A Blessed Union? Part II

Mapping Out Biblical Language

The PCA report claims that FV is contradictory to the Westminster Standards and (thus?) “strikes at the system of doctrine contained in them” (II.D., p. 2224, lines 37-38). The report acknowledges that “it is certainly possible to say more than our Confession does about biblical truth, but this should not necessitate a denial of the vitals of our faith” (Preface, p. 2203, lines 10-11). The “vitals of our faith” as referring to the Standards is not problematic in the report, since they acknowledge that scripture takes precedence over the Standards. I take the committee to mean here that the Standards are vital to the faith of the PCA as a denomination that holds to them as a faithful exposition of scripture and as a doctrinal guide. I’m not sure what else it could mean without elevating them over scripture.

The report only argues that FV is contradictory to the Standards; it does not argue that FV is contradictory to scripture. But the implication is there implicitly, even if the committee does not mean to or is not intending to draw the implication.

1. FV is contradictory to the Standards.
2. The Standards represent a faithful exposition of scripture.
3. Any faithful exposition of scripture should not (will not?) contradict another faithful exposition of scripture.
4. Therefore, FV is not a faithful exposition of scripture.

Premise (2) is qualified by the committee when they say that more could be said about scripture than the Confession says, which I take to be an acknowledgement that another faithful reading of scripture is possible. Premise (3) really isn’t all that problematic, either, especially given a sufficiently strong reading of contradiction. It seems reasonable to demand that a faithful exposition not be denied by another faithful exposition; if that were the case, either one of the expositions is problematic and not really a faithful exposition or scripture itself is problematic in allowing for contradictory faithful expositions. If, for the purposes of considering the legitimacy of the claim, we assume that the expositions are indeed faithful, we are forced to conclude that scripture is problematic. But that is not an option, so the claim seems to be a reasonable one.

The problem with the argument, and with the report, is premise (1). On a sufficiently strong reading of contradiction, FV would have to be an outright denial of the teaching of the Standards. For instance, if the standards said that the elect cannot fall away from their election and FV said that the elect can fall away from their election, and “elect” and “election” had the same meaning, this would be a contradiction. We need that middle part for the contradiction to hold; otherwise, we just have a difference between the two views—a considerably weaker relation than contradiction and, importantly, one that at least allows for the possibility of compatibility.

It is this lack of common reference and context that prevents the committee from making good on their conclusions about FV and the Standards. When discussing election, for example, the report claims that

The 1646 chapter title “God’s eternal decree” emphasizes the unitary and comprehensive nature of God’s divine plan. Thus views which juxtapose “election from the standpoint of the covenant” with the Standard’s decretal view of election, offering this as an alternative and superior way of thing about (e.g.) the visible church, the sacraments and assurance are not only forsaking the language of the Standards, but undermining its theology. (I.D, p. 2212, lines 27-31, emphasis added)

The “thus” bothers me. Just because the views are different, which is all they have established, while possibly amounting to a juxtaposition, does not amount to a forsaking or undermining. It would only if the decretal view of election were denied by the covenantal view, which would happen only if election were being understood in the same way, which it isn’t. The whole point is that the language of election is used differently (at some points) by the biblical authors than the Standards have it; this fact alone blocks an inference to FV being contradictory to or destructive of the Standards’ systematic theology. The FV account of election is an alternative way of understanding biblical language, and it may or may not be taken as a superior way of understanding it; the report has that much right. But this doesn’t automatically make it a denial of decretal election. Given that the FV guys consistently insist that they personally do not deny decretal election, I think they are smart enough to not let such a denial make its way into FV theology. (But perhaps I’m being overly charitable here.)

The next paragraph in the report:

Moreover, to affirm the Standards, and then redefine the terms used in the Standards, is not to affirm the Standards. For example, to affirm the decretal view of election, and then to say that the Bible teaches that the elect may fall from their election, is to set the Bible over against the Standards. The committee holds that by receiving and adopting the Westminster Standards as containing the system of doctrine taught in Scripture, we are saying that the terms used in the Confession faithfully represent what is taught in Scripture. (I.D., p. 2212, lines 33-38)

