An Outsider's Thoughts on the Federal Vision Thing

In case you haven't heard, the Reformed churches are being roiled by a new "Federal Vision." The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America has recently approved a statement that this Federal Vision theology is incompatible with the Westminster Standards, which would be something like the LCMS's Synodical Convention deciding that some new way of doing Biblical theology popular in segments of the LCMS pastorate was contrary to the Book of Concord.

In general, I don't see much point to people commenting on decisions by other denominations. It is for those who believe in the Westminster Standards to say what is or is not compatible with them. But in this case I think there are some general points worth making in this for Augsburg Evangelicals about the ways in which theology is and isn't done.

My source for the Federal Vision is going to be Peter Leithart's brief apologia here. The whole debate is big on acronyms so I'm going to call it FV-PLS (Federal Vision -- Peter Leithart style).

The most notable aspect about his apologia is the "twinning" of certain concepts, particularly election and union with Christ. For example election:

2. . . . "Election" can refer to the general election that applies to all who are members of the chosen new Israel or to the special, eternal election of the eschatological Israel.

7. Union with Christ and benefits: I do believe that some are united to Christ yet do not persevere (John 15). During the time they are branches in the vine, they do receive benefits from Christ through the Spirit and may enjoy real, personal, and deep communion with Jesus for a time. Yet, their relationship with Christ is not identical to the relationship of the elect. Put it this way: Some are united to Christ as members of the bride but are headed for divorce; others are united and headed for consummation. Marriages that end in divorce are not the same as marriages that end happily.

In other words, God elects some to be in Israel and the Church (and hence some temporary union with Christ), and elects a subset of them to remain in the church (and hence in a full and permanent union with Christ).

Now, this to a non-Reformed this sounds very strange, particularly the idea that "union with Christ" can be used for "benefits" short of salvation.

But I think it is very clear and instructive about how he gets to this position. First of all, he starts out from the Calvinist TULIP position (on that, see here). The essence of this position is that in all of God's dealings with man, He distinguishes the elect from the reprobate. Two sinners attend an evangelistic service, and hear a preacher's call to repent and believe. In one, an elect person, the Spirit is truly active, and gives alongside the preacher's call an irresistible "effectual call" -- the person accordingly believes, perseveres in the faith to death, and is saved. In another, the Spirit withholds His grace, the preacher's call is thus not "effectual," the person may or may not seem to believe but in any case does not persevere in the faith and eventually is not saved.

Now in this TULIP position, the dynamic above works with sacramental actions as well. What looks like identical baptisms of two infants has to be seen as actually two different baptisms in essence -- one an effectual call and one a mere outward call: not effectual and never intended by God to save.

As a result a Reformed Christian who has come to believe that TULIP is Biblically correct is forced to see baptism as at best ultimately ambiguous -- saving for the elect, but not for the unelect. This is so because of the unavoidable empirical fact which all paedobaptists (Catholic, Evangelical, Reformed) accept, that many who are baptized die without faith and are not saved.

Now, imagine you are a TULIP Presbyterianism, and you want baptism to actually do something to the baptized baby. You want baptism to really be a "washing of regeneration" as Paul writes to Titus. And you want the visible communion of Holy Communion today to be in some integral sense part of the future communion of the wedding supper of the Lamb. Now you want these things because the Bible obviously says them. They are expressed in both major themes and concrete proof-texts. Peter Leithart mentions for example 1 Cor. 6:11, Gal. 3:28-29.
Unlike an Augsburg Evangelical or Roman Catholic, however, you don't have the category of genuine apostasy. (More on this here.) You can't say: this baptism was indeed a true baptism of the Holy Spirit, but unfortunately as an adult she rejected God's grace and became an atheist. Or that when he was with us he was truly enjoying today communion with Christ in Holy Communion, but then he began living in adultery and his conscience was seared. As a Reformed, you can only say, they seemed to be Christians but really weren't.

Now there are two different ways to handle this dilemma. One is to rethink TULIP. Now the problem is, is that the Bible contains many statements which seem to give TULIP considerable force. It is not hard to assemble Biblical texts that seem to confirm the major planks of TULIP, at least when a certain amount of theological deduction is allowed.

But the problem is with other passages that just as clear seem to repudiate TULIP, and in particular envision the possibility of real apostasy. Leithart mentions 2 Pet 2:20, 1 Cor. 10:1-4, and John 15 (especially 15:6), but many more exist and have been thrown in the face of Calvinists by many generations of Arminians.

