My 2 Cents
I stayed out of this thread for a while, but there's been other than Richard Baxter virtually no response to the OP. I would say that the lingo maybe to blame because from a reformed perspective those who differ from limited atonement are usually referred to as "dualists" or "low Calvinists." Dabney and Shedd both seem to be of this mindset. The dualist claims that both Christ died to pay the penalty for every person's sin and that his act saved those who believe (the elect).
Here is a good explanation from David Ponter (theology list on yahoo) who can defend the dualist view quite well:
"10 man stand condemned of X, and the same X for all. Theologically, as
an aside of the story aspect: 4 happen to be elect, the remaining 6
reprobate
The Judge is also King, is also, therefore, Lawgiver and Lawmaker. He is
the source of the Law. King has a Son. Son and King agree that Son will
suffer X, the same X that was due to the 10.
So, in this sense, the X of all 10, respectively, is imputed to the Son.
Now, if X were 40 lashes, no one would say that the Son suffered 400
lashes. No, the 40 he suffered would be sufficient for all 10.
Now, King and Son agree to this but add that for any of the, Contrition
is the condition set by the King in order for the sufferings of the Son
to have effect for any of the 10.
So now, the Son stands in for the 10, knowingly, willingly. He
substitutes for the 10, insofar as the X due to each and any of them, he
suffers.
Hold all that.
For the Augustianians, that's a fair description of how they saw the
expiation of Christ. This was the view of most of the early Reformers,
and early English and Lutheran Reformers.
The Augustinians differed from the sem-Ps in that faith, the ability to
meet the condition of contrition was given unconditionally to the 4.
This is the sovereignty of King and God, as sourse of all law etc. Thats
the mysterium of Augustinianism, and original Calvinism.
Arminius, who was an Augustinian operated from out of that theological
context. And there were Lutheran Arminians at the time.
To this construction of expiation, Arminius decided to deny the
Mysterium aspect. Thats his point of attack. He then proposed prevenient
grace and free will.
In response to him and others like him, some Calvinists reconstructed
the expiation according to this fair enough description.
10 men stand condemned to suffer X. King and Son decide that the Son
would stand in for the 4 only, the 4 they had already decided to save.
He does so. So only the X due to the 4 was imputed to Christ. He
suffered 40 lashes only for them.
That construction then gained ascendency in the Reformed community in
its over-zeal to react to Arminianism. For the early Calvinists, the
particularism is not located in the expiation itself, but in the decree
to apply it to the elect, that's the mysterium of Calvinism. For Beza,
Owen, Bucer, the mysterium is relocated in the expiaton itself. You, me
in past times, most of the Calvinists here, have been trained to think
according to the new construction and mysterium.
So, when you now hear the old construction with its older mysterium, it
sounds Arminian to you, exactly because of your relative point perspective.
So for the different between classic Calvinism and Arminian thinking is
the issie of the application of the expiation.
Now, here is another aspect to this. The Augustinians said, Christ died
for all sufficiently, for the elect efficiently. This now makes sense in
the classic Augustian construction. The Son suffered the same X for all
10, but in a sufficient sense. But he suffered for the 4 in an efficient
sense, in that the intention is to apply the benefit of his substitution
suffering to the 4.
When many of us say Christ died for all sufficiently, for the elect
efficiently, hardly anyone knows what that originally meant or how it
could be possible. The Proteccidental benefits come to them, rain, sun
etc. The Prots., Schol (PS from now on, or Owenists) were not happy with
the old formula cos the Arminians were now saying, and quite obviously,
Christ died for all sufficiently, for the elect according to bare
foreknowledge, efficiently. And then Amyraut further complicated things
cos he spotted the shift in how the expiation was understood from Calivn
to the PS, so he stressed that in some sense, the death of Christ is
equally related to every man, as he suffered the same death due to every
man.
So we now have a tradition overlaid on top of an earlier tradition.
