Get the "L" Out Of Here

Of the five points, "L", the central column upon which the other four depend, is the most hated, the most attacked, and really where the war will be won or lost.

This has been the attack point for those of the J316C. As we approach Christmas, the who and why for what to whom, is a question we should look into when contemplating the incarnation.

Follow John's links for some insight-filled listening and reading.

Remember the Arminian/4 Pointers Motto: Just Believe. The Gospel will become real, you are the power behind it, you make it efficacious. As long as you try, you always find it was worth it. Just believe...



Then again, the demons believe.

Gettin' Set Up For The Kill!

Call me crazy, but I think perhaps SBC Calvinists are being set up for the kill.

Think this through with me:

A number of the elite SBC "non-Calvinists" have gone on the record saying that Calvinists need to make sure they put all of their theological cards on the tables for pulpit committees when being considered as a pastoral candidate.

Yet, even as they encourage "honesty" among Calvinists in this regard, we can see that they're working hard in the background to disseminate information against the Calvinist perspective so that when Calvinist ministerial candidates do "lay their cards on the table," the pulpit committee will recoil in horror and send the Calvinist packing.

This tactic reminds me of how deer hunters will use scents and lures to cause a buck to let down his guard long enough to expose himself to a 170 grain, supersonic dose of hot lead from the muzzle of a Winchester .30-30. The moment the buck lets his guard down thinking all is safe: BOOM! He's finished! The same fate will await us SBC Calvinists if we get lulled into thinking our esteemed leadership is really looking out for our best interests and interested in allowing our views to have a fair hearing before the masses.

I, for one, will no longer take them seriously until I see them stop misrepresenting our theological perspectives through books such as Trouble With The TULIP and scheduling conferences dedicated to an Arminian eisegesis of John 3:16...

Speaking of the John 3:16 Conference, yesterday I read that Steve Lemke has written that its "intended as a majoritarian Southern Baptist response to the 'Building Bridges' and 'Together for the Gospel' conferences."

I'm sure that apart from the few Calvinists who've fallen for the sweet smelling lure of Synergist double-speak, most of us aren't surprised to see this. In fact, that's what we've come to expect from our esteemed leadership!

While these SBC muckety-mucks give lip service to unity and cooperation between Calvinists and "non-Cavinists" in the SBC, I'm not about to let them fool me. It's plain to see that they're out to put a stop to the Reformed Resurgence by hook or by crook if they have to!

(Pic: me and an 8 point I harvested in Oct '03)

CAN'T

Can't continue with the detailed review of Frank Page's Trouble With the Tulip.

It's too infuriating, and it feels like wasting a bunch of time answering objections that are too purile to deserve any time at all.

If there was any, and I mean any, meaningful interaction with the text of Scripture in this entire book, I'd feel differently.

But here's what I think is the most egregious example of Page's "closer examination" of the issues.

On page 56, he is trying to prove his assertion that God actively desires to save every single individual.

He writes, "Can these verses be any clearer?"

And then he simply quotes 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:3-4, and 4:9-10.

End of discussion. No exegesis at all. The verses must obviously mean what he thinks that they clearly mean.

The thing that winds up bugging me the most is the subtitle of the book:

A Closer Examination of the Five Points of Calvinism. That's what it claims to be. In actuality, as I have said, the Scripture is not interpreted, but merely quoted (infrequently) and more often simply referenced in the form of proof-text addresses.

This doesn't even rise to the level of a popular introduction to the issues.

A closer examination? I want to scream, closer than what?

I am left disappointed and mildly infuriated. Dr. Page has only proven that he is more Pelagian than the average, educated Arminian; and he's displayed huge lapses of scholarship, with regard to precision and argumentation. What's more, for one who is still lauded for his part in the SBC's "Conservative Resurgence," which is billed as the battle for the Bible, Dr. Page can't seem to trouble himself to actually use the Bible to make his case, or to show in any detail why the Calvinist's interpretations are wrong.

