# Another former WTS/FV student blogs about going home to Rome..



## NaphtaliPress (May 23, 2007)

FYI. Andy Webb has commented on a school mate that has gone to Rome via FV/NPP views. 
Another former WTS/FV student blogs about going home to Rome..

Andy also posted his comment to the fellow's blog and already been called Satan in a manner of speaking by one of the usual FV suspects.


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## Semper Fidelis (May 23, 2007)

Chris,

Thanks for posting that. I don't have the stomach to frequent the FV/NPP blogs. People attracted to that stuff are theologically unstable as they're not on any sure footing to begin with. When you stand outside of any Church and its confession, you're ultimately you're own Pope and so it's not such a leap - just another side of the same coin. There is a certain arrogance among that crowd that I find repugnant. This smorgesbord approach to culling your favorite Church father and forming your understanding of the Church and doctrine according to independent study (that is outside the Church) is the typical formula for destruction. I think some of these guys are right to sense that their eclectic approach is unstable as water. It's natural then to be anxious about this instability and find respite in an infallible stability. Or so they think.


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## nominalist747 (May 25, 2007)

Great post, Rich...except for the fact that many of the principle FVers do not stand outside the church: Leithart, Wilkens, Horne, and Meyer are all pastors in the PCA who have been examined by their presbyteries and found to be orthodox. And Wilson voluntarily submitted to extensive examination by the other elders in his church in order to clarify his views. So these men are not off being their own popes. 

Furthermore, from being your own pope to crossing the Tiber is not a small step, since to join the Roman Church means giving up entirely your own interpretation of Scripture. So, their deplorable independence, as you see it, would in fact lead them in the opposite direction from Rome. If they can't submit to the ministerial authority of the WCF (as their critics claim they cannot), how could they bend the knee to the absolute magisterium of Rome?


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## tewilder (May 25, 2007)

"Furthermore, from being your own pope to crossing the Tiber is not a small step, since to join the Roman Church means giving up entirely your own interpretation of Scripture. So, their deplorable independence, as you see it, would in fact lead them in the opposite direction from Rome. If they can't submit to the ministerial authority of the WCF (as their critics claim they cannot), how could they bend the knee to the absolute magisterium of Rome?"

More to the point, they would be nobodies. They could not be priests, and would have to sit in the pew and shut up. It would be similar among Lutherans. They would have to buy into the tradition there, and their ideas would not be welcomed.


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## Barnpreacher (May 26, 2007)

nominalist747 said:


> Great post, Rich...except for the fact that many of the principle FVers do not stand outside the church: Leithart, Wilkens, Horne, and Meyer are all pastors in the PCA who have been examined by their presbyteries and found to be orthodox. And Wilson voluntarily submitted to extensive examination by the other elders in his church in order to clarify his views.



How is it possible for the PCA to allow this to occur? Honest question, btw. I really don't get it.


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## JohnOwen007 (May 26, 2007)

Yes. We as reformed believers have to come to grips with the reasons why these people are moving to Rome. It won't do to dismiss them in a facile manner.

As I see it one of the big reasons why reformed people go to Rome is when they discover the tradition prior to the Reformation, especially as they read the Early Church Fathers.

For example, baptismal regeneration was the stock standard belief from Justin Martyr to Martin Luther / Ulrich Zwingli. We can't simply dismiss that and say no one read their bible in that period. They did.

It's a great opportunity for us to go back and learn the pre-reformation tradition, just like our forebears (the Reformers and the Reformed Orthodox) and develop a right understanding of why theology developed the way it did.

God bless.


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## tewilder (May 26, 2007)

"How is it possible for the PCA to allow this to occur? Honest question, btw. I really don't get it."

They all profess to hold to the Westminster standards, in fact more closely then a lot of Evangelicals in the PCA, do. So a critic has to prove that somehow they don't really mean it. 

And since contradictions in theology have been part of Presbyterian "orthodoxy" for sixty years, how do you show that a person is not confessional when they say they believe the whole confession? Besides, they can show antecedents in earlier Reformed writers for many of their ideas, taken singly (not as a system).


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## Archlute (May 26, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> Yes. We as reformed believers have to come to grips with the reasons why these people are moving to Rome. It won't do to dismiss them in a facile manner.
> 
> As I see it one of the big reasons why reformed people go to Rome is when they discover the tradition prior to the Reformation, especially as they read the Early Church Fathers.
> 
> ...



That is an overstatement of massive proportions, and needs to be qualified in a number of ways.


