Do Calvinists believe in salvation by faith alone? Quick answer: No. But don’t quit reading. . .
When I was in undergrad, my professor made us have a debate in theology class. For the debate, he had us represent the position to which we did not adhere. He was quite excited, I think, to have me – the only Calvinist in the class (indeed, the school) – represent the Arminian position (blast him!!). Being an undergraduate course, it was very general. So my task was simple: to argue that Arminianism, in general, presents the best explanation of salvation, while Calvinism falls short. I came to appreciate this assignment much more than I thought I would. More importantly, I really think I won the debate (even though the prof said I lost). There were a couple of issues that I focused on to undermine Calvinism during this debate. I will mention only one.
Calvinists, such as myself, love two analogies: first, we like the one about the dead man in a grave. This represents the doctrine of depravity and spiritual mortality. We are dead spiritually. This means that we are eternal haters of God by nature (Eph. 2:1-5). Dead! How do you preach to a dead man? You can shout and scream at the grave all day long, but there won’t be any response. The dead must be raised in order to respond. God must make us alive before we can have faith in him. The second analogy is like the first, but has a good twist. It is the analogy of physical birth to spiritual birth. As the sound-bite version goes, “Just as a baby naturally cries out after it has been born, so believers cry out to God in faith after they have been born again.” In other words, our calling upon God to save us, our turning to God in repentance, and our faith in him come only as a result of being regenerated. The natural man cannot accept the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14). The Gospel is most definitely a “thing of God.” Therefore, the natural man must be turned into a spiritual man before he can accept the Gospel. To have faith, God must be the instigator. To have faith, we must be born again.
Maybe you can see where I am going. During Bogaski’s class, I found the Achilles heel of Calvinism (or so I thought). It was simple: Since Calvinists believe that regeneration precedes faith, they do not really believe in salvation by faith alone! Faith was not the instrumental cause of salvation after all; regeneration was. Therefore, faith was a result of salvation. In this, Calvinists denied a central tenet of Protestantism. They (um . . . we) denied salvation by faith alone!
Arminians, on the other hand, were true Protestants who could say that they possessed an unqualified belief in salvation by faith alone. While they would agree that a dead man cannot respond, they would say that Christ makes all alive through prevenient grace. But this grace does not save. It only neutralizes the effects of spiritual deadness so the hostile sinner has a legitimate chance to make the instrumental choice of faith for or against God. Therefore, their own faith, which has been given opportunity through God’s grace, is the instrumental cause of their salvation. Arminians do believe in salvation by faith alone.
However, this is quite misleading. I, at the time, did not understand something about the doctrine of sola fide (“faith alone”): No one has ever claimed that salvation is by faith alone. This is not a Protestant doctrine. We believe in justification by faith alone. This is what sola fide means. And Calvinists (along with Arminians) both believe that justification – the forensic declaration of our righteousness based solely on the merits of Christ – is brought about by faith.
Often, in theological language, we distinguish between salvation and the individual aspects of salvation. Ultimately salvation is much more than justification or regeneration. Involved in salvation are redemption, justification, adoption, conversion, calling, election, sanctification, glorification, and faith. Some of these happened in the past, some will happen in the future. But they are all part of our salvation. Even the Scriptures say that we have been saved (Eph. 2:8), are being saved (1 Cor. 1:18), and will be saved (Rom. 5:9). Which is it? Well, it depends on which aspect of salvation we are talking about. Justification is a once and for all event that is always past for the believer. Sanctification is an ongoing process which will culminate at the resurrection. But both fall under the broader umbrella of “salvation.” Of course Scripture does not always use such precise language to speak about such things, nor should we expect it to.
We often refer to this as the ordo salutis (Lat. “order of salvation”). While many aspects in our salvation, such as faith and justification, regeneration and conversion, do not follow a temporal order, they often follow a logical order. Logically, faith comes before justification in the ordo. Here is a look at the generally accepted ordo to which most Calvinists adhere.
The Arminian ordo looks a bit different:
And the Catholic ordo looks different still.
