atonement – Philosophical Theology

False Teaching Among The Prominent Non-Confessional Reformed: From Lordship Salvation to Today’s Christianity and Culture In The PCA

January 9, 2023June 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo2 Comments

A pastor can be more or less Reformed, but a doctrine either is or is not Reformed.
A debtor to mercy

The church will always have to war against false gospels. From the time of the Judaizers to this very day, the church has been bewitched by sacerdotalism, syncretism, decisional regeneration, social gospels, prosperity gospels, Lordship Salvation and many other false teachings.

Some of these deceptions are more obvious than others, depending upon the degree of marginalization of the person and work of Christ. All false gospels promise deliverance from one thing unto another. Things become a bit trickier when Christ remains at the center of the message.

While fundamentalists during the 1980s and ‘90s were on the lookout for anti-Christ, certain Reformed folk were setting their sights on Robert Schuller and then Joel Osteen, while still others were fighting the New Perspective on Paul and Federal Vision. During this time of disquiet, another false gospel not only received a wink but a motion toward a comfortable seat at the Reformed table. Lordship Salvation, promulgated by John MacArthur with endorsements by such notables as J.I. Packer and James Montgomery Boice, became a non-confessional doctrinal option in the broad tent of Reformed evangelicalism.

The MacArthur controversy wasn’t a fair fight. The Lordship gang of independently minded untouchables were picking on the theological weaklings within Arminian Antinomianism. Because the Reformed faith wasn’t under attack, many who grasped Reformed soteriology didn’t bother to take a side in the Lordship debate. Strictly speaking, there was no correct side to take! Both sides were wrong, though only one side positioned itself as historically Reformed. The prominent darlings within Reformed evangelicalism who weighed in on the debate were popularizers and preachers, not confessionally minded theologians. Although they took the Lordship side, the debate was largely dismissed as noise among Reformed academics because both sides were outside the tradition.

During the fog of war, a new star was arising.

While MacArthur and company were flexing their independent muscles in the Reformed evangelical schoolyard, many on the fringe of Reformed confessional theology were spooked into confusing justifying faith with the fruit of progressive sanctification. Forsaking oneself and commitment of life replaced receiving and resting in Christ alone for justification. While certain crusaders falsely, yet confidently, claimed to be defending the faith once delivered unto the saints, a new star from the multi-cultural city of Manhattan was rising above the theological smog. This talented leader was not focused on the nature of saving faith, but on the evangelistic question of what the gospel offers sinners in a postmodern context.

With the stage presence and communication skills of a CEO of a multinational conglomerate, Tim Keller sought to identify and meet a legitimate need by trying to reach the nations for Christ in the dense 23 square miles of New York’s apple.

I know no Reformed pastor who has made more disciples in such a short period of time as Tim Keller. Even Keller’s disciples are already spawning disciples!

Fast forward to 2023. The new gospel eclipses the theology of the cross.

Instead of seeing the objective act of premarital relations as sin, our greatest need is to look away from self-centered romance in order to find life’s truest fulfillment in Christ alone (or so taught Keller). The offer of Christ is no longer an offer to receive God’s reconciliation, imputed righteousness and forgiveness for uncleanness, but rather is packaged as freedom from self-idolization and the vapid fulfillment of existential experience. Christ is offered to men and women as the door to freedom from the sin of self-imposed slavery. The world with all its social woes is our unmistakable object lesson. What unregenerate person could miss what is in plain sight! The world’s poverty, disunity and abusiveness is a result of a broken relationship with God. That’s the bad news. The good news is Jesus is the remedy for the unfulfilled life and all broken and abusive relationships. Christ will satisfy our needs if only we become satisfied with Christ. It is God who makes true worshippers through Jesus Christ. Herein we find a “take it to the streets” approach to Christian Hedonism.

The new gospel would be as attractive as it is relevant to the postmodern urbanite. Of course, hell too needed to be reworked a bit. Hell is no longer a place of eternal torment and punishment for sins against a loving yet wrathful God; and outer darkness is no longer accompanied by weeping and gnashing of teeth. Rather, hell is a reasoned trajectory of living one’s life without Christ at the center. It’s a dimension to be pondered more than a place to be feared. Hell is a philosophical extension of life lived without God. It’s a place where souls “shrivel up” and no longer a place of eternal torment. Hell contemplates the future eternality for disembodied spirits resulting from a meaningless temporal existence. It’s the expansion of this life, as opposed to the wages of sin. (Likewise, heaven isn’t an inheritance and sabbath rest from the battle against indwelling sin, as it is the transcendent spatial trajectory for the Christian after death.)

Does this gospel message sound familiar?

We live in a broken world in which we try to find meaning, acceptance and healing through material pleasures, careers, entertainment, community and intimate relationships. Perhaps we even try to find meaning by trying to be a good person. But no matter how hard we try, if we’re honest with ourselves we will admit that we cannot rid ourselves of emptiness. We always seem to suffer under abuse or broken relationships leading to further discontentment. No matter how often we become disillusioned with material things, ideologies and the relationships in which we entrust ourselves, we continue to turn to those idols for ultimate satisfaction and happiness even though they fail us without fail.

Our biggest problem is we are separated from God who made us to be in relationship with him. The good news is we can be restored to God who is the only one that can give our lives meaning. Jesus came to give us life abundant. But to be restored to God we must turn from self and believe Jesus paid for our sins. That is the only way our emptiness can be replaced with meaning. We need a relationship with God who is the author of all meaning. We need that relationship because God created us as relational beings.

