Does this matter. First, lets look at the original document:
Furthermore, some FV writers have also denied that the covenant can be viewed from two different aspects. John Barach observed that “the Bible doesn’t know about a distinction between being internally in the covenant, really in the covenant, and being only externally in the covenant.” Likewise, Steve Wilkins argued that “all in covenant are given all that is true of Christ.” Doug Wilson has implied that all baptized covenant members are participants in Christ in the same “strong sense,” writing that “the person who did not persevere was not given less of Christ.” [72].
Here is the footnotes:
- 72 – Barach, “Covenant and History,” quoted in Auburn Avenue Theology, 309; Wilkins, “Covenant, Baptism, and Salvation,” 263; Doug Wilson, “Call It Regeneration; Topic: Life in the Regeneration,” in BLOG and MABLOG (24 July 2004), http:// dougwils.com/ index.asp? Action=Anchor &CategoryID=1 &BlogID=358.
First of all, the Confession nowhere mandates an “external” v. “internal” covenant. It uses that language for other descriptions. The covenant has both blessings and punishments attached to it and the book of Hebrews (and many other places as well) makes it clear that apostates receive those covenant curses.
Of course, since I’m now using Scripture I have moved away from the world of the report where one is only permitted access to Scripture through the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, the only mediator between God’s word and man, apparently. So I will point out that the general aspects of faith include both “trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come” (Of Saving Faith, ch 14). Apostates do not have true faith because, among other things, they do not take God’s covenant warnings seriously.
So how can covenant curses attach to people who aren’t really, or are only superficially, in covenant with God? There is nothing Westminsterian about the ground the committee is taking.
[By the way, all of the “FV” have been influenced by Cornelius Van Til who pointed out that God really draws humanity closer and, unless He overcomes them with invincible grace, they respond by attacking Him. The overuse analogy (what analogy did Van Til not overuse?) is that a little girl cannot slap her Daddy’s face unless he brings her into his lap. Weirdly, Van Til is never mentioned in this report, nor John Frame, nor Vern Poythress, nor Lillback nor any of the Reformed thinkers or recent Reformed studies that might explain to readers where the “FV” comes from. On the other hand, Cal Beisner, the Gordon-Clark follower who defines saving faith as nothing but affirming propositions, is treated as an expert witness. I’m not sure how much to make of it (since I don’t want to treat the committee the way they treat their targets) but one could argue this whole report is designed to move us away from continental influences and closer to John Robbins backyard.]
Secondly, one can simply read Paul’s letters and see him making general statements about the congregation that are exactly like what Steve Wilkins says above. Are Paul’s statements compatible with double predestination and monergism? Of course, they are. And so are Steve’s. We don’t need to be afraid of our Bible’s–if there is any bedrock point about any “Federal Vision” that would be it. One need only read him in context to see this.
And plainly, the committee knew that they needed to come up with some kind of “smoking gun” to justify this paragraph. So they saved this for the climax:
Doug Wilson has implied that all baptized covenant members are participants in Christ in the same “strong sense,” writing that “the person who did not persevere was not given less of Christ.
Great finish, except for the fact that it was entirely untrue. As Doug Wilson wrote:
I read that and thought something like, “Huh, that doesn’t sound like me.” So I went to the footnote and found a thread on this blog cited, a thread called “Life in the Regeneration.” Here is the section they footnoted.
“In order to take all baptized covenant members as participants in Christ in the “strong sense,” we would have to distinguish what is objectively given in Christ, and not what is subjectively done with those objective benefits. Perseverance would, on this reading, be what was subjectively done with what God has objectively given. In this view, the person who did not persevere was not given less of Christ. But this necessarily means that persevering grace is not an objective gift or grace. God’s willingness to continue “the wrestling” would depend upon what kind of fight we put up, or cooperation we provide, and because no one’s fundamental nature has been changed, those natures remain at ‘enmity with God.’ In this view, whatever total depravity means, it is not ontologically changed, just knocked down and sat upon. The Spirit pins one snarling dog, but not another. But this in turn leads to another thought—eventually at some time in the process we stop snarling and start cooperating (if we are bound to heaven), and what do we call this change or transformation. The historic name for this change has been regeneration, and I see no reason to change it.”