And we should not read too much into the fact that Calvinists put faith before justification. Calvinists do not believe that faith has any intrinsic efficacy. As Berkholf put it:
“Justifying faith does not justify by any meritorious or inherent efficacy of its own, but only as the instrument for receiving or laying hold on what God has provided in the merits of Christ. [The Reformers] regarded this faith primarily as a gift of God and only secondarily as an activity of man in dependence on God.” (Systematic Theology, 497)”
In the end, Calvinists do not believe in salvation by faith alone. We believe in justification by faith alone. But salvation is by God’s grace alone (sola gratia). Every aspect of the ordo is completely in God’s hands. Even the faith that we have is a gift of God’s grace (Eph. 2:8-9). While humans take part in both faith and sanctification, this does not make them meritorious for or even causal in our salvation. Salvation is ultimately by God alone (soli deo).
Therefore, while I feel I won that debate so many years ago (even though the professor did not seem to want to recognize the distinction I have made here), I only did so by creating a straw man of my own position. However, as for the other attack on my Calvinism, I feel it was legitimate and would still use it today. Another time, we might talk about it . . .
139 replies to "Do Calvinists Really Believe in Salvation by Faith Alone?"
Amen Michael! Paul was the first “Paulinist”..grace & glory, and always the doctrine of God, triune, from Him comes all gifts and glory! Funny, that wonderful verse from the Letter of James comes to mind:
“Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights , with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.” (James 1: 17) Wow, talk about a “Calvinist” presuppositional verse! Indeed the whole Word of God is presuppositional to God’s, great glory “the Father of lights”!
Anne Hutchinson took it a step further. Although faith is important it does not bring salvation. Only grace does.
Just one observation: I have a problem in arguing from analogies in general. No analogy is perfect. Spiritual death and physical death are not completely analogous are they? After all, someone who is spiritually dead is still thinking, moving, and acting. They still possess a spirit that somehow moves and acts within them, even if it is unregenerate. So to say it is “dead” as a body is “dead” when a person dies and therefore is incapable of doing anything, or responding to spiritual promptings misrepresents reality.
First you have to remember that Christianity is a cancer on the earth. It hurts more people then it helps.
But if I am going to run with this post you also have to remember that Christianity (especially as the Calvinistas practice it) is a faith for the self rightous. As long as one is missional and reformed one can do whatever they want. Soon you can create a theology that can justify abortion, terrorism, murder, creating child porn etc.. Why allow someone to live if God hates them? Why carry that child to term? The humane thing is to terminate the pregnancy. That molestation of the 5 year old can produce charachter for that person through suffering you know.
It also puts events such as September 11 in a new perspective. I guess that means that putting on the armor of God means grabbing a box cutter before boarding a 767. But that’s Islamic Christianity for you.
So for the glory of God what’s the next target going to be? US Bank Tower in Los Angeles? Space Needle in Seattle? Or John Hancock Tower in Chicago…
But as I said…Christianity is a cancer.
I would also agree that we are saved through grace alone.
Eagle, do you care to explain what your bizarre rant has to do with the topic at hand?
Islamic Christianity? Cancer that helps people? What on Earth is going on here? 🙂
Steve Martin, are you saying that Calvinists don’t have any assurance? On what grounds do you hold that?
Someone else said: “The fact that it is a gift does NOT change the fact that MAN is a part of the Ordo Salutis and is ESSENTIAL and not optional, thereby vitiating the statement you made that salvation is all of God.”
There’s a serious problem in this statement. Nobody claims man is not a part of the Ordo. Man is the _object_ of the Ordo. As the object, man is not optional; without man there is no salvation OF MAN.
As Luther said (I don’t have a source for this, it’s from memory), man brings nothing for his justification and sanctification except his sin. So what man brings IS essential for salvation. It’s just not essential in the sense you want it to be — it’s essential in order that it be put to death by God.