The bad news is, if you continue to seek meaning apart from God, upon death you will enter into an eternal darkness void of all meaning and bliss. If you don’t seek in this life meaning from God, you’ll get your heart’s desire forever. You will reap for all eternity more of what you’re experiencing now, a meaningless life where self is at the center. Hell will be where you send yourself. Your punishment will be your unquenchable search to find fulfillment in created things, apart from God at the center. So, I urge you, come to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins so that you might find meaning now and forevermore. Only through Christ can God heal your brokenness and give your life the true meaning for which you were created and have been searching.

That’s basically a cocktail of gospel presentations I’ve read over the years. The problem isn’t that the word “sin” is utterly absent from the contemporary gospel presentation. Rather, sin is so ill-defined that the theology of the cross loses its context, and by that its relevance. If our greatest need may be motivated by a self-absorbed desire for meaning, then Christ crucified for sinners isn’t being offered.

Any gospel that denies the theology of the cross is another gospel. It’s also not very enticing!

If the “meaningless” of this life is life’s eternal penalty, I suppose most can accept that consequence without too much dread. But who will say they can embrace being cast into biblical hell? The stakes of the game of life aren’t terribly high if one actually enjoys his selfish life.

That man’s life outside Christ is meaningless is a minor point. Even Christians don’t always find fulfillment! Man has a sin problem. His very existence outside mystical union with Christ is an offense to God. The contemporary gospel isn’t that we can escape God’s wrath, gain a right standing to God’s law, and be adopted as sons of God in Christ. Today’s gospel exchanges life’s disappointments for meaning. The felt need we are to try to elicit with the gospel is one of purpose and fulfillment, not reconciliation through deliverance from the wages of sin, which is death.

The true meaning of the cross is contextualized not by purpose but by what is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness.

What we know by nature is not that our lives are meaningless but that we are under God’s wrath for our transgressions. The cross deals with man’s ultimate problem as revealed to us in conscience. It is in the context of God’s revelation that a theologically informed gospel of reconciliation must be preached. God’s fury is upon the impenitent, whether there is hope of better meaning or not! The relevant-relational aspect of the cross is that hell-bound enemies can become friends with God through the one time propitiatory sacrifice of Christ for our sins.

The theology of the cross and the doctrine of justification unearth man’s need and by extension the biblical gospel.

Consider the multi-faceted import of the cross of Christ:

* Propitiation presupposes wrath.

* Satisfaction presupposes justice, which again presupposes wrath.

* Expiation presupposes the middle ground of enmity being removed through a propitiatory sacrifice that exhausts God’s wrath.

* Reconciliation presupposes alienation because of sins that deserve God’s wrath.

* Sacrifice presupposes an offering for sin that deserves God’s wrath.

* Redemption presupposes deliverance from bondage, and condemnation, which demands God’s wrath.

* Love is Jesus suffering the unmixed wrath of God for unjust sinners.

The theology of the cross is not one of restoring meaning to life. The cross is a symbol of love, mercy and grace, which finds its only expression in the context of the wages of sin, which is death, not want of purpose. Because today’s gospel is not theological, it’s not biblical.

There’s a wisdom to the cross that relates to theological justification.

How the cross brings meaning to life isn’t at all obvious. However, when we begin to understand our need for mediatory reconciliation through a perfect righteousness and satisfaction for sins, the cross is not just intelligible but can be seen as the profound wisdom of God.

As I taught my adult daughters since they were little children, sinners like us need two things to stand before a holy and righteous God – a perfect righteousness that’s not our own and God’s gracious pardon for our sins. What we need to stand in the judgement is accomplished only through the active and passive obedience of Christ. Accordingly, our greatest need is not for meaning in life but to be justified in Christ. The new gospel dilutes our sin problem, and, therefore, the gospel’s remedy.

The contemporary gospel in light of the perceived need of postmodern sinners is way too creative:

If you try to convict them of guilt for sexual lust, they will simply say, “You have your standards, and I have mine.”
Tim Keller

Therefore, this approach:

That is, I use the biblical definition of sin as idolatry. That puts the emphasis not as much on “doing bad things” but on “making good things into ultimate things.”
Tim Keller

Tim Keller has it backwards. One can be saved without understanding that sin is idolatry, but nobody can be saved without a self-awareness of “doing bad things”!

But aside from the obvious, the new gospel doesn’t live up to his own strictures. If confronting sexual lust is off limits to postmoderns due to idiosyncratic standards of subjectivity, then on what basis may we appeal to good and ultimate things when dealing with postmoderns? Don’t good and ultimate things presuppose God, his valuations, and ethical absolutes, no less than the guilt of sexual lust? Consequently, this new message is no less arbitrary than it is inconsistent. The gospel has become too clever by half!

Instead of telling them they are sinning because they are sleeping with their girlfriends or boyfriends, I tell them that they are sinning because they are looking to their romances to give their lives meaning, to justify and save them, to give them what they should be looking for from God.”
Tim Keller

If this technique is more effective, it’s not because it philosophically comports with postmodernism. Indeed, this technique is less confrontational, but that’s because it probes the non-offensive and speculative why, as opposed to declaring the objective fact of what. It shifts the focus from an uncomfortable discussion about the immediate and obvious acts of sin (that mustn’t be declared as sin!), and tries to map a want of true fulfillment to a contestable defect that’s general to all. This approach is too impersonal, not relevant and, therefore, contra-relational. (Oh, the irony!)

