The anti-FV challenge: Part II

(Opening Reminder: If you want to take a stab at making an anti-FV argument in accordance with this challenge, or if you simply want to pass along someone else's argument to me, then please e-mail me at xonhostetter@gmail.com. Cheers!)
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Continuing Introduction

Following up on the previous post, let's review the argumentative burden for any serious critic of FV theology:

1. The critic must show that some FV thinker or thinkers hold a view which is in substantive contradiction to something that is taught by the Reformed Confession to which they are confessionally bound.

2. They must ALSO show that the view in question constitutes a "major" or "important" issue within the Reformed system of theology.

I mentioned in the previous post that we'll largely be bracketing (2) in these posts, because those who are critical of FV thinkers have generally not offered much in the way of (2). So we'll be focusing on (1). Now let's review the three rules for "formatting" the anti-FV argument:

I. When you formulate your argument, put it in terms of a proposition which is either affirmed by the FV thinker(s) in question but denied by the Confession, or is affirmed by the Confession but denied by the FV thinker(s). So, what you should actually try to do is establish that there is some proposition P, such that either

a. Some FV thinker(s) teaches/believes that P is true, and the Confession teaches that P is false; or

b. The Confession teaches that P is true, and some FV thinker(s) teaches/believes that P is false.

II. Provide the textual evidence from both "documents" that establishes the respective affirmation or denial of P.

III. Provide the further argument that P represents an issue of fundamental importance to Reforemd orthodoxy; i.e., that a person cannot genuinely be "Reformed" while either affirming or denying P (whichever applies).

Rule III corresponds to (2) above, which we are bracketing for the most part. So our focus will be on Rules I and II. Let's say a bit more about those now.

The first burden of proof (1) states that the critic of FV theology must show a "substantive contradiction" between the teaching of some FV thinker(s) and the Confession to which they are bound. What do I mean by "substantive contradiction?" I mean, basically, that the contradiction must not be in name only, a matter of what words are used. As I pointed out in a post interacting with Guy Waters' recent lectures in Greenville, SC:

If I define a "dog" as "any animal that likes me", I cannot then accuse my neighbor of contradicting me just because he says his dog doesn't like me. On my weird definition of "dog," my neighbor's dog isn't really a dog, and so there is no contradiction. Likewise, if my neighbor believes that there are some animals (at least one) in the world that do like me, then my neighbor also believes in "dogs" on my wierd definition. So we both affirm that there are animals that like me, it's just that my neighbor doesn't use the word "dog" to refer to such animals but I do. This would not be a substantive disagreement.

This point has become a recurring theme in my discussions about the FV controversy lately, and I'm not alone. (Click for two more examples.)

I brought it out again in a comment to another post here on this blog:

It's like if I hold a conventional definition of "cat," and so I believe that "My pet Felix is a cat." But my neighbor, say, has his own idiosynratic definition of "cat". He defines a "cat" as "any creature which likes me." But Felix does not like my neighbor, so my neighbor says that Felix is not a cat. Now on the one hand we seem to be in direct contradiction to one another; I say "Felix is a cat" and my neighbor says "Felix is not a cat." But, if we leave it at this and say that we are indeed contradicting one another, then we commit the fallacy of equivocation. We have to define "cat" in both statements. And when we do this, there is no longer any contradiction. (Because "Felix is an animal of the species felix domesticus [or whatever the coventional definition of cat is]" does not contradict "Felix is not a creature that likes my neighbor.")

But now suppose I go back and say, "No, this is not good enough! My neighbor is using the word 'cat' in a different way than how I use it, and this in itself is a substantive disagreement with me about the world." Would this make any sense? I mean, we can even sympathize with me that my neighbor's definition of "cat" is idiosyncratic and that idiosyncratic definitions are a bad idea in general and at the very least are prone to confuse people. But the idea that, even once the different definitions are explained, my neighbor is still contradicting me simply because he uses the word "cat" differently is misguided to say the least.