-Wm
Ron,
I get your point. It is a good one. Reprobation is equally determinative whether the means to carry out the decree is God’s active loving grace or his decision to create and determine the actions of the reprobate. I don’t see how you could consistently have a sovereign God (defined as most Calvinist do) and not see that God’s determining of outcomes is always active. Also, the particular desires which determine each action of the sinner must be determined by God in order to produce the particular actions which God has decreed.
@Steve Martin: If so-called “Calvinists” really read Calvin, and also more than only the Institutes, like many of his sermons, letters, etc., they would see a man full of the Assurance of Christ! Funny, I have not met too many non-assured Calvinists, myself, at least not theolog’s. But I know my share of non-American Calvinists also…Irish, English, Scots.. and some European Dutch, too. Though some are certainly before the Lord now. I even know a German Calvinist. My point is, American Calvinism is kind of a thing of its own! One looks at the OPC wars and history, etc. Perhaps the master gentleman of the American Reformed is Sir R.C. Sproul! But I did like Roger Nicole also, RIP! Btw, I have and use often, the Reformation Study Bible (ESV), with RC as the general editor. It is very good to my mind! And it is friendly to use, for the average so-called layman, at least as I would think.
You have missed the Lutheran scenario, which i believe is mix of reformed, and catholic.
I have respect for the Calvinist , but I have to disagree with the view that God chooses and not you.
Love allows you to choose. I believe His word says they (the unsaved) love darkness more then they love the light.
Revelation 3:19-22 KJV
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
It’s a really bad question. If Calvinists don’t really believe in faith alone, they are not true Calvinists. In Calvinistic doctrine, and even in the Bible, the faith that saves does not come inside the natural man, but is a gift from God, as is repentance. Your whole argument is I think, dust and ashes, my friend. Either you have not really done your homework concerning Calvinism, or are out to ‘disprove’ Calvinism because it stomps on Arminian ‘free will’, rather than find truth.
Furthermore, to assert that Arminians believe in salvation by ‘faith alone’ is rather ludicrous if the ‘determining’ element of that salvation is a ‘free will’ decision.
I rest my case.
In the Arminian picture you have faith before regeneration, though prevenient grace is regeneration. Arminians do not believe that Faith can proceed from the unregenerate human nature.
Is there a reason you did not put conversion and repentance in the Arminian diagram at all? How could you leave out sanctification from the holiness church’s?
The reason I am Arminian in theology is because of how Jesus, the incarnate God, summed up the plan of salvation (Matthew 22) and my reading of Romans 8.
Remember that Arminianism came out of Calvinism, a further development of it if you will (perhaps in the same way the reformation came out of the medieval Catholic Church, just on a smaller scale).
Michael,
I love your diagrams. Thanks much for the effort! It helps to clarify the issues.
The Dominicans believe in Unconditional Election for a small group. All men have the power to avoid hell,but God does give to a small class additional grace that guarantees their response to salvation. Thus they are unconditionally elected. Dominicans follow Aquinas. See Predestination by Father Lagrange,O.P.
I am as a Calvinist one that certainly believes in reprobation, however, since I am infralapsarian I don’t believe that this is just the flip-side of the Election of Grace.
As can be noted from this quote from the Irish Articles..
11. God from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsel ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass: yet so, as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather.
Note, ‘the contingency of the second causes, etc.’ We can even see this in the life of Judas, who was certainly not elected to grace, (John 17: 12), “For the Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.” (Mk. 14: 21)
“Love allows you to choose.”
Baloney. Parents do not allow their children to choose suicide.
The Biblical picture of man is radically different than the one you’re presenting. In Scripture man is wholly sold to sin, willingly enslaved by it. Apart from the special grace of God, provided through the hearing of the Gospel, no one would of their own will choose to believe in him for salvation. Hence the apostle calls us “dead” in our sins (Eph 2) and “unable to submit” to God (Rom 8:7-9). The only way a dead, fleshly person can and will turn to God is if the Holy Spirit causes them to. (Rom 8:9)
True love is shown in that God saves us while we were still sinners, while we were helpless, while we were slaves of the enemy.
The reason people go to hell is not because they are sinners, not because they didn’t hear or believe the Gospel… that is, the Gospel is the good news, not that which damns.