Jesus calls out the greedy for their greed, not for their lack of fulfillment. The woman at Sychar was confronted for her promiscuity, not her idolatrous reasons for it. Judgement will be according to deeds done in flesh, so why avoid a conversation about “doing bad things”? (Revelation 20:12) There’s no authoritative word from God that reduces the reason for fornication to misplaced fulfillment. In fact, idolatry is frequently listed as one sin among many, but not a source for any. (I Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19–21; Ephesians 5:5; Rev 22:14)

The new gospel trades in non-confrontational high talk by positing sins such as fornication as an extension of idolatry, a fruit of sorts. By trying to identify the root of sin instead of addressing concrete sin, (over which the Spirit convicts and exposes), our need for Christ becomes too abstract. Sin is redefined and consolidated into making good and finite things ultimate. Whereas people know fornication is sin, it is not so obvious that the reason for fornication is due to not being satisfied with God.

Not to belabor the point:

We can be assured that the Holy Spirit, for a time, will bring conviction upon the simplicity of fornication, but on what basis do we think that the Holy Spirit convicts sinners according to a complex derivation that concludes guilt for trying to find meaning and pleasure in self-centeredness?

Fornication is the corruption of something good for a myriad of complex reasons that are not necessarily clear to us. For instance, one might fornicate for a need for money, which could be due to expensive physical addictions that are no longer traceable to idolatry. Or, one might fornicate because of being turned over to sin because of idolatry. In other words, fornication can be punishment for idolatry but not due to an active pursuit of idolatry. One could even fornicate to get back at one’s parents, or to take vengeance on the spouse of their partner. One might commit such acts of the flesh to gain power over someone else, or because someone has gained power over her. One even might become increasingly idolatrous because he is a fornicator! One can develop physical dependence on fornication that no longer seeks the sin for idolatrous reasons. The pattern of sin can be circular rather linear. For instance, greed can be the source of increased idolatry by which increased idolatry gives way to more greed. In sum, the new gospel engages in a losing apologetic by getting into speculative analyses rather than sticking to sin and the offense of the cross.

The Spirit binds himself to revelation, not speculation:

The Spirit convicts according to the law of God. If one suppresses the pending judgment for fornication, then what hope is there that the alleged philosophical root of fornication will be any less suppressed? Would we plead with a postmodern serial killer on death row to confess his sin of murder, or would we ask him to search for the idolatrous intricate reasons for his sins so that he might repent of those?

How theologically abstract and removed from the immediate sin at hand do we really want to get, and which want of conformity to the law of God should take preeminence? By deifying created things (like fornication), we indeed manufacture idols of the heart. No Christian should question that. But isn’t idolatry often rooted in a lack of love for God, which can stem back even further to a lack of faith in God’s goodness? There’s a theological breadth and depth to sin that is eclipsed and trivialized by glossing it all over as idolatry.

It’s at best trite to map all sin to the one sin of idolatry. God gave us the Ten Commandments, not just the first of ten. Even if it were possible to trace all sin back to some broad understanding of idolatry, paradigmatic theology such as this ends up passing the granular particularity of sin through a filter so permeable that nothing specific to the individual is captured, while most everything passes through as indistinguishably irrelevant. Should we try to trace all sin back to pride, a lack of love, self-centeredness or any other root of evil? Or would a more biblical approach be to try to gently expose the sin that is obviously before us, in hope that God might be pleased to illuminate lost friends to other contributing sins, as we trust that in the light we might see light. (Psalm 36:9)

It’s beyond my pay grade to discern why a man would defile a women or why a women would ensnare a man. What I do know is one must repent of such sins and trust in Christ to be saved.

This idolatry leads to anxiety, obsessiveness, envy, and resentment. I have found that when you describe their lives in terms of idolatry, postmodern people do not give much resistance.
Tim Keller

Perhaps the reason postmodernists don’t resist such gospel confrontation is because postmodernism has no place for the absolute truth of idolatry! Or perhaps it’s just because such an approach isn’t quick and powerful, or sharper than a two-edged sword. (It’s decidedly dull.) Yet even if our postmodernist friends, as they try to remain true to their worldview, were to acknowledge their subjective idolatry while trying to rid themselves of its fruits, then it wouldn’t be because idolatry is inherently and objectively sinful on God’s say-so, but because their anxiety is selfishly inconvenient, which itself is an idolatrous motivation!

Then Christ and his salvation can be presented not (at this point) so much as their only hope for forgiveness, but as their only hope for freedom. This is my “gospel for the uncircumcised.”
Tim Keller

Any offer of salvation that doesn’t offer the hope of forgiveness through the theology of the cross isn’t good news. It’s another gospel, which isn’t another. (Galatians 1:6,7)

As for the “gospel for the uncircumcised”, the Bible is clear.

Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Luke 24:27

The Impossibility of The “Possibility” Entailed by John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism (R.I.P.)

November 12, 2022June 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo2 Comments

The following quote is taken from a review of the book John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy. By Michael J. Lynch.

The reviewer attributes the quote to the author of the book.

Broadly considered, we understand early modern hypothetical universalism to teach (1) that Christ died for all human beings in order to merit by his death the possibility of the redemption of all human beings on condition of their faith and repentance. All human beings, on account of the death of Christ, are redeemable or savable—that is, able to have their sins remitted according to divine justice. Further, (2) early modern hypothetical universalism affirmed that God, by means of the death of Christ, purchased, merited, or impetrated all the to-be-applied saving graces for the elect, and for the elect alone. Christ died for the apostle Peter in a way he did not die for Judas.
Page 15, emphasis mine

Hypothetical universalism (HU) implies that,

p1: Christ’s death secured the possibility of salvation for all human beings

and

p2: Christ’s death secured the surety of salvation for the elect alone.

