A Response to Westminster West
P. Andrew Sandlin’s Center for Cultural Leadership has announced that they will be issuing a response to the recent symposium by faculty of Westminster Seminary, Escondido, which is titled Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry. The new book is tentatively titled A Faith That Is Never Alone: A Response to the Faculty of Westminster Seminary California, edited by P. Andrew Sandlin.
Contributors include John H. Armstrong, John M. Frame, Don Garlington, Mark Horne, P. Andrew Sandlin, and Norman Shepherd.
This could get very, very interesting.
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January 30th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
Presbyterians disagreeing about finer points of theology?
If I didn’t know better I would say you are making this up!
January 30th, 2007 at 8:00 pm
No, really! I swear! It’s true.
The Southern Baptists will be so jealous if we take the infighting spotlight off of them.
And just think how many people will come to the Lord out of this!
January 31st, 2007 at 12:38 am
Mark, can you nutshell the difference of opinion here for those of us who are relatively uninformed?
thanks,
January 31st, 2007 at 9:23 am
Stephen,
I’ll try to “nutshell” without going into laborious detail.
Basically, The Westy West book is a manifesto from their faculty on why they think the Federal Vision (FV) and New Perspectives on Paul (NPP) are outside the bounds of Reformed (and perhaps Christian) orthodoxy.
At the risk of oversimplifying, FV presents a different way of looking at covenant membership: who is and isn’t part of the church, what it means to be a member of the church, and how it might be possible to be in the covenant people and yet fall away. The “Covenant” part of their book addresses those issues.
NPP (among other things) challenges a certain traditional Reformed/Lutheran view of justification, centering it in Paul more around ecclesiology (who is in the people of God) than soteriology (how is an individual made right with God). So the “justification” part of the book addresses NPP.
The “pastoral ministry” section seeks to demonstrate that the authors’ views on those areas listed above provide a better and more effective model for ministering sanctification in the lives of believers, whereas FV and NPP are seen as destructive of that end.
I would imagine that the new response book I mention in the post will argue that NPP and FV do not fall outside the bounds of Reformed orthodoxy and that there is room within the tolerable diversity of Reformed history for both.
January 31st, 2007 at 11:56 am
thanks mark! i’m more familiar with NPP and Wright than I am with FV so I appreciate your detail here!
January 31st, 2007 at 12:58 pm
The theology of justification in the book is Melancthonian and was taken up by Charles Hodge in the 19th century. I don’t believe it is a traditional Reformed view. It sees sanctification as an effect of justification rather than as simultaneous as Calvin and the Reformed scholastics taught.
January 31st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Jonathan, I’d heard that Mark Garcia made a similar statement about the book when he was here recently teaching an intensive class on Calvin. Were you in that class?
And Stephen, my mini-summary in no way exhausts the issues that are encompassed by FV, but I think it is the heart of what is being addressed in this book.
January 31st, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Hi,
These are interesting comments/claims. Mark’s summary isn’t reasonably accurate but there are 460 pages of detailed argument so I hope readers will actually read the book for themselves.
As to the claim that the view of justification presented in the book is “Melanchthonian,” that’s interesting. I describe Melanchthon’s various views (he articulated different views at different times) in the book and in some detail in a forthcoming essay on “double justification,” to be published this summer Dv by P&R and in an essay forthcoming (this summer) in the Concordia Theological Journal.
No, I don’ think anyone was arguing for Melanchthon’s later views as articulated from the 1540s and 50s, at least not for any of his more distinctive views, unless the views of the Heidelberg Catechism are Melanchthonian, a claim I’ve contested vigorously in my book on Olevianus, or unless the Westminster Standards are “Melanchthonian,” a claim that is implausible on its face.
January 31st, 2007 at 6:52 pm
I am merely repeating what Mark Garcia said in class. His dissertation, “Life in Christ,” is to be published soon. He refers particularly to Melanchthon’s view contra Osiander. The Lutheran’s charged Calvin with being “Osiandrian,” because they similarly made much of the unio cum Christi. Calvin’s response hit upon the relationship between justification and sanctification. Garcia contrasts Calvin’s response to Osiander with Melanchthon’s. It is extremely well done, and I recommend it highly.
The other point Garcia made was that the Westminster West book seems to have a real pan-confessional bent, asserting that there is one unified protestant theology of justification. While it is true that there is a common definition of justification for Lutherans and the Reformed, the relationship between justification and sanctification is different, at least in my opinion. Here is a summary quote from Garcia:
“Do, then, the Lutheran and Reformed branches of the Reformation share a common doctrine of justification? “[D]octrine of justification†needs explanation. If agreement on the definition of the term is in view, such as what might be sought at the catechetical level, then the question is easy to answer in the affirmative. Calvin’s understanding of “justification†is basically synonymous with the brief definitions found in the classic Lutheran confessions. In his theology as much as theirs justification is a forensic declaration grounded upon the uniquely meritorious righteousness of Christ imputed to a believer by faith, resulting in the forgiveness of sins and a righteous standing before God. The effort, it should be said, to pit union with Christ against forensic imputation in Calvin may be seen now to be deeply mistaken.11 If, however, “doctrine of justification†means more than a bare-essentials definition such as one finds in a confessional document – if it includes, for example, the relationship justification bears to other aspects of God’s saving work, the discussion of which is naturally involved in any treatment of the theology of justification – then one must answer negatively. Unlike his Lutheran counterparts, Calvin did not ground good works in imputation or justification but in union with Christ. In contradistinction with Melanchthon, for example, Calvin argued a positive, soteric value of good works as the ordinary prerequisite for receiving eternal life. It appears that basic differences exist in their respective understandings of justifying faith: at the heart of the inseparability in Calvin’s unio Christi-duplex gratia formulation is a justifying faith defined not only passively, as a resting on Christ alone, but actively, as an obedient faith that, resting on Christ alone, perseveres in the pursuit of holiness. Despite important continuities, Calvin’s “main hinge on which religion turns†(Inst. [1539] 3.11.1) is thus not identical with the Lutheran “doctrine of the standing or falling church,†neither in nature (justification as the de facto sum-total of salvation) nor in function (justification as theological center or hermeneutical rule). Instead, Calvin’s model points to a distancing effort on the part of the Reformed that distinguishes their understanding of justification and salvation from the understanding of their Lutheran counterparts.”
