Most people balk when they are first confronted with the biblical teaching that all humans sinned in Adam. Their initial reflex seems to be, “How can God hold me accountable for something that Adam did?” This intuitive reaction to the doctrine of original sin is so consistent that it might just lead to the suspicion that most people are born Pelagians.
The two principal theories that attempt to answer this question are called federal headship and natural headship. To most people, the theories are hardly more comprehensible than the doctrine itself. Federal headship states that God sovereignly appointed Adam as the representative head of the human race, so that whatever obedience or disobedience Adam chose would be imputed to his posterity. Natural headship states that all of the human race was somehow in Adam, participating in his sin. Read more...
Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sin. Show all posts
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Sunday, July 8, 2012
The Trilemma of the Atonement: An Argument for Particular Redemption
Few
theological questions can ignite a firestorm of controversy as easily as the
question concerning the divine intent of Christ’s cross-work. At the center of this issue is the query, for
whose sins did Christ die? This question
creates a trilemma; only three answers are possible. Christ’s death propitiated and satisfied for
either (1) some of the sins of all people, (2) all of the sins of some people,
or (3) all of the sins of all people. The Reformed perspective of the intent of
Christ’s death, that his death atoned for all of the sins of only some people,
is the correct view of the atonement.
Option one (1), which states that
Christ died for some of the sins of all people, is essentially the Roman
Catholic position. On this view,
Christ’s death propitiated the wrath of God against humanity’s guilt of
original sin. Postbaptismal sins,
however, must be atoned for through the efforts of the believer by means of
good works. This truncated view is utterly
foreign to a biblical theology of what Christ’s death accomplished. If option (1) is the case, then all people
have innumerable sins for which Christ did not die. Consequently, one is
not actually saved by Christ’s death, if option one is the case.
Option two (2),the historic Reformed
understanding of the atonement, holds that Christ died for all of the sins of
some people. These beneficiaries are
variously related to Christ as “his people” (Matt. 1:21), his “friends” (Jn.
15:13), his “body” (Eph. 5:23—26), his “Bride” (Rev. 19:7), his “church” (Acts
20:28), and his “sheep” for whom he lays down his life (Jn. 10:11, 15). In theological parlance, the term of choice
is the “elect” (Rom. 8:32—34). On this
view, option two, Christ’s death efficaciously accomplished the full redemption
of some people, namely the elect.
Option three (3) is that Christ died
for all of the sins of all people without exception. This view is held by Arminians and Amyraldians. However, if Christ’s death was
substitutionary and efficacious, and he died for all people, then it follows
that all people are redeemed and thus saved.
The teaching that all are saved is called universalism. Historic Christian orthodoxy precludes universalism
as a biblically faithful conclusion. The
attempt to avoid the charge of universalism is often made by maintaining that
while Christ died for all the sins of all men, a person’s unbelief is what
ultimately condemns him or her. It may
be asked, however, is not unbelief also a sin?
If unbelief is a sin, then Christ also died for that sin, since he died
for all sins, as presented by option three.
If, on the contrary, unbelief is not a sin, then it may be rightly asked
why God condemns a person for it? Hence,
if option three is maintained, and Christ’s death was efficacious, then
universalism is unavoidable.
The
foregoing has demonstrated that, despite the heated controversy that is often
invoked by the question of the intent of the atonement, two of the three horns
of this logical trilemma are pointedly unbiblical. If the choice is option one (1), then all are
condemned, which is unbiblical. If the
choice is option three (3), then unbelief would be included as a sin for which
Christ died, and thus universalism is the unavoidable conclusion. This is likewise unbiblical. Therefore, it
has been proved that only option two (2), which posits that Christ died for all
of the sins of only some people, the historic Reformed view, is the correct
view of the atonement. Hence, only
option two, the historic Reformed view of the atonement, offers theologically
self-conscious, critical-minded Christians a logically consistent perspective
of Christ’s atonement, one which also couches coherently within the broader
edifice of orthodox Christian theology.
My gratitude and indebtedness goes out to the brilliant Puritan divine John Owen for the crux of this argument.
