On Not Blackballing
By Peter J. Leithart
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Reading Robert Letham’s excellent recent
book on the Westminster Assembly (P&R Publishing, 2009) reminded me
again of the variety of the Reformed tradition. By Letham’s lights, the Assembly aimed to produce a Confession that summed up “generic Calvinism.”
During one session of the Assembly, for instance, Edmund Calamy
defended the position known as “hypothetical universalism.” He argued
that “Christ did pay a price for all, absolute for the elect,
conditionall for the reprobate, in case they doe believe.” Thus,
“Christ in giving himselfe did intend to put all men in a state of
salvation in case they doe believe.” Christ’s death was
“hypothetically” salvific for all men, though effective only for the
elect. About one-third of the delegates who participated in the debate
took Calamy’s side.
Though the majority decided against this view, yet, Letham
writes, “Calamy and his supporters continued to play their part in the
Assembly.” The Assembly opposed Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and
antinomian theologies, but was not a “partisan body.” Within the
framework of Reformed teaching, the Assembly “allowed differing views to
coexist.”
Not-blackballing was the Reformed way. It had been for a long time.
Reformed
theologians differed on the related issues of temporary faith and
temporary enjoyment of the benefits of salvation. At the beginning of
the seventeenth century, some in the Protestant church of England held
to what they described as the “Augustinian” view that some reprobates
could temporarily enjoy soteriological benefits. The English delegation
to the Synod of Dort (1618) submitted a request that the Synod remove
its condemnation of the view that some reprobates may be regenerated and
justified for a time. High as high Calvinism can get, the Synod of
Dort accepted the petition and removed the condemnation.
According to Samuel Ward’s account, the English delegation’s argument was threefold:
We
ourselves think that this doctrine is contrary to Holy Scriptures, but
whether it is expedient to condemn it in these our canons needs great
deliberation. On the contrary, it would appear
1. That Augustine, Prosper and the other Fathers who propounded the
doctrine of absolute predestination and who opposed the Pelagians, seem
to have conceded that certain of those who are not predestinated can
attain the state of regeneration and justification. . . .
2. That we ought not without grave cause to give offence to the
Lutheran churches, who in this matter, it is clear, think differently.
3.
That (which is of greater significance) in the Reformed churches
themselves, many learned and saintly men who are at one with us in
defending absolute predestination, nevertheless think that certain of
those who are truly regenerated and justified, are able to fall from
that state and to perish and that this happens eventually to all those,
whom God has not ordained in the decree of election infallibly to
eternal life. Finally we cannot deny that there are some places in
Scripture which apparently support this opinion, and which have
persuaded learned and pious men, not without great probability.
This is an altogether remarkable statement. It views Reformed
theology as a continuation of a tradition going back to Augustine,
continuing through the middle ages, and strives to maintain continuity
with that tradition: Any confession that excludes Augustine, they
implied, can’t be good. It worries about offending Lutherans. It
advocates a Reformed confession that expresses the views of the “saintly
men” who serve as ministers of the Reformed churches, rather than an
impersonal confession that reflects the views of only one segment of the
church. Substantively, it defends the Reformed credentials of a view
that would summarily be excluded from nearly every Reformed church
today.
As Letham makes clear, Barth was wrong in
thinking that the Assembly was the death sentence for Reformed
theology. Yet, the Confession can do real damage in the hands of
zealous defenders who have whittled the Assembly’s “generic Calvinism”
into a bludgeon to impose a sectarian version of Reformed theology, who
convert a Confession produced by an Assembly with an admirable habit of
not-blackballing into an instrument for just the opposite.
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Here is a link to my comments on Peter Leithart's book review:
https://agrammatos.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/on-not-blackballing/