I've been reading a lot of blogging lately which laments the low state of Bible knowledge and doctrinal understanding among Southern Baptist laymen, and it occurs to me that maybe it's because the shepherds can't lead where they themselves refuse to go.

Trouble with Frank Page, part four

Dr. Frank Page has just spent a whopping seven pages analyzing both Calvinism and Arminianism. Finally, after all that grueling labor, we can get to the meat of the matter, and that is, his solution to the problem. And, it seems as if we’ve got here just in time, too! Note the not-arrogant-at-all manner in which Dr. Page introduces it:

“Rather than accepting a belief system which is based upon a reformer’s beliefs or teachings, I propose that we adopt God’s teaching on salvation. It is time for the clear communication of a biblically based understanding of how God has reached out to sinful humanity and how sinful humanity can come into God’s kingdom. In other words, it is time for a clear understanding of the doctrine of grace!” [p.28]

Well, Glory be.

Y’know, honestly this is tough stuff to read. Joseph Smith has got nothing on Frank Page. If you believe their respective pronouncements, they’re both latter day rescuers of the pure truth of God, which they both have found hopelessly corrupted by Christendom.

But you’ve all suffered through movies where the 30-second advertisement was about five times better than the actual show. That’s kind of what we get here with the unveiling of Page’s GRACE acrostic, obviously meant to replace the TULIP, seeing as how that older one is all graceless and stuff.

Be that as it may, right off the bat, we run into the number one, overwhelming deficiency of this book. That is this: Not a single passage or verse of Scripture is actually exegeted.

Oh, now, to be sure, many verses are quoted and many more are referenced, but not a single one is actually examined for the sake of really finding out what it might mean. Throughout the book, rather than careful interpretation and application of the historical-grammatical method, what we get is verses quoted to us with the heavy-handed presumption that they obviously teach exactly what Page wants them to teach.

If that doesn’t have you shaking your head, remember again that Page bills this book as “A Closer Examination of the Five Points of Calvinism.” It’s okay if you laugh out loud.

Consider this example, which I think is dumbfounding, of a place where even a little bit of exegesis would have been nice.

“Perhaps the greatest, single place in which this grace [the previously uncommunicated doctrine he has above promised to communicate] is described is Titus 2:11-14.” [p.28]

And what does Dr. Page actually do with this passage? Interpret it carefully? No.

Failing that, does he at least quote the whole passage? Nope. He quotes about the first dozen words and then makes an unproven assertion about what the rest of the passage goes on to teach. I’m not kidding. I wouldn’t make this stuff up.

This is the way the whole book is. Mention a text. Maybe quote it, though most often don’t. Finally, assert what the text teaches without bothering to try and prove it.

Anyway, on to the acrostic.

G = Grace Given through Christ.

After straining to grasp what he was getting at in this section through multiple re-readings, I am now somewhat confident that what this is supposed to mean is that when you “accept” the grace that is in Jesus, then you will be elected. He could’ve saved some time by simply quoting Ergun Caner’s mantra, “Elected because I selected.”

After referencing, but not quoting or exegeting [again] Ephesians 1-2, Dr. Page further asserts his dogma: “In essence, Paul states in these two chapters that God elected a way of salvation as well as a people to propagate that way.”

This is Dr. Page’s doctrine of predestination. God predestined a plan of salvation, but not the individuals who would avail themselves of it. However, once they do cause themselves to be elected, then they become part of the Church, which God has predestined as a whole to preach the gospel. “In other words, He did indeed predestine the how of redemption, not the who!” [p.45, emphasis his.]

There will me much more to say about Dr. Page’s definition of terms like predestination, later.

R = Grace May be Rejected through Rebellion

Obviously, the R does not correspond to the U in TULIP. The G maybe does, as explained above. This point counters TULIP’s Irresistible Grace.

Page starts off this section by rightly observing, “The issue of the freedom of the will is of paramount importance.” [p.30] This writer certainly agrees that the power of the fallen will is key to the entire discussion.