My gratitude and indebtedness goes out to the brilliant Puritan divine John Owen for the crux of this argument.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Pride, in the name of sin and nihilism
What is the root of all actual, personal sins? What is the source of nihilism? Hear Augustine on the matter.
“Now, could anything but pride have been the start of the evil
will? For ‘pride is the start of every
kind of sin’ (Ecclus. 10:13). And what
is pride except a longing for a perverse kind of exaltation? For it is a perverse kind of exaltation to
abandon the basis on which the mind should be firmly fixed, and to become, as
it were, based on oneself, and so remain.
This happens when a man is too pleased with himself: and a man is
self-complacent when he deserts that changeless Good in which, rather than in
himself, he ought to have found his satisfaction…And so, to abandon God and to
exist in oneself, that is to please oneself, is not immediately to lose all
being; but it is to come nearer to nothingness”
City of God, Book
XIV, Ch. 13
Friday, January 15, 2010
Tertullian on Idolatry and Its Taunt-worthiness
What are the consequences of people's rejection to building their lives on a reverent respect and fear of the Lord? One of the consequences is foolishness, the hatred of all knowledge and wisdom and sound instruction (Prov 1:7, 29). This, because a person can’t despise the One in whom are hidden all the riches of wisdom and knowledge and still retain a solid foundation for life (Col 2:3). Every aspect of the unbeliever’s thoughts, words and deeds is resting squarely on a sand-like foundation (Matt 7:24ff).
Additionally, since as humans created to reflect what we reverence, in our unbelief we wind up taking on the dead, impersonal, and irrational characteristics of whatever object we have given God’s place of ultimacy over to (Ps 115:3—8). This idolatry leads us to futile reasoning and hearts of darkness. Finally, our exchanging the natural relationship we are to have with our God for that which is unnatural, worshipping something in creation (ultimately ourselves), leads us to pervert ALL that is natural. Making the natural unnatural and then proclaiming it “natural,” putting our selves as gods, we throw everything upside down and backwards (Rom 1:18ff). What’s saddest is that, we believe the upside down and backwards world is “just the way things are”—in a word, normal.
What the unbelieving world calls “normal,” Paul describes as a world of people who operate within every domain in the “futility of their minds,” and are “darkened in their understanding...hard-hearted” and “ignorant” (Eph 4:17—18). However, Paul also teaches us that God, in the omnipotent power and divine wisdom of the gospel, has made the world’s wisdom to be seen for the foolishness that it is; and the world’s perceived strength as it is in reality, weakness.
Now, as confessing Christians, we at least mentally assent to and affirm the truth of these biblical assessments of the unbelieving rationale (or should!). Far from Freud’s “psycho-scientific” conclusion that, our primary problems are the result of repressed anxieties of our sexual or patricidal tendencies; or Skinner’s excusing inferences from a person’s antecedent sociological depravations of one kind or another, the biblical diagnosis of our problem is simply idolatry. And idolatry makes one stupid—sin is irrationality in its highest manifestation. Despite the perceptions and delusions of the world, this is the reality and nature of the case.
Nevertheless, how often are we honest (or convicted) enough to tell the truth in this regard? Why aren’t Christians more willing to “answer the fool according to his folly” (Prov 1:5), not merely announcing the biblical diagnosis, but demonstrating it as well? As D. A. Carson often says, we’ll never agree on the solution (i.e., the gospel) until we can first agree on the problem (i.e., idolatry). The gospel is the only alternative to idolatry.
There has been one in our past who was not afraid to do these very things: reduce humanity’s dilemma down to the living true God or idols, and then make a mockery of the latter option. This one’s name was Tertullian.
In chapter I of De Idololatria, Tertullian gives a persuasive exhibition of how every sin, vice and avarice is in principle only a flagrant display of the deeper problem of idolatry. “The principle crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.” This is the opening line of this work, and the thesis that the rest compellingly proves.
Fraud, even, is rooted in idolatry. Tertullian explains, “The essence of fraud, I take it, is, that any should seize what is another’s, or refuse to another his due; and of course, fraud done toward man is a name of great crime. Well, but idolatry does fraud to God, by refusing to Him, and conferring on others, His honors.” Many similar correspondences are draw in this way. He concludes this chapter. “[S]ince all faults savor opposition to God...doubtless, whoever commits a fault is chargeable with idolatry.”