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## Barnpreacher (May 26, 2007)

tewilder said:


> They all profess to hold to the Westminster standards, in fact more closely then a lot of Evangelicals in the PCA, do. So a critic has to prove that somehow they don't really mean it.
> 
> And since contradictions in theology have been part of Presbyterian "orthodoxy" for sixty years, how do you show that a person is not confessional when they say they believe the whole confession? Besides, they can show antecedents in earlier Reformed writers for many of their ideas, taken singly (not as a system).



Okay, but by defintion one of the jobs of a Christian Confession is to distinguish in many cases between truth and error. So, if one can claim to hold to the Westminster Standards and teach FV theology then is the WCF not doing its job or is it the Church as a whole?


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## Semper Fidelis (May 26, 2007)

I think some of you are missing my point. Certainly there are those that don't ever want to bend the knee and so they continue along the line of independency where they don't have to be accountable to any Confession or a Body that will enforce it. Men tend to move to poles when unstable, though. This is why those that "convert" from hardcore Arminians to Reformed theology tend to tack hard against what they came from.

Thus, my point was that both sides of the coin reject faithful Confessional expression in favor of a form of infallibility. I never said they were equivalent except in this relation. Whether "facile" there is some truth as far as it goes.

Also, I agree that, on the surface, many of these men and the micro-denominations they construct around themselves are more Confessional in many areas than the Broadly Evangelical Churches they critique but it is a provisional confessionalism as long as that Confession doesn't step on their toes to teach something novel.

In some ways I can appreciate their frustration at being sanctioned by TE's in the PCA who take far more exceptions and Presbyteries more or less willing to tolerate it. But other's failings do not give warrant to introduce heterodoxy.


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## Contra_Mundum (May 26, 2007)

I don't think these folks are that well read in the *unfiltered* patristic sources at all. And I think there's more than a little anachronistic reading of the ancients going on where it does occur. If their reading of their own tradition (the Reformers) is any indication, we see that they are already tendentious in their appropriation.

The Reformers themselves reveal a tremendous and superior acquaintance with the patristic and post-patristic writers. What becomes clear in studying the _Reformation_ is that there was a deliberate effort on their part to clear off those additions to apostolic tradition that had encrusted and enervated the church. It was the intent to recover solid footing on the ancient paths, combined with careful exegesis and theological reflection that led the Reformers _away from_ baptismal regeneration, as well as steering them away from the anabaptistic excesses of wholesale rejection of church history.

If the Reformed differed from the Lutherans, it was in the interest of a greater fidelity to truth over the value of tradition. This being reflected (as most of us are aware by now) in the different principles of worship--Lutheran being stated generally as "keep it, if it isn't forbidden", and the Reformed "if it isn't commanded, get rid of it."

I would like to recommend once again, Hughes Oliphant Old's _The Shaping of the Reformed Baptismal Rite in the Sixteenth Century_ as a well-written examination of the Reformed theological enterprise in that era on the subject of baptism. Whether you agree with all his conclusions (and I don't myself) you should come away with an appreciation of the method, and the seriousness, with which the Reformers went about their task of Reformation, and with an eye toward recovery, not just removal. H.O.O. is also the author of _The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship,_ and the series _The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church,_ 6 vols. (7 proj.).


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## JohnOwen007 (May 26, 2007)

Archlute said:


> That is an overstatement of massive proportions, and needs to be qualified in a number of ways.



So please qualify it for us, from the primary sources.


Cheers.


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## tewilder (May 26, 2007)

"Okay, but by defintion one of the jobs of a Christian Confession is to distinguish in many cases between truth and error. So, if one can claim to hold to the Westminster Standards and teach FV theology then is the WCF not doing its job or is it the Church as a whole?"

What's new is dealing with the post-modern mentality. People will claim to believe completely the standards--they won't even take exceptions. They will also claim to believe a lot of other things as "extras" that they insist do not contradict their commitment to the Standards, and every attempt to show that it does is dismissed as a misinterpretation. 

Instead of setting up an alternate system of doctrine and holding it in a contrasting way to the confessional one, something is proposed that is just an addition, or a new perspective, etc. This can be very skillfully done. 

I suppose this is what we will be seeing in the future. Probably we will see it eventually from the Evangelical wing as they become absorbed into the emergent movement. But how does one reject this while making it clear to the less sophisticated church member that the views are being judged fairly?


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## fredtgreco (May 26, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> So please qualify it for us, from the primary sources.
> 
> 
> Cheers.



Why don't you start by reading Cunningham's _Historical Theology_, then you can read volumes 3 and 4 of your namesake, which in both instances refute your outlandish claim.