If Dr. Page, or anyone else, could demonstrate Libertarian Free Will from the Bible, this whole debate would’ve been over from the Remonstrance. Sadly, consistent with his modus operandi thus far, Page does not seek to carefully support his position from Scripture. Rather, once again, he simply issues a decree and seems to call it a day. “Human beings do have the ability to choose.” [p.30]

In this section, it is painfully obvious that Dr. Page does not understand the Calvinistic distinction between the inward/effectual call of saving grace and the outward/resistible message of salvation in the presentation of the gospel. If anyone in the Bible ever refused the gospel offer, that is seen as proof against Irresistible Grace.

This section ends with maybe the most egregious example of Dr. Page’s making a claim to biblicism and then utterly failing to give any evidence of it. Back on the topic of what fallen man is capable of, he says, “However, I call again for a scriptural understanding.” [p.31]

Here, here, Dr. Page! The crowd is all behind you on that one. Now, let us have it, please. Show us, we beg you!

But after his clarion call for letting Scripture guide us, rather than turn to Scripture, he simply quotes an Arminian writer who restates Page’s own position on free will, again without any Bible support.

A = Grace Can be Accepted Through Faith

This seems to simply be the positive corollary of the last point. You can either accept or reject God’s grace, is his point. Ho hum. Hardly anything in this section ruffles my feathers, much less contributes to the destruction of Calvinism.

C = Christ Died for All

Less than a single page is here devoted to making the case for Unlimited Atonement. Again, no exegesis of any passage.

E = Grace Insures Everlasting Life

About a page and a half stating the modern baptistic doctrine of Once Saved Always Saved, which is really neither Arminian apostacy nor Calvinistic perseverance. No exegesis of anything. Merely assertions.

The bottom line is that Dr. Page’s heralded, supposedly reformational, Scriptural soteriology is merely the five articles of the Remonstrance, with the last one replaced by Eternal Security, which both sides at the Synod of Dort would have found strange.

Trouble with Frank Page, part three

The third chapter of TWTT is titled “A Description of Positions” and starts to form the meat of the book, such as it is.

Dr. Page gives very general summaries of the five points of Calvinism, followed by the five points of Arminianism, followed at last by his own “Five Points of Scriptural Soteriology.”

He’s got his own five points arranged so that they’ll fit under the acrostic GRACE. Very clever…not. (It reminds me of certain political advocacy groups in the US who seem to come up with the acrostic they’d like to call themselves, and then are locked into forcing words into their official title for the sake of fitting the acrostic, and not because that’s what they really are. Like COMPASSION: Coalition Of Middle-class Persons Avowing to Save Sick Infants in Our Nation.)

As we’ll see a little later, his GRACE acrostic doesn’t follow the pattern of addressing the same points as the other five-point systems, and even repeats one point for the sake of the label.

If I was going to be all nit-picky, there are things I’d change in his definitions of the TULIP, but not a great lot. They’re basically okay, or would be with minor tweaking.

My complaint at this point is not so much what he writes, as it is how little he writes. In a book whose subtitle is "A Closer Examination of the Five Points of Calvinism," Dr. Page spends a whole five pages in fairly large-font print defining the TULIP. A single page per point is a "closer examination?" I hardly think so. This is your doctor ruffling your hair and slapping your fanny and pronouncing you fit as a fiddle.

But under the heading for Limited Atonement, there is a line that deserves some consideration, especially in light of the discussion that has taken place in the comments section of the second of these reviews.

He lists some Scripture references, which he says Calvinists use to defend Limited Atonement, and then laments that Calvinists spend “much time…explaining away the passages which portray a universal application for the atonement.” [p.24]

Okay, I’m thinking that the word “application” there is problematic, at best. Does Dr. Page believe that there are Scriptures that teach that Christ’s atonement is universally applied? This is different than saying the atonement is universally “available,” or even universally "offered" or universally “intended.”

