Out of Egypt:

FVers: your position on sola fide is unclear and problematic

Chris McCartney shows why.

The following quote is probably the key to his critique: "In the Covenant of Life, there was no monergistic act of God that guaranteed the reception of the blessings. If Adam had remained faithful to the Covenant, this would have been through the synergistic activity (which, like our sanctification, and like everything else that comes to pass, would have been forordained by God, but would also have involved Adam's genuine moral activity) by which Adam would have had the graciously promised blessings."

I've felt vaguely uneasy about the FV stance on the role of faith in Adam's pre-Fall relationship to God for some time, but couldn't articulate it so clearly. While I don't think that the FV are flaming heretics, their flashy claims to revise federal/covenant theology certainly haven't been a service to the Church.

Probably the saddest thing is that some of the statements of Rich Lusk, Steve Wilkins, James Jordan, and even Peter Leithart have helped to make N.T. Wright even more suspect within the Reformed world. And that is truly a tragedy, for, while the FVers are but a small faction within their tradition, N.T. Wright is one of the greatest contemporary Bible scholars, recognized as such by orthodox and unorthodox alike. If we ignore him because his statements contradict the WCF at a few points, we are placing ourselves even further on the road to irrelevance.

It may seem inconsistent to some that I'm harder on the FV than I am on Wright. But I think this makes perfect sense. After all, the FV proponents claim to be orthodox representations of the Reformed tradition, while also at times claim to be revising it. N.T. Wright is not part of the Reformed tradition, at least as that tradition is understood in America (OPC, PCA, etc.). His theological program has clearly defined ends - he wishes to overthrow Bultmannian existentialist readings of sola fide through use of the "New Perspective on Paul."

To condemn propositions from his writings in the same document which condemns FV teachings, as both the PCA and OPC have done, is a failure of discernment and of scholarship. Because of their different ecclesiastical status, Wright and the FVers affect American Reformed churches differently. As an outsider, Wright can be studied with profit by our church leaders, just as theologians like Alexander Schemann can be. By contrast, the FVers are insiders trying to change the rules of the game, at least subtly, by means of rhetoric.

If they were calling for a revision of the confession, I might be more willing to consider what they have to say. I too am uncomfortable with the way the sovereignty of God and the decrees seem to control the presentation of the material in the WCF, although I would revise the text in a more "Lutheran," rather than FV, direction. But if they want to keep the confession we have, while changing the way it is taught to the lay people (as Section V suggests), then I become deeply uneasy.

As I have said before, the PCA has treated FV proponents horribly, and the GA-approved statement is a shoddy piece of work - rehashed Southern Presbyterianism, rather than serious Biblical theology. The general failure of the PCA to critique its accretion of traditions is a profound problem, and once which will only become more damaging as time passes. However, the FV do not present a real alternative to the PCA's "preserve the status quo" stance. Their preference for rhetoric over "scholastic distinction" runs the risk of confusing things that should never be confused. If their statement actually makes Adam's faith in God before the Fall, in a condition of innocence, univocal with our faith in Christ as Redeemer, then they are promulgating a new form of predestinarian semi-Pelagianism, in which we are justified not by the imputed righteousness of Christ but by the works of righteousness which God has decreed that we perform.