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## JohnOwen007 (May 26, 2007)

fredtgreco said:


> Why don't you start by reading Cunningham's _Historical Theology_, then you can read volumes 3 and 4 of your namesake, which in both instances refute your outlandish claim.



Dear Fred,

Thanks for your comments. For the record I've read Cunningham (over and over) and Owen's volumes (many times!). They don't say anything to contradict my claim. However, mine was a challenge to become familiar with pre-reformation material. We must be aware of the great tradition and not simply 16th and 17th century theology.

Fred, I suspect it's your sort of rhetoric ("outlandish claim") that helps drive people to Rome. Why? Because people will go back and read the sources for themselves and be bewildered. They won't find reformed theology in the early church. Look at the conversion stories of those from Protestantism to Catholicism (or Eastern Orthodoxy) if you don't believe me.

This is a sore point for me because I've had several close friends move from reformed theology to Rome, and the trek gathered momentum when they started reading the Fathers. They found sacramentalism and baptismal regeneration and it shocked them. It was tragic to watch from then on.

God bless,

Marty.


Ps: A good place to start for understanding the early church is J. N. D. Kelly's _Early Christian Doctrines_. What one finds is not Roman Catholicism. But it is a far bit different from reformed theology.


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## Puritanhead (May 26, 2007)

Ideas have consequences said Richard Weaver.

I really do not feel adequate though to speak beyond that. I have a rough idea of the wrongs of that theological persuassion, and how its inferences beg these happenings.


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## Redaimie (May 26, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> For example, baptismal regeneration was the stock standard belief from Justin Martyr to Martin Luther / Ulrich Zwingli. We can't simply dismiss that and say no one read their bible in that period. They did.
> 
> God bless.



I know I'm over my head but in an effort to understand.
Could you expand on this. If true that baptismal regeneration was the stock standard than, how would you answer someone as to why they were wrong or do you think they were right? I mean so what if the church did teach it they also taught you can pay money & your sins are forgiven. It sounds like they taught a wrong doctrine & now people who read it are led back to Rome, well couldn't the same thing be said about FV theology? If it's wrong it can & has led people back to Rome.


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## Ravens (May 26, 2007)

> Because people will go back and read the sources for themselves and be bewildered. They won't find reformed theology in the early church.



In all honesty, I am more bewildered by the _very existence_ of people who even expect to find a full-orbed "reformed theology" in the early church. I mean I'm a novice in all things, and I still wonder, "Where have they been the past 500 years? What have they been reading, or not been reading, in their lifetime?"

Most of the "church fathers" stuff, the hype and what not, that I have noticed comes from people with _little to no prior experience in reading the fathers._ Obviously that's an empirical judgment, but that's what I usually notice, especially among 20-something's.

So it's not that they've been aware of the breadth of Christian tradition and, all of a sudden, changed their perspective; rather, it's that they have been largely ignorant, and are capsizing due to the weight of RC and EO arguments.

However, educated Reformed people, and the Reformers themselves, knew exactly where they diverged from the tradition, where they recovered the tradition, where they stood in the tradition, etc. 

One thing that has always impressed me when reading Calvin, Whitaker, Owen, Turretin, or anyone, is the utter and complete familiarity with the length and breadth of Christian history and Christian theology. 

If there is a paucity of understanding church history, it is not the fault of the Reformation, nor the Reformers; it is more likely a fault of American Protestantism, or maybe European pietism, or some such failure along the way. It isn't the fault of Reformed theology or the Reformers.

*************************

And at the end of the day, these people are substituting the God-breathed words of Scripture that can contain no real contradiction, rejecting it, and making their "norm" to be a loose "tradition" with many diverging elements.

People are shocked to not find justification by faith in the patristics, and yet the consubstantiality of the Logos wasn't officially decided until the 4th century, and politically and practically it took even longer. Christology and the hypostatic union wasn't fully hammered out until the 6th - 8th centuries. So what "tradition" do we accept? The autocephalous eastern churches, or the bishop of Rome? The christology of Alexandria, or that of Antioch? 

Debates over the sacraments, predestination, the trinity, and virtually everything else, were frothing under the Carolignian renaissance. Things were far from "settled". Read Jaroslav Pelikan's volume on medieval theology to see how divergent it was in places. 