Micah, is there a typo in the first clause of your last paragraph?
And just curious, on your view do infants and the unborn go to hell if they die?
1. Can we PLEASE quote Scripture instead of quoting (error-prone) humans? (I have no assurance that your favorite author/thinker is completely knowledgeable on everything the Bible has to say on a topic. Quoting an error-prone human lets us know that more than one human holds that position. ..which is nice, but is no guarantee of Truth).
2. Why is double-predestination incorrect?
3. Rom 12:3 says “God has distributed to each of you a measure of faith”. Isn’t this the same as Eph 2:8? If a man has faith, he has it because God (first) gave it to him. It’s a gift.
4. Last week I asked some friends (who still reject predestination after reading Eph 1) the following:
Q1: Can a man be saved if God does not predestine him? The answer was an uncomfortable “no”. Naturally, I concur.
Two questions necessarily follow:
Q2: What other fate is there? (nothing but hell).
Q3: Why does God, the giver of life, create billions of humans, knowing full well that He did not predestine them for heaven? I see no other conclusion than to believe that God predestines some people for hell, and I can find no verse that says He does not. Is this not what Romans 9 teaches? If not, what on earth does Is 30 & 39 mean? And Ps 109 (The Iscariotic Psalm re Judas). Does not Peter himself affirm double-predestination (Acts 4:25-28)?
I think too often we use the ‘mystery’ label because we don’t *want* to believe what we Read and the natural conclusions thereof.
Hopefully…
Parents do not allow their children to choose suicide.
Really? I once knew a very loving couple who had ten children. All of the children were born with suicidal tendencies. The parents were wealthy and could afford medication that would prevent these suicidal tendencies in all of them. Out of the good pleasure of their wills, they decided to give three out of the ten children medication. The others they passed over and allowed to die.
Why? It’s a mystery!
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/5736/elect.jpg
Btw, Aquinas defined himself as an Augustinian.
@Shawn smith: Sadly, you won’t find too many non-Lutherans that can theologically dialogue over Luther’s theology. At least on the blogs. (Note I said, non-Lutherans) And Luther is certainly Augustinian as to salvation.
I am always amazed at the ignornace of the “fundamentalist” type of so-called Calvinism! And most of those don’t have a clue to the real Calvin!
Fr. Where do you live. I gonna plant a Credo House right by you just cause!
@Michael: My wife and I live (for about the last three years or so), in Yorba Linda, S. California. But we are still Brits. My younger brother (Irish) was in the American Marine Corps. He is now an American citizen. My wife and I bought a condo here.
Michael,
I love your passion, honesty, and willingness to wrestle with the tough stuff of God. Your balanced insight is always helpful.
When I hear “logical” and “theology” in the same sentence I cringe. Not because theology should be illogical or lacking intelligence, but rather because for me I am learning how much of our understanding of God and his ways (including salvation) are a mystery we cannot fully understand. As 1 Peter chapter one reminds us, it is a “revelation” not a chart or logical conclusion. Even the angels desire to understand it.
It is like we are a bunch of ants scurrying around saying that we fully understand humans and why they live in houses not in the ground or a mound or why they are constructed they way they are, or what they are thinking when they do something. The idea is absurd.
The sheer inadequacy of what we really know compared to the vastness of the God we confess to worship makes this an expected conclusion however uncomfortable. As your story illustrates, we can take any position and, with a few tweaks, find both its flaws and its strengths.
Here is what we truly know. God calls, we answer. God invites, we come. God is available, we seek. The salvation that is given to us appears to be all of God. Our acceptance of it appears to be all us. Jesus promised that the seekers will find and knockers will have doors opened. God promised it too in the OT.
God remains God regardless.
Chris, love it. Now I am planting a Credo by u!