And, in the case of FV, I don't even grant that our definitions are idiosyncratic. They are not "standard" for Reformed theology, but this is not the same as being arbitrary oddities. So, a fortiori, it doesn't make any sense to accuse us of contradicting the Confession simply because we use certain ordo words in different ways, either.

And Jon Barlow also made this point in his criticism of Rick Phillips (who was criticizing leading FV man in the PCA Steve Wilkins) back in January:

Consider an analogy. Suppose that the confession contains the following line:

”The doctrine of the Trinity is that Father Son and Holy Spirit are unconfused persons who are the divinity.”

and that the Bible contains this line:

”Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego made up a trinity of dissent in the empire.”

Could a pastor remain true to his confessional subscription and say that the word “trinity” is used in a broader way in scripture than in the confession? Surely all would agree that the pastor could. And yet Phillips’s claim is analogous—that Wilkins can’t really believe that the Confession has a biblical approach to “election” while also teaching that the Bible uses the word “elect” in a broader semantic way. Phillips confuses the sign with the thing signified, and he takes no note of the level of discourse in which the sign occurs.

In any case, the upshot is that we have to be sure that we are not merely clashing over words, but over the substance of what those words are being used to say.

It is interesting that a common complaint levelled by critics against FV thinkers is that FV thinkers use traditional Reformed words in non-standard ways, and that they are at best unclear about the fact that they are doing this. I'll leave an evaluation of that criticism aside for now, and just point out the irony of the charge given some of the fundamental mistakes that the critics' own arguments contain along just these lines.

The most fundamental of those mistakes that critics tend to make is the fallacy of equivocation (or, alternately, the "word/concept fallacy"). I recognized in the previous post that my challenge might seem a bit obtuse; after all, FV opponents have offered plenty of arguments. They quote FV writers and the confession and juxtapose the quotations all the time. So what exactly is the point of my "challenge" to them to do that which they do already? Well, the point is that they don't generally do a very good job of it, and in particular they tend to commit the fallacy of equivocation when they attempt these sorts of juxtapositions. And this is one of the chief strengths (I think) of Rule I, that by forcing critics to put their anti-FV argument in terms of a proposition P which is denied by one and affirmed by the other it forces them first of all to state what they think the proposition is. Instead of simply justxaposing quotes from FV writers and the Confession and then tapping their foot impatiently as if to say "Well? What do you FVers have to say for yourselves?" as though the contradiction is obvious, Rule I requires them to state explicitly what they think the substantive meaning of the juxtaposed passages is. If it really is obvious, then that only makes the assignment a very easy one. If there is really a contradiction, then the substantive meaning of the juxatposed passages must be "P" for one passage and "not P" for the other. So then we can ask the very simple question: what is P?

But usually when we ask this question, it becomes obvious rather quickly that the fallacy of equivocation is being committed, because if we look more closely we find that the same words are being used in different ways. In other words, the critics of FV theology might offer a proposition P which they say is affirmed by one and denied by the other, but when we look at P more closely we realize that the FV thinker and the Confession are not using all words with the same meaning. To illustrate, consider my example about different definitions of "dog" above. On a superficial reading of the situation, someone might say that I and my neighbor are in contradiction about the truth of the proposition P, where P is "Scruffy is a dog." After all, my neighbor says that Scruffy is a dog (he affirms P), and I say he's not (I deny P). Contradiction! But wait just a minute. We are each defining "dog" differently. When I say "Scruffy is not a dog", I am really saying that "Scruffy is not an animal that likes me." (because "any animal that likes me" is my idiosyncratic definition of "dog"). But my neighbor is using "dog" in the more conventional sense, to mean a furry friendly household pet that barks (or whatever precise definition we prefer.) So, even though we are contradiction one another with our words, we are not contradicting each other in substance. Substantively, we are actually affirming two mutually compatible propositions:

My proposition: "Scruffy is not an animal that likes me."
My neighbor's proposition: "Scruffy is a four-legger friendly pet that barks."

