Andy Naselli

Thoughts on Theology

Systematic Theology

A Primer on Hyper-Calvinism

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Phil Johnson wrote a lucid article in 1998 that those using the term “hyper-Calvinism” would do well to read:

Hyper-Calvinism, simply stated, is a doctrine that emphasizes divine sovereignty to the exclusion of human responsibility. To call it “hyper-Calvinism” is something of a misnomer. It is actually a rejection of historic Calvinism. Hyper-Calvinism entails a denial of what is taught in both Scripture and the major Calvinistic creeds, substituting instead an imbalanced and unbiblical notion of divine sovereignty.

Hyper-Calvinism comes in several flavors, so it admits no simple, pithy definition. . . .

A fivefold definition: The definition I am proposing outlines five varieties of hyper-Calvinism, listed here in a declining order, from the worst kind to a less extreme variety (which some might prefer to class as “ultra-high Calvinism”):

A hyper-Calvinist is someone who either:

  1. Denies that the gospel call applies to all who hear,
  2. OR Denies that faith is the duty of every sinner,
  3. OR Denies that the gospel makes any “offer” of Christ, salvation, or mercy to the non-elect (or denies that the offer of divine mercy is free and universal),
  4. OR Denies that there is such a thing as “common grace,”
  5. OR Denies that God has any sort of love for the non-elect.

All five varieties of hyper-Calvinism undermine evangelism or twist the gospel message

Read the whole thing.

HT: JT

Koukl-Chopra Debate

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My last post highlights a book I read last night:

Gregory Koukl. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009.

In the foreword Lee Strobel recounts this story:

When I hosted a national television program called Faith Under Fire, which featured short debates on spiritual topics, I decided to invite best-selling New Age author Deepak Chopra to be a guest. The topic would be the future of faith. To offer a different perspective, I asked my friend Greg Koukl to represent Christianity. The idea was to tape them as they interacted for about fifteen minutes via satellite, the typical format for a segment of the show.

That plan quickly went out the window.

Greg was simply so engaging and so effecting in poking holes in Chopra’s worldview that I had to keep the cameras running. Time after time, Greg was able to expose the faulty thinking underlying Chopra’s amorphous theology and correct his inaccurate claims about Jesus and the Bible. Before I knew it, we had consumed the entire hour of the show. Chopra—who was accustomed to spouting his opinions unchallenged on television and radio—was left thoroughly defeated and deflated.

As soon as the taping was over, I turned to my producer. “That,” I said, “was a textbook example of how to defend Christianity.” For the only time in our show’s tenure, we decided to devote an entire program to airing one debate.

Why was Greg so incredibly successful in that encounter? He wasn’t belligerent or obnoxious. He didn’t raise his voice or launch into a sermon. Instead, he used the kind of tactics that he describes in his book: winsomely using key questions and other techniques to guide the conversation and unveil the flawed assumptions and hidden contradictions in another person’s positions. (p. 13)

Koukl’s website lists many video resources and other resources on apologetics, including a link to the Chopra-Koukl debate. (I also searched on “Koulk” at LeeStrobel.com and discovered ten videos, including the Chopra-Koukl debate in smaller segments.) Here’s a 36-minute video of the Chopra-Koukl debate:

The Fallacy of Expert Witness

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As I acquire new books, I typically do not immediately assign them to their proper places on bookshelves. First I want to spend at least a few minutes with each book to get a sense of its argument and how it might be a useful resource to consult in the future.

Tonight I’ve been working through a stack of new books, spending fifteen minutes with one, five with another, etc. Then I picked up this one:

Gregory Koukl. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009. [excerpt]

This is one of those rare books that is hard to put down. It’s insightful, witty, and fun to read. Except for an unpersuasive argument against determinism (pp. 128–29), the book is extremely helpful, particularly Koukl’s winsome and strategic use of asking questions (chaps. 3–6).

The Fallacy of Expert Witness

One of the most helpful chapters is entitled “Rhodes Scholar.” [Read more…] about The Fallacy of Expert Witness

“Every Christian is as guilty of putting Jesus on the cross as Caiaphas”

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D. A. Carson makes this introductory observation to Matthew 26:57–68 in his 1984 Matthew commentary:

Few topics have caused more tension between Jews and Christians than the trial of Jesus. Those who have committed abominable atrocities against the Jews have often based their actions on the ground that Jews are the murderers of their Messiah, or God-killers, and have all too frequently turned to Matthew 27:25 for backing. (p. 549)

Carson proceeds in six steps, and the first half of his sixth step is moving:

From a theological perspective every Christian is as guilty of putting Jesus on the cross as Caiaphas. Thoughtful believers will surely admit that their own guilt is the more basic of the two; for if we believe Matthew’s witness, and Jesus could have escaped the clutches of Caiaphas (v. 53), then what drove Jesus to the cross was his commitment to the Father’s redemptive purposes. While this does not excuse Caiaphas and his peers, it keeps Christians from supercilious judgment of the Jews. (p. 552, emphasis added)

Interview with Rolland McCune on Systematic Theology

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cross-posted on SharperIron.org

Relatively few people agree with every single position taken in any comprehensive systematic theology, but it is valuable to consult a large number and wide variety of systematic theologies in order to understand how others correlate God’s revealed truth. For this (secondary) reason alone, a new multi-volume systematic theology by veteran seminary professor Rolland McCune is definitely worth adding to one’s ST collection.