Michael, btw, we are hoping (depending on how my wife’s health goes?) To moving to Canada, maybe near Victoria? I am already semi-retired, but as an Anglican presbyter the doors could be open there for further ministry? Have any Credo’s in Canada? 🙂
“But though the discussion of predestination may be compared to a dangerous ocean; yet in the traversing over it the navigation is safe and serene, and I will also add pleasant, unless any one freely wishes to expose himself to danger. For as those who, in order to gain an assurance of their election, examine into the eternal counsel of God without the Word plunge themselves into a fatal abyss, so they who investigate it in a regular and orderly manner as it is contained in the Word derive from such inquiry the benefit of peculiar consolation.” (Inst. III. 24.)…Calvin
I really appreciate the topic raised. The only thing that I noticed by those pictures that in Calvinistic Ordo Salutis believers’ and unbelievers’ paths do not cross. No people fall away from grace. No chosen people ever become lost. However in both Arminian an Catholic versions of that order you can cross the line multiple times.
The battle for the foundations of the faith continues, seemingly at a more intense rate.
Hold fast to that which is good and true,
@Ken
> Love allows you to choose.
This might be fine for human-to-human relationships. But to assume that this is God’s way of dealing with man is to profoundly misunderstand the Bible’s use of the word ‘love’, and therefore misunderstand how an ordo (predicated on ‘love’) works.
To understand the BIBLE’s view of ‘love’, please do *not* start with 1 Cor 13.
Start with the OT and work your way forward (all the NT guys built on an existing OT understanding of Love, and none of them redefined the word – so neither should we).
Start with Deut 7:1-11 – or better still, Ps 136 (written 1,500 and 1,000 years prior to 1 Cor 13). Bonus points if you use the ESV, HCSB, NET, NIV when reading Ps 136. Read each of the 26 verses and pause, asking yourself if this example of love agrees with your definition of ‘love’ or ‘steadfast mercy’ (same thing). Would your response to each verse be “AMEN! The steadfast love of the Lord truly does endure forever!”?
If this is not your response, then you do not have a Biblical view of love. There are no two ways about it.
After you have digested this, continue reading other loving passages such as Hosea 1:6-7; Malachi 1:1-5; Rom 12:19-22; 1 Cor 13; Rev 3:8-10. (There are TONS of passages like this, but this should be enough to get you started)
While reading these passages…
Note who is doing the loving.
Note who is being loved.
Note who is NOT being loved.
You may find yourself asking why preachers…
I don’t have time right now to comment on the many reasons I strongly disagree with the conclusions of this post, but thought I would leave a link to a slightly different take on both the Arminian and Calvinist ordo along with several reasons I find the Calvinist ordo to theologically problematic on many fronts:
http://arminianperspectives.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/the-arminian-and-calvinist-ordo-salutis-a-brief-comparative-study/
God Bless.
Where are the comments upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the one knowing the perfect will of the Father, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ? Leaving for us, the called ones, coming in line with what has already been done.
Yes, there are two involved. One remaining Sovererign.
The “ordo salutis”.. the order of salvation, applies to the “temporal” order of causes and effects in which salvation happens to the sinner who comes to Christ. Btw, even Wesley could write: “At the same time that we are justified, yea, in that very moment, sanctification begins. In that instant we are born again, born from above, born of the Spirit.” (Sermon, On the Way of Salvation) We can see too in the Lutheran’s the differences in their order of salvation, as we see the Wesley brothers are affected, by Luther and Lutherans of course. But even Dr. Rattenbury speaking of Charles Wesley’s hymns…’In his verses the aspects of experience, assurance, Witness of the Spirit, etc., are the bloom, colour, or scent of a single flower’. The point here is that the “spititus sancti applicatrix”…the application of the Spirit is considered at the different subsequent stages of faith, and the unio mystica. But, for Calvin and Calvinism, regeneration simply must always come first! But Luther himself, from time to time, found it necessary to emphasize the demarcation lines between the three articles of faith (see, W.A. XVIII, 203..), and to insist, upon the distinction between the merit of Christ and its “distribution” by the Holy Spirit. Certainly Melanchton and the Lutherian Confessions give themselves to the hard task of seeking of “sorting them out”.
