Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Applicable to my question . . .
Here's a little cartoon that's kind of applicable to my question about God's grace over our wrong beliefs. It's more related to the type of mentality that gave rise to my question, namely the polemical, "everyone--no seriously, everyone--who doesn't believe things the same way we do is either too stupid or too prideful to get it right" type of mentality that probably all of us have come across in the blogosphere (and sometimes in the pulpit) at some point or another.
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Hey Man, Dave asked me this, and I never got back to him. Why? Because I'm not a good friend. Here's the beginning of my answer. God's grace totally covers the regenerate man's behaviour, theology, heart, etc. So, in a wierd way, the question kind of gets the cart before the horse. Why doesn't God's grace cover the false teaching of heretics? Because they are unregenerate, they have not received the grace of God, they have not been covered in the righteousness of Christ, Christ is not their wisdom, nor is he their righteousness, nor is he their sanctification (1Cor 1:29). In other words, good theology should begin to flow out of regeneration and sanctification. On the other hand, some theology is so abhorrent that the God that it speaks of is not the God of Christianity. The God of Pelagius is not Christian, because he does not change our nature. The God of Bishop Spong isn't Christian because he is not the omnipotent creator. To that end, all of our theologies show what kind of a God we have created. Which is why we have to stick very close to the Scriptures and (as I've quoted J.C. Ryle here http://trinitylearning.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/think/ ), we should work to nail down our theology as close to that as possible.
Ian! Welcome to the Council of Men. I think Dave should write a little bio for you (since I think I only know you through his stories).
Thanks for the comment. When we talked about this topic at our gathering down in Charleston I had kind of the same thought as you: that grace isn't just an abstract thing; it's an action on God's part and it has effects on those who receive it.
But, I'm still not convinced that that solution actually clears up the issue. The problem I'm having is the amount of polemics among people who call themselves Christians. Go to any hardcore reformed blog and within the last three months I guarantee you'll find a post questioning the salvation of anyone in the emergent church, Catholics, and most other people who don't believe the same way. And a lot of emergents, Catholics, and others think the same thing about reformed people (although it does seem to me that reformed people, more than any others, are on the offensive all the time). During class, I hear about how Karl Barth is so mislead because of his sinful beliefs that coincide with Kantian philosophical tenets. And what my question is, I guess, is: if we agree that everyone's beliefs are shaped by our experience (e.g. the reformed people I met in Argentina are hardcore charismatics, like speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, prophecy; stuff that most of the guys I read at WTS say is clearly--very very clearly--over according to the Bible) and our own sinful nature (i.e. as much as we would like to believe it, our personal beliefs aren't just handed down from heaven into our brains; they're affected, at least to a certain degree, by our surroundings) and we understand that God's grace covers all of our sin, including our wrong beliefs, why are we so eager to condemn those who believe differently than us? Where is the humility? Where is the extension of grace?
There are a lot of people who people at WTS would say are heterodox and non-Christian but who pray to and worship and repent before a God who sounds a lot like my God but with a different doctrinal twist. For instance, Greg Boyd.
I've heard people walk out of churches that aren't Calvinistic and say something like, "He was a really good communicator, but he's just not preaching the true gospel." And more and more, I'm starting to interpret statements like that as "He's just not preaching my interpretation of the gospel."
Surely there are some doctrines that must be adhered to, but even then, if we say "To be a Christian, you have to believe 'A', 'B', and 'C'", you'll have people who will say about some teacher they disagree with "Well, he couldn't possibly believe 'A' or 'C' if he comes to that conclusion." And the thing that's utterly maddening about the entire thing is that all sides of the argument (of who's truly a Christian and who's preaching a 'false' gospel) have pretty much the same amount of evidential, Scriptural, logical, and emotional strengths and weaknesses.
So how do we respond to people who say they're Christians but are Armenian or Open Theist? They would say that they are going into Scripture with their hearts submitted to the Holy Spirit and with hearts repentant for their sins. Our presuppositions could even be very very similar. And yet we'll come to different conclusions. Should we be trying to 'convert' them to our view or should we say that until we die and see God face-to-face we'll allow a good bit of doctrinal diversity?
I don't know. I tend towards the doctrinal diversity side, but that's mainly out of my experiences on the other side of the spectrum.
Sorry for the length and disorganization of this. Stream of conscious writing probably isn't the best idea at 2:45 am.
Hey Reggie, there's a lot to think about there. My initial reaction is to note the difference in opinion from somebody pastoring in a liberal mainline denomination. So, for example, I have to deal with this from one of my people http://www.albertmohler.com/blog.php. My boss is studying at RTS right now, and he's starting to intimate to me how folks in the more conservative denominations fight over the stupid stuff (i.e. "I won't go to that church because the preacher's postlapsarian"). So, I can understand your frustration. I can also understand it as someone who had a difficult time with how I heard most Reformed people I know articulate the doctrine of election. In my mind it wasn't necessary to believe it in order to have your sins forgiven, but it was almost as if people doubted my salvation because I didn't believe God created people for the purpose of damning them to hell. I'll tell you what helped win me over to the 'doctrines of grace' were people talking about the parts of the gospel that I already accepted in a way that made the other doctrines of grace sound more appealing. So, the tack I'm taking right now with 'Arminians' (and by the way, try not to call people arminian if you can help it. noone but calvinists like that) is to really focus on what we already agree on and slowly challenge them. If people are following Jesus, they should have a growing sense of their own sinfulness and their need for grace. And at the end of the day, that's why the doctrine of election's important, isn't it? I'm so sinful, if Christ doesn't sovereignly choose me, I'll reject him 20 times a day. Our beliefs are shaped by our experience, but they should growingly be shaped by the scriptures as well. The other question you have to ask when you're talking to folks with faulty theology is where are your motives. Are you just trying to prove a point or are you grieved that their theology robs them of the comfort and power of the Gospel? As a pastor, it kills me to see my people resisting the doctrine of God's sovereignty, because what do they have to fall back on when they get cancer? It kills me to see people deny total depravity, because you can only experience God's grace in proportion to your own knowledge of sin. The problem with a lot of Reformed folks (and fundamentalists, and catholics, and in a wierd way emergents) is that they are fighting over doctrines simply because they think they're right and they wanna make a point. They don't give a lick for people's lives, their salvation, or whether God is glorified. I dunno, just some thoughts. Maybe some day the Lord will allow us to discuss this over beer. I like beer. BTW, is wts westminster philly?
good response. we should definitely talk about it over beer because i'm too tired after greek class today to write anything else that's remotely theological.
and yeah, wts is westminster philly.
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