After a decade learning Reformed teaching online, attending Reformed churches, and studying at a Reformed seminary, I found myself almost entirely lacking in practical Christian wisdom. Why?
I’m just finding this post, so please forgive the tardiness of this comment, but much of what you speak to here is one reason I left the PCA. I also appreciate your list of practical suggestions, but I see the antinomian bent of Reformed Theology as fundamentally a logical outcome of Reformed Theology.
The monergistic nature of salvation that Calvinism espouses inescapably leaves no room for human agency of the will and so passive reflection on redemption accomplished is all that remains to be preached. The Calvinistic interpretation of “being dead in our trespasses and sins” demands that God not only exercise our will in order to bring about salvation, but that He cannot relinquish the responsibility to exercise our will lest we fall away. Indeed, God’s will-control operation was the tacit if not explicit admission of almost all of the Reformed preaching I sat under, to include the monergistic nature of sanctification.
If we had no will of our own (total depravity meets the elect equivalent of common grace – ie. God redeeming the elect’s fallen will through His agency) striving for holiness is a moot point. Let God strive while you reflect on what’s been accomplished. In reality what this means is there is nothing which to ground a call for obedience other than that perhaps your reflection has allowed you to muster up enough emotion that your love for Christ grows alongside a desire to better follow him. Admonishments to concrete acts of moral responsibility, either in the negative (self control and the spiritual disciplines) or the positive (good works and societal engagement), are misplaced when God is the one governing those acts of the will.
Perhaps it is the Catholic doctrine of resistible prevenient grace that inevitably leads the Catholic Church back to the law.
Thanks for reading. Where did you end up church-wise?
I think the question is how to understand the relationship between divine activity and human activity, and which theological view can encompass both best! To my mind, the views that prioritize divine activity to the exclusion of human activity include hyper-Calvinism and occasionalism. According to hyper-Calvinism, divine monergism means that we shouldn't or needn't do anything, including offering the gospel to the lost. According to occasionalism, nothing created has causal power. Only God ever does anything. The laws of nature are merely how God ordinarily does things. This excludes human power and action.
I don't think Calvinism actually entails these - but much of the Reformed theology I received acted as though it did. I think of Calvinism as a way of encompassing both divine and human action, but I'm pointing out an inconsistency between Reformed practice and preaching and the actual theological doctrine.
If only the purest form of a doctrine avoids practical errors, then avoiding that doctrine might be a good idea. However, I still find it possible to be Reformed without falling into these errors, though it requires effort to maintain, and a rather distinctive church.
We actually ended up at a Bible Church that emphasizes Lordship Salvation (a big shift from our last church which embraced "Escondido theology"), and me and my wife have never grown more spiritually. The exhortations to strive for holiness permeate all of the teaching as central to Christlike obedience. It's a MacArthur-esque church (although I am not a big MacArthurite) that still subscribes to Reformed Theology, but there is a healthy balance taught between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility or divine activity and human activity. What has caused us to put down roots there though was really how seriously the pastor takes his role as a shepherd.
I admit that I still chafe a bit even at this church when faith is conflated with works as almost inevitably happens in Reformed circles (faith has to be a gift from God because having faith is a meritorious work). I agree with you that it’s about which model can best address the tension between divine activity and human activity and I try to resign it to a discussion of mechanics (prevenient grace vs saving grace, the efficacy of a general call vs effectual call, etc.) for the sake of unity within the body. But I think a person’s view here has HUGE ramifications for evangelism, the question of whether or not God is the author of evil, and how to present and understand God’s nature, capabilities, and the nature of His love. And couldn’t agree more that much of received Calvinism ends up being a hyper-Calvinism that to my mind, detracts from God’s glory and limits his power. Is God capable of accomplishing His ends while allowing free agency or does He have to resort to hard-line determinism?