These two propositions are not contradictory, in fact they are comaptible! They can each be true, and in this hypothetical case they actually are. To claim that I and my neighbor are actually contradicting each other is to commit the fallacy of equivocation. (Definition)

(In other words, it is to assume that two or more occurrences of a word all carry the same meaning, when they do not. "Dog" means something very different when I deny P and when my neighbor affirms P.)

To really see if we are in a contradiction with one another, we must "translate" the two occurences of 'dog' into their actual meaning as they are being used in each respective case, and then see if what I and my neighbor are saying truly represents a contradiction. In other words, we must pay attention to the actual "usage definitions" of a word every time it is used.

I don't mean that we need to live our lives always paying close attention to this, but only when we hear something that appears to us to contradict something else we think we know. In that kind of situation, the only way to proceed is to pay attention to how the words are being used in both cases. There may be a contradiction, such things do happen, and then we will have to decide what to do. We will have to accept one of the contradicts and reject the other. We cross that bridge when we get to it, and I do believe that such bridges exist. But is intellectually lazy and fallacious to simply assume that the words carry the same meaning without looking. And anytime an argument is made which depends on such an assumption, that argument has gone awry in a deeply fundamental way.

Now, let's get our hands dirty with an actual example from the FV controversy. I have discussed some examples before. But let's turn now to a quick examination of the memorial from Central Carolina Presbytery (PCA) which was submitted to the 34th General Assembly of the PCA (summer 2006) against Lousiana Presbytery (PCA) regarding the latter's exoneration of the teaching of Steve Wilkins. The memorial claims explicitly that Wilkins "persists in teaching and publishing doctrines which are in contradiction to the Standards." It then lists several specifications of this claim, in which Wilkins is quoted and the Confessional passage he allegedly contradicts is also referenced. In other words, in terms of Rule I, the Memorial claims that there is a proposition P which Wilkins affirms but which the Confession denies (or vice versa). Indeed, it reads as a list of such propositions. Let's look at the very first specification:

TE Wilkins publicly teaches a doctrine of election in flagrant contradiction to our Standards. Whereas the Confession teaches that “God hath appointed the elect unto glory” (WCF III.6), TE Wilkins states that the elect are appointed to a conditional relationship which they can lose through unbelief. He writes: “The elect are those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. If they later reject the savior, they are no longer elect—they are cut off from the Elect One and thus, lose their elect standing” (The Federal Vision, p. 58).

Okay, so what do we have here? The Memorial claims that Wilkins teaches a doctrine of election which is in "flagrant contradiction" to the Westminster Standards. Okay, but what exactly is the proposition that Wilkins affirms but the Confession denies? This is where we have to do the work of trying to "translate" the Memorial statement into the format laid out by Rule I. Rule II is clearly met, as the Memorial identifies both the passage from the Confession (WCF III.6) and from Wilkins (The Federal Vision, p. 58) that it wishes to juxtapose. The question is how to accurately translate these two passages into the respective affirmation and denial of a proposition P. This is what Rule I requires the critic of FV to do. So what is P? Here are the two passages specifically:

WCF: "God hath appointed the elect unto glory" (III.6)

Wilkins: "The elect are those who are faithful in Christ Jesus. If they later reject the savior, they are no longer elect—they are cut off from the Elect One and thus, lose their elect standing." (Federal Vision, p. 58)

All right. It looks like the CCP Memorial is objecting to Wilkins' claim that elect people can "lose their elect standing", whereas the Confession says that God has appointed them "unto glory" (which means that they have to end up going to Heaven, because everything God appoints to happens does indeed happen, according to the Confession and basic Reformed theology). Our proposition, then, is something like this:

P1: The elect cannot do anything but end up in glory,

and it looks as though the Westminster Confession affirms P1 while Wilkins denies it. Contradiction, right? No, not so fast! So far we're in the same position as the superficial analysis above which incorrectly judged me and my neighbor to be in contradiction about whether Scruffy was a dog. We have to look, not just at the words used, but what they are used to mean in each case. We have to look at the "usage definitions." Both the Confession and Wilkins use the word "elect," sure; but do they mean the same thing by it? Let's look more closely.