An entailment of HU is that it is truly possible for the non-elect to be saved.

A few words about possibility:

In a colloquial sense we might say, “It is possible that Parker will accept an offer to come for lunch.” In such instances we don’t know whether Parker will accept such an offer, for in our finitude we don’t know the actual outcome of any such offer. Therefore, only in a non-technical sense might we say that it is possible that Parker accepts an offer for lunch.

Similarly, we might say, “It is possible that Warby will receive Christ and be saved.” In an informal sense, we would deem it possible that Warby becomes a believer because from our finite perspective, there is nothing we know that necessarily precludes Warby’s salvation. For all we know, Warby would savingly believe if offered Christ in the gospel. Surely, there are possible worlds God can bring into existence or “actualize” (called feasible worlds) in which Warby freely believes and is saved.

The question and requisite tools for answering:

The question before us is whether the doctrine of election precludes the possibility of salvation for the non-elect. If it does, then HU is false doctrine given the doctrine of election.

Before proceeding, it might be good to begin with some initial spadework regarding (a) logical and metaphysical possibility, (b) feasible and infeasible world semantics, and (c) the relevant implications of divine foreknowledge.

The logic of possibility:

In logic, possibility entails the absence of contradiction. In the realm of what is often called strict or narrow sense logic, logical possibility (as opposed to metaphysical possibility) is concerned more with words and symbols than definitions. So, for instance, it is a narrowly logical possibility that,

p3: God does not exhaustively know the future.

Whereas it is logically impossible that,

p4: God in his divine nature does not know the future while simultaneously (and in the same way) knowing the future in his divine nature.

The reason p3 is logically possible in this esoteric sense is because without an orthodox definition of God informing us about God, there is nothing in the formulation of the words that denote logical contradiction.

Whereas even without an orthodox definition of God, p4 entails an inferable logical contradiction because it violates the law of non-contradiction by asserting in contradictory form that God both knows the future and does not know the future. Unlike with p3, p4 takes a form of x and ~x being true…

Now, of course, we know that God is exhaustively omniscient. We, also, know that it is impossible that God not know the future. Although it may be said in an esoterically logical sense that God does not know the future; we know that God would not be God if he did not know the future! In other words, it would be impossible in a more meaningful sense for God not to know the future. The impossibility in view is a metaphysical consideration that takes into account God as God.

So, it is a broadly logical impossibility that God is not omniscient. We say “broadly” because something additional is now informing our understanding of p3, namely a property of God. With that additional meaning in place, we may properly maintain that it is a metaphysical impossibility that God does not know the future. Furthermore, this is abstractly demonstrable when we consider that there is no feasible world in which God does not know the future. And because no infeasible world can be actualized, there is no relevant possibility of God not knowing the future. (These two concepts are correlative: (a) the impossibility of God not knowing the future and (b) the infeasibility of an actualized world that would include such a feature as (a). In other words, the impossibility of a less than omniscient God and an infeasible world that contemplates such a being entail reciprocal implications.)

What does this have to do with HU?

There are feasible worlds in which Adam does not fall and Judas does not deny the Lord for thirty pieces of silver. In any such world, God would believe that Adam would resist temptation and Judas would not sell out the Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Conversely, there is no feasible world in which God believes something about Adam or Judas that does not come to pass. The feature of such infeasible worlds that makes them such is the entailment of the metaphysical impossibility of God having a false belief.

Recall again, our HU entailments:

p1: Christ’s death secured the possibility of salvation for all human beings

and

p2: Christ’s death secured the surety of salvation for the elect alone.

Those two propositions do not rule out actual universalism (i.e., worlds in which all will be saved). Nor do they rule out universal reprobation (i.e., worlds in which all are damned). To avoid actual universalism and while we’re at it, universal reprobation, we may add something like p*, which does not undermine the intent of HU for those who affirm divine exhaustive omniscience.

p*: If God is exhaustively omniscient and all human beings are not elect in this actual world (PWa), yet some are, then God believes that at least one particular human being will not be saved.

HU is false:

Given p* and p2, p1 is false because it is impossible that all end up saved when all are not believed by God to be elect. Additionally, if p1 is false, then HU is false since p1 is essential to HU.

Why is p1 false?

Again, p1: Christ’s death secured the possibility of salvation for all human beings.

We need to ask, are there any feasible worlds (PWa, PWb, PWc…. PWn) about which God can have a false belief? (Of course such worlds are logically possible in a narrow sense, but are they metaphysically possible, or meaningfully possible?) Can God actualize a world about which God believes something false? If not, then such worlds are broadly illogical and metaphysically impossible. Therefore, statistically speaking, assume the set of infinite feasible worlds of which God believes that within each world one or more human beings are not elect. In zero of those worlds would the salvation of a non-elect person ever obtain!

Now then, what is the probability of an outcome that would have zero occurrences given an infinite number of trials? Well, zero, of course.* Yet if there is zero probability of a non-elect person becoming saved in the set of all feasible worlds, then how is it meaningfully “possible” for any such person to become saved? (The Molinist claim that such a person could be saved though never would be saved is refuted here.)

If the salvation of the non-elect is not metaphysically possible in a statistical sense, then HU’s most essential feature (p1) is false, making the theory of HU false. Directly stated, it is not possible that a non-elect person believes and becomes saved any more than it is possible that a non-elect person becomes elect. HU fails the coherence test.