So the other response is that of Peter Leithart in his version of Federal Vision: to "twin" the major terms of election and union with Christ. All baptisms and all inclusion in the life of the church give you the weaker, temporary, collective version of this, but only real, Holy Spirit-endowed baptisms and church membership give you the true, permanent TULIP-style election and union with Christ.

As a type of solution, this is remarkably similar to the Dispensationalist solution of the problems of eschatology. Confronted by Old and New Testament passages that talked about the coming tribulation and coming Messiah and coming eschatology in seemingly contradictory ways, John Nelson Darby decided that there are actually two comings of Christ, two tribulations (before and after the millennium), two communities, Israel and the Church, and two types of eschatological fulfillment -- the 1000 year reign of Israel and the endless age to come.

The "federal vision" theology and dispensationalism are both ingenious. But both suffer one fundamental problem: they treat as two terms what in the Bible is only one. Is there any Biblical support for the idea that there are two sorts of Unions with Christ? Or that there are two sorts of baptisms? No more than there is any support for the idea of two (or three) "second comings". There is only one union with Christ and one baptism and one membership in the congregation of God -- and falling away therefrom.

A few conclusions that I draw from this analysis:

1) Despite all the talk about post-modern community, etc., etc., what seems to be driving the Federal Vision movement is the need to solve the puzzling passages of the Bible, the same puzzles that led to Calvinism vs. Arminianism, pedobaptists vs. credobaptists, etc. Bible puzzles are the key, not world views. (I've said this before here and here.) Now it is also important that all of these themes Peter Leithart is trying to juggle are truly vital and important themes, both in the Bible and in our lives. Making a chart-worthy scheme about these things seems rather more important than doing it about the end times, which either way we can only hope to get through by faith. But I take Peter Leithart at his word -- if passages like John 15:6 didn't exist, he wouldn't be a Federal Vision theologian.

2) The Federal Vision idea is indeed an attempt to repudiate the spirit of TULIP without violating the letter. In the end God deals only with elect individuals -- but in the meantime, He (and hence we) can deal with the whole church as semi-elect. It is also an attempt to affirm planks of "catholicism" (i.e. baptismal regeneration, the church and its Supper as the embyonic form of the kingdom, and something like the apostasy affirmed by Augsburg Evangelical, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Christians) without rejecting the "Reformed" TULIP. This is why the Federal Vision is attractive to ecumenical-minded Reformed. At the same time, this is why it is of no interest whatsoever to non-Reformed "catholics". For us, it is an attempt to solve a problem we've never had. And by creating, for example, two levels of "Union with Christ"* it only further alienates Reformed theological language from the common "catholic" usage.

3) Like Calvin's attempt to somehow get the benefits of the Augsburg Evangelical view of the supper while sticking with the Zwinglian communion (on Calvinism as a compromise platform, see here), I doubt very much whether this Federal Vision position is workable in the day to day life of the church. As the Fearsome Pirate tirelessly points out, the Calvinist position on the supper (our soul ascends to Heaven to feed on the glorified Christ there) not only has Biblical basis, but is also pretty impossible to keep in your head at the communion rail. I have a feeling that the FV-PSL with its two levels of Union with Christ will prove not only un-Biblical but also pretty impossible for parents with about to be or already baptized babies to keep in their heads. They are going to either think those babies are not really saved, or else are saved (and elect, and predestined, and beyond any possibility of apostasy).

4) The Fearsome Pirate has commented here on the Augsburg Evangelical solas as above all guides to proclamation and preaching. He has pointed out here too that Augsburg Evangelicalism simply does not admit the idea of legitimate "hypotheses" in theology. Read them both -- I would only add that the two are related and that either would be sufficient to show the whole Federal Vision thing as based on a wrong foundation.

5) A FV, "New Perspective on Paul"-sympathizing Alastair has reacted to the PCA criticism of the Federal Vision by saying, in effect, the PCA has spoken, but the PCA is not the church -- so the church has not yet spoken. (His post here; more general follow ups here, here, and here). This wider view of the church is of course congruent with the ecumenical "reformed catholic" sympathies of the FV advocates. Yet the question is then: if theology is to admit "hypotheses" and "new directions" -- who is there to say when it is wrong? If the PCA is not the church who can decide, but the whole body of Christians is the ones who can decide, then the reality is nobody can tell the FV-PLS-ers that they are in fact wrong -- or right. If theology is to be about hypotheses, and not just proclaiming the Scriptures, then it really needs to have a magisterium.

*UPDATE: or a "Union with Christ" that is somehow short of forgivess of sins, life, and salvation.