The Arminian positon is that God must be fair. What He gives to one,He must give to all. If not ,He is unfair and unjust. Well, God is unfair and that is the answer. He was unfair when He chose to reveal Himself to Israel. and not to other Nations. He was unfair in choosing David and not Goliath. God discriminates. The Arminian says He could not worship a God like that. Whether you worship Him or not,God still remains unfair.
Can a Church fall in love with its own ideology?
That nasty ‘I” word has a way of popping its ugly head up. Shall we keep pressing it down?
I have to say that in a discussion like this its really important to define things and get back to the passages(this subject alone can be exhaustive). To start, if the ephesians 2 passage includes faith as a means, and that its source is from God, the thing it does not say is that God individually gives the belief itself the recipient exercises(or MAKES them believe,essentially). This passage is saying that when you believed, you were using the means(faith) that was created by God, NOT that God was personally involved in your decison. It’s still not of yourself, you didn’t make faith or salvation, you still can’t boast because its not meritorious, all your doing is basically using it. To define, there’s a difference in a process as a whole and an action within it. If God created a process of salvation, it does not logically follow that He has to be personally responsible for every step in that process. I’m being sanctified but i still need to use the means(WORD, Spirit,prayer,etc) to grow. They have their source in God but require human use. This is where I believe most calvinists cross over, that since God is the source, He is personally and causally involved in the actions themselves. That’s a big presupposition.
Irresistible grace is tough to swallow.
Self is lampooned.
God’s saving grace might be resistible for awhile, but NOT on that day the believer truly comes to Christ! That’s my faith and experience anyway! (Ps. 127:1-2 / Ps. 139) 🙂
Also, when a believer realizes that he is really ‘In Christ’! I don’t want to give to impression that everyone experiences the so-called Augustinian Conversion, though I did myself..thanks be to God!
You pose an interesting argument. My Lutheran views provide a counter argument. Salvation is not the combination of justification, sanctification, and the other things mentioned. Though the Greek words are different (as are the English) conceptually justification and salvation are one-in-the-same.
Salvation is rescue from God’s wrath and justification is being made right before God. One is rescue, the other is pardon, but rescue and pardon are synonymous. While sanctification is not salvific or justifying.
We are justified/saved by God-given faith alone, through God’s grace alone, in the work of Christ alone, which is God’s glory alone, according to scripture alone. If one were to adhere to your argument, it ought to look like this: salvation is the work of God alone (which includes faith, grace, justification, sanctification, etc.) but that’s problematic. Yes, salvation is the work of God alone, but salvation is only equal to justification. While, sanctification is also the work of God’s grace alone, it is neither saving nor justifying.
Personally, I think sanctification fits your arguments better than salvation/justification.
Lutheran Ordo Salutis:
Election (God )> Fall/Original Sin, which bonds our will, negating free will (Humanity) > Atonement/Justification (God-Christ via the cross event) > Sanctification, which is Baptism/Regeneration/Repentance/Confirmation/Sacrament (God, imputed to humanity) > Glorification (God-Christ, via the cross event).
Here’s a post that sheds some light on faith being a gift.
http://indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-faith-in-jesus-christ-gift-of-god.html
@Timothy Kellog:
Btw, I think Luther only added “alone” once in Romans 3:28! 😉 Of course “alone” is exclusively God’s priviledge!
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/02/luther-added-word-alone-to-romans-328.html
I copied your Lutheran Ordo! 🙂 I have just a few other Lutheran Ordo’s also! 😉
For myself anyway, like Calvin, knowledge and knowing God comes with knowledge, but here it is a theological (study of God) knowledge, a knowledge of God and of ourselves, but there is no true knowledge where there is no true piety. One of Calvin’s favorite words (pietas, Latin), and is rooted in the knowledge and true knowing of God. But of course this all comes by faith thru grace!
@ Fr. Robert:
All translation is interpretation.
I found that source amusing, but don’t have time to research it’s validity right now. Regardless, I’m used to Luther being taken out of context (Lutherans are some of the worst offenders of this). As I read his work, Luther had a higher view of scripture than most Christians today will ever posses (I’m no exception) and so I try to balance that (hence, I hold to sola scriptura, but am not a proponent of biblical inerrancy or other rigid doctrines).
