On Not Sticking Theological Labels on Folk

Ever since College days I've been ambivalent about Calvinism - not Calvin so much as the ism. I remember the lilting Hebridean accent of someone I lost touch with after Graduation, as he shook his head sadly, saying, as if he were a doctor giving me a dread diagnosis, "Jim, you're a wee Pelagian Arminian". Now apart from the fact that Pelagius and Arminius are in the unfortunate position of being maligned and [mis]interpreted by those who know them only through the minds of their opponents (Augustine and scholastic Calvinism), and  not from first hand engagement with their writing, it did sound like an ominous theological deficit!

In any case, it was an unfair accusation because it said too little! Yes I am Arminian if by that is meant I believe 'whosoever will' is true at face value as the invitation of Jesus. No I am not Pelagian if by that is meant believing I play the decisive role in the saving work of God, in my life or anyone else's; nor does it mean I have a diluted and perhaps deluded conception of sin. Alongside my Wesleyan commitments to a free Gospel, and faith as a Spirit inspired and graced response to God's call, I hold equally to a strong sense of God's sovereignty and the necessity for a regenerating and sanctifying work of God in the formation of fallen humanity towards Christlikeness. 

I mention all this for two reasons. First, I have learned much from those Christian thinkers down through the centuries who have wrestled and tussled with the Bible and each other, trying to find the words, ideas, and articulations of our deepest Christian experiences. Even those with whom I disagree most, have taught me things I needed to know and forced me to own my own convictions, to question lazily unexamined assumptions which are actually prejudices, and to recognise that though they may get the words and ideas wrong,  with most of them their love for God, faith in Christ and life in the Spirit are no less real than mine. 

I mention it secondly because those old fashioned labels, and their contemporary counterparts (open theist; new perspectivist; emergents; these the least exotic) are mere slogans of convenience, polemical put downs, which say nothing about the relationship to God in Christ of those who allegedly hold such 'unsound' views. Yes I read and admire Moltmann's struggles to speak of God, Jesus, suffering, atonement and hope; he doesn't always get it right but not for want of trying. I also read and admire Calvin who struggles to speak of God, Jesus, suffering, atonement and hope; and Barth, and Forsyth and Fiddes, and Von Balthasar, and Wesley, Julian of Norwich and Jonathan Edwards, not forgetting Athanasius and Torrance, Pinnock and MacCormack, Puritans and Cappadocians, Bonhoeffer and Spurgeon, - all names of people who have thought long and deeply. It's a random list of people in whose company I have learned more about the love of God, and learned to love God more.

I remember being annoyed with Norman - wee pelagian arminian indeed! But I guess he couldn't foresee that I might become a Moltmannian, Balthasarian, Cappadocian, Barthian, full-Wesleyan semi-Calvinist with a Julian-Edwardsian view of creation and a Bonhoefferian take on discipleship - and that's just for starters, and for fun! Theological labels assume consistency, a known content, an ability to reduce the dynamic living relationship of a Christian to God, to the level of their best ideas and words - but words, at best, when speaking of the grandeur and splendour of God, are at best, unprofitable servants.

I wish I had known the words of the Calvinist Puritan Thomas Goodwin (another from whom I've learned loadsa stuff) all those years ago:

"As for my part, this I say, and I say it with much integrity, I never yet took up party religion in the lump. For I have found by a long trial of such matters that there is some truth on all sides. I have found Gospel holiness where you would little think it to be, and so likewise truth. And I have learned this principle, which I hope I shall never lay down till I am swallowed up of immortality, and that is, to acknowledge every truth and every goodness wherever I find it." 

I love that paragraph. 

First photo is Bennachie in winter - bleak, beautiful, a reminder we aren't the biggest deal around.

Second one is King's College open crown - a reminder we've a lot to learn!

 

 

Comments

[ang almond]

I love that Thomas Goodwin quote!