[quote:c9509ee01a][i:c9509ee01a]Originally posted by luvroftheWord[/i:c9509ee01a]
Fred,
I admire the fact that you are zealous for confessional Christianity, and particularly of REFORMED confessional Christianity. I don't want to minimize the importance of the WCF or the 3FU, or even such theologians as Calvin or the Westminster divines.
But having said all these things, I don't for a second believe God blessed these men of God and the documents they penned to the extent that they got everything right the first time. In fact, I think there could be many areas of improvement.
God has continued to bless his church with great teachers. Biblical Theologians such as Vos, Ridderbos, Gaffin, Kline, and others have made many theological breakthroughs that influence our exegesis of texts and our understanding of biblical themes. More recently, the development of Literary Theology through such men as Richard Pratt, Bruce Waltke, Tremper Longman, and others have led to more breakthroughs in exegesis and understanding. Are these breakthroughs "chaff"? I don't think they are. Perhaps if there had been breakthroughs in Ancient Near Eastern studies in Calvin's day, it would have been John Calvin and not Meredith Kline who was formulating ideas about the covenant that we consider more contemporary ideas today (ideas which are the seed of ideas like the conditionality of the covenant, etc). But of course, that would have been fine if Calvin had done it. But because Meredith Kline did it almost 500 years later, his scholarship is somehow inferior to the scholarship of Calvin. And because Richard Pratt, Doug Wilson, Greg Bahnsen, John Frame, Ken Gentry, and other men come to different conclusions than Calvin and the Westminster divines, their ideas should bow the knee to the "real" champions of our faith. This is wrong, in my estimation. I am definitely against historical bigotry. I don't believe for a second that our generation today is somehow more intellectually capable than past generations. But I am also against the idea that generations of the past were more capable than we are today. Its not a matter of trying to be smarter than Calvin. Indeed, trying to compare what men like Wilson et al are doing today to what Calvin did in Geneva or the Westminster divines did in England is not a fair comparison at all, since both Calvin and the divines were preparing a systematic statement of the Reformed faith. They were attempting to solidify the faith as a whole, while men like Wilson and others today are specializing in specific areas of theology.
Theological formulations are either true enough to be considered true, or false enough to be considered false, but ALL theological formulations can be improved, simply because we are fallen, and our knowledge is finite and incomplete. God has not imparted full perfect knowledge to anyone, not even Calvin or the Westminster divines.
Now I know, many questions could be raised at this point and much more could be said. But I digress. I'm kinda tired now. [/quote:c9509ee01a]
Craig,
I'm not arguing (as you know) that Calvin and the divines had some revelatory insights. What I am arguing is that they, rather than Wilson, Wilkins, Frame and any other who disagrees with them on critical doctrines, are the ones faithfully interpreting the Scriptures.
Isn't at least somewhat troubling to you that basically all that has come out of many of those you mention is confusion? I mean confusion from both supporters and detractors. Why is it that all of the Auburn 4's arguments basically hinge around - we aren't being understood - even when they have written books, given lectures, follow up lectures, follow up-follow up colloquia, and so on? Have we lost sight of the fact that one of the major requirements for a teacher in Christ's church is to be understood by LAYMEN? If professors at leading Reformed seminaries can't understand what you are teaching, how can the average elderly woman in the church? And if the laymen and seminary profs can't understand what you are teaching, what use is it?
Again, my point is not simply chronological bigotry. The Reformed understanding of justification has been held by men in its most refined form for over 400 years (and in its less refined form since the days of Augustine) . It has been held by Americans, Europeans, missionaries, Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans, Anglicans, pastors, professors, Greek scholars, and Hebrew scholars for centuries. It is not simply Calvin and Westminster we are talking about here. It is Beza, a Brakel, Witsius, Warfield, Hodge, Davies, Dabney, Bunyan, Owen, Stott, Spurgeon, Cunningham, Dagg, Henry, Poole, Berkhof, Pink, Machen, Watson, Buchanan, Henry Martyn, Piper, Sproul, Gerstner, Al Moehler, Vos, Ridderbos, Ladd, Doriani, and on and on.
How can all of them be so clear, and no all of a sudden everything is so muddy? And remember we are not talking about advancement along the same line of trajectory on a secondary subject - this is justification, the article on which the church stands or falls. Kline's advancement, for example, while helpful, did not "revolutionize" covenant theology. It merely gave additional proof and insight to support the classical covenantal theology formulation (Kline himself would admit as much). Somehow we forget when we get all giddy over Ridderbos and Vos that Owen wrote a Biblical Theology three centuries earlier, and Edwards had a massive treatment of Biblical theology and redemptive history.
So I must respectfully disagree with you. There are men today who desire to be innovative for the sake of being innovative. It is not helpful, and they should think more about the church then themselves.