Furthermore, if God believes in the possibility of the salvation of the non-elect while simultaneously believing it is impossible that a non-elect person would ever be saved in n trials, then how does God avoid believing that salvation is possible and not possible in the same way, which is not just metaphysically impossible for God but also would require God to be logically incoherent? Yet if God does not believe in the salvation of the non-elect, then there is no possibility of their salvation given God’s disbelief since God believes all truth.

*Events that are impossible have zero probability of occurrence, which should not be confused with zero probability events that are not necessarily impossible occurrences. Impossibility is sufficient for zero probability but the reverse is not necessarily true. Consider a dart board with an infinite number of points with the precise circumference of the point of a dart. The probability of a thrown dart piercing a particular point on the board is 1 over infinity. However, the dart will hit some particular point on the dart board. So, it is possible an event occurs that has zero probability of occurring. This is not the case with impossible events, although they too have zero probability of occurring.

John Davenant, Another Enticement For The “Reformed” (in name only)

October 31, 2022June 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo3 Comments

“If it be denied that Christ died for some persons, it will immediately follow, that such could not be saved, even if they should believe.”

I can understand Arminians saying such a thing but when those who profess to be Reformed say things like that, more than bad theology is at play. (And by the way, why do latent Arminians insist upon being considered Reformed?)

At the risk of addressing the obvious, such a sentiment assumes what must be proven, that those for whom Christ did not die can believe. From a Reformed perspective, how does this not deny irresistible grace and inseparable operations of the Trinity?*

“if nothing else is judged possible to be done, except those things which God hath decreed to be done, it would follow that the Divine power is not infinite.”.
John Davenant, Dissertation on the Death of Christ, n.d., 439

God having already decreed that the boulder would fall from the cliff entails that God could not prevent the boulder from falling from the cliff. The “could not” is due not to a lack of divine power but a want of divine will. Because God cannot deny himself (or act contrary to how he has determined he will act), God’s inability to act upon the boulder either directly, or through secondary causes, is ascribable not to finite power in the Godhead but the outworking of God’s internal consistency, from decree to providence.

That God’s omnipotence and decree are not mutually exclusive entailments implies that the latter does not diminish the former, though it will certainly curtail and redirect its decretive unleashing in ordinary providence. Davenant and his recent followers not only miss this. Is there any indication they’ve even considered it?

“The death of Christ is applicable to any man living, because the condition of faith and repentance is possible to any living person, the secret decree of predestination or preterition in no wise hindering or confining this power either on the part of God, or on the part of men. They act, therefore, with little consideration who endeavour, by the decrees of secret election and preterition, to overthrow the universality of the death of Christ, which pertains to any persons whatsoever according to the tenor of the evangelical covenant.”
Davenant, Loc. Cit.

In other words, for Davenant, it is possible for those not elected unto salvation to be saved. Indeed, it is possible for those not chosen in Christ to be baptized into the work of the cross.

Pelagian connotations aside as they relate to faith and repentance, if Davenant is correct, then it is possible that God’s decree not come to pass. It is possible that more are saved than predestined unto salvation. It is possible that God can be wrong! Or does God not believe his decree will come to pass?

Possibility with zero probability of occurring:

Simply try to imagine a possible world in which Esau is not elect but enters into everlasting life contrary to God’s will of decree. In other words, is there a possible world in which some are redeemed yet the elect are less in number than they? If not, then so much for this already rejected view of the atonement that posits incoherence by implicitly denying exhaustive omniscience, penal substitution, and the inseparable operations of the Trinity.** That’s what Davenant “possibility” gets you. (Enter now the sophistry of Molinism with its might-counterfactuals and possible-feasible worlds distinction.)

Confessional?

Regarding confessional status, any extra-confessional teaching that leads to confessional doctrinal contradiction may be confidently rejected for being un-confessional even if not explicitly refuted by the church’s standards, (regardless if a delegate to the assembly held the view in question). Otherwise, we unnecessarily introduce incoherence and confusion into our system(s) of doctrine.

A “consensus” document does not preclude certain doctrines from having won the day. So, for instance, any view of free will that by necessary implication entails that God is contingently infallible must be rejected as non-confessional. So it is with all forms of hypothetical universalism that lead to intra-confessional doctrinal incoherence.

I find it a stretch to call a doctrine “within the Reformed tradition” merely because a delegate held to it. When a confession is not already internally contradictory, let’s not allow it to be! For a doctrine to be considered confessional it must be explicitly taught or necessary implied by the confession and cannot introduce contradictions to other confessional doctrines. Again, we may not introduce teachings that are not inferable or would undermine other confessional doctrines, even though our confession is a consensus document of sorts. After all, what does it mean for a teaching to be “within the bounds of a Reformed confession” if it entails an implicit denial of another doctrine of the same confession? Roman Catholics are often constrained to speak that way (vis-à-vis Trent and Vatican ii) but why should the Reformed make such concessions? Can a doctrine be incoherent and Reformed? How about contra-confessional? We’re discussing what it is for a doctrine to be confessional or Reformed. That should be an objective consideration, unlike whether one wants subjectively to label someone else as Reformed. Is John MaCArthur “Reformed”? He’s certainly not confessional!

Clichés that obfuscate:

It’s inescapable, the atonement is a matter of divine intent, which is equivocally obscure within Davenant’s hypothetical universalism.