At any rate, I love that you’re wrestling with these questions and see a huge vacuum where professional philosophers can impact lay theology here and as you say inform/improve the received doctrine. Too much sloppy theology being done absent her handmaid, philosophy. I pray you are on the vanguard of something long overdue and appreciate your work!
Jul 7, 2023·edited Jul 7, 2023Liked by Joel Carini
I can really sympathize with this chafing!! I don't know how works can get so demoted and faith spoken about so abstractly when reading the New Testament (well, all of Scripture). Even Galatians 5 extols an active faith that justifies, and yesterday I was just reading in James and came across his twice-used phrase the "law of liberty" (ESV). Wow! To see the divine law as something, through Jesus' redemption, that is actually a part of our freedom!
That's great to hear. I'd love to hear more of how you've seen this play out. I don't think I've heard it said much, apart from a friend of mine who recently switched from Reformed to Eastern Orthodox for many of these reasons. I know this apparently ethereal theological problem has been very existential for me.
I've had my own interaction with Eastern Orthodoxy, which radically helped me reframe some theological/spiritual assumptions. I remember poignantly being taken aback by the quiet holiness of the Eastern Orthodox priest who plainly preached to his small congregation with his eyes closed; his reverence and fear of the Lord was real, but he was so different from John Piper! haha! I had been so influenced by John Piper, that I thought personal holiness = fiery passion! Now, I appreciate Piper's passion that I was hungry for as a young man, but am glad to be exposed to monastic and mystic traditions with a more whole spirituality (I'm loving the Jesuits and their spiritual exercises).
But the thing that actually inspired me about the Eastern Orthodox was the communal nature of their worship (and that their worship was so reverent and Scripture based). My experience of Reformed Baptist theology and hyper-calvinism was extremely isolating in its individualistic focus on justification, and it embedded itself in my mind so much that I felt disconnected, uncertain if the physical person worshipping next to me at Bethlehem Baptist church was 'truly' part of the invisible (real) church. My introduction to more robust Covenant Theology helped correct this, and I found the PCA church as I looked for other churches that worshiped as a body (like the Orthodox did), not as a group of individuals. Other influences like Leithart (his emphasis on catholicity) and NT Wright (his emphasis on God creating a new people) were helpful in theologically incorporating what I was practically very invested in: real Christian Community (which I've been doing in one shape or another since 2010, but more intentionally since 2015).
I grew up Mennonite (Anabaptist), but was basically a standard evangelical until I was introduced into Young, Restless, Reformed / Gospel Coalition circles. About 3 years in, I joined a PCA church where I've been for 9 years. I've thankfully been around non-Reformed people a bunch over the years, doing life and community with very non-reformed charismatic believers, and gladly "reforming" myself under the influences of Christians from many denominations (including Catholic and Orthodox). The Catholic sensibilities around sexuality have been some of the most helpful, with their roots of social teaching embedded in a tighter integration with the world as it is meant to be. I'm glad to see this type of thought breaking into Protestant thinking. Last year, an elder of mine led discussion on Nancy Pearcey's "Love Thy Body"; he introduced the framing that God's moral order was more real than the walls that enclosed our room. That has stuck with me, and now I cannot keep my Christian ethics constrained within the bounds of personal moralism, but I believe it is dire that we renew our social/ecological/communal/economic/etc imaginations so that the world we are building is in alignment with God's wise purposes and design. As Wendell Berry notes, we have eroded so much of our moral topsoil. We must cultivate lives/practices that renew this topsoil from which humanity (and the world) will flourish. [That same Elder led a discussion on Praxis' Rule of Life, and he pointed out the considerable absence of such practical matters in the Westminster Confession. I've been enjoying reading through the Catechism's application of the 10 commandments. If we actually applied all that it said, we'd have a different world.]
Also, I appreciate the analysis of the existing theological class-divides and the therapeutic nature of the largely cerebral presentation of reformed dogmatics. I respect traditions that emphasize orthopraxy as essential to orthodoxy (and I'd have to think more about which traditions emphasize orthopathy well... it's probably not the frozen chosen...).