If all sin, universally, has had the atonement of Christ applied to it, then all sin has been perfectly atoned. I do not believe that Dr. Page intends to teach this, but rather, that this is merely another instance in which the holder of the Ph.D. could’ve been a bit more careful in his scholarship. I don’t want to make too much of this instance.

So, we’ll skip down to Dr. Page’s summary of the five points of Arminianism.

Under the heading of “Free Will” he says that this is what the Arminians taught:

“Human beings could certainly choose good or evil.” [p.26]

This is eye-opening, because Page has previously defined the Pelagian heresy as the belief that “every person could choose to sin or choose to be righteous.” [p.14] If I was an Arminian, I think I’d be offended: Dr. Page has basically equated classic Arminianism with Pelagianism.

He goes on to prove still more that his understanding of Arminianism is nearly as thorough as his understanding of Calvinism (tongue planted firmly in cheek there.)

“Even though we are all influenced by sin, the Arminians believed that there was still enough good left in mankind for him/her to accept Christ for salvation.” [p.26]

I’m a Calvinist, not an Arminian, but even I know that this is not what the Arminians believed. The whole reason they came up with the doctrine of Prevenient Grace was to find a way to give fallen man the ability to choose to be saved. They didn’t believe fallen man’s natural condition allowed for that possibility apart from a specific work of grace, which would have the effect of rescuing him from his total inability to receive the gospel.

If Arminianism is what Dr. Page describes, then Arminianism = Pelagianism.

Now, I don’t think his description of Arminianism is correct, but the disturbing thing about it is this:

Dr. Page implies throughout this book that the Arminians have their soteriology basically right. That is, he agrees with all but the last point of what he has described as Arminianism, as we will see.

I don’t know that I’ve been clear enough about what disturbs me on this point:

Dr. Page overwhelmingly affirms the teaching of Arminianism, as he has characterized it. And his characterization of Arminianism is Pelagian. (By his own definition.)

Honestly, I don’t desire for a moment to think about the implications for the president of my denomination.

This is already a long post, so we’ll save an examination of his GRACE acrostic for next time.

Trouble with Frank Page, part two

The second chapter of Trouble With the TULIP is titled “A Brief History.” In it, he hopes to show that the Christian position was non-Calvinistic until Augustine made some previously unknown theological innovations, and then Calvin took them and ran with them early in the 16th Century. In this chapter, Dr. Page sadly begins to evince some sloppiness that is merely surprising when it first appears, but then progresses throughout the book, from surprising to flabbergasting, to frustrating, to maddening, to inspiring uncontrolled facial twitches.

The first surprising thing, for a professional of his stature, is a penchant for simply asserting things which the argument at hand seems to demand that he prove. He says it, so it must be correct.

One such instance of that is in the very first sentence of this chapter:

“The New Testament church taught that Jesus Christ died for all people.” [p.11]

Oh, well then. I guess we’re done. Here I was thinking 71 pages was laughable for disproving Calvinism, and Page has undone the whole system on page 11. I guess the following 60 must be all “filler.”

Here’s another instance of the same penchant, from page 12:

“There was no question in the hearts of the New Testament church as to the God-given ability of all persons to respond to God’s invitation.”

Again, no Scripture is brought to bear, but I guess we’re to believe that this declaration is all we need to undo the doctrine of Total Depravity. Hey, if the early church had “no question” about this, I guess we shouldn’t either.

So, with two completely unsupported assertions, Page has proven that no one in the early church believed in either Total Depravity or Limited Atonement. Man! Look how fast he’s dispatching the petals of the TULIP! Two sentences, two doctrines undone.

And in the very next paragraph, he drops the names of some early church Fathers, “Barnabas, Clement and Ignatius, etc.” [p.12], and without even a single citation or quote, confidently asserts they believed that salvation “was a God-given gift which could be received or rejected.”

Ding, ding, ding. Three shots, three shooting gallery ducks dropped! Wave bye-bye to the notion of Irresistable Grace (even though it will become apparent that Page doesn’t understand it.) Who can stand before such powerful argumentation?