And it's the "fruit" of this utter rejection of God's norming word that led to manifestly unScriptural and antiScriptural doctrines like Mary's role as co-redemptrix, mediatrix, the Marian visions, rosaries, scapulars, transubstantiation, hocus pocus, the withholding of the Scriptures from the masses, pagan-rooted holidays, forbidding of meats, a celibate priesthood (under Rome), the blasphemies of Rome's bishop, salvation by works, Purgatory, and on, and on, and on.

And where Eastern Orthodoxy lacks a few of those, it also lacks the strong Augustinianism latent in the West, and is virtually Pelagian or strongly semi-Pelagian, exalting the will and banishing all forensic, judicial elements of theology.

The universalism of Origen. Tertullian's late-life Montanism. The doctrine of the Logos that allowed for the salvation of Greek philosophers prior to Christ as found in Justin, Clement of Alexandria, et al. Conflicts between the Celtic church and Rome. Alexandria and Antioch. Carolignian debates. Scholastics not agreeing with one another. 1054. Avignon. Cyril Lucaris. Indulgences. Trent. Jesuits. Fatima.

Honestly. _Honestly._ We are to reject God's word as the standard for doctrine and piety, and instead accept a discordant grouping of theologies, schools, and theologians as our "norm."

At the end of the day, after further study, these people are going to realize that, hey, tradition needs interpreted too. So who's the final authority? Neither Scripture, nor tradition, but the smiling old face of the Roman Werewolf and antichrist, who will do all of your interpretation for you.

Or you could just join the EO churches, where violations aren't as flagrant and don't have "quite" the official sanction, but still pop up all over the place anyway; and you can join one of their ethnic enclave churches, start saving yourself via your own will, practice paedocommunion, adore icons, kiss icons, bow to icons, learn about the "toll-booths" our souls have to go to, watch myrrh come out of crosses, and give your endless adoration to the blessed Theotokos.

Whatever. Some of these people need a Divine slap in the face, honestly. They need a Damascus road unhorsing.

We have a God-breathed standard that is sufficient, unable to be broken, more sure, and utterly reliable. The same Word that clearly tells us that savage wolves, false teachers, false prophets., etc., *would arise in the institutional and visible church.* And since Paul, Peter, Jude, et al., clearly say that false teachers, wolves, and false prophets (and possibly even the very Man of Sin himself) in the institutional teaching roles of the church, why in the world should we let our religious "norm" be based on the various contradictory teachings, especially those during the apostasia.

It was those who possessed the visible succession, who sat in Moses' seat, who made men twice the children of hell as they were, prevented people from entering the kingdom of God, and crucified Christ. That was the "visible church". The current situation is similar.


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## JohnOwen007 (May 26, 2007)

Dear Mary,

Thanks for your questions.



Redaimie said:


> I know I'm over my head but in an effort to understand.
> Could you expand on this. If true that baptismal regeneration was the stock standard than, how would you answer someone as to why they were wrong or do you think they were right?



Yes, good question indeed. No, I don't believe in baptismal regeneration at all--I wouldn't be here on the PuritanBoard if I did.

What we find is that (for whatever reason) the early church fathers believed that people underwent regeneration at baptism. The classic verses to which they appealed were:

John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be *born of water and [of] the Spirit*, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. 

Ephe 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the *washing of water* by the word,

Titu 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the *washing of regeneration*, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;

1Cor 6:11 And such were some of you: *but ye are washed*, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.


So the classic Roman Catholic objection to Protestants is this: if the Bible is as clear as you say why did it take to the Reformation to work out that baptismal regeneration is not true?


My answer goes something like this:

[1] The Jews were wiped out fairly early in the history of Christianity, thus the Church lost the hermeneutical tradition critical to understanding Scripture.

[2] Hence the Early Church is a history of how Gentile minds, bringing all sorts of alien presuppositions to Scripture, sought to make sense of the Bible, especially with the rise of controversy (Gnsoticism, Modalism, Arianism, etc. etc.)

[3] Little by little we see the Church throughout her history clarifying what Scripture says. There are critical times of breakthrough (the Trinity, Christology etc.) and critical bad turns (the rise of the papacy especially in the 11th century, the hegemony of Latin biblical studies, etc. etc.).

[4] The Reformation is that time when aspects of soteriology (amongst other issues like authority etc.) were hammered out for the first time, particularly because of a return to the original biblical sources in Greek and Hebrew.

[5] With soteriology clarified came a clarification of the sacraments--they weren't automatic channels of grace but visible words of gospel promise. Luther still bound to the church tradition believed that baptism was generally necessary to salvation, but the reformed tradition saw it was incompatible to justification by faith alone.

[6] Hence, "water" and "washing" in the above verses are to be understood as metaphors for regeneration, not to be taken literally as baptism.

