tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post113669469579880648..comments2024-03-22T16:09:48.895-04:00Comments on Beggars All: Reformation And Apologetics: Calvin and Ephesians 2:8-9 (Ray Strikes Back)James Swanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16136781934797867593noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1138024304164688092006-01-23T08:51:00.000-05:002006-01-23T08:51:00.000-05:00Jim,I apologize for being absent the last week, bu...Jim,<BR/><BR/>I apologize for being absent the last week, but I acquired the local pestilence going around, and coupled with too much unwork (engineering), I haven't been able to do much with the blogs. I have, however, been reading so that my future responses will be better informed. <BR/><BR/>I noticed your posts on Phil 1:29 and found them interesting. I'll need to do some ruminating, exegeting, and more reading to respond. I will, however, add that when there's more than one way to interpret a passage, all options should be weighed. Olson's arugument on the interpretation of the gifting of belief and suffering have enough merit to warrant a more thorough look. I initial sense is that your assessment hasn't been as thorough as it could be. However, you have made some valid points. Olson's linking to Act 5 & 11 is also valid and appears to offer some interpretive guindance. Bottom line, is that one has to be fair and thorough toward all options before drawing a conclusion. Thus, I need to spend some time with it.<BR/><BR/>Hopefully, I'll be able to give a thoughtful response soon.<BR/><BR/>RayRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11955465970771864995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1137879741969160152006-01-21T16:42:00.000-05:002006-01-21T16:42:00.000-05:00Ray-If you're still out there- I plan on respondin...Ray-<BR/><BR/>If you're still out there- I plan on responding to you this week.James Swanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136781934797867593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1137385584407306982006-01-15T23:26:00.000-05:002006-01-15T23:26:00.000-05:00Hi Ray-Thanks for your continued interest. I will ...Hi Ray-<BR/><BR/>Thanks for your continued interest. I will be responding to your comments during the week.James Swanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136781934797867593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1137267415223696232006-01-14T14:36:00.000-05:002006-01-14T14:36:00.000-05:00Jim,Here's an interim response to you last post. ...Jim,<BR/><BR/>Here's an interim response to you last post. I'm working on the rest of it. This is really making me think. I'm responding only to your 2nd entry which begins with:<BR/><BR/>"Swan Replies: I would direct you to page 228 of Gordon Olson’s book, Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism. In his section discussing faith, Olson concludes: ……."<BR/><BR/>We've already agreed that Olson is misusing Calvin's commentary on Eph 2:8-9. Unfortuately, he's not alone. I think many read it quickly, and with Calvin's help, misinterpret his comments. One must be very familiar with his stance on this issue in order to properly interpret him. <BR/><BR/>Turning to your comment that Olson is intent on showing that faith is something that man has the ability to muster up, you are correct. However, Calvin is not the only source that Olson is using to support his goal. From my understanding, Calvin's view on Eph 2:8-9 carries little weight in his overall argument. What is important is that one consider his full argument. In that regard, Olson analyzes a number of passages that Calvinists have used in the past to argue that faith is a gift. He maintains that a close look shows that they don't support the idea of faith being a gift except thru eisegesis.<BR/><BR/>Remember the contex of Eph 2:8-9! God is graciously offering a gift that is to be received by meritless (I'll justify use of this term shortly.) faith. In that sense, man brings nothing to the table. This is natural and normal language that has been used throughout the history of commerce in descriptions of barter and trade. Let me illustrate. If two men are sitting at a table and discussing terms regarding an exchange of goods, and one offers the goods as a gift, a 3rd party observer would certainly not infer that inherent in this gift of goods was the ability of the receiver to believe and accept the goods as part of the gift. Quite the contrary, the receiver of the goods would have to recognize that there's value in what is being offered and that reception of the gift as a gift (no remuneration) is in his best interest. Because many Calvinist argue that faith must be a gift since man is spiritually dead, they impose this on passages (eisegesis) where faith is mentioned as a condition of receiving salvation such as you have done in Eph 2:8-9. Yet the language used in this passage offers no clue that such an inference is valid. Instead, the natural reading of this passage would suggest that salvation is received as a gift in response to the recipient's (man's) belief, and not that God is giving both the faith and the salvation. One of Olson's point is that the inductive data never points to the fact that salvation and the faith response to it are part of the same gift or for that matter two separate gifts. Quite the contrary, the text of Scripture consistently portrays salvation is offered as a gift (God's side) and received by faith on man's side. Interestingly, Scripture never says that faith is a gift directly. Calvinist simply infer it by deduction as Olson maintains. Notice Calvin himself seems to be saying this in his commentary on Eph 2:8-9:<BR/><BR/>"But then they had obtained this grace by faith. On one side, we must look at God; and, on the other, at man. God declares, that he owes us nothing; so that salvation is not a reward or recompense, but unmixed grace. The next question is, in