Ah, I thought I’d heard enough about people “redefining” terms when N. T. Wright was all the controversy rage. Nope. If by “redefine” we mean “add to the definition of,” then, yes, there is redefinition going on. This is not what the committee means by “redefine,” but this is all that is going on. Another minor point: isn’t there some important sense (but not one intended by the committee) in which we ought to “set the Bible over against the Standards”? Sure, “the terms used in the Confession faithfully represent what is taught in Scripture,” but it is not exhaustive in its representation. The Standards do not contain the doctrine taught in Scripture. The committee acknowledges as much when they say in the Preface of the report that much more can be said of scripture than the Confession includes. When FV says that the Bible teaches that the elect may fall from their election, the are not using the terms as the Confession uses them, though they are using terms that the Confession uses. The “elect” are viewed from the ground-level, historical, covenantal perspective as those in covenant with God: those who have been baptized in Christ, adopted into His family, joined to His Body of which He is the Head, and living faithfully in light of covenantal obligations.

Returning to Horton’s relief-map analogy from a previous post, is there a way of overlaying the decretal atlas map onto the covenantal topographical map? In other words, is there a way of describing and understanding God’s work from two different yet compatible perspectives? A term can have different meanings yet have the same reference: “philosophy professor” and “Colin’s brother” have the same reference, namely, me (for the purposes of this example, we will overlook the likely fact that these phrases might also refer to someone other than me), but they mean different things because of the context within which they most appropriately belong (e.g., work context and family context). They refer to the same thing but signify different things, and it is by virtue of their reference that they are not contradictory but compatible. Could it be the case that the term “election” as used by systematic theology and “election” as used by biblical theology has the same reference and yet signifies different things? If so, they would be different by virtue of their signification and yet compatible by virtue of their common reference.

If such an overlay were possible, we should expect it to look a little bit weird. Sometimes FV looks a little bit weird. That’s because it’s asking us to change the perspective to which we’ve grown accustomed. But I’m not yet convinced that this perspective amounts to a denial of other perspectives.

A Blessed Union?

In the wake of much of the controversy that has been surrounding this “Federal Vision theology” business for the last several years and in anticipation of the PCA report on said “theology” to be discussed at this year’s General Assembly, I have once again returned to read the dusty books on my shelf and some of what is being passed around the internet. Although I’ve read and thought a fair bit about many of these issues, I haven’t yet attained that level of diligence and discipline to document the results that some of my more precocious brothers have done. Nonetheless, reading over the GA Committee report has me going back to some previous thoughts on the subject, a distinction I made there, and what all of this has to do with biblical and systematic theology.

The report is clear that the committee believes their (questionable, in my mind) interpretation of the Federal Vision (FV) guys is contradictory to the Westminster Standards. This passage is representative (substituting “covenant and election” with other issues discussed in the report):

But it is evident that the version of covenant and election taught by the NPP [New Perspective on Paul] and FV is incompatible with the views of the Westminster Standards. In fact, these two approaches to covenant and election are not complementary ways of looking at the biblical data, but irreconcilably contradictory alternative accounts of the biblical data. (p. 2212, lines 21-25)

In my previous thoughts on FV, I suggested that the difference between what they are saying and what their critics think they are saying hinges on the difference between a human-historical perspective of these theological themes and an eternal-decretal (“God’s eye”) perspective of them. The FV guys are speaking (for the most part) from within the context of the former; their critics, the latter. I think that this distinction can be mapped pretty faithfully onto the difference between biblical (covenantal) theology and systematic theology. What I take FV to be doing, though not explicitly as far as I know, is to try to understand biblical language in an historical, covenantal theological way. What I take the Westminster Standards to be doing is to understand biblical language in a decretal, systematic theological way. And, to the committee, ne’er the twain shall meet.

What I suggest is that we see the FV controversy as a symptom of deeper pathology in our theological system. The sometimes schizophrenic way in which we treat biblical theology and systematics in the same departments in our seminaries is nothing new, and our failure to adequately integrate the two approaches to scripture is to me the subtext behind what has been going on for years regarding NPP and FV (though, as a subtext, it won’t explain without remainder all aspects of the controversies). In so far as the biblical data is in view for both approaches, and in so far as FV makes use of systematic theological terminology, I see FV as at attempt to integrate biblical theology and systematics, to address terminology that has long been the province of systematics from a covenantal perspective.