Now lets add something else. When Owen worked through all this, he was
responding to two sorts of English dissenters, some Arminians and some
Amyraldian types. For him, the argument for his version could work only
if he added some new concepts. The expiation was a payment, a literal
debt payment. The biblical ransom was not metaphor for deliverance, but
a literal payment to the Father. Owen constructed sin along debt lines,
and legal satisfaction along the lines of an unpaid but due debt. The
Father is the creditor. And here now we see one of the earliest attempts
to posit the double payment fallacy: a debt payment ipso facto remits
debt, and a debt paid cannot be paid again. Owen constructed
justification along these lines: the fine is paid, the man is justified.
The bail-bond is paid, the man is justified. So for Owen, the shift in
justification was moving to something paid, on the cross, literally. You
and I just didn't realise we had been justified for a long time. The
hypers ran with this, especially Gill, and posited eternal
justification. Owen also systematised the idea that faith is purchased
by the expiation. This was a mutation on the earlier medieval idea of
the expiatoin of Christ meriting righteousness. So for all whom the
expiation was made, faith was purchased. If faith was not given to a
person, then it was not purchased for him, and therefore the expiation
was not made for him. But its all fallacious for nowhere is it said that
the expiation purchases faith, or that in and of itself it secures faith
for all whom he was made. Thats a PS (rather bs;-) fabrication.
It was Jonathan Edwards who put the original Calvin Humpty back
together, with a little help from Grotius, Locke and the classics. But
Edwards was only influencial in America, at Princeton, through C Hodge,
who then influences Dabney, and Shedd and a few other minor players. But
in England and Scotland, Owen is still supreme, as mediated now by
Cunningham, and many others.
So these are some of the assumptions that need to be worked through.
From payment expiation, bunches of verses are exegeted accordingly,
J3:16, 1:29, 1 j 2:2, 2 T2:6, etc etc. Hilasmos, in 2:2 is now seen as
something effected and accomplished like a debt payment.
So back to the 10. The Son suffers X, and so fulfills the oiginal
necessary claims of the law against all 10 {note: not the added
condition per se). Now there is no reason why any of them need be
condemned by the law. But the King and Son set a further condition of
contrition. 4 are contrite, as this is gifted by the King, the 6
stubbornly refuse. So they end by suffering X completely themselves. So
in a sense there is a double suffering, one in the surety, then again in
the impenitent.
> What about 2 Cor. 5:19? [the lines with the > are someone else's words that Dave is responding to here in the non >-lines --BJ]
> that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not
> counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the
> message of reconciliation.
> It reads to me as if God has already reconciled the world to Himself.
> Hodge says, "... this reconciliation is said to be effected by the
> death of Christ as a sacrifice ... what follows is not a proof of God
> converting the world but it is a proof of Him being propitious"
> (Commentary on 2 Cor). Calvin writes, "the anger of the Father has
> been appeased by the sacrifice of the Son."
> Do you agree with that?
I do in the sense that God is now reconciliable and propitious but not
actually reconciled. That part is the process.
> How do you understand this verse? Was God rendered propitious toward
> all men at that time or is God only reconciled to a man when God does
> not count his trespasses against him through union with Christ?
I would say both, as I see propitious as inclined to mercy, but in a way
that is now legally possible to the Sinner, as sinner, as transgressor.
You see common grace is God as inclined to mercy, to the sinner as
creature, as image bearer. But now God can be merciful to the sinner as
transgressor. Beforehand, God could only dispense wrath to the sinner as
transgressor. But now that necessity has been removed, God can exercise
the favour of a propitious inclination to the sinner as law-breaker. And
this is why the Owenic version of common grace is also bankrupt and
unable to account for many of the things we normally think with regard
to common grace, like the free offer, legal obstacles being removed,
delay of punishment, etc; for sure, it may account for rain and food.
> It can't be the latter, since the choice of words is all wrong to
> express the thought of application.
You reading the words according to a certain paradigm. It only begins to
make sense when one discards the Owenic paradigm. Then like a magic eye
computer generated 3D image, you see it.
Take care,
David"
I like this view of the atonement and I don't hold to the classic view of perserverance of the saints so I guess, technically, I'm a 3 point Calvinist, but I've found most theological nametags useless in that they're either too broad and say nothing substantive or too subjective and say so many different things to different people.
blessings,
BJ