UPDATE II: Mark Linville in the comments brought up Hebrews 6 as another passage which seems to describe union with Christ that is short of salvation. Here was my response:

It is interesting that you refer to Hebrews 6. I remember in a Bible study led by a very gifted TR (back when I was a PCA-er), the leader discussed this passage:

For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then fall away, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

For him this was a problem because it seemed to envision genuine apostasy as a possibility. But he argued that

1) being enlightened
2) tasting the heavenly gift
3) sharing in the Holy Spirit
4) tasting the goodness of the word of God
5) tasting the powers of the age to come

did NOT add up to being saved. It was, he believed, as close as you can come to being saved and forgiven, but still not there yet.

I think you are correct, Mark, that this kind of reading of Hebrews 6 is exactly suited to fit the FV view of saving benefits. A TR can hardly object when this interpretation of the passage is then used to show that there are "benefits" short of forgiveness.

But note well: this distinctive interpretation was first created to defend the P of TULIP and seems completely implausible to anyone who has not first signed on to the "benefits short of forgiveness of sins" model entailed by the pro-P interpretation of this passage. To Lutherans, Hebrews 6:4-6 is simply referring to people who were saved and forgiven who then apostasized. (We then have the Bible puzzle of what to do about the apparent inability to be restored.) All those benefits are simply what you get along with, over and above, the forgiveness of sins.

Mark Linville then replied:

You are correct that Hebrews 6 is not a problem unless one hold to perseverance of the saints. I hold to that position because I believe that John 10:28, 29, Ephesians 1:13,14, etc. teach it. However, I recognize that brothers in Christ can disagree on this issue.

I agree with your TR friend who holds that this is something just short of salvation. If the writer of the Book to the Hebrews wanted to refer to the redeemed, he would have just said redeemed.

To which I would reply, the author of Hebrews is making an a fortiori argument: since the remissions of sins is the ground on which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are received, to have the gifts and then reject it is a fortiori more outrageous than to have the remission of sins and then reject it.

But to debate the issue of perseverance of the saints is not my purpose here. I just wanted to note once again how the gradual development of commentary on the Biblical passages opens new possibilities for "twinning" of terms, which then comes to govern interpretation by the resolution of what seem to be contradictions. The cost is, however, that the Bible becomes virtually unintelligible without extensive commentary, because one comes across terms and doesn't know (apart from commentary) what exactly they mean.

UPDATE III: Kevin Johnson seems to find this exact same problem in Steve Wilkins's response to the PCA. "Decretal election" vs. "covenantal election," "effectual union" vs. "non-effectual union" with Christ -- you can find it there, all governed by the need to affirm the perseverance of the saints, alongside Paul's apparent assumption that many who are united with Christ may fall away. For example Steve Wilkins writes:

[Paul] speaks of all who are washed (which I take as a reference to baptism) as being “justified” (I Cor. 6:9-11). If I am correct, Paul is not using this term the same way that the writers of the Confession are, because these same people are later warned against the possibility of falling away and being condemned (I Cor. 10:1-11). Thus, Paul is not referring to something that is only given to the decretally elect here.

To which Kevin Johnson comments:

It remains incredulous to me, for example, that Paul would use the symbol of regeneration to indicate anything other in the main than regeneration. There is no potential note of failure or doubt that real Holy Spirit inspired regeneration didn’t take place here in this passage and the “such were some of you” makes that very clear in my view.


Exactly.

Putting It Down Where the Goats Can Get It

The ancient masters of religion . . . began with the fact of sin -- a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or no man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved. Some followers of the Reverend R.J.Campbell, in their almost too fastidious spirituality, admit divine sinlessness, which they cannot see even in their dreams. But they essentially deny human sin, which they can see in the street. -- Gilbert Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

Original sin is foolishness to men, but it is admitted to be such. You must not, then, reproach me for the want of reason in this doctrine, since I admit it to be without reason. But this foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom of men, sapientius est hominibus. [I Cor. 1. 25 "The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men."] For without this, what can we say that man is? His whole state depends on this imperceptible point. And how should it be perceived by his reason, since it is a thing against reason, and since reason, far from finding it out by her own ways, is averse to it when it is presented to her?