About Rolland McCune

Rolland McCune (b. 1934) is former president and current professor of systematic theology at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 1981. He is the author of Promise Unfulfilled: The Failed Strategy of Modern Evangelicalism.

Dr. McCune had a massive influence on me in college and beyond. In my review of Promise Unfulfilled (to which McCune kindly responded), I noted this:

In the summers of 2000 and 2001 (following my sophomore and junior years of college), I was privileged to take two seminary classes at DBTS from McCune. I stocked up on his lengthy course syllabi and devoured them (about 900 pages on systematic theology as well as lectures on hermeneutics, apologetics, and the like). I have listened to dozens of his audio lectures and sermons, read his journal articles, interacted with former students (including one of my former pastors) who esteem him as their mentor, and interacted directly with him a bit (e.g., I interviewed him for my dissertation on Keswick theology). His thinking is rigidly logical, his conclusions firm, his commitment to God and His word immovable, and his character unquestionably above reproach.

I slowly and thoroughly read through McCune’s 900 pages of systematic theology notes at least three times in college and early seminary. I knew his positions so well that my friend Matt Hoskinson used to call me “McCune,” and when we were taking theology classes together, he’d ask me during class discussions, “So what does McCune say?” <grin>

About Rolland McCune’s Systematic Theology

Now McCune’s systematic theology syllabi are being published in a more polished form, and the first of three or four volumes is hot off the press.

Rolland McCune. A Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity. Vol. 1. Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 2009. xiii + 443 pp. [desk copies available]

The book is much better documented than his syllabi (though the footnotes are unusually small and I miss the syllabi’s numbered headings). Two endorsements appear on the back cover:

This is the systematic theology set for which many of us—especially those of us who had the privilege of studying under Dr. Rolland McCune—have been waiting. Rolland McCune is one of the clearest thinkers in the theological world today, and in this set he systematically combines the interpretations of Scripture that many of us have wished to find in a single theology set. Highlights include a presuppositional apologetic, a single source (Scripture) as the only rule for theology, cessationism [sic] of the miraculous gifts, pretribulational premillennialism in eschatology, a dispensational structure of God’s progressive revelation, recent creationism, and a Calvinist soteriology. In addition, McCune has gained a comprehensive knowledge of evangelical theological works in his lifetime, and hundreds of footnotes saturate the pages of this work. It is highly recommended.

Larry Pettegrew, Th.D.
Vice President of Professor of Theology
Shepherds Theological Seminary, Cary, North Carolina

Rolland McCune’s Systematic Theology of Biblical Christianity is written for pastors and preachers by a theologian with a heart for pastors. Concise yet thorough, academic yet pastoral, simple yet profound, Dr. McCune has managed to provide a much needed theological resource that will be of immense value to both pastors and academicians. His balanced, biblical approach is refreshing. Careful scholarship and thorough research are evident on every page. This will be a tool that serious students of the Bible will find themselves turning to again and again.

Sam Horn, Ph.D.
Senior Pastor, Brookside Baptist Church
Vice-President for Ministerial Training and Graduate Studies,
Northland Baptist Bible College

An Interview with Rolland McCune on Systematic Theology

1. How many years have you taught systematic theology on the seminary level? About how many semester-long or block systematic theology (ST) classes (not courses) have you taught?

I have taught for 42 years in the general field of ST: 14 years at the Central Baptist Seminary of Minneapolis (1967–1981) and 28 years at DBTS (1981–2009). I taught elective theologies (e.g., dispensationalism, Kingdom of God, and OT theology) while a prof of OT for 11 or 12 years, and ST and Apologetics almost exclusively for the remainder.

I would confess that my theological class hours in seminary studies and in teaching are beyond my present abilities to calculate, or even estimate. [Read more…] about Interview with Rolland McCune on Systematic Theology

Five Myths About Dispensationalism

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It seems fashionable in at least some pockets of academia to marginalize and ridicule dispensationalists. Before one criticizes dispensationalism, however, one must accurately understand what it is. (Perhaps the best test of whether one has represented another view accurately is when a leading proponent of that view agrees that their view has been represented accurately.) The following 73-page paperback is a primer on dispensationalism that may serve non-dispensationalists in this regard:

Michael J. Vlach [personal website]. Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths. Los Angeles: Theological Studies Press, 2008.