The Confessional understanding of "elect" is relatively uncontroversial. It is using "elect" to refer to those people whom God chose from the foundation of the world to live with Him eternally in glory. There's more we could say about these people, but that's the basic group that the the Confession is talking about whenever it uses the word "elect."

Now let's look at Wilkins' article in the book The Federal Vision. The CCP Memorial quoted page 58, where Wilkins is discussing what he thinks the Bible says about "the elect." He is discussing how the Scriptures use the word "elect." And he thinks that the Scriptures often use that word to refer to a group of people who have been chosen to be covenantally united to Christ by virtue of their baptism and who are thus obligated to cling to Christ by faith continually or else they will be cut out of the covenant and they will lose their union-by-baptism and they will go to Hell. This, according to Wilkins, is the group of people referred to most often when the word "elect" is used in the Bible. And this is clearly the group Wilkins is referring to in the quote the Memorial selects from page 58, a passage goes on immediately to say: "But their falling away doesn't negate the reality of their standing prior to their apostasy. They were really and truly the elect of God because of their relationship with Christ." Here he is talking about a kind of election that doesn't have to do with whether you are predestined to go to Heaven; it has to do with whether you have a "relationship with Christ." And Wilkins believes that the Bible presents all baptized people as having a covenantal relationship with Christ, and hence as being "elect" in this sense.

Lest you think I am just putting a distinction into Wilkins' mouth that isn't really there, look two pages earlier in the article. Before he starts listing out the ways the Bible uses the word "elect," he sets up that discussion by saying the following:

It has been the common practice in Reformed circles to use the term 'elect' to refer only to those who are predestined to eternal salvation. Sine God has ordained all things "whatsoever comes to pass" (Eph. 1:11), He has certainly predestined the number of all who will be saved at the last day. This number is fixed and settled, not one of these will be lost. The Lord will accomplish all His holy will. But the term 'elect' (or 'chosen') as it is used in the Scriptures most often refers to those in covenant union with Christ who is the Elect One. (The Federal Vision, page 56, emphasis added)

Then he goes on immediately to sum up what he thinks is the Biblical teaching: "In the Old Testament,...." The clear and indisputable intention of Wilkins' words in the passage the Memorial cites, thus, is to refer to a group of people who have been chosen to be covenantally related to Christ by their baptism, but who have not necessarily been chosen to have eternal salvation. But Wilkins also, just as clearly and indisputably, affirms that there is a group of people who have been predestined to eternal salvation. Wilkins clearly believes in both groups of people. The latter group is what the Reformed have traditionally called "the elect." The former is what Wilkins says the Scriptures usually mean whey they use the word "elect."

Now, perhaps Wilkins is wrong about how the Bible actually uses the word "elect." (I don't think he is, though) But that does not matter in this discussion. What matters in this discusion is whether Wilkins' claim amounts to a substantive contradiction of the Confessional claim regarding the "elect." The CCP Memorial does not charge Wilkins with misunderstanding some passages of Scripture (because if that was the standard, who could stand?); it charges him with teaching "a doctrine of election that is in flagrant contradiction to our Standards." But does he?

Wilkins is positing two different groups of people (with some overlap, no doubt), chosen to two different realities (one is chosen to be covenantally united to Christ for at least a time, the other is chosen to be saved for all eternity). He says that both of these can be called "elect." This is clear as day. In the passage on page 58, though, he is talking about the 'covenantal-baptized' kind of election. This is clearly what he is referring to when he uses the word "elect" on page 58.

So, we are now ready to look more closely at P1 by taking into account the different meanings that "elect" has in the two teachings. In the Confessional teaching cited by the CCP Memorial, "elect" means "those predestined for eternal salvation", or "those chosen by God to live with Him eternally in glory," etc. In Wilkins' teaching cited by the Memorial, "elect" means "those who have been covenantally united to Christ by baptism," or something close to that. When we plug these new "usage definitions" into P1, we actually get two different propositions:

P2(WCF): Those chosen by God to live with Him eternally in glory cannot do anything but end up in glory.

