I’m cool with that. Here we go:
- Nestorianism — Gordon Clark; see witnesses here and here.
- Pantheism — Creation ex nihilo is untrue. Rather, creation must be ex deo, a “modification of divine being.” Who taught this? John Gerstner in his “handout theology” which is still sold by Ligonier Ministries. I heard Gerstner teach this and, I notice through Google that I am not the only one (here and here or here; to their credit, the consensus of the Puritanboard was to reject it).
- Merit legalism — John Gerstner, according to Brian Schwertley, taught that our good works were meritorious before God.
OK so what do we find here? Two things stick out.
- What has historically caused the Church to call for international councils and a great schism in the Western Church, barely raises an eyebrow in the modern (I’m tempted to capitalize the adjective) Evangelical Reformed subculture. To even find someone bothering to mention the issue requires a search for blogs and bulletin boards. I’ve not found any official church teaching on it by any denominational entity.
- Behold how gently, how gently, the critics handle the teachings of these men. The gulf between their attitudes toward real, bona fide heresies and teachers of heresies in comparison to how others are treated…. What can I say? Doug Wilson is now persona non grata despite years of writing for TableTalk but Gerstner is still actively promoted?
Mark,
This squabble over the FV stuff has turned into a really pathetic chapter (or–hopefully–paragraph) in church history. I wish I could see a way we will be past it soon, but I don’t.
Anyway, your observation in this post has really hit home with something I’ve realized lately, which is that much of the poor way that this controversy has been handled (on both sides) has been due to political/personality conflict/prejudice. I say that because I’ve come to see it in myself.
A number of years ago, for reasons that I cannot remember, I concluded that I was not a fan of Doug Wilson. I really do not remember whether it was due to content, style, or something else. So, when I first started hearing about “Auburn Avenue Theology” or “The Federal Vision” and I found out that Wilson was somehow associated with it, I decided that it must be bad news. It wasn’t until a couple of years later, when some other men that I did have respect for started to say positive things about FV ideas, that I was willing to give FV’ers anything like a fair hearing. To my surprise, not only have I found many FV ideas and articulations to be helpful and instructive, but I have also found that more than a few of those ideas were things I believed already. What was more surprising, I have found that *even* Doug Wilson has much to offer me.
Now, I don’t think I agree with everything the FV’ers have to say, and I still don’t see eye-to-eye with Wilson on a number of things. But hey, who agrees with anybody on everything? What I’ve been humbled to realize, though, is how easily I allow my sinful tendency toward prejudice to interfere with my willingness to learn from even my fathers and brothers in Christ. While I would say that there has been poor form on both sides of the controversy, I wonder if such prejudice is in particular the cause of the anti-FV’ers insistence on misconstruing the FV position and attributing to it the worst possible interpretation.
While I said before that I don’t see much of a chance for a quick resolution to this mess, I hope that GA can be something of a beginning. Maybe in a setting where men have to look each other in the face and approach the Lord’s Table together they will be slower to impugn each other’s motives and use the “heretic” epithet. Maybe realizing that one’s “opponent” in this debate is actually a person, a human, a man, who loves Jesus and his family and his church–and not just a faceless blog handle–will help men remember that the world will only know we are Christ’s disciples when we love each other. I’m praying that I, and all of us, can learn that.
And don’t forget Reymond’s denial of eternal generation and procession. I’ve never heard any H-bombs dropped over that one…
I’m glad to see that I’m not the only person to suspect Clark and Robbins of Nestorianism. I suspect that Calvinist theology, at least in some forms, lets people major in the minors of theology, and so overlook the really big issues – like Christological heresies that were condemned in the first few centuries of the church.