I’m just finding this post, so please forgive the tardiness of this comment, but much of what you speak to here is one reason I left the PCA. I also appreciate your list of practical suggestions, but I see the antinomian bent of Reformed Theology as fundamentally a logical outcome of Reformed Theology.
The monergistic nature of salvation that Calvinism espouses inescapably leaves no room for human agency of the will and so passive reflection on redemption accomplished is all that remains to be preached. The Calvinistic interpretation of “being dead in our trespasses and sins” demands that God not only exercise our will in order to bring about salvation, but that He cannot relinquish the responsibility to exercise our will lest we fall away. Indeed, God’s will-control operation was the tacit if not explicit admission of almost all of the Reformed preaching I sat under, to include the monergistic nature of sanctification.
If we had no will of our own (total depravity meets the elect equivalent of common grace – ie. God redeeming the elect’s fallen will through His agency) striving for holiness is a moot point. Let God strive while you reflect on what’s been accomplished. In reality what this means is there is nothing which to ground a call for obedience other than that perhaps your reflection has allowed you to muster up enough emotion that your love for Christ grows alongside a desire to better follow him. Admonishments to concrete acts of moral responsibility, either in the negative (self control and the spiritual disciplines) or the positive (good works and societal engagement), are misplaced when God is the one governing those acts of the will.
Perhaps it is the Catholic doctrine of resistible prevenient grace that inevitably leads the Catholic Church back to the law.
Matt,
Thanks for reading. Where did you end up church-wise?
I think the question is how to understand the relationship between divine activity and human activity, and which theological view can encompass both best! To my mind, the views that prioritize divine activity to the exclusion of human activity include hyper-Calvinism and occasionalism. According to hyper-Calvinism, divine monergism means that we shouldn't or needn't do anything, including offering the gospel to the lost. According to occasionalism, nothing created has causal power. Only God ever does anything. The laws of nature are merely how God ordinarily does things. This excludes human power and action.
I don't think Calvinism actually entails these - but much of the Reformed theology I received acted as though it did. I think of Calvinism as a way of encompassing both divine and human action, but I'm pointing out an inconsistency between Reformed practice and preaching and the actual theological doctrine.
If only the purest form of a doctrine avoids practical errors, then avoiding that doctrine might be a good idea. However, I still find it possible to be Reformed without falling into these errors, though it requires effort to maintain, and a rather distinctive church.
Thanks for reading!
We actually ended up at a Bible Church that emphasizes Lordship Salvation (a big shift from our last church which embraced "Escondido theology"), and me and my wife have never grown more spiritually. The exhortations to strive for holiness permeate all of the teaching as central to Christlike obedience. It's a MacArthur-esque church (although I am not a big MacArthurite) that still subscribes to Reformed Theology, but there is a healthy balance taught between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility or divine activity and human activity. What has caused us to put down roots there though was really how seriously the pastor takes his role as a shepherd.
I admit that I still chafe a bit even at this church when faith is conflated with works as almost inevitably happens in Reformed circles (faith has to be a gift from God because having faith is a meritorious work). I agree with you that it’s about which model can best address the tension between divine activity and human activity and I try to resign it to a discussion of mechanics (prevenient grace vs saving grace, the efficacy of a general call vs effectual call, etc.) for the sake of unity within the body. But I think a person’s view here has HUGE ramifications for evangelism, the question of whether or not God is the author of evil, and how to present and understand God’s nature, capabilities, and the nature of His love. And couldn’t agree more that much of received Calvinism ends up being a hyper-Calvinism that to my mind, detracts from God’s glory and limits his power. Is God capable of accomplishing His ends while allowing free agency or does He have to resort to hard-line determinism?
At any rate, I love that you’re wrestling with these questions and see a huge vacuum where professional philosophers can impact lay theology here and as you say inform/improve the received doctrine. Too much sloppy theology being done absent her handmaid, philosophy. I pray you are on the vanguard of something long overdue and appreciate your work!