As for the Heidelberg Catechism or the WCF being Melanchthonian, I would not agree with that claim. In these documents, there is merely a existential cause-effect relationship between justification and sanctification and not a theological one as the Westminster West folks seem to assert (correct me if I’m wrong). Surely it is true that when we know we are forgiven of our sins, then we can respond with good works of gratitude to our Savior. That is all the confessional documents mean to say on the issue. And that does not make them Melanchthonian.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Jonathan,
That’s my point. “Melanchthonian” is a complicated adjective. Melanchthon said one thing in 1521 and different things later.
I’m quite confident that there is a pan-Protestant doctrine of justification sola gratia, sola fide not only between the Westminster Standards and the Three Forms (the divines had no idea of disagreeing with the HC or the BC on justification) but also among the magisterial Reformers. Bucer, Calvin, Luther, and even Melanchthon (when he wasn’t trying to build an ecumenical consensus for some purpose or other) all taught the same doctrine of justification. This is hardly a novel view. It is being challenged now, I realize, but there are good reasons for holding the older view.
I’ll wait to interact with Mark’s diss. when I’ve seen it.
I would encourage you to read Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Ministry for yourself rather than relying on blog summaries.
January 31st, 2007 at 8:30 pm
And since selling it helps keep both me and Dr. Clark employed, I heartily endorse Dr. Clark’s recommendation, and encourage everyone to click the title in my post and purchase the book. Good for my pocket, good for Dr. Clark’s pocket, and good for your proper understanding of where the Escondido faculty stand.
February 4th, 2007 at 10:08 am
There is early Melanchthon and late Melanchthon. The same goes for Calvin. But creedal and catechetical statements may exist in a separate category.
What follows are some of the questions and answers from the Geneva Catechism of 1545 and it bears on this issue of the relationship among union, justification and sanctification. It’s fairly clear that union is not in view explicitly, and that our good works (still defiled) are only good because they spring from faith and so have Christ’s righteousness imputed them.
(I believe this excerpt also reveals why this catechism never caught on in the Reformed churches.)
M. Hence you conclude, that we cannot by any merits anticipate God or call forth his beneficence; or rather that all the works which we try or engage in, subject us to his anger and condemnation?
S. I understand so; and therefore mere mercy, without any respect to works, (Titus 3:5,) embraces and accepts us freely in Christ, by attributing his righteousness to us as if it were our own, and not imputing our sins to us.
M. In what way, then, do you say that we are justified by faith?
S. Because, while we embrace the promises of the gospel with sure heartfelt confidence, we in a manner obtain possession of the righteousness of which I speak.
M. This then is your meaning — that as righteousness is offered to us by the gospel, so we receive it by faith?
S. It is so.
M. But after we have once been embraced by God, are not the works which we do under the direction of his Holy Spirit accepted by him?
S. They please him, not however in virtue of their own worthiness, but as he liberally honors them with his favor.
M. But seeing they proceed from the Holy Spirit, do they not merit favor?
S. They are always mixed up with some defilement from the weakness of the flesh, and thereby vitiated.
M. Whence then or how can it be that they please God?
S. It is faith alone which procures favor for them, as we rest with assured confidence on this — that God wills not to try them by his strict rule, but covering their defects and impurities as buried in the purity of Christ, he regards them in the same light as if they’ were absolutely perfect.
M. But can we infer from this that a Christian man is justified by works after he has been called by God, or that by the merit of works he makes himself loved by God, whose love is eternal life to us?
S. By no means. We rather hold what is written — that no man can be justified in his sight, and we therefore pray, “Enter not into judgment with us.” (Psalm 143:2)
M. We are not therefore to think that the good works of believers are useless?
S. Certainly not. For not in vain does God promise them reward both in this life and in the future. But this reward springs from the free love of God as its source; for he first embraces us as sons, and then burying the remembrance of the vices which proceed from us, he visits us with his favor.
M. But can this righteousness be separated from good works, so that he who has it; may be void of them?
S. That cannot be. For when by faith we receive Christ as he is offered to us, he not only promises :us deliverance from death and reconciliation with God, but also the gift of the Holy Spirit, by which we are regenerated to newness of life; these things midst necessarily be conjoined so as not to divide ,Christ from himself.
M. Hence it follows that; faith is the root from which all good works spring, so far is it from taking us off from the study of them?
S. So indeed it is; and hence the whole doctrine of the gospel is comprehended! under the two branches, faith and repentance.