Little clichés like Christ’s death is “sufficient for all, efficient for the elect” have no place in rigorous systematic theology. A sufficient condition entails a state of affairs that if met ensures another state of affairs. In that sense, the cliché implies actual universalism. Sufficient and efficient become functionally indistinguishable and the cliché, tautological. Yet if “sufficient for all” is intended to convey that Christ’s death would save you if you believe, then redemption becomes necessary for saving faith, which isn’t very interesting. That one cannot have saving faith without the work of the cross, although true, doesn’t advance the discussion. Accordingly, we are back to election and irresistible grace, which are anything but sufficient for all! The historia salutis and ordo salutis must coincide.

In closing:

It would be helpful if those with positions of influence (I’m only referring to them), who claim to be Reformed while showing sympathy to Davenant’s view of possibility, would acquire a contemporary philosophical taxonomy and better grasp of modal concepts. If these historical types who promote not just aberrant but incoherent views would improve upon their equivocal notions, and gain a bit more philosophical understanding, consistency and theological trajectory, they might develop some semblance of appreciation for their modal claims; they might begin to see that they neatly align with Molinism and not confessional Calvinism given (at best) a Davenant underdeveloped version of the “logical-possible chasm” of Molinism.

Upon the Reformed (in name only) becoming better informed on necessity, possibility, metaphysical contingency, compatibilism etc., and thereby becoming self-consciously (or at least more consistently) Molinists, non-libertarian Calvinists might then refer these historical types (who too often show insufficient interest in understanding theological compatibilism) to the preponderance of refutations of the most sophisticated form(s) of Arminianism, if not also to some of the better Molinism arguments out there. Until then, we weep and pray, perhaps most of all for the relatively few Reformed institutions that are towing the line, as well as for those institutions that are not equipping the capable while simultaneously enabling the philosophically disinterested to gain a seat at the Reformed table.***

Footnotes that might surprise:

* A similar informal fallacy is committed here by perhaps the most notable popularizer of Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: 

“The logic goes something like this: ‘The gospel offer, which ministers are called to proclaim, must indiscriminately include this proposition: God is, according to his divine justice and on account of the person and work of Jesus Christ, able to forgive any person of their sins.’ For this proposition to be true, it then must be the case that God in Christ made a remedy for every person such that God is able to fulfill the antecedent condition proclaimed in the gospel—viz., God is able to forgive the sins of any person. In order to claim that God in Christ made a remedy sufficient for every person, we must affirm that God intended that Christ make a remedy for every person.” (Confessional Orthodoxy and Hypothetical Universalism: Another Look at the Westminster Confession of Faith, pp. 134-5).

This is another example of assuming what needs to be proven. Consider the author’s proposition: 

“God is, according to his divine justice and on account of the person and work of Jesus Christ, able to forgive any person of their sins.”

If the doctrine of limited atonement is true, then it is false that God is “able to forgive *any* person of their sins.” Accordingly, the author has begged the question and traded in ambiguity by not recognizing that God’s “ability” to forgive any particular person is predicated upon full satisfaction having been made for any particular person who would be forgiven. Consequently, the proposition doesn’t establish a doctrine of unlimited atonement. Rather, it assumes it!

** Of course no Davenant disciple will acknowledge her denial of orthodox Theology Proper. But I suppose that’s due to a failure to recognize the implications of one’s own position.

Regarding exhaustive omniscience, penal substitution and inseparable operations of the Trinity in light of the alleged possibility:

If God had known non elect persons would convert, they would have been elect. They were not elect (yet would convert), therefore, God did not know they would convert (though they would). 

If Christ dies for some whose sins will be paid for in hell, then Christ’s sacrifice is not vicariously propitiatory for at least some. 

If the Spirit converts (or aids in converting) contrary to the Father’s choosing, it is unreasonable that the Father acts with the Spirit in conversion. In fact, the Covenant of Redemption is undermined. 

(Molinist might-counterfactuals can’t save this.)

*** I won’t name seminaries or professors but Modern Reformation, Reformation 21 and Greystone Institute are examples of giving credence to Davenant’s hypothetical universalism and consequently a seat at the Reformed table. Why is that not deemed outrageous by NAPARC churches and Reformed seminaries? (Shortly after publishing article, Greystone Institute removed linked article by Mark Garcia that looked favorably upon the incoherence of Davenant’s hypothetical universalism.)

Moreover, many seasoned pastors in the Reformed tradition will say things like “God knows the future because he transcends time and the future is all before him.” That’s a direct denial of the determinative nature of divine decree and an implicit affirmation of God being eternally informed by the self-existing wills of uninstantiated essences. Why that is not deemed as outrageous is telling.

Even a relatively recent commentary on the Westminster Confession of Faith looks favorably upon Middle Knowledge, which is another example of giving non-confessional views a seat at the Reformed table.

Accordingly, it’s not surprising that rarely have I read a theological exam of a seminarian seeking licensure or ordination (and rarely have I had a discussion on theological compatibilism with such a person) that demonstrates a minimally thoughtful rejection of libertarian freedom or an understanding of combatibilist freedom and the determinative nature of the Divine Decree. After all, it’s rare for students to be acquainted with, let alone internalize, concepts they haven’t yet been exposed to.

John Frame had similar experiences: “I don’t know how many times I have asked candidates for licensure and ordination whether we are free from God’s decree, and they have replied ‘No, because we are fallen.’ That is to confuse libertarianism (freedom from God’s decree, ability to act without cause) with freedom from sin. In the former case, the fall is entirely irrelevant. Neither before nor after the fall did Adam have freedom in the libertarian sense. But freedom from sin is something different. Adam had that before the fall, but lost it as a result of the fall.”

Calvinist Paul Manata has noted, “One often finds misunderstandings disseminated by laymen on the Internet. This should not be surprising, for a cursory look at what Reformed teachers have said on the subject gives evidence of at least a surface tension among Reformed thinkers.”

