[Vision2020] Is Doug Wilson a Good Calvinist?

Sat Mar 26 16:53:46 PST 2005

Professor Gier,

Thank you for your response.  Given the length and ground covered, it will
take me a little time to respond.  Though I am probably the least qualified
to do so, my purpose in bringing up this subject from the beginning was to
challenge the mischaracterization of Christ Church as less than a Reformed
Evangelical Christian body.  Though anybody can call names, it does not mean
that there is any reality in the labels that someone attempts to affix to
one group or another.  I appreciate the fundamental subjects that you bring
up.  I will address the second item first. 

   _____  

From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Nick Gier
Sent: Saturday, March 26, 2005 11:45 AM
To: vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: [Vision2020] Is Doug Wilson a Good Calvinist?

        Wilson is even more liberal when he defines what it is to be a
Christian.  Here are his very words: “A Christian. . . is anyone who has
been baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by an
authorized representative of the Christian church”(Reformed is Not Enough,
19).  R&G take the three New Testament passages that Wilson uses to support
this doctrine and demonstrate conclusively that they do not support this
incredibly broad definition that does not even require continued belief in
basic Christian doctrines.  As promiscuous as ever, Wilson insists that
“unbelieving Christians” are still “covenantal Christians” (cited in R&G,
46).  To put his opposition to Luther and Calvin in the starkest opposition,
Wilson states that “the Bible says that baptism saves” and sides with Roman
Catholic theologians in denying that the Bible teaches justification by
faith alone (R&G, 82)

Professor Gier, you quote from Reformed is not Enough, so I will refer to
this book in challenging what I see as a misrepresentation.  Though you are
much more educated than me and imminently more qualified to debate these
subjects, I have had enough training to be able to follow a clear argument
and to understand context.  In your quote from the first chapter, what you
fail to mention is that the entire argument that leads up to this statement,
in fact, the very sentence before it, is arguing “that the word Christian
can be used in two senses.”  It can be used in referring to those who are
baptized into the church and have taken upon themselves the marks of a
Christian in life and society.  This is the sense that is being used in your
quote.  It is appropriate to call such a person a “Christian” as opposed to
an “unbeliever.”

It’s interesting to me, though, that you leave out the words “in one sense”
in your above quote and substitute three dots.  This would have made it
abundantly clear to anyone reading your quote that there was more to come,
another “sense” if you will.  

In fact, the second usage of the word “Christian” is what is referred to as
that of being a Christian inwardly, as a result of regeneration, or being
“born again.”  This is the most common use of the word in evangelical
circles today.  

On the next page the following clarification is made: “This means that if
someone has been a Christian his whole life, but then comes in to the new
life that Christ presented to Nicodemus, we can say that he has become a
Christian inwardly.  He has now been baptized inwardly.  He has become a
Christian in truth. And if we know what we are saying, and if we qualify it
as Paul did, we might even say that he has become a Christian.”  (Reformed
is Not Enough, 20).  

As a professor I would hope that you would seek to accurately present the
views of those you disagree with.  Have you read the book or did you just
take a quote of a quote from R&G?  You may oppose someone else’s views, but
it is only fair to accurately present them as opposed to presenting a straw
man.  

It is clearly taught and proclaimed regularly at Christ Church that everyone
needs to repent of their sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be born
again by the Spirit of God.  What Doug is discussing in “Reformed is not
enough” is the objectivity of the covenant.  To make this clarification does
not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  

Mike Hall

"Modern physics has taught us that the nature of any system cannot be
discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by
itself. . . .We must keep our attention fixed on the whole and on the
interconnection between the parts. The same is true of our intellectual
life. It is impossible to make a clear cut between science, religion, and
art. The whole is never equal simply to the sum of its various parts." --Max
Planck

Nicholas F. Gier
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Idaho
1037 Colt Rd., Moscow, ID 83843
HYPERLINK
"http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/home.htm"http://users.adelphia.net/~nic
kgier/home.htm
208-882-9212/FAX 885-8950
President, Idaho Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
HYPERLINK
"http://users.adelphia.net/~nickgier/ift.htm"http://users.adelphia.net/~nick
gier/ift.htm

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