I can really sympathize with this chafing!! I don't know how works can get so demoted and faith spoken about so abstractly when reading the New Testament (well, all of Scripture). Even Galatians 5 extols an active faith that justifies, and yesterday I was just reading in James and came across his twice-used phrase the "law of liberty" (ESV). Wow! To see the divine law as something, through Jesus' redemption, that is actually a part of our freedom!
Joel! You are speaking my own story here, and putting into words the desires of my heart. Thank you for this.
David,
That's great to hear. I'd love to hear more of how you've seen this play out. I don't think I've heard it said much, apart from a friend of mine who recently switched from Reformed to Eastern Orthodox for many of these reasons. I know this apparently ethereal theological problem has been very existential for me.
Thanks for reading!
I've had my own interaction with Eastern Orthodoxy, which radically helped me reframe some theological/spiritual assumptions. I remember poignantly being taken aback by the quiet holiness of the Eastern Orthodox priest who plainly preached to his small congregation with his eyes closed; his reverence and fear of the Lord was real, but he was so different from John Piper! haha! I had been so influenced by John Piper, that I thought personal holiness = fiery passion! Now, I appreciate Piper's passion that I was hungry for as a young man, but am glad to be exposed to monastic and mystic traditions with a more whole spirituality (I'm loving the Jesuits and their spiritual exercises).
But the thing that actually inspired me about the Eastern Orthodox was the communal nature of their worship (and that their worship was so reverent and Scripture based). My experience of Reformed Baptist theology and hyper-calvinism was extremely isolating in its individualistic focus on justification, and it embedded itself in my mind so much that I felt disconnected, uncertain if the physical person worshipping next to me at Bethlehem Baptist church was 'truly' part of the invisible (real) church. My introduction to more robust Covenant Theology helped correct this, and I found the PCA church as I looked for other churches that worshiped as a body (like the Orthodox did), not as a group of individuals. Other influences like Leithart (his emphasis on catholicity) and NT Wright (his emphasis on God creating a new people) were helpful in theologically incorporating what I was practically very invested in: real Christian Community (which I've been doing in one shape or another since 2010, but more intentionally since 2015).
I grew up Mennonite (Anabaptist), but was basically a standard evangelical until I was introduced into Young, Restless, Reformed / Gospel Coalition circles. About 3 years in, I joined a PCA church where I've been for 9 years. I've thankfully been around non-Reformed people a bunch over the years, doing life and community with very non-reformed charismatic believers, and gladly "reforming" myself under the influences of Christians from many denominations (including Catholic and Orthodox). The Catholic sensibilities around sexuality have been some of the most helpful, with their roots of social teaching embedded in a tighter integration with the world as it is meant to be. I'm glad to see this type of thought breaking into Protestant thinking. Last year, an elder of mine led discussion on Nancy Pearcey's "Love Thy Body"; he introduced the framing that God's moral order was more real than the walls that enclosed our room. That has stuck with me, and now I cannot keep my Christian ethics constrained within the bounds of personal moralism, but I believe it is dire that we renew our social/ecological/communal/economic/etc imaginations so that the world we are building is in alignment with God's wise purposes and design. As Wendell Berry notes, we have eroded so much of our moral topsoil. We must cultivate lives/practices that renew this topsoil from which humanity (and the world) will flourish. [That same Elder led a discussion on Praxis' Rule of Life, and he pointed out the considerable absence of such practical matters in the Westminster Confession. I've been enjoying reading through the Catechism's application of the 10 commandments. If we actually applied all that it said, we'd have a different world.]
Also, I appreciate the analysis of the existing theological class-divides and the therapeutic nature of the largely cerebral presentation of reformed dogmatics. I respect traditions that emphasize orthopraxy as essential to orthodoxy (and I'd have to think more about which traditions emphasize orthopathy well... it's probably not the frozen chosen...).
Kevin, I've heard you say it so many times - it's nice to see it in writing. :)