One of the reasons that I think this integration is what FV is doing is that they repeatedly (ad nauseum it sometimes seems) stress that they are not saying anything contradictory to the deliverances of systematics. But, they are saying something different from the way we’re used to hearing them. This gives us pause, as well it ought, but rather than get out the pitchforks and firebrands we ought to charitably understand whether the two are different yet compatible.

I wonder, for instance, what they would think of the kind of integration I am talking about that Michael Horton is doing in Covenant and Eschatology. Horton recognizes the tension between biblical theology and systematics—the fragmented nature of the former, vies for superiority, failure to see the two as interrelated. Covenant and Eschatology is his attempt to lay out a roadmap for bringing the two together (among other aims).

No more concrete category can unite history and eschatology, the individual and the community, divine and human agency, than the scriptures’ own method of contextualization: the covenant. (16)

Furthermore, a biblical-theological understanding of covenant ties things together in a systematic theology whose relations are often strained: ecclesiology (the context of the covenant), theology proper (the covenant maker), anthropology (the covenant partner), christology (the covenant mediator), soteriology (the covenant blessings), eschatology (the covenant’s consummation). (17)

Far from displacing christology or a particular doctrine, such as justification, from centrality, “covenant” becomes the context in which such crucial and definitive doctrines find their fullest force. (18)

“Covenant” could be elaborated in a biblical-theological manner, by tracing the specific arrangements throughout redemptive history, and it could developed systematically by organizing the material in their thematic relations. Thus, for instance, this federal union with Christ could become the paradigm within which one could relate election, justification, sanctification, adoption, and glorification. In both biblical theology and systematic theology, the dialectic of whole and parts, never resting on one or the other, is always generating greater refinement as well as scope. (240)

This approach exchanges the one-dimensional map for a relief map, with raised peaks and indented valleys. It is theology not from a “God’s-eye” perspective, but from down on the ground, where one is never quite sure what looms over the horizon of the next mountain range until one arrives there. To be sure, there are directions, prophetic anticipations of what one will find, but the fulfillment always surpasses expectations. Thus, redemptive history cannot be reduced to a single picture, a unity without diversity…. But while relief maps are helpful for some tasks, one-dimensional freeway and street maps are helpful for others. Biblical and systematic theology keep each other in check, in the all-important effort to avoid both enthusiasm and dogmatism. Far, then, from the model which Professor Lindbeck has indentified as “cognitive-propositionalist,” Vos argues, “The Bible is not a dogmatic handbook but a historical book full of dramatic interest.” (241)

In order to forestall charges of guilt by association, I am not suggesting that FV and Horton are in the same camp. I don’t know if they are. For instance, I suspect that they are employing the covenantal framework in a different way to systematic-theological categories. But I also suspect (and it is little more than a suspicion at this point) that their overall approaches have important, deep similarities. They both reject an abstract-propositional approach to scripture (most often reflected in systematic theology) as the only or dominant one. They both focus on the historical-redemptive, covenantal thrust of scripture and its relevance to understanding systematic-theological categories. How this has been worked out practically (thus far) for both is different, but I wonder if they are nonetheless compatible in more than just the general ways I have suggested.

Imputation of Righteousness

For anyone who might be interested, check out this transcript of a talk that N. T. Wright gave at a 2003 conference in Edinburgh. I think it helps to clarify, though hardly settle, some problems that reformed folks, particularly those within the PCA, have with Wright.

One criticism that comes up again and again is the charge that Wright denies the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to believers. And, frankly, they seem to be correct. But what is so bad about denying such a thing, what makes the denial so frightening and the charge so serious, is the (supposed) consequent denial of the effects of the imputation. Without such imputation, we are without hope, left only to the righteousness of our own works, which, of course, will get us nowhere. The problem is that although Wright disagrees with the popular understanding of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, he is adamant that he doesn't deny what the imputation doctrine is meant to preserve.