what way do men receive that salvation which is offered to them by the hand of God? The answer is, by faith; and hence he concludes that nothing connected with it is our own. If, on the part of God, it is grace alone, AND IF WE BRING NOTHING BUT FAITH, which strips us of all commendation, it follows that salvation does not come from us. " (emphasis mine)<BR/><BR/>Calvin's use of the phrase "…and if we bring nothing but faith" suggests that faith is excluded from his intended meaning of "nothing." That is to say, he is saying we can bring faith and not be violating the principal that man brings nothing to his salvation. This strikes me as being very much in accord with the normal language used in the commerce of the day where, as I illustrated above, you have two parties involved in trade, and a gift is being transacted. One side provides all the value while the other side receives the gift without recompense (ergo, it is meritless in Calvin's sense and mine). Now I realize that Calvin believes faith is a gift so that his quote above appears very awkward unless he's contradicting himself or he changed his mind? Being more conversant with Calvin, do you know if he ever changed his mind on the issue? When did he write his commentary on Eph 2 and when did he write those comments you referenced earlier that showed he believed faith was a gift. I would have to do some research to dig that up. Perhaps you have it at the ready. By the way, at this point in our exhanges, I don't view us as adversarial. At least from my end, I'm trying to keep an open mind and, as I said before, I'll change my mind (repent) if the sum of the arguments point in that direction. I'm simply offering material to consider, indeed, that I must resolve if I'm to embrace Calvinism.<BR/><BR/>Thinking more about the commercial analog, if Calvin believes that faith is a gift, he must also accept that what's happening here in Eph 2:8-9 is that God first gives us faith (an attitude that certainly will accept the gift when it is later offered) and then later the gift knowing that we'll accept it. What makes this strange is that the presentations in scripture (the inductive evidence) consistently accord with the commercial trade analogy of the day, but the Calvinistic interpretation of it must deviate from the analogy in order to get the correct theology. Hopefully, you can explain this, since I find it inconsistent with normal exegetical practice. To arrive at the Reformed view of faith being a gift, one must bring in a deduced concept or principal that faith is a gift (derived from the statement that man is "dead in sin," et al.) and then alter the natural reading/interpreting of the commercal analog to arrive at a rather awkward phrasing of the fact that God has given us the gift of salvation which includes an attitude that is willing (100% of the time) to receive it.<BR/><BR/>I'll work on the rest of your response to my last post later in the weekend.<BR/><BR/>RayRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11955465970771864995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1136987018931849552006-01-11T08:43:00.000-05:002006-01-11T08:43:00.000-05:00Jim,Thanks for the reply. I do want to dialog furt...Jim,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the reply. I do want to dialog further, and appreciate very much your willingness to engage. At first, the exchanges were a little rough around the edges, but I now see you as a good source to help me work thru some of these tough issues. You're making me think critically. I'm committed to being objective and also willing to change my position if your arguments prevail. <BR/><BR/>I work during the week as an engineer so I'm usually exhausted (brain dead) when I get home in the evenings and thus, not too productive during the week. <BR/><BR/>I would like to continue to explore the issue of "faith is a gift" as it may be revealing of our hermeneutics and their differences.<BR/><BR/>I'm working on answering some of your last post. Not sure if I'll get something out tonight, but soon.<BR/><BR/>RayRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11955465970771864995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1136955043537610802006-01-10T23:50:00.000-05:002006-01-10T23:50:00.000-05:00Hi Ray-It’s taken me a few days to respond to your...Hi Ray-<BR/><BR/>It’s taken me a few days to respond to your comments above because I needed some time to sit back, read them, and reflect on them. Overall, I appreciate the charitable tone in your comments. Indeed, there are plenty of related issues to discuss, and these done peacefully.<BR/><BR/>Throughout our dialog, I’ve attempted to keep the issue focused on John Calvin and his treatment and interpretation put forth by Dr Geisler and Gordon Olson. I did so, simply because the initial writing of mine you responded to focused on this. <BR/><BR/>If you would like to dialog further, that would be fine.James Swanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136781934797867593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1136793430692515512006-01-09T02:57:00.000-05:002006-01-09T02:57:00.000-05:00Hi fm483-I understand your concern, and share it a...Hi fm483-<BR/><BR/>I understand your concern, and share it as well. In some of the Reformed traditions, I see this problem- a morbid emphasis on works to prove one's justification. It can indeed amount to a mixing of justification and sanctification.I have some posts i'd like to do on this- particularly since i've never been a big fan of the Puritan writers (there are some exceptions). <BR/><BR/>I don't think Calvin is doing this here, but I promise to look into the phrase he's using "obedience of Christ"- Within my own understanding, the sanctifying work of God takes place in our lives till we die. Do I think we get very far? compared to Christ's righteousness, no- we're probably closer to Hitler than Christ in terms of our own righteousness.