person’s sin, then it is not in itself God’s actual answer to any sin, and therefore not penal at all…An unspecified “No” is not an answer to anything; it is without meaning….I cannot see how anyone who excludes the identification of Christ’s satisfaction itself with the specific sins of specific individuals can avoid the logical outcome of denying its truly penal character.
p 508 “The hypothetical universalists limit the death of Christ AS AN ACT OF PROCUREMENT to the elect only. Christ did not purchase the conditions of application for the lost, but only for those predestined to life.”
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Machen, God Transcendent, p 136—”How broad and comforting, they say, is the doctrine of a universal atonement, the doctrine that Christ died equally for all men there upon the cross! How narrow and harsh, they say, is this Calvinistic doctrine—one of the “five points” of Calvinism—this doctrine of “limited atonement”>But do you know, my friends, it is in reality a very gloomy doctrine indeed. Ah, if it were only a doctrine of a universal salvation, instead of a doctrine of a universal atonement, then it would no doubt be a very comforting doctrine; then no doubt it would conform wonderfully well to what we in our puny wisdom might have thought the course of the world should have been. But a universal atonement without a universal salvation is a cold, gloomy doctrine indeed….From universalism we turn ever again with a new thankfulness to the warm and tender individualism of … God’s holy Word. Thank God we can say , as we contemplate Christ upon the Cross, not : “He died for the mass of humanity, and how glad I am that I am amid that mass,” but: “He loved me and gave Himself for me; my name was written from all eternity upon His heart, and when He hung and suffered there on the Cross He thought of me, even me, as one for whom in His grace He was willing to die.”
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Why did Machen fight so much about doctrine? Maybe we are justified by some doctrine, but not by doctrine alone. Maybe some are justified by the wrong doctrine, or without doctrine. For justification, you maybe need some precision, but who can say how much, or how much lack of antinomianism you need to go along with it.
And who can say precisely what antinomianism is, but I can smell antinomians in the air we breath, and in that context maybe it’s a good thing to be less than precise about justification of the ungodly.
Mark Jones–Nonetheless, I find some comfort in John Owen’s words: “Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness which in opinion they deny to be imputed.” We need to remember that justification is not by precision alone http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2014/10/justification-by-precision-alo.php.
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