I appreciate my article might come across as contentious to some. My concern that constrains me to write as I have is that I desire not to eclipse the problem I hope to further unearth, which extends beyond this particular stripe of hypothetical universalism. The doctrinal infidelity in “confessional” churches is, I believe, at an all time low. That Reformed folk are entertaining hypothetical universalism is just an indicator of a much larger problem. For more on that, read on.

The Free Offer Of The Gospel, Not What You’ve Been Told!

May 29, 2021June 7, 2023by Ron DiGiacomo

Q. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.
WSC Q&A 31

Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel.
Canons of Dort 2.5

The free offer of the gospel (abbreviated “free offer”) has meant different things at different times. From a confessional standpoint, it can only mean that God sincerely offers salvation to all who repent and believe. The meaning is at best narrow. The confessions do not speak in terms of God’s desire for all men to be saved; they merely teach that God promises the gift of everlasting life to all who would turn from self to Christ. This promise of life through faith is sincere. It is a genuine offer. If you believe, you will be saved. This gospel is to go out to all men everywhere.

Arminians are often quick to point out that the free offer is inconsistent with Calvinism. They reason that if the offer of the gospel is sincere and to go out to all people without exception, then God must desire the salvation of all people without exception. Otherwise, they say, the offer isn’t sincere. How can God desire the salvation of all men without exception if God as the ultimate decider of man’s salvation chooses to pass over some? In other words, Arminians reason that unless God desires to save all men, which they observe does not comport with Calvinism, the free offer of life through faith is insincere when given to the reprobate. Their axiom is that a sincere gospel offer implies a sincere desire to see the offer accepted, a well-meant offer. More on that in a moment.

The OPC’s Majority Report

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), representative of possibly most Calvinists today on the matter of the free offer, under the leadership of John Murray and Ned Stonehouse, adopted as a majority position the Arminian view that God desires the salvation of all men. While still holding fast to the Reformed view of predestination, the OPC affirmed the view that that the free offer cannot adequately be disassociated from a divine desire of salvation for all men without exception. In other words, such Calvinists assert that the genuineness of the gospel offer presupposes God’s desire that all embrace Christ.

Subsequently, the free offer has taken on the additional meaning of a well-meant offer, or desire, that the reprobate turn and be saved. Accordingly, a major difference between Arminians and such Calvinists as these is on the question of consistency.

Back to first principles. What makes an offer genuine or sincere?

Can we judge whether an offer is genuine or sincere simply based on whether it is true or not? If God intends to keep his promise, then isn’t the offer genuine? With respect to the gospel, if one meets the condition of faith, he will one day enter the joy of Lord. Isn’t that enough to make the offer of salvation sincere?

Let’s do some basic theology…

What does it mean that God desires the salvation of the reprobate? Are we to believe that God desires the reprobate to do something he cannot do, namely regenerate himself and grant himself union with Christ? Or, is that to check our Calvinism at the door? Isn’t it Jesus who saves? Isn’t salvation of God after all? At best, if we are to remain consistent with our Calvinism, then wouldn’t it follow that to argue for a well-meant offer of the gospel we’d have to posit that God desires that he himself would regenerate the reprobate unto existential union with Christ? After all, when God desires the salvation of the elect, his desire is fulfilled not through sinners giving life to themselves but by God recreating sinners in Christ according to his predestinating decree of salvation.

Aside from the question of whether God desires that unchosen persons act contrary to the decree, what does it mean for God to desire that he himself act contrary to how he determined he would act? Of course, I know no Calvinist who affirms the well-meant offer of the gospel who would say that God desires that he had elected all unto salvation, or anything like that. Yet if man cannot turn himself, as Calvinism clearly affirms, then isn’t the implication of a well-meant offer that God desires that he would turn those he has determined not to save?

Simply stated, since Calvinism affirms total depravity, wouldn’t it stand to reason from a Calvinistic perspective that if God desires someone’s salvation, God must desire that he save that person? Accordingly, the questions that should be considered in this regard are either (a) “Does God desire the reprobate to turn himself and live?” Or (b), “Does God desire that he himself turn the reprobate so that he can live?”

Given that man is blind and deaf to spiritual things and cannot do anything to turn himself Godward, how are we not strictly dealing with the theological plausibility of (b), that God desires to turn the reprobate contrary to what he has already decreed? If TULIP is true, then (a) would seem to be a non-starter.

Now then, is it reasonable to think that the Holy Spirit desires to turn the reprobate Godward when the Father, in eternity, did not choose the reprobate in Christ? Moreover, if Christ did not die for the reprobate and does not pray that the efficacy of the cross would be applied to the reprobate (John 17:9), then in what sense does God desire the reprobate’s salvation? Does God desire that for which Christ does not pray? Does the Trinity desire that persons of the Godhead work at cross purposes? Does God desire true contradictions after all? Or is this a matter of mystery? Does God have multiple wills, let alone multiple wills that are at cross-purposes? Or is this a matter of two opposing truths that we should accept by faith? Apparent contradiction or true contradiction?

Let’s face it:

Not only can God not deny himself by acting contrary to the Covenant of Redemption (CoR) by saving the reprobate whom he did not elect in Christ; 2000 years ago God acted in time sealing that inability by securing salvation only for the elect. If so, then does it not follow that for God to desire the salvation of the reprobate, we should be willing to say that God, today, desires to break the CoR and that Jesus would have died for the reprobate 2000 years ago?

Or is there a third way of living looking at this? Does God live with a sense of regret or un-fulfillment? Is God passible or impassible?

