That would simply be one's opinion.
, for whatever they are worth!
Thank you for this information! This touches on an unasked question that has been rattling around in my head for a little while. I will plan to listen to some of these when time avails.
This is my understanding and most troubling aspect of WTS. I have no "inside knowledge", but it doesn't look good. To add to the list, Dr. Trueman left during the Oliphant controversy as well. I hope men like Dr. Duguid make more an impact and the less orthodox men are ushered to the street. Sometimes a house needs a good cleaning.........
This was very helpful. Thank you. I had no idea Dr. Briones had also departed. I had a chance to meet him at a Presbytery Meeting a few years ago. A very nice and charitable man. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to hear of Dr. Oliphint's upcoming retirement. the controversy he left WTS (and the OPC in some respects) mired is saddening to say the least. Praying for WTS!WTS is an interesting place. How the last controversy was handled was done very poorly. All of this is public information and not at all gossip, and ought to to be said in order to inform anyone who thinks of going to WTS what it is like and what it supports. Dr. Duguid can correct me where I am wrong.
The Recent Background Controversy
The most recent controversy was over Dr. Oliphint and his "God With Us" book and apparent revision. The book is a hilarious $165 on Amazon now, because most of the books were burned. The controversy was over "Theological Mutualism" as I've heard it called, which is basically attempting to answer how God relates to the world. Dr. Oliphint's solution was to say that God has "Covenantal Properties," and that in God's Covenantal face, he actually does change: so when God called out "where are you" to Adam and Eve, it was a real question of where they were, not rhetorical. In the end, the question is - when God and man relate, is there necessarily a change in God (that would collapse the creator-creature distinction)? Ultimately, the answer must be no, because of the aseity of God - God cannot be determined by anything outside of himself, let alone by creation. But Oliphint thinks the answer is yes, that God must make a change in himself in order to relate to creation.
Dr. Oliphint was brought up on charges and tried in the OPC Presbytery of the Southwest, but eventually it stalled (if I remember correctly) on the statute of limitations, because the book was published beyond the statute. Dr. Oliphint has never recanted his views, but he has said he will not speak on them anymore, something I can't confirm that he has done or not, as he has continued to teach Apologetics and Doctrine of God at WTS, although he just recently announced his retirement.
The Lingering Effects
The point I have in relating all of this background - through all of this, Dr. Tipton, left or was fired in relation to this. That is, the seminary's official statement was intentionally vague with Dr. Tipton's case, and made it seem like Dr. Tipton was let go for a sin issue - when he simply vehemently disagreed with Dr. Oliphint. Since then, Dr. Beale, Dr. VanDixhoorn, and Dr. Briones have also left - whether in connection to these things or not, I don't know, but I suspect they have. Again, all of this is public information.
I have a hard time believing that the Confessionalists won in this case, as many of those who... left, were deeply confessional. I have great respect for many of the professors who are still at WTS, as many - like Dr. Duguid - are also confessional, and so I have hope for WTS, but I left WTS deeply disturbed, even if I left with an MDiv. I simply no longer trust the administration after all the maneuvering. This is unpresbyterian, as one of the great things of Presbyterians is that we "have it out" on the floor, so to speak, and embrace one another as brothers afterwards, all to the glory of God. This never happened when people "left."
However, Financially and Strategically, the seminary is demolishing Van Til Hall - an old utilitarian building - to build a new hall with eventual dorms. They have been working on having a dedicated, payed for, in person MDiv program for years - and finally succeeded. Machen had this as his vision for the seminary even during the great depression. These are exciting things in the abstract, but I honestly worry - and this is conjecture - that the seminary has followed these dreams too closely with neglect to orthodoxy, and have become a seminary based upon strategic goals and not upon God's glory alone. Their relationship with the OPC now feels much stranger and indeterminate, if I may voice my feelings and the feelings I know from other OPC voices I respect.
I believe the Theological Mutualism which Oliphint has taught in the past is heresy akin to Open Theism. Regardless of what I believe, do not go into WTS wishy washy on Theological Mutualism (or, Correlativism).
You have my
That's odd. If someone asked me for a syllabus of my class I wouldn't hesitate to send it. What do I have to lose? That they might copy my choice of textbook?
Rts Orlando is beginning a thm program next year
Beale is now at RTS Dallas, very happy to be back in his native Texas. He's doing great work there!
Dr. Trueman may have left because of this, but he did leave before all of the craziness happened with Tipton and the rest. His main sticking point seemed to be disagreements with Presuppositional Apologetics itself - as far as I can piece together from what he's said later. I went to the church he preached at (Cornerstone Ambler), and as a very private Englishman, he would never speak of these things (not that we ever asked). As far as I can tell, he is more on the Craig A Carter side of things. As a (former?) Church Historian, it makes sense - he was not willing to give a near wholesale rejection of people like Aquinas and Classical Apologetics, and disliked the rhetoric coming from Oliphint to that effect. He said was happy to exit especially because he wanted to deal with undergraduates as people whose minds were not already set on issues - I'd imagine knowing WTS, this meant apologetics. He seemed to be having some burnout in theological controversy as well and threw himself at philosophical history instead and wrote most of "The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self" on a Princeton grant, of all places. But that's what I know on the surface - what kinds of discussions and administrative things were behind Trueman's exit are just beyond anything I know or anything that's public.
Well, it's a bit more complex than that. If most of your faculty have PhD's from the institution itself, then that is problematic. On the other hand, if you aren't willing to hire any of your own Ph.D. graduates, what does that say about your confidence in your own program? It's fair to say that Ligon Duncan and RTS have been one of the biggest supporters of the PhD program at WTS, since we supply a fair number of their faculty as well. And many of our students who go on and do PhD's elsewhere take advantage of the ability to take our PhD classes as electives (as I did).
I wish I definitely knew the answer to this question! I will say that Dr. Briones is now at Westminster West and that I've never heard of problems of Theological Mutualism there. However, they still seem to have a bent toward Lutheranism. In that, Horton's view of Justification is that it is the central salvific benefit of the Christian, whereas Westminster East is clear that Union with Christ is the center, with Justification being an important aspect of union.
Having taught at both, I'm probably qualified to answer this. They are sister schools and their trajectories are moving them closer rather than further apart. The curricula and emphases in their MDiv's are very similar. The differences are small and shouldn't be over rated: both are strongly Confessional schools. Both place a heavy focus on original language skills and Christ-centered preaching. Both are academically very strong.
Not to derail, but this doesn’t do Horton's view justice. He argues that imputative justification is the forensic basis for our standing before God, logically preceding union with Christ (a la Berkhof). However, Horton acknowledges that mystical union is the Reformers broader field for discussing justification and sanctification. He even says that union, in a qualified sense, grounds both. See chapter 7 in both Covenant and Salvation and his first Justification volume.
I'm doing doctorate of ministry stuff so I'm sort of informed. I appreciate all of the faculty there. They seem fairly sound on confessional orthodoxy. There's some loose subscriptionists on matters like creation if you compare it to places like Puritan Seminary or Greensville, if that's a concern for you. Personally, Westminster is my favorite place to be for theological education. As far as controversies, major ones were in the 90s and those are long past. Recent concerns were addressed. As far as I know things are going well there. Westminster is growing rapidly from what I can tell with a lot of exciting remodel endeavors. I believe the study body is growing the subculture seems different than what I saw 10 years ago when I visited some friends out there. I think they've also done a good job in organizing the curriculum to be effective for pastoral ministry in what is a changing culture in the US. In short, I'd recommend it. Feel free to DM me if you have any more questions, or specific questions.