First, Paul’s doctrine of what is true of those who are in the Messiah does the job, within his scheme of thought, that the traditional protestant emphasis on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness did within that scheme. In other words, that which imputed righteousness was trying to insist upon is, I think, fully taken care of in (for instance) Romans 6, where Paul declares that what is true of the Messiah is true of all his people. Jesus was vindicated by God as Messiah after his penal death; I am in the Messiah; therefore I too have died and been raised. According to Romans 6, when God looks at the baptised Christian he sees him or her in Christ. But Paul does not say that he sees us clothed with the earned merits of Christ. That would of course be the wrong meaning of ‘righteous’ or ‘righteousness’. He sees us within the vindication of Christ, that is, as having died with Christ and risen again with him. I suspect that it was the mediaeval over-concentration on righteousness, on iustitia, that caused the protestant reformers to push for imputed righteousness to do the job they rightly saw was needed. But in my view they have thereby distorted what Paul himself was saying.

Read the transcript for a fuller treatment of justification as vindication. The metaphor he gives (as he did back in What Saint Paul Really Said), and that he believes Paul had in mind, is that of the Jewish law court, in which a person is righteous by being vindicated by the judge. The protestant notion of the imputation of Christ's righteousness, says Wright, is that righteousness is a characteristic of Christ (in some metaphysical and moral sense) that itself is transferred to us, so that we have this characteristic of Christ that is Christ's, not ours. But, says Wright, in the law court it is not the judge's moral characteristic of being righteous that is transferred to the person. The judge makes a pronouncement, and it is so. Having been vindicated by the judge, the person is, totally and completely, innocent or guilty.

We don't get Christ's righteousness per se, says Wright, but this doesn't mean that we aren't justified in the sight of God by the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. This is why he cites Romans 6, in which Paul makes clear who we are in the sight of God because of Christ's death and resurrection. By being in Christ, we are judged by God to be in the same position as Christ before Him: righteous. What exactly is lost in Wright's formulation (if I may ask this without being thought unorthodox or heretical)? There is no denial that we are in Christ, nor is that denial implied. There is no denial that we enjoy the benefits, now and at the Last Day, of union with Christ. There is no denial that God grants us His Spirit.

What is lost is thinking of "justification" as denoting the entire soteriological ordo saludis. And this is probably the source of all the troubles. Wright is, in fact, suggesting a drastic (for some) change in thinking about justification. But that does not mean he is denying anything that the traditional conception implies. And this is the main source of the absurdity of most every criticism against Wright that I've seen. Wright sees justification as a part of the salvation process, as he thinks Paul does in Romans 8:30. That is why Wright's formulation of justification does not imply a denial of those things that the traditional conception of justification imply: they do not refer to the same thing -- the scope of Wright's is more narrow than the scope of the traditional conception.

What I find so interesting about the conference talk is his reasons for coming to this position. Many criticisms think that he came to the position after reading the dirty liberal NPP folks like Sanders and Dunn, and since reformed folks are opposed to these dirty liberals (and rightly so), then they must be opposed to Wright as well. But Wright contends that he came to the position by a most definitely reformed principle: sola scriptura. When he tried to understand and exegete Paul's writings as the Word of God and not through the lenses of this or that theological tradition, this is the position he came to. He sees his obedience to scripture as the reason why he came to, and continues to hold, his position on the matter of justification.

If we, as reformed folks, are to be "always reforming" and always taking what scripture says as the trump card to what any theological system says, then shouldn't we listen to someone who is trying to understand the concept of justification as Paul sees it, whatever the consequences for our theological system? Shouldn't we be willing to change our system, if that is what scripture requires? I'd say yes, and I'm sure, if pressed in some other context, Wright's critics would, as well. But what I've see over and over again in their criticisms is that Wright is wrong because his view doesn't match up with the Westminster Confession or with some other reformed standard. In other words, what he thinks scripture says can't be what scripture says because it's not what our theological system says that scripture says. I think we've forgotten Chapter 1 of the WCF, "Of the Holy Scripture." We would do well to keep Sections 9 and 10 in mind.

As a caveat, I'm not sure that I'm with Wright on this. Christ's imputation (double imputation, actually) is too ingrained in my thought to toy with it too much and I'm not willing to part easily with it. Plus, there is a question as to how good of an exegete Wright is, which is the cornerstone (as he himself admits) of his position. If his exegesis doesn't hold up, then neither does his position. But to criticize the position just because it isn't what our theological system says it is, which is what I've seen a lot of critics do, just isn't the way to go.