It is, however, an astonishing thing that the mystery furthest removed from our knowledge, namely, that of the transmission of sin, should be a fact without which we can have no knowledge of ourselves. For it is beyond doubt that there is nothing which more shocks our reason than to say that the sin of the first man has rendered guilty those who, being so removed from this source, seem incapable of participation in it. This transmission does not only seem to us impossible, it seems also very unjust. For what is more contrary to the rules of our miserable justice than to damn eternally an infant incapable of will, for a sin wherein he seems to have so little a share that it was committed six thousand years before he was in existence? Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine; and yet without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. The knot of our condition takes its twists and turns in this abyss, so that man is more inconceivable without this mystery than this mystery is inconceivable to man. -- Pascal's Pensees #445 and 434.

Too often in confessional debate and polemic, one gets the impression that it is immensely difficult simply to tell what Augustine or Luther or the Concordists actually meant. Did Augustine believe in double predestination? Did Luther believe in union with Christ? Do the Orthodox believe in original sin?

Sometimes the problem is thinkers changed their mind. And some issues are pretty complicated. And sometimes people are trying to make it sound as if all "our" authorities agree. But I think people need to make an effort at "putting it down where the goats can get it" in Garrison Keillor's phrase. It always seemed to me if one needs vast learning to simply understand what Luther or Augustine thought about predestination, then how can you be so sure that anyone else understood them either? And if no one understood them, then historically, it makes no difference what they believed. In which case, of course, one then has to investigate historical viewpoints which the bulk of pastors/priests in any given communion actually believed -- and there you are again at a belief system which is going to be fairly easy to expound.

And that gets us back to the citations on "original sin." Is it obvious or is it outrageous and shocking? Does believing in call for the utmost submission of reason to the incomprehensible, or does it just call for two eyes? How can the same doctrine be viewed in such opposite ways?

It depends on what you mean by "original sin": does it mean we are born with merely a tendency (however strong in its effects) to sinful actions, or is it actual sin, actual guilt, making us justly liable to actual punishment from the moment we were conceived, without us having done anything? The first is Chesterton's view, the second Pascal's. This then is the acid test: if you believe "original sin" can be observed with one's eyes, then what you are talking about is not really "original sin."

As for the Evangelical conception, here is Luther's statement on it in the Smalcald articles:

This hereditary sin is so deep and horrible a corruption of nature that no reason can understand it, but it must be learned and believed from the revelation of Scriptures, Ps. 51, 5; Rom. 6, 12ff ; Ex. 33, 3; Gen. 3, 7ff

Enough said.

Another example: double predestination. I would like to suggest that the acid test here is 1 Timothy 2:3-4.

For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Is this passage a problem for you, that needs to be "exegeted in context" (theologian-speak for "explained away") so that it doesn't mean what it appears to mean, that God wants/wills/desires (philosophers will quibble over the terminology, but you know what I mean) all children of Adam to be saved? Then you believe in double predestination.* But if you take it to mean exactly what it seems to, that God wants all people, without exception, in the world to be saved, then you don't.** By this test, Augustine certainly did believe in double predestination, as did Calvin and Luther -- to the very end of his life. (On Augustine, follow the discussion in the Enchiridion from section 96 to 106 here, and my comments here.) But the Concordianists did not, and the Lutheran church has (rightly) followed the Concordianists, not Luther here. By this test, double predestination is not something that Lutherans can attack Calvinists over, or Catholics can attack Luther over (at least if they don't include Augustine in their attack as well), but something which rattles around like a skeleton in both Catholic and Evangelical closets.

*Within double predestination, of course, one can be a meanie/supralapsarian or nice guy/infralapsarian, or like Augustine emphasize that God's will to save is particular and His will to damn is general.
**Of course you then have the problem of either explaining why what an omnipotent God wishes to happen does not come to pass, or else why such an explanation should not be expected. (Or one can be a universalist -- which has its own problems.)

"Perseverance of the Saints": We're Right, They're Wrong

In the comment box to my post "Lutheranism between Calvinism and Arminianism" [as originally posted at Here We Stand--unfortunately the comments have been deleted], Dave H. has claimed that the "perseverance of the saints" is another area in which Lutherans have manufactured bogus differences from the Calvinists and that we actually believe the same thing: the "perseverance of the elect."

Actually, by citing confessions, this is one area where the difference between the two confessions is especially clear.

The issue is, can someone who has sincerely and truly put his faith in Christ, lose his salvation while yielding to grave sin? Calvinists say no, Lutherans say yes. Practically this leads us to the following questions: 1) if someone whose faith seemed sincere and true falls away from the faith, must we believe that his faith was in fact hypocritical, however true it seemed at the time? Calvinists say yes and Lutherans say no (i.e. no, it is not true in all cases; certainly Lutherans do admit the existence of false believers); and 2) if someone first puts his faith in Christ, then falls away into knowing, grave sin, but finally returns to the faith, can we believe that that person’s original faith was maintained through his period of falling away, such that saving faith was at that time compatible with grave sin? Calvinists say yes we must so believe, while Lutherans say, no we mustn’t so believe.