Then he lists four early Church Councils, as a way of showing that the church was unified against heresies. He lists Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. I note that one council he didn’t mention was the Council of Orange, which occurred a little after Chalcedon, and which, by the way, happens to affirm a lot ideas that are now associated with Calvinistic thought.

Another surprising misstep by the holder of the Ph.D. is a particularly glaring argumentation error (not the last, either, as the progression of the book will prove.)

Page has already dogmatically asserted that “There was no question in the hearts of the New Testament church as to the God-given ability of all persons to respond to God’s invitation.” [p.12] On the surface, which is all we have, because he doesn’t bother to explain what he means by this, this declaration goes beyond classic Arminianism (which affirms Total Depravity in regards to fallen man’s native state.) It seems to assert that everyone has the native ability to obey the Gospel, and thereby be declared “righteous” in God’s act of justification. God has allowed that every sinner should have the natural ability to decide to be righteous.

Okay, then later, on page 14, in mentioning Pelagius, Page seems to endorse the church Council’s finding that Pelagianism was/is heresy. He summarizes Pelagianism as the belief “that every person could choose to sin, or choose to be righteous.”

Hmmm. One wonders which it is for Page. Does every person have the ability to choose to be righteous? Is that the consistent, unquestioned belief of the New Testament church? Or is that appropriately labeled as heresy?

Because he has effectively asserted both. Yes, the church believed this. And yes, the church uniformly condemned this a little later.

A third penchant that can only be scholarly sloppiness is one for asserting things that “Calvinists believe” which you could never find a Calvinist to agree to.

For instance, on page 17, he says that Calvin’s belief in God’s sovereignty in salvation caused him to substitute “this belief for the biblical view of salvation by grace through faith!”

Really, Dr. Page? You think Calvin displaced salvation by grace through faith? You think any Calvinist on the planet believes something other than salvation by grace through faith? This is disheartening stuff to read.

Then Dr. Page trots out the mournful violin to lament the Synod of Dort, and how unfair it was for a bunch of Calvinistic ministers to strongly reject the overtures of the Arminian Remonstrants. The deck was stacked! The jury was all Calvinistic, and the Arminians had no vote! “This well known historical fact is for some reason totally absent from most books extolling the virtues of Calvinism which emanate from the Synod of Dort!” [p.18]

Cry me a river. If I go to Philadelphia to watch a game between the Eagles and my Cowboys, and I not only wear my colors but shout incessantly that all Eagles fans should convert to the true faith and become Dallas fans, it is really dumb of me to then lament the fact that I got my butt handed to me by a bunch of drunks in Jaworski jerseys.

So, you demand to be heard in a court of Calvinists and then complain when they hold to their Calvinism. Oh, the injustice!! How devilish that man-made system must be! What a kangaroo court it was! For shame, for shame.

Lastly, Page feels the need to deal with the fact that the greatest Baptist preacher ever, CH Spurgeon, was a Calvinist, and a tremendously successful evangelist to boot. He does this by pointing out that Spurgeon despised the Hyper-Calvinists. Which is true, but I’m left wondering what effect this is supposed to have on anything. Calvinists routinely label Hyper-Calvinism as grave error at best, and heresy at worst. I think Page wants to make it look like Spurgeon wasn’t really a Calvinist, because he preached the Gospel to large crowds and urged people to repent and trust in Christ.

It’s the old canard that Calvinism is opposed to evangelism and the universal proclamation of the Gospel, and it’s as wrong here as it is everywhere else.

Page 20, and I’m already wondering how low this can go.

Trouble with Frank Page, part one

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an orderly account and explanation concerning the things that have been done among us in the book, Trouble With the TULIP by Dr. Frank Page, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things in a mediocre manner from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you, O Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”

I know I’m late to the party, here, on this weighty tome, but for my own discipline and exercise of mind and heart I plan to do a chapter-by-chapter review of Dr. Frank Page’s book, Trouble With the TULIP. If someone else gets something out of this, then that’s a bonus. I don’t want to write book myself, so I’ll jump right in and try to exercise some word-count restraint.