The Federal Vision (and their shortsighted detractors)

In the mail today I got a recent issue of a little Reformed newsletter. The issue was a reprint of a recent article by David Engelsma that is both something of a review of a recent book called The Federal Vision and something of an attack on its authors. What has come to be called the "Federal Vision" has created quite the controversy in certain Reformed circles over the past several years, to the point that some count it as heresy. (Doing an online search for "federal vision" will bring up enough information on the controversy to choke a horse. Since FV more or less used to be called "Auburn Avenue Theology," perhaps a good place to start, but not end, is their statement on the subject.) I have the book but have yet to read it, so I can't really comment on how charitably Engelsma is reading it; but from what I know about the controversy, its issues, and other things that the authors wrote and said (which is a good bit), I already find much in the article that is uncharitable and just plain nonsense even after a brief and scattered flip-through of the book. (Of course, such a surface scan could be charged against me, and the charge would certainly stick if the subject being discussed in that context were a substantial one, e.g., one regarding interpretation. But, interestingly, much of what rankles me about the Englesma article does not even concern substance, not the least reason for which his criticisms mostly lack it.)

The FV proponents are, broadly speaking, trying to make sense of how Scripture talks about justification, salvation, regeneration, and election in the context of covenant and biblical theology. Sometimes this is different from how systematic theology talks about it. In this division in how we approach soteriology, I have long thought, lies much of the division regarding the FV controversy. The question I keep asking, the question that rears its head repeatedly in the margins of criticisms of FV, is "in what sense?" In what sense of 'justification' does Scripture mean when it (Paul) says that we are justified by grace/faith alone apart from works versus when it (James) says that we are justified by works and not by faith alone? It has been charged against the FV that it condones justification by works, which is (rightly, understood in a certain sense) anathema to Reformed theology. So, what does it mean when James, Paul in Romans, and Schlissel say that the doers of the law--those who are obedient--are justified? Engelsma quotes one sentence (from Schlissel's 24-page essay), "...truly responding to the Law (the Word) in faith does justify," and pronounces this as affirming justification by works, "justification by deeds of obedience to the law."

Okay, fine, but does 'justification' mean the same thing in the way Engelsma is using and the way Schlissel is using it? No. What is anathema about "justification by works"? That you can somehow merit your salvation, that you can somehow do enough to win God's heart. This is what Engelsma has in mind. What does Schlissel have in mind? Well, a cursory glance at the first few pages of the essay will tell you: he quotes from the Westminster standards to the effect that although justification is apart from works it is always attended by works in the form of obedience. In this second sense, then, justification, then, includes obedience. Faith and obedience are inextricably linked in justification. This is what James means when he says that we, like Abraham, are justified by our works/obedience (interestingly, Paul in Romans cites Abraham as our model for justification by faith apart from works!). So, the bad way to take 'justification by works' is for works to be meritorious, for them to be conditions that must be fulfilled in order for us to be made right with God. The good way to take 'justification by works' is for them to be conditions that must be fulfilled for us to stay in God's favor. Obedience does not make us right with God--only God can do that--but it is what we do because we are right with God. It is in this second sense that FV focuses on the connection rather than the separation of justification and obedience/works. Yet it is plain that the way Engelsma (mis)reads Schlissel is with regard to the first sense. (Further evidence for this being a mireading is that in no fewer than three places I found Schlissel clearly denying this sense of 'justification by works'--and that from only skimming the essay! Ridiculous.)

Another related set of criticisms by Engelsma is that FV makes election/salvation conditional and makes God's grace resistible (that is, one can lose his salvation). A large part of what stands behind these criticisms is FV's claims about what it means to be united to Christ. FV repeatedly claims that through baptism one becomes a member of God's covenant, part of which means one is united to the Body of Christ and to Christ Himself, that one is grafted as a branch into the vine of Christ (John 15) and nourished thereby. Yet some covenant members turn out to be non-elect--they fall away from the grace of God (Paul's wording in Galatians). Two things we should notice here. First, does it make sense to say that they "turn out to be" non-elect? Were they elect at one point in time and then became non-elect in another? Well, not from God's perspective. From His point of view, everyone is always and ever either elect or non-elect. It just so happens that we don't have God's point of view, except where He decides to make it known. Drawing a distinction between these two perspectives--ours and God's--is something that FV wants to do with regard to much of what Scripture says. That is, most of the time when the biblical authors are talking about salvation, grace, faith, etc., they are doing so from our perspective (which turns out, on FV's interpretation, to be a covenantal perspective) rather than from God's. Yet, what systematic theology attempts to do much of the time is to understand things from God's perspective, from an eternal or "eschatalogical" standpoint. So, when critics of FV say that it is going against the heart of the gospel or against Reformed theology or the Westminster standards or whatever, they mean this from the standpoint of systematics. Which, in a sense, is true of FV since they are approaching the same thing from a very different (but no less biblical) perspective!