Note that the issue is not: Do the elect of God ever fall into grave sin after first believing? (Calvinists and Lutherans, constrained by obvious facts, both admit the possibility, but we Lutherans teach that should that happen the elect will, if truly elect, be brought back to saving faith by the Holy Spirit before death).

Here is the relevant passage from our confessions, from the chapter of the Smalcald Articles, "Of the False Repentance of the Papists" by Martin Luther himself:

On the other hand, if certain sectarians would arise . . . . they say, besides [the cruder "once saved, always saved" idea that Luther excoriates first], that if any one sins after he has received faith and the Spirit, he never truly had the Spirit and faith: I have had before me many such insane men, and I fear that in some such a devil is still remaining.

It is, accordingly, necessary to know and to teach that when holy men, still having and feeling original sin, also daily repenting of and striving with it, happen to fall into manifest sins, as David into adultery, murder, and blasphemy, that then faith and the Holy Ghost has departed from them. For the Holy Ghost does not permit sin to have dominion, to gain the upper hand so as to be accomplished, but represses and restrains it so that it must not do what it wishes. But if it does what it wishes, the Holy Ghost and faith are certainly not present. For St. John says, 1 John 3, 9: Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, ... and he cannot sin. And yet it is also the truth when the same St. John says, 1, 8: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

C.F.W. Walther in Thesis X of his The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (pp. 210-221) adds a further citation from a letter by Luther in 1536, in which he wrote:

When a person sins against his conscience, that is, when he knowingly and intentionally acts contrary to God, as, for instance, an adulterer or any other criminal, who knowingly does wrong, he is, while consciously persisting in his intention, without repentance and faith and does not please God. . . . Faith and the worship of God are delicate affairs; a very slight wound inflicted on the conscience may drive out faith and prayer. Every tried Christian frequently is put through this experience (cited on p. 217).

By contrast, here is the relevant passage from one of their confessions, the Westminster Confession, Article 17 "Of the Perseverance of the Saints":

1. They, whom God has accepted in His Beloved, effectually called, and sanctified by His Spirit, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end, and be eternally saved.

[Section 2 speaks of this perseverance being the result of God’s will and covenant, etc.]

3. Nevertheless, they may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins; and, for a time, continue therein: whereby they incur God's displeasure, and grieve His Holy Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded; hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.

The approved Biblical proof texts given in the footnotes specifically reference Peter’s denial, and especially David’s adultery and murder. Hence it is clear that Luther regarded David in his year after murdering Uriah as having lost the faith, while just as clearly the Westminster divines thought the opposite. Rarely do we have such a nice and clear-cut distinction.

Why is this issue so important? It is important because it gets to the nature of faith. For a Roman Catholic, faith is mere assent to facts about salvation on the grounds that the church teaches them, and is hence compatible with mortal sin. (You can be an adulterer or drunk and still assent to Christ’s divinity, transubstantiation, etc. Such faith is real but Catholics believe this "faith" does not by itself save.)

By contrast Calvinists and Lutherans both do teach that faith is not just factual belief, but also involves trust and reliance upon the person and teaching in which one has faith. This trust and reliance comes from the Holy Spirit but is empirically verifiable, that is, it is visible both to the believer by introspection (he knows he trusts Christ) and to the outsider (his trust in Christ produces good works). Thus for a Lutheran, a theologically orthodox adulterer or drunk does not and cannot in fact have real faith, but only a mere historical faith or belief, which does not save.

But while Calvinists in theory agree with us on this issue, in fact they deny this with their doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The Calvinist must admit that many saints are in fact in the period when their saving faith has lost its "evidence" and thus has no empirical evidence. Similarly they must admit that many who have subjective and objective evidence of faith will later be shown to be hypocrites all along, by the fact that they later fell away. In the last analysis, this article of the "perseverance of the saints" reduces Calvinist "faith" to a mysterious X which sometimes produces effects, but sometimes lives in the person’s life without any subjective or objective evidence at all, and which can moreover be indetectably counterfeited by false faith. Allowing the first possibility even in theory, let alone in the life of Biblical saints, is utterly unacceptable to the Christian and evangelical understanding of faith, and to allow the second is to open the door to constant doubt of faith.

Originally posted at Here We Stand