The OPC is quick to point out that they are not advocating a position entailing God both desiring and not desiring his decree. Fine, but then what does it mean for God to desire that men act contrary to his decree? Can God desire his decree while also desiring men to act in such a way that would thwart it? No amount of mystery can salvage metaphysical (or broadly logical) contradiction.

Accidental necessity:

The past and all it contemplates is necessary. Therefore, in our refutation of a well meant offer, we may develop and apply the principle of accidental necessity as it relates to God allegedly desiring to be true (the salvation of the reprobate), when it is now past and consequently necessarily false that atonement was made on behalf of the reprobate! In other words, does God desire things He has now made impossible to obtain? (This observation also pertains to the preposterous notion of Hypothetical Universalism.)

Mystery cannot save contradiction. Accordingly, any appeal to exegesis should not make God out to be internally incoherent. It’s to put forth a passible and a non-omnipotent God to declare to any particular person that God desires her salvation in particular. God desires to save only those chosen in Christ – those who are called according to His purpose – those for whom Christ first desired to save! For this is love, that Christ laid his life down for his sheep. Did God desire that Christ lay his life down for those ordained unto goats?

Let’s go a bit further:

Let x = God’s decree

Let y = The reprobation of some

If y is a fact of x, then y is essential to x. If God (as God) desires x (and is aware that y is essential to x), then we may infer that at least in some sense God’s desire for y is entailed by His desire for x. (I’m speaking in terms of God as God in order to inform our discussion of God with orthodoxy, that we might avoid strict logical possibility that is not ontologically or broadly logical.)

Can God desire x while not desiring y? If not, then in what sense does God desire the converse of y (salvation of the reprobate) given a desire for x (a plan that includes the reprobation of some)?

Let’s briefly entertain three solutions.

1 and 2. Competing desires and unfulfillment:

Some well known Calvinists have posited that God desires the salvation of the reprobate but that he desires their damnation for his own glory even more. There’s something attractive about such a theory. It makes no apology for God positively desiring his decree, which includes his decree of reprobation. The downside is that it implies competing desires within the Godhead, a priority or ordering of yearnings to arrive at one decree. Although perhaps an improvement upon another well known Calvinist’s view that suggests in some sense God is “unfulfilled“ in his desire for the reprobate’s salvation, it nonetheless leaves God longing in making a trade-off. It’s an affront on God’s impassibility.

3. Abstracting the particular from the whole in light of distinguishing desires from pleasures:

We do well to distinguish desire from pleasure. If I desire to go to the doctor but going requires I get soaking wet in the rain, which ordinary I would not desire, then in one sense I do not desire to go out in the rain but in another sense I do. I do not want to go out in the rain if we consider going out in the rain as an abstraction from the overall plan of going to see the doctor. Yet I do desire to go out in the rain if getting drenched is necessary to fulfill my desire to see the doctor. Accordingly, it’s not foreign to our own experience to desire that which is not pleasurable. Context provides relevance.

The notion of abstracting particulars from the whole can be useful in this larger discussion. Although in isolation God does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked; God certainly takes pleasure in his overall decree, which he also desires. Moreover, that something isn’t pleasurable for God doesn’t mean it’s not desirable for God. God desired to punish his Son for our sins, though surely it was not pleasurable (though the overall decretive results are pleasurable). Likewise, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but he would not have decreed reprobation without having truly desired it!

God desires all the components of his comprehensive plan because they serve his desired purpose. Notwithstanding, as a matter of an isolated instance, God takes no intrinsic pleasure in punishment. As an abstraction without purpose, judgement is neither desirable nor pleasurable. Yet in the context of all things – God, his plan, his glory etc., God takes the highest pleasure in himself and his decree, which includes his just indignation against the impenitent who have been ordained to judgement (Jude verse 4) for God’s own glory.

God’s decree is eternal, free and one. In isolation we can consider something evil, but God who transcends time and space ordains evil for good. As an abstraction, God does not desire sin and reprobation for the mere sake of sin and reprobation. Rather, God often desires that which displeases him, but always in service to his glory and the good of the elect. Indeed, God takes pleasure when the wicked turns from his ways, which entails God turning the wicked from his ways! Consequently, that God takes pleasure in all who turn does not imply that God desires all would turn. We may, therefore, say that although God does not take pleasure in in the particularity of reprobation, God nonetheless desires the individuality of reprobation because he takes pleasure in the unity and purpose of the divine decree. God desires the many in so much as it serves his desire for the one. The plurality and unity entailed by the decree are equally ultimate, a reflection of God in three Persons.

In closing:

Given man’s fallen condition, for God to desire a sinner’s rebirth, God would have to desire not that dead sinners give themselves life, but that He Himself would grant life to the dead. Does God desire to regenerate those he does not desire to irresistibly draw? Secondly, given that God does not have opposing desires or in any way go unfulfilled, we should maintain that God does not desire any providence that is outside his desired decreed. We too, following Christ, are to submit our wills to God’s ultimate plan and purpose (Matthew 16:23; 26:39). Notwithstanding, God never desires sin for the sake of sin itself but for the sake of his own glory in his unified plan of creation, fall, redemption and consummation.

Although God does not desire the salvation of the reprobate, we may declare with full confidence and without equivocation: “God came to save sinners, like you and like me. Come now, receive and rest Christ as he is freely offered to you this day and you will be saved!”

This class lays the groundwork for the corruption of the free offer offer of the gospel in the context of God’s three wills of decree, precept and wisdom.

This class focuses on the free offer.