One of the classic objections to the reformation at the time was that it was new fangled in it's teaching: "Where was your church before Luther?".

However, Roman Catholicism has to frankly admit that the medieval church was different to the early church in the: papacy, 7 sacraments, private confessional etc.

I tend to agree with Luther and Calvin that the rise of the papacy in the 11th century, particularly due to the influence of Hilderbrand (Pope Gregory VII), was the time when institutional church fell (in it's official teaching). This is because (among other things) works of satisfaction began to be clearly upheld then. 

I hope that all-too-brief sketch helps a little.

God bless,

Marty.


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## Redaimie (May 26, 2007)

Thank you Marty,

yes that does help clarify. 

It's funny but those verses you quoted when I read them as a new Christian they pointed me to being united to Christ, being reborn spiritually. In reading them I didn't think of my baptism as a Roman Catholic infant but of my rebirth in Christ by faith making my baptism real.

I hope you know I meant no disrespect asking if you believed in baptismal regeneration, I don't know people well enough here to know. Also the term "baptismal regeneration" has been redefined these days to include anyone from RC's to Presbyterians.


Thanks again for answering my questions.




JohnOwen007 said:


> Dear Mary,
> 
> Thanks for your questions.
> 
> ...


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## R. Scott Clark (May 26, 2007)

Marty,

I agree with much of your post but re: #s 1-2 below:

You must be aware that Von Harnack's clam regarding the Hellenization of the church (I guess these are the foreign ideas to which you refer) has been seriously challenged by contemporary scholarship in a variety of ways. 

James Barr has challenged the idea of a "Greek mindset" (to which evangelicals continue to appeal in justification of every silliness they can imagine). 

In fact the early church engaged Jewish critics of Christianity from the patristic period through the medieval church. 

I don't deny the influence of various forms of Platonism (e.g., middle Platonism in Oriegn and neo-Platonism in many medieval writers) but the relations between the Fathers and the Medievals and Greek thought is much more complicated than often said.

For what it's worth, Luther's doctrine of baptism is more ambiguous than that of confessional Lutheranism. For example, in the Small Catechism (1529), just as soon as he seems to teach baptismal regeneration unequivocally he turns around and seems to deny it. For Luther, baptism was gospel, it was a watery sermon and has the same effect as the preaching of the gospel. One difference between Luther and the Reformed is that he embedded the Spirit in the sacrament which the Reformed didn't do. Thus, I'm not sure the difference was as much about tradition as different ways of relating Word and Spirit.

rsc



JohnOwen007 said:


> Dear Mary,
> 
> Thanks for your questions.
> 
> ...


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## JohnOwen007 (May 26, 2007)

R. Scott Clark said:


> Marty,
> 
> I agree with much of your post but re: #s 1-2 below:
> 
> ...



Dear Dr Clark,

Yes, thanks for your qualification. I wanted just to give a quick explanation of why things developed the way they did, rather than a super precise explanation missing the wood from the trees.

I was not in any way endorsing Harnack or James Barr in my comments.

People like J. N. D. Kelly (_Early Christian Doctrines_) and Gerald Bray (_Creeds, Councils and Christ_) have shown the fallacious nature of Harnack's thesis.

James Barr has challenged the idea of us being able to discover this thing called the "Greek" or "Hebrew mind" from the structures of their respective languages. That is, his thesis challenged the nexus between the structure a language and one's thought world.

However, what Barr didn't (and couldn't) challenge was the notion of the _worldview_ (and the sociology of knowledge). This is a critical one for anyone doing historical theology. People will come to the Scriptures (and any other writing) with certain worldviews and blinkers that affect the way they read things. (Is this not the problem with the Barthian interpretation of Calvin and Protestant Scholasticism--they read the tradition through their presuppositional grid).

For the early church it was a variety of worldviews, not least the Graeco-Roman background with a concoction of Greek and pagan presuppositions. It would also appear that this had an influence on why the Eucharist developed in the way that it did.

God bless,

Marty.

ps: Dr Clark I believe you celebrated thanksgiving last year with my good friend John McClean who teaches at a Presbyterian Seminary in Sydney, Australia.


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## Redaimie (May 27, 2007)

JohnOwen007 said:


> Dear Dr Clark,
> 
> This is a critical one for anyone doing historical theology. People will come to the Scriptures (and any other writing) with certain worldviews and blinkers that affect the way they read things. (Is this not the problem with the Barthian interpretation of Calvin and Protestant Scholasticism--they read the tradition through their presuppositional grid).


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