From a biblical perspective, idolatry is the root of all evil; for Tertullian, it was the same.
We insist that idolatry has not only moral but also intellectual fallout—idolatry = irrationality. Tertullian was quite comfortable to repeatedly point this out to his opponents. It must further be borne in mind that, in the late second and early third centuries, the N. African and Asia Minor Christian communities were experiencing a baptism of blood. Tertullian’s penchant for sardonic tones and heckling taunts were on the pains of death. Today, in the West, we fear challenging our Intelligentsians in the academy, for example, lest our grades suffer; we instead regurgitate their buffoonery back to them on tests and in papers, and in the end, place a measure of offering on the alter of rebellious human Reason. Not Tertullian. There was no compromise at any point; there will always be antithesis between the Church and the Academy, between Jerusalem and Athens.
Last night, Beaner and I read a striking example of his canny for making a mockery out of the judgments of idolaters who despised Christians for nothing more than their name. His point was to illustrate how the Emperor and the Senates’ hatred for Christ and his people had driven them to utter madness. This he does in both Apology II, III and Ad Nationes II. The latter makes the point lucid.
“In this case [of those charged only with being Christians] you actually conduct trials contrary to the usual form of judicial process against criminals; for when culprits are brought up for trial, should they deny the charge, you press them for a confession by tortures. When Christians, however, confess without compulsion, you apply torture to induce them to deny. What great perversity is this, when you stand out against confession, and change the use of torture, compelling the man who frankly acknowledges the charge to evade it, and him who is unwilling, to deny it? You, who preside for the purpose of extorting truth, demand falsehood from us alone, that we declare ourselves not to be what we are...To be sure, you put others on the rack and gibbet, to get them to deny what they have the reputation of being. Now, when they deny (the charge against them), you do not believe them; but on our denial [of Christ and the faith], you instantly believe us!”
“Let this perversity of yours lead you to suspect that there is some hidden power in the case under whose influence you act against the forms [of jurisprudence], against the nature of public justice, even against the laws themselves” (Apol. II).
“Upside down and backwards” are the terms we ascribed to the folly of idolatry earlier, and Tertullian has given us a brilliant illustration of it in the antichrist idolaters of his own day. “O miserable deliverance,--under the necessity of the case, a self-contradiction!...Goodness is of less value that hatred of Christians!” (Apol. II, III).
Although Tertullian had some heterodox slippage, not least with his Montanistic leanings, his taunts and censors against the idolatry and heresy of his day were reminiscent of Paul and in parts Jesus also.
That’s Tertullian. But, what about us today?
Additionally, since as humans created to reflect what we reverence, in our unbelief we wind up taking on the dead, impersonal, and irrational characteristics of whatever object we have given God’s place of ultimacy over to (Ps 115:3—8). This idolatry leads us to futile reasoning and hearts of darkness. Finally, our exchanging the natural relationship we are to have with our God for that which is unnatural, worshipping something in creation (ultimately ourselves), leads us to pervert ALL that is natural. Making the natural unnatural and then proclaiming it “natural,” putting our selves as gods, we throw everything upside down and backwards (Rom 1:18ff). What’s saddest is that, we believe the upside down and backwards world is “just the way things are”—in a word, normal.
What the unbelieving world calls “normal,” Paul describes as a world of people who operate within every domain in the “futility of their minds,” and are “darkened in their understanding...hard-hearted” and “ignorant” (Eph 4:17—18). However, Paul also teaches us that God, in the omnipotent power and divine wisdom of the gospel, has made the world’s wisdom to be seen for the foolishness that it is; and the world’s perceived strength as it is in reality, weakness.
Now, as confessing Christians, we at least mentally assent to and affirm the truth of these biblical assessments of the unbelieving rationale (or should!). Far from Freud’s “psycho-scientific” conclusion that, our primary problems are the result of repressed anxieties of our sexual or patricidal tendencies; or Skinner’s excusing inferences from a person’s antecedent sociological depravations of one kind or another, the biblical diagnosis of our problem is simply idolatry. And idolatry makes one stupid—sin is irrationality in its highest manifestation. Despite the perceptions and delusions of the world, this is the reality and nature of the case.