In this section, I am arguing for the traditional use of the word regeneration, I am arguing against a particular view (“on this reading,” “in this view”), and the PCA report here represented me as arguing 180 degrees from what I was in fact arguing. This is upside down and backwards. If they read that entire thread of posts, they would know that I believe it is incoherent to say that anyone receives “all of Christ” in the strong sense without receiving perseverance. This was simply sloppy.
In an amazing admission of fallibility, the committee has now changed the report. No notice was given, of course. There is, apparantly, no official version of the report until we are all walking in Memphis where we will get to cram it over a couple of days before spending an entire hour discussing it before a vote. “Are you a Christian, child?” “No, ma’am, tonight I’m a commissioner.”OK, perhaps no more changes will be made. Perhaps this is it. But this was not a “slip” in the sense of purely accidental error. Every minister on that committee was picked because they had an axe to grind. Jon recently took down Sean’s material. I think this was a mistake. It isn’t about past sins it is about a current miscarriage of justice. Sean was picked for the committee because he passionately opposes Peter Leithart and all the rest–that passion is what cannot be adequately communicated by a summation of what he said; you have to see it to believe it. Lig Duncan was deemed fit for the committee because he has waged a war of propaganda against the “miscreants” in his beloved denomination who, he has said, don’t deserve a fair hearing.
With that sort of zealous crusade, such “slips” are inevitable. There was no way it could have been avoided. And that’s why the committee simply obliterated all evidence of it. It reveals more than human carelessness. It reveals the design flaw of the committee–that instead of being a committee searching for truth it was a Satan to accuse the Brethren outside the courts of the PCA where the rights of the accused are safe-guarded.
Sympathy for the Devil by Rich Lusk
(originally published here)
Those of us on the receiving end of Duncan’s attacks do not feel like he has adequately understood our views or accurately stated what we believe. But surely this is because he has determined from the outset to give us an unsympathetic reading. Why should anyone trust an interpretation that is so admittedly biased? Personally, I would like to know why Duncan thinks Joel Garver and Peter Leithart (to take two examples) are impious men. I’d like to know why know why he finds their theological work less than substantial. Surely it cannot be because these men present themselves in an arrogant, haughty fashion. Anyone who knows them would laugh at the charges. Surely it is not because they lack serious academic credentials. They both have doctorates from top flight institutions. I could further speculate as to Duncan’s motivations, but love restrains me.
There is no problem with Reformed theologians disagreeing with one another on the finer points of doctrine. But when we do so, we should exercise love, patience, and humility, expecting and hoping for the best out of our discussion partners. Who knows: if we do so, we just might learn something!
Can anyone say “memory hole”?
This read’s like a page out of Sharansky’s Fear No Evil: The classic memoir of one man’s triumph over a police state. Shortly after Sharansky had been arrested on false charges and was in custody, he had an opportunity to see some of the documents prepared by the KGB to arrest and charge him, documents which would be presented as part of the evidence at his eventual trial. Sharansky noted a glaring error in the documents that showed beyond any doubt that the entire case against him was a sham. His mistake was to point that fact out to his captors rather than keeping quiet about it and bringing it out at the trial, where it would have been impossible to go back and change the documents. Because the prosecution simply went back ahd completely revised and re-backdated the documents to eliminate the glaring error and used the new and improved version of the document to railroad him into prison anyway.
I’m not saying that people should have kept quiet about the glaring errors in the report, because, unlike Sharansky, the accused won’t even be given the benefit of an opportunity to defend themselves at trial. In a very real sense, the report is the trial, with the accused tried in absentia.
But if a full and complete revision history of the document subsequent to its release on the Internet is not provided, the entirre process will have demonstrated itself to be, indeed, little more than a page lifted straight out of the history of the Soviet show trials of its dissidents.
Of course, in the age of the Internet, it simply is not possible to flush revisions like this down the memory hole. Thus the very credibility of the study committee and indeed of the PCA itself is on the line here. Just as it is true that the FV proponents have in effect been put on trial by the committee report, it is also true that the committee members have put themselves and the PCA on trial by what appears to be an attempted sleight of hand with the evidence.
… true colors shining through.