INTRODUCTION

I note a couple of things right off the bat. The first is the size of this book. There are only 71 pages of text (!) and my quick estimation by counting lines per page is that it contains less than 22,000 words. I know that might sound like a lot if you were assigned that amount on a college research project, but for a published book that apparently aims to dismantle the core theology of the entire Protestant Reformation, that is laughably puny. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s a howler. I mean, we’ve had non-Calvinists leave comments in our metas that are comparable.

My own published book, which is not meant as a weighty work at all, is four times that size. And, sitting on my shelf right here, I have a copy of the Westminster Confession of Faith (a mere summary of Calvinism, not a defense or a careful exegetical explanation.) It is 99 pages in much smaller typeface. And that’s leaving off the two catechisms that go with it.

On top of that, we are informed in the Introduction to TWTT that Page will also show (somewhere in the process of dismantling Calvinism) why he doesn’t call himself an Arminian. I don’t know how many, or few, words that’ll take, but I’d guffaw about that if I was of that persuasion.

I also note that TWTT is published by Riverstone Group Publishing. This is a house that helps writers self-publish their books.

Now, as an author who has some experience with shopping a book around looking for a publisher, it’s hard for me to fault a writer who self-publishes. Well….no, it’s really not. Again, it makes me smirk a little.

My experience is this: Christian publishers are very reluctant to publish a book by a first-time author, unless the author is a well-known figure within evangelicalism, or pastors a large church, or else somehow has some mechanism already in place by which he might reasonably be expected to sell a large number of books quickly, based on who he is. My point is, Dr. Frank Page, recognized mucky-muck in the world’s largest Protestant denomination, has all of that stuff. He should have no problem getting anything published.

But here’s the other thing: Some publishing houses are radicals in that they still require that your book have some substance to it.

I don’t want to make too much of this minor point, but it is a question that pops into my head right at the get-go. Why did famous Frank Page have to self-publish a teensy weensy little book that packs enough dynamite to undo the Reformation?

Well, turns out, I don’t have to wait very long to start getting an answer to that.

In the second paragraph of the Introduction, Page describes Calvinists as people who “believe in a five point system of theology, developed by the reformer John Calvin and his followers.” [p.5]

As a Calvinist, I would never describe myself that way. I also, for example, would not describe Arminians as people who believe a system developed by Jacobus Arminius, as it was fed to him by certain Jesuits seeking to undo the spread of Protestantism. I would never do that!

Right from the beginning Page seeks to portray Calvinism as devotion to a man, and never hints that maybe Calvinists see “Calvinism” as a nickname for the gospel that the Bible reveals. It can’t be that we think the Bible leads us to certain conclusions.

In fact, that sort of assertion on our part is expressly disallowed on the next page, when he mentions that Calvinists have a “rampant” spirit among them which leads them to assert such outrageous things as Dr. Loraine Boettner did when he said,

“As will be shown, the Bible contains an abundance of materiel for the development of each [point of the TULIP]. Furthermore, these are not isolated and independent doctrines but are so interrelated that they form a simple, harmonious, self-consistent system.” [Quoted on p.7, parenthesis mine.]

Page seems irritated that Calvinists would claim to have the Bible on their side. Instead, he asserts that he will show us how to develop a pure, Scriptural soteriology and not “a system of logic” or “adhering in blind devotion to the teachings of any one scholar.” [p.7]

We also get a taste of what irks Page about the whole deal. He thinks doctrines like Limited Atonement paint a “not so pretty picture” picture of Jesus [p.6]. Of course, this is just the introduction, and he may go on to bolster his case later, but I’ll be waiting to see how it’s so much prettier to envision a Savior who didn’t actually secure salvation for anyone, but rather only made it a theoretical possibility; and why it’s ugly to think maybe He actually saved whole multitudes.