Vlach highlights five common myths about dispensationalism (pp. 32–49):

  • Myth 1: Dispensationalism teaches multiple ways of salvation.
  • Myth 2: Dispensationalism is inherently linked with Arminianism.
  • Myth 3: Dispensationalism is inherently antinomian.
  • Myth 4: Dispensationalism leads to non-Lordship salvation.
  • Myth 5: Dispensationalism is primarily about believing in seven dispensations.

Ergo, critiques of dispensationalism (particularly of leading contemporary dispensationalists, whether they are traditional, revised, or progressive) should not perpetuate these myths.

Just to be clear: I am not arguing here that dispensationalism is correct. I am arguing that evaluations of it should accurately represent it.

What’s Evangelical about This?

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One of the latest wave-making academic books within evangelicalism is Kenton L. Sparks’s God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008).

Today the Old Testament Department at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School had a stimulating “brown bag seminar” for an hour during lunch to discuss this book. I left that meeting thanking God for Trinity’s gifted OT faculty.

  1. Dennis Magary moderated.
  2. Dick Averbeck summarized and evaluated.
  3. James Hoffmeier summarized and evaluated.
  4. Willem VanGemeren summarized and evaluated.
  5. Lawson Younger offered comments.
  6. John Monson (who was friends with Peter Enns while they both studied at Harvard) offered comments.

I don’t feel at liberty to publish my notes or their handouts online, but suffice it to say that the OT faculty agrees that Sparks’s book is deeply flawed and dangerous. (I’m paraphrasing, not directly quoting.)

Sparks uncritically accepts critical views and is overconfident in his conclusions while severely criticizing evangelicals like D. A. Carson, Robert Yarbrough, Kevin Vanhoozer, and James Hoffmeier. Sparks takes the debate beyond Peter Enns’s Inspiration and Incarnation. The book’s subtitle should not include the word “evangelical”: God’s Word in Human Words: An Evangelical Appropriation of Critical Biblical Scholarship.

More reviews of this book are forthcoming. (For example, look for one by Bob Yarbrough in the next issue of Themelios.) Here are a couple of others already published:

  1. The enthusiastic RBL review by Arthur Boulet, an M.A. student at Westminster Theological Seminary and an ardent supporter of Peter Enns, is sad. A sharp friend of mine who is working on a PhD elsewhere emailed me this after reading it: “This review makes me want to cry. May God grant grace.”
  2. The review by Kevin Bauder is a breath of fresh air in comparison.

Updates:

1. S. M. Baugh reviewed Sparks’s book for Reformation21 in August 2008.

2. Gary L. W. Johnson comments on Sparks’s book in the introduction to Reforming or Conforming: Post-Conservative Evangelicals and the Emerging Church (ed. Gary L. W. Johnson and Ronald L. Gleason; Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 23n21:

Sparks in particular paints contemporary defenders of inerrancy in very unflattering colors. Old Testament scholars such as R. K. Harrison, Gleason Archer, and E. J. Young are accused of sticking their heads in the sand to avoid dealing with the real issues raised by critical Old Testament scholars (133ff ) while New Testament scholars such as D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo are said to be guilty of deliberately dodging the issues of New Testament critics (167). Even greater disdain is heaped on Carl Henry, who had the misfortune of simply being a theologian and not a biblical scholar (138). However, the most reprehensible aspect of Sparks’s work is the facile labeling of all defenders of inerrancy as Cartesian foundationalists. Sparks declares Cornelius Van Til, and his presuppositional apologetics, to be Cartesian because Van Til underscored the importance of certainty, which to Sparks’s way of thinking automatically makes one a Cartesian (45). If that is the case, then we must place not only the Reformers and the church fathers in that category, but Christ and the apostles as well! Van Til was no Cartesian. His apologetical approach was rooted in classic Reformed theology, especially in the Dutch tradition of Kuyper and Bavinck, stretching back to the noted Dutch Protestant scholastic Peter Van Mastricht (1630–1706), who was an outspoken critic of all things Cartesian. As Richard Muller notes, “Mastricht’s consequent stress on the necessity of revelation for Christian theology (theology defined as ‘living before God in and through Christ’ or as the wisdom leading to that end) led to an adamant resistance to Cartesian thought with its method of radical doubt and its insistence on the primacy of autonomy of the mind in all matters of judgment.” Richard Muller, “Giving Direction to Theology: The Scholastic Dimension,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 28 (June 1985), 185.

3. Robert W. Yarbrough, “The Embattled Bible: Four More Books,” Themelios 24 (2009): 6–25.

4. A Book-Length Response to Kent Sparks

5. “Scripture: How the Bible Is a Book Like No Other,” in Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Old Faith for a New Day (ed. Kevin DeYoung; Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 59–69.