There are plenty of tough places in Scripture that suggest a conditional salvation. Here are just two that come to mind:

He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach--if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel.... (Colossians 1:22-23)

For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.... (Hebrews 6:4-6)

So, my being reconciled in Christ and being blameless before God is conditional upon my continuing in the faith? What FV attempts to do is make sense out statements like these without beating around the bush or trying to make Scripture say less than it is. Paul clearly says IF; so what are we going to do (think) about it? We could think about it from our (covenantal) perspective: God brought you into His household of faith; but if you fail to continue in that faith, you lose your connection with Christ (who is the ground of our faith and hope) and are severed from any hope of salvation (for in Christ alone is our salvation). So, in this sense, the way we remain in the household of God is to be obedient and faithful servants. It is in this sense that we are to make our calling and election sure. The Hebrews passage contains very strong language, language that we typically (in our systematic, but not necessarily mistaken, mindset) take to refer only to the eternally elect. Yet here such language clearly refers to those who turn out to be eternally non-elect. What are we going to do (think) about it? We could think about it from our (covenantal) perspective: when we united to the Body of Christ in a covenantal way in becoming baptized members of the Church, we share in the blessings that God bestows upon His corporate people.

In order to not whitewash over such passages, FV claims that in some sense covenant members are sanctified by the blood of Christ, have new life by the Holy Spirit, etc. Yet, some covenant members fall away and cannot be renewed to repentance. Does this mean that people can lose their salvation? That people can really and truly fall away from grace? Well, it depends on what we mean by 'salvation' and 'grace.' From the God's-eye perspective, clearly not; God's eternal decrees about who receives saving grace cannot be thwarted by the wills of men. Yet how those decrees get worked out is another matter. If we see the sacraments as being truly efficacious in a covenantally binding sense, then baptism really does bring us into the grace of God. It really does unite us to Christ and all the benefits that come from that. This is how we should view baptism from our perspective, which, FV insists, is the perspective that the biblical authors are most concerned about. Yet detractors consistently impose systematic categories (i.e., the God's-eye perspective) on FV authors who are trying to make sense of a covenantal perpective understanding of these things. For instance, Engelsma claims that since FV says that those who are united to Christ can fall away from God's grace through disobedience, this must mean that God's grace is resistible and that God's election can be thwarted by the wills of men. But this charge is only good if being united to Christ, grace, and election are understood in systematic categories or from God's eternal perspective; and this is most definitely not the perspective that FV is trying to make sense of.

It's getting late and this is already too long, but the rest of the article is pretty much just more of the same. At the end of the article, either Engelsma or the sender of the newsletter (I can't tell which) says that "it behooves every pastor and elder, the overseers of their flocks, to study and assess the now conflicting view that are being proposed regarding the nature of justification." I agree. But for years, such study and assessment is precisely what I have not seen. What I have seen is what this Engelsma article gives me: strawman fallacies on every street corner at best and enough equivocation to choke a heretic at worst. Attempts by FV to understand soteriology from a biblical/covenantal theology perspective are met with cries of "But that's not how systematic theology puts it!" Um, that's the point. Uh-huh is met with Nuh-uh, and very little gets accomplished in the meantime. Attempts by FV to show that systematics is just not capturing all Scripture has to offer are met with such patently false and ad hominem claims (by Engelsma) like "The Reformed creeds mean nothing to these [authors of The Federal Vision]." Heck, I've only read part of one of the essays, and half of what I read was quoting the Westminster standards in defense of his position! Such reckless libel is, quite simply, pathetic.

The answer to all of this nonsense? A good start would be for the FV proponents to make better sense out of the covenantal sense in which they say we should read the soteriological statements of Scripture (which, for all I know, The Federal Vision does) and for the detractors to take their fingers out of their ears and quit screaming "Systematics! Systematics!" quite so loudly. An inside voice would work just as well.