<BR/><BR/>I greatly appreciate your comments. I'm gonna try to track down John (aka: Commonman) as well.James Swanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16136781934797867593noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19795707.post-1136772263904635682006-01-08T21:04:00.000-05:002006-01-08T21:04:00.000-05:00It's worth looking back and getting our bearings o...It's worth looking back and getting our bearings on this discussion, as I sense we may be straying a bit from our initial focus. Parly for my own benefit, I would like to summarize what we've done so far. Hope you don't mind. It may also be useful to others who may be following. <BR/><BR/>On the 29 November 2005 posting by Mr. Swan, he made a number of unfavorable comments regarding Norman Geisler and C. Gordon Olson in their respective books "Chosen but Free" and "Beyond Calvinism and Arminianism: An Inductive Mediate Theology of Salvation ." I responded with some negative comments on Calvin (particularly regarding the fact that I believe he contradicts himself on important issues) and Reformed theologians in general regarding what I see (and Olson identifies) as a penchant for arriving at theological conclusions that have an insufficient inductive base, viz. "Faith is a gift from God." I noted that I was particularly impressed with Olson's strategy for criticizing Calvinism as a system that arrives at its major doctrines based on a deductive methodology rather that an inductive approach which validates its axioms of truth objectively from clear and unambiguous passages (with contexts) of Scripture. Instead, I believe that Calvinism builds most of its theology using deduction from their "first principals." (e.g., "dead in sin" means that the salvation of man cannot be achieved synergistically. Therefore man, being spiritually dead, cannot exercise saving faith. (Source: Potter's Freedom, Calvary Press, 2000) (This is another topic Swan and I could have fun with.)) Ergo, faith must be given to him as a gracious gift.) Both Olson and I believe that these "first principals" should be first established inductively before they can become legitimate "deductive" tools to support further theological development. Indeed, I believe that virtually all of the tenets of TULIP have gone beyond the inductive baseline establish by Scripture. I cited James White's quote in Swan's article as an example of Reformed deductive methodology.<BR/><BR/>Mr. Swan focused in on the issue of faith being a gift that both Geisler and Olson reject. Indeed, both Olson and Geisler insist that faith is not a gift and they cited all the primary Scripture texts used by Calvists to show that the conclusion was inconsistent with the data. They both cited Eph 2:8-9 as one of the proof texts used by some Calvinist to establish the Reformed principal that faith is a gift from God and that unregenerate man is not capable of exercising saving faith. <BR/><BR/>Mr. Swan went on to challenge this by looking at the broader context of Calvin's writings on this topic. He cited various quotations from Calvin that were explicit about Calvin's conviction that faith is a gift from God. He then cited the full text of Calvin's commentary on Eph 2:8-9 to show that in spite of the statement "And here we must advert to a very common error in the interpretation of this passage. Many persons restrict the word gift to faith alone. But Paul is only repeating in other words the former sentiment. His meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that SALVATION is given to us by God, or, that we obtain it by the gift of God." Calvin does believe that faith is a gift from God and that, in fact, Eph 2:8-9 is completely consistent with this. Thus, he concluded that because Olson and Geisler didn't fully apprehend Calvin's commentary on this passage, they drew the wrong conclusion, viz. that Calvin didn't believe Eph 2:8-9 taught faith was a gift. <BR/><BR/>After reading it carefully, I came to the same conclusion as Mr. Swan. Calvin did not intend to say, nor did he say, that Eph 2:8-9 does not teach that faith is a gift. The part that sounds like it is merely an aside to address a problem where some were interpreting the passage in such a way that the referent to gift was faith only and not salvation by grace through faith. Calvin recognize this was incorrect and called it out as an error. However, because Calvin believed that salvation and all that enables it (including grace and faith) is a gift, he is not saying that this passage does not teach faith to be a gift. In fact, he is affirming faith to be gift since it is included in salvation which is a gift. So kudos to Mr. Swan.<BR/><BR/>However, this is actually a very small part of the debate and in no way undermines Geisler's and Olson's argument although, no doubt, some Calvinists will view their credibility with suspicion. (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.) Both Geisler and Olson provided a significant number of passages that inductively support their position that faith is not a gift, but rather a response of man in accepting the gift of salvation being offered in the gospel.<BR/><BR/>Where I believe our debate should now focus is on the validity of what Olson is claiming, namely that most, if not all of TULIP has no inductive foundation. As such, we should focus on what he has focused on. Since "faith is a gift" is clearly one that Olson says has no inductive foundation in Scripture, and we've already wetted our feet, I would like to pursue this in the near future. Not tonight, however. <BR/><BR/>Before I get into a systematic review of the argument that faith is the gift of God, I would like to respond to some of your comments in this most recent post. I'll work on that this week.<BR/><BR/>I'm glad you're continuing with this discussion. I'm learning from it.<BR/><BR/>RayRayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11955465970771864995noreply@blogger.com