Straight Out of Calvin?

January 25, 2017 at 6:43 pm (Federal Vision, Heresy)

Douglas Wilson is going to (eventually) produce a statement of his faith that will be a non-consensus document vis-a-vis the Federal Vision Joint Statement. In this he hopes to clarify where he is now doctrinally, specifically with regard to paedocommunion and the objectivity of the covenant. It will follow the same topical order as the Joint Statement, but will be all Wilson, no consensus. He hopes that people will wish him luck, and then lightheartedly mentions me. I did laugh, by the way, Doug. And I certainly hope for the best and wish you the best in this endeavor.

One of the biggest concerns in my mind, at least, will be the definitions of terms. One of the reasons that the FV theology is so hard to describe is that it tends to use normal Reformed words like “election, regeneration, baptism, justification,” etc., and infuse them (pun intended) with new meaning. This has made communication nearly impossible from the get-go. Many critics have tried (and I am certainly one of them) to understand how the FV uses terms differently. We have been told rather consistently that we just don’t understand. So, one of my hopes is that in this proposed document, Wilson will include lots of very precise definitions of words so that we can see how he is using them. This will make it much easier to compare with the Westminster Standards, to which standard Wilson claims a close affinity.

What will also be helpful will be specific statements of what is repudiated from the Joint Statement. Mere parallelism of document will not convince any critic that Wilson has left errors behind. Wilson was the main editor of the Joint Statement, and the Statement has many significant errors in it. In order for us to believe that he is coming around to a truly Westminsterian viewpoint, some significant repudiation will be required. There is also the consideration that Jim Cassidy wrote about here. I am sure that there are other things which critics will want to see, which we can clarify as Wilson goes forward.

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The OPC Report on Republication, Part 7

January 25, 2017 at 1:35 pm (Covenant)

The OPC report speaks of a variety of views that were on offer with regard to republication. By the way, we are looking at Part I, Chapter 2, sections II and III-A in this post. The fact that the Westminster Assembly only explicitly rejected Tobias Crisp’s covenantal notions (Crisp believed that the New Covenant was substantially different than the Old Testament iterations of the Covenant of grace, such that they could not be considered as the same covenant in substance) does not tell us much more than that. This leaves us without clear standing on the question of whether more views than Crisp’s were either condoned or condemned.

However, support of an allowance of some forms of republication can be found in two points, according to the committee: 1. The presence of covenantal conditions in WLC 93 (the committee argues that bare precepts are more usual with the moral law per se, whereas the presence of conditions usually signals a covenant); and 2. The prooftexts underlying WCF 7.2’s description of the covenant of works are verses that apply to the Mosaic covenant. As the committee says, “How could the assembly think these passages relevant if a majority of its members did not see substantive continuities between the prelapsarian covenant of works and the Mosaic covenant?”

This leads us straight to a consideration of how the prooftexts function. While they are not a confessional issue per se, they do offer a window into the interpretation of the Westminster Standards, since they were carefully chosen, according to the extended quotation of Chad Van Dixhoorn. Hence, they make it into the report as part of an argument.

It seems clear that the committee is concerned to ensure that at least some views of republication are consistent with the Westminster Standards. Which ones are and which ones aren’t remain to be seen, but I am certainly in agreement with this assessment, even though I don’t think my own views would be described fairly as republication.

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