Pastor Steve Wilkins believes in unconditional election to eternal life. The lovely table here is rather incomplete.
As he has made quite clear, Steve Wilkins believes (and I also, for what it is worth) that:
1. God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.
4. These angels and men, thus predestinated, and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen, in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
6. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.
7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.
8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men, attending the will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel.
Ugggh – I cannot understand why these guys keep making this same category mistake . . . over and over. Is it that hard to understand that Steve is trying to account Biblical language? Why is this being missed? I read the chart and . . . ships passing . . . that’s all I can say. Mark, please help me understand where things keep getting off track?
Greg, it seems to me that the issues must be ultimately ones of differences in exegesis and theological method. Perhaps some worry that if certain familiar ways of reading various passages are not correct, that this undermines important theological boundaries, even if those boundaries can be maintained by other biblical teaching. I’m not entirely sure.
After all, it seems to me that Wilkins affirms both WCF unconditional election to glory and an unconditional election to covenant privilege. Surely, every Calvinist who believes in God’s comprehensive foreordination of all things must admit as much as that in some sense.
So, the question at hand would seem to come down to several issues of some debate: [a] an exegetical one regarding how the Bible uses the term “election” in this or that particular passage, [b] a historical one regarding how the Westminster Standards understand these various biblical usages, and [c] the confessional one regarding to what degree those who subscribe to the Westminster Standards are bound by the specifics of the exegesis presupposed by the Standards.
Some observations seem in order.
First, the Bible in general and Paul in particular are surely capable of using a particular term in a variety of different ways, depending on context. Thus Paul’s uses of “adoption” in Romans 8:15 (present adoption) and 23 (future adoption) and 9:4 (national adoption) are regularly regarded by Reformed exegetes as having somewhat different senses.
If that’s true of a Pauline term within the scope of a single epistle, then surely he might well the a term such as “elect” or “election” in a variety of ways across several epistles and contexts. So how Paul used the term “elect” in one or another passage has little bearing upon a Pauline (let alone a wider whole-Bible) doctrine of election in the WCF sense, so long as that doctrine is taught somewhere.
Second, there are a variety of ways of deriving doctrine from exegesis, some more and some less direct. The patterns of Scriptural relevation in general certainly warrant arguments from Scripture by way of analogy (comparison of like to like), negation (removal of limitations), eminence (from less perfect to more perfect), and so forth, alongside simple affirmation. The Reformed scholastic theologians knew this and deployed it.
So, assume for the sake of argument that Paul has some kind of corporate election in mind in Ephesians 1, something similar to the national election of Israel in the Old Covenant, now re-thought and re-shaped through the incorporation of the Gentiles. Let’s say, for sake of argument, that Paul doesn’t have election in the WCF sense in mind at all. Does that mean we cannot thereby derive such a doctrine from Ephesians 1 or that Paul doesn’t teach it?
Given that Ephesians teaches that God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass in accordance with his pleasure and will and given Paul’s teaching in Ephesians on the absolute priority of grace, then we can certainly argue quite easily to the WCF doctrine of election – that what is true of God’s election of the visible church generally, now incorporating the Gentiles, must be true particularly and pre-eminently of those whom he perserves unto glory.
If one is theologically equipped with only explicit affirmation as a form of theological reasoning, then Ephesians alongside the two sorts of election will appear to present a simple “either-or.” But within a wider context of theological reasoning that need not be the case.
Third, we can come at the issue from the other way around. Suppose, again for the sake of argument, that Paul in Ephesians intends election in the strict WCF sense. Yet he addresses his remarks indiscriminately to the church at Ephesus, calling them “saints,” “faithful,” etc.
Again, if our theological toolbox contains only explicit affirmation we’d have little to say and perhaps the safest position would be to say that Paul is only addressing those who are truly elect unto glory and no one else in his letter, even if they hear the words.
It seems to me, however, better to say that Paul is making a judgment of charity, grounded in what his audience publicly professes, and in the confidence that by the Spirit the word of his Gospel is effective in bringing people to saving faith, especially among those who profess faith, since by that profession they vow to trust God for their salvation. Most Reformed commentators take this approach (random example: Matthew Henry writes, that Paul “calls them saints, for such they were in profession, such they were bound to be in truth and reality”).
Thus, we have something we might call being “elect by mere profession,” distinct from election in the WCF sense (though it involves professing to be elect in the WCF sense), along with various other aspects of professed status (being faithful, saints, etc.). What then can we say of the basis and character of that status? Is it just a form of address, a mode of speech, an epiphenomenon of human hypocrisy within the visible church?
By the analogy of faith, we have further biblical resources at hand to say more. We know that the visible church enjoys all kinds of benefits and privileges, gifts and graces, which God does not extend in the same way to all people. We know that even those who only profess belief apart from saving faith do so by a gracious work of God, by which many of them receive the word with joy, are enlightened, taste of the heavenly gift, and so on. We know that all this occurs only within the gracious purposes of God. And so on.
In light of those considerations, we can argue by analogy to another, broader sense of “election,” even from the text of Ephesians, especially in light of various biblical examples of election (e.g., national Israel) that stand in analogy to the visible church and its privileges. And again, given wider considerations and forms of theological reasoning, Paul’s words in Ephesians are not so simple of an “either-or.”
At any rate, those are some forms of argumentation that are available and pertain to the issues. I guess I’ve only really gestured towards some of what would fall under [a] above, among what I listed as issues of debate.
I find issue [c] the most interesting (and potentially troubling) one in some ways, regarding to what degree those who subscribe to the Westminster Standards are permitted to come to the same theological conclusions as the Standards, yet by different exegetical routes than the authors of the Standards might have employed.
Great thoughts, Joel. I also would note that in (c) we cannot really even assume we know the exegesis presupposed by the standards. Furthermore, the divines who appended the proof texts to the completed confession may not even include the verses that were at issue when the language of the confession was crafted. I think we have to be pretty careful about assuming that we can reconstruct the precise relationship between a mode of expression in the confession and the texts that underlie it, or at least that’s something one would have to present arguments for.
I’m only guessing, but I bet one could get a fairly good idea of the exegetical methods used by the divines who composed the standards by reading extensively in their writings and following their debates leading up to the standards. That would be a LOT of work.