Glad you seem to like my Lutheran Ordo. What are these others you speak of?
@Timothy:
Yes, I agee somewhat, but I try to stay close to word studies, but of course in the context, with syntax and grammar. I read my Greek NT every a.m. for my devotion.
I too would hold the sola scriptura, but I am more toward the ipsisima vox – the very voice. Yet I am no doubt a conserative toward Scripture overall, also politically. But I was a career RMC, Royal Marine Commando for over ten years. And oh yeah this shapes my thinking still! 😉 And I lived in Israel in the late 90’s. Yes, I am also pro-Israel! I am even a classic Historic Pre-Mill, but post-trib. Wow things are heating-up in and around Israel! Maybe I will live long enough to see the Lord Come? (Acts 1: 11-12 / Zech.14:4, etc., Rev. 1:7) I am old enough to remember the Judeo-Christian world view, and how it has gone away also!
Btw, for what its worth today, I hold the D. Phil., which I did years back in the 90’s on Luther’s Ontology of the Cross. So I too love the real Luther! Though I am closer to Calvin on Law/Gospel, and justification & sanctification. Note, Geerhardus Vox here. See his nice book: The Pauline Eschatology. Though Luther’s contrast of the theologia crucis contra theologia gloriae is grand!
I was thinking of all the Lutheran Creedal works and Melanchton’s efforts therein. I like Melanchton also.
Fr. Robert:
You pose some interesting points and are clearly well-read (consider me humbled a bit).
I’m more of a Hebrew guy myself, but I’m not so pious. In an earlier comment, I noticed you mentioned how non-Lutherans have trouble with Lutheranism. I’d tend to agree, but it’s part of living in the tension. I adopted the Lutheran tradition and learned a lot about it prior to claiming the label. So, I know how troublesome it can be.
In my experience, The Theology of the Cross, the Bonded Will, the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the mysteries of God, election, and the Doctrine of Grace are quite foriegn in most of Western American Christianity. Luther’s just weird to a lot of people and gets a bad reputation for all the wrong reasons, but most of it is unfounded. I dare say, I didn’t understand grace until I was introduced to Lutheranism and thought it absurd because I didn’t have a say in it. Further, I didn’t truly understand Christianity until I encountered the Theology of the Cross.
I see people herein saying, “let’s get back to the scriptures,” “let’s remember the love,” “let’s focus on Christ,” “let’s rely on the words of God and not humans.” Luther said all of that and the Church went through Reformation. Sort of makes me chuckle. The redundancy of humanity that is, and some claim the will to be free. I grew up in the EPC and the Salvation Army; their piety did not save me, the grace of the cross event (death and resurrection) did,…
@Timothy: Thanks! Btw, I never write to try to “humble” anyone, thats God’s business. Though I don’t mind a little respect, not always there in today’s culture! And oh yeah I’m an old eccentric Brit at heart! 😉
EPC?
Yes, I am very Reformational and Reformed! I was not always however. Raised Irish Roman Catholic, and even being with some English Benedictine’s for a few years (back in my 20’s)…that’s long ago now! 😉 And even after I was an Anglican priest, I was an Anglo-Catholic for several years, and also close to the EO and Orthodoxy. I still have friends in both. I even came close a few years ago to going with the EO (but this was pressed more with the grave problems in Anglicanism), I still am close to their Christology and the Trinity of God. But, I cannot shake the soteriology of the Reformed! The whole doctrine of the Pauline Imputation and Adoption is so central and profound, certainly here was/is Augustine – which came Luther & Calvin of course!
But we all still must remember we are spiritually on our Christian journey’s – all! That God redeems us is still a big grand mystery to me! The very greatest privilege is to “know” (and be known) of God In Christ! I am still amazed well over these 40 years now ‘In Christ’!
Btw, here is one of my own favorite pieces about the history & theology of Calvinism, I like just about anything by Philip Schaff, and this link from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge…
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc02.html?term=Calvinism