Nevertheless, how often are we honest (or convicted) enough to tell the truth in this regard? Why aren’t Christians more willing to “answer the fool according to his folly” (Prov 1:5), not merely announcing the biblical diagnosis, but demonstrating it as well? As D. A. Carson often says, we’ll never agree on the solution (i.e., the gospel) until we can first agree on the problem (i.e., idolatry). The gospel is the only alternative to idolatry.
There has been one in our past who was not afraid to do these very things: reduce humanity’s dilemma down to the living true God or idols, and then make a mockery of the latter option. This one’s name was Tertullian.
In chapter I of De Idololatria, Tertullian gives a persuasive exhibition of how every sin, vice and avarice is in principle only a flagrant display of the deeper problem of idolatry. “The principle crime of the human race, the highest guilt charged upon the world, the whole procuring cause of judgment, is idolatry.” This is the opening line of this work, and the thesis that the rest compellingly proves.
Fraud, even, is rooted in idolatry. Tertullian explains, “The essence of fraud, I take it, is, that any should seize what is another’s, or refuse to another his due; and of course, fraud done toward man is a name of great crime. Well, but idolatry does fraud to God, by refusing to Him, and conferring on others, His honors.” Many similar correspondences are draw in this way. He concludes this chapter. “[S]ince all faults savor opposition to God...doubtless, whoever commits a fault is chargeable with idolatry.”
From a biblical perspective, idolatry is the root of all evil; for Tertullian, it was the same.
We insist that idolatry has not only moral but also intellectual fallout—idolatry = irrationality. Tertullian was quite comfortable to repeatedly point this out to his opponents. It must further be borne in mind that, in the late second and early third centuries, the N. African and Asia Minor Christian communities were experiencing a baptism of blood. Tertullian’s penchant for sardonic tones and heckling taunts were on the pains of death. Today, in the West, we fear challenging our Intelligentsians in the academy, for example, lest our grades suffer; we instead regurgitate their buffoonery back to them on tests and in papers, and in the end, place a measure of offering on the alter of rebellious human Reason. Not Tertullian. There was no compromise at any point; there will always be antithesis between the Church and the Academy, between Jerusalem and Athens.
Last night, Beaner and I read a striking example of his canny for making a mockery out of the judgments of idolaters who despised Christians for nothing more than their name. His point was to illustrate how the Emperor and the Senates’ hatred for Christ and his people had driven them to utter madness. This he does in both Apology II, III and Ad Nationes II. The latter makes the point lucid.
“In this case [of those charged only with being Christians] you actually conduct trials contrary to the usual form of judicial process against criminals; for when culprits are brought up for trial, should they deny the charge, you press them for a confession by tortures. When Christians, however, confess without compulsion, you apply torture to induce them to deny. What great perversity is this, when you stand out against confession, and change the use of torture, compelling the man who frankly acknowledges the charge to evade it, and him who is unwilling, to deny it? You, who preside for the purpose of extorting truth, demand falsehood from us alone, that we declare ourselves not to be what we are...To be sure, you put others on the rack and gibbet, to get them to deny what they have the reputation of being. Now, when they deny (the charge against them), you do not believe them; but on our denial [of Christ and the faith], you instantly believe us!”
“Let this perversity of yours lead you to suspect that there is some hidden power in the case under whose influence you act against the forms [of jurisprudence], against the nature of public justice, even against the laws themselves” (Apol. II).
“Upside down and backwards” are the terms we ascribed to the folly of idolatry earlier, and Tertullian has given us a brilliant illustration of it in the antichrist idolaters of his own day. “O miserable deliverance,--under the necessity of the case, a self-contradiction!...Goodness is of less value that hatred of Christians!” (Apol. II, III).
Although Tertullian had some heterodox slippage, not least with his Montanistic leanings, his taunts and censors against the idolatry and heresy of his day were reminiscent of Paul and in parts Jesus also.
That’s Tertullian. But, what about us today?
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