P3(Wilkins): Those chosen by God to be covenantally united to Christ by baptism can fail to end up in glory.

Instead of one proposition, P1, which the Confession affirms but Wilkins denies, we really have two different propositions, P2 and P3, which are not contradictory at all. In fact, just like with our 'dog' example above, they are mutually compatible: they can both be true! As a matter of fact, Wilkins himself believes both of them, as is made abundantly clear in the quote from page 56 of his article.

So, what other conclusion can we draw but that the CCP Memorial has committed the fallacy of equivocation? Its authors clearly have assumed that "elect" carries the same meaning in both passages (WCF III.6 and Wilkins' article page 58), when it most clearly does not. (Further)

(Further, we can be even more aggressive and say that, even if Wilkins' own meaning WAS unclear, it is STILL the fallacy of equivocation to assume that the meaning of "elect" is identical in both passages. It is ALWAYS a fallacy to assume that two usages of a word carry the same meaning. That they do so must be demonstrated by a clear reading (taking the full context into account) of both passages in which the respective usages occur. If one or both passages are unclear, then you are no more warranted to assume that they both use the word with the same meaning than you are to assume that the meaning is different. You would simply have to admit that you don't KNOW if the meanings are the same in that case, but if you don't know they are the same then you CANNOT use those passages to show a contradiction. So, even if Wilkins is unclear (which he's not, frankly), the CCP Memorial has argued fallaciously.)

If we try to defend the suthors of the Memorial by suggesting that they meant something else as the contradicted proposition other than P1, then we have to supply the new contradicted proposition. For my money, I don't see what it could be.

Unofortunately, this is not an isolated incident. We can multiply these sorts of examples from anti-FV arguments. In fact, my observation of this fact (toot! toot!) is what 'inspired' me to pose this challenge in the first place. Too many of these arguments take the form of Quote-Quote-Tada! without anyone making sure that the words carry the same meaning in both quotes. When we try to isolate the proposition that is being contradicted as required by Rule I, the unworkability of the argument becomes obvious.

This is just a complex way of saying that anti-FVers "take FV writers out of context." I have no doubt that it annoys FV's opponents to hear this charge repeated yet again, but what else can we say? This is a textbook case. And we will see more. It is one thing to claim that FVers are just "whining" about being taking out of context, it is another thing when they provide detailed argumentation that this is so. We have just seen, in detail, that the CCP Memorial did indeed "take Wilkins out of context." Sadly, my own suspicion is that the detailed nature of this post will cause critics to dismiss it on those grounds. You know, I just need to get a life. But, if someone isn't putting up these sorts of detailed responses, then the opposite charge will be made that FV sympathizers claim they are misrepresented because they are "whining."

But now my tone is perhaps too aggressive for my and others' tastes. I really do invite anyone to "dialogue" with me on this and try to set me straight if you think I've missed something here. And I know it sounds like I'm being arrogant when I say that this is only the tip of the iceberg, but consider the position I'm in! I don't like talking this way, either. But it really is only the tip of the iceberg! :-)

In all seriousness, though, while I genuinely do offer my challenge with a sincere hope that godly men will take me up on it and we might have a fruitful dialogue, or at least that reading these posts might provoke some good and thoughtful dialogue away from this blog, I cannot apologize for revving the engine when the anti-FV arguments are so blatantly unsound, as was this one from the CCP Memorial. Real people, with friends and families and histories standing for the (Reformed version of the) Christian faith against the unbelieving world are being threatened with all sorts of penalties for their beliefs. They are "fighting for their ecclesiastical lives" in this. The critics are in no such danger; their ministries, congregations, and reputations are not being threatened to be taken away from them. So, yes, when critics in such a position offer arguments of the kind we've seen here and make other ministers vulnerable to suspicion or worse on such fallacious grounds, it is not "arrogant" for their defenders to point out that the arguments against them are rotten. May it never be.