A Response to Common Objections

Before I go any further, I want to answer a few objections that I think are fair. I also want to clean up a few things I said earlier.

I’m not interested in arguing against a caricature of Reformed theology. I don’t need to exaggerate their position to disagree with it. In fact, I think the strongest critique comes from representing their position as accurately as possible and then asking whether it actually solves the problems it claims to solve.

So let me make a few concessions up front.

I am not saying that every appeal to “pre-fall humanity” is automatically Docetism.

I am not saying that Reformed theology denies human responsibility or denies secondary causes altogether.

I am not saying every Church Father agreed on every passage of Scripture.

I am not saying the canon of Scripture, all by itself, proves every Orthodox claim about the Church.

I am not saying every Reformed Christian believes in a simplistic “just me and my Bible” approach.

And I am certainly not trying to guess the motives of Reformed Christians. I don’t think they’re Calvinists because they’re afraid of responsibility or because they secretly want God to determine everything. I think most of them sincerely believe they’re defending God’s grace and God’s sovereignty.

Those aren’t my arguments.

My question is much simpler.

Do the doctrines confessed in Westminster and Dort actually preserve the things they claim to preserve?

Do secondary causes remain meaningfully causal?

Does responsibility remain the kind of responsibility Scripture describes?

Does God’s universal call remain genuinely universal?

Does God’s stated desire that all be saved still mean what it appears to mean?

Those are the questions I’m asking.

On Christ’s Humanity

Let me clarify something I said earlier.

If someone says Christ assumed “pre-fall humanity” and by that they simply mean He was without sin, then we don’t have a disagreement.

Of course Christ was without sin.

He had no guilt.

No corruption.

No disordered passions.

No inclination toward evil.

Sin is not part of what it means to be human.

But if “pre-fall humanity” means Christ somehow stood outside the mortal condition that we actually live in, then I think Hebrews becomes very difficult.

Hebrews doesn’t say Christ merely resembled us.

It says that because the children shared in flesh and blood, He likewise partook of the same.

It says He had to be made like His brothers in every respect.

The only qualification Scripture itself makes is “yet without sin.”

Christ became hungry.

He became thirsty.

He became tired.

He suffered.

He wept.

He died.

Those aren’t sins.

They’re the realities of the humanity He came to redeem.

This is exactly why Gregory of Nazianzus could say, “What He has not assumed He has not healed.”

Now, I also want to be careful here.

Gregory was writing against Apollinarianism. His immediate point was that Christ assumed a complete human mind because if He didn’t, then the human mind wasn’t redeemed.

I’m not pretending Gregory was writing a treatise about modern debates over pre-fall and post-fall humanity.

What I’m saying is that the principle still applies.

Christ assumed the humanity that needed healing.

So I’m not calling every pre-fall Christology Docetic.

I’m saying that if Christ’s humanity becomes so different from ours that His solidarity with us is mostly verbal, then the position starts moving in the same direction as the old Docetic instinct. Christ appears to enter our condition while remaining fundamentally removed from it.

That’s a much narrower claim, and I think it’s a much stronger one.

On Secondary Causes

This is another place where I think I overstated my case.

Reformed theology absolutely affirms secondary causes.

Westminster explicitly teaches them.

Dort explicitly teaches them.

Reformed pastors preach repentance.

They warn people.

They call Christians to persevere.

They exercise church discipline.

They don’t tell people to sit back because everything is already decreed.

I fully acknowledge that.

So my argument is not that secondary causes don’t exist.

My question is whether they remain sufficiently causal once you accept an exhaustive, immutable decree.

A sermon can really convict someone.

A warning can really restrain someone.

A person’s desires really do move him to act.

I grant all of that.

But none of those things explains why one person finally believes while another does not.

Westminster answers that question by pointing to God’s immutable election.

Dort answers it by pointing to effectual grace given to the elect.

So the sermon explains how the elect come to faith.

It doesn’t explain why this person rather than another comes to faith.

That distinction has already been settled.

That’s the point I’m pressing.

I’m not denying secondary causes.

I’m asking whether they actually do the explanatory work Scripture seems to assign to them.

On the Fathers

Another thing I want to clean up.

The Fathers were not unanimous.

Anyone who has actually read them knows that.

They disagreed.

Sometimes significantly.

Augustine and Chrysostom don’t always read the same passages the same way.

Origen isn’t Chrysostom.

Gregory isn’t Augustine.

So I’m not pretending there’s some magical unanimous patristic interpretation of every verse.

That’s simply not true.

But I also don’t think that gets us off the hook.

When I see a broad pattern running through the early Church, especially among the Greek-speaking Fathers who lived much closer to the apostles than I do, I think that deserves enormous weight.

Not because they’re individually infallible.

But because they’re historical witnesses to how the apostolic faith was understood.

That’s very different from saying they settle every question.

They don’t.

But they also aren’t just another opinion among thousands.

They’re evidence.

Serious evidence.

And I think modern Protestants often dismiss that evidence far too quickly.

That’s really my point.

I’m not arguing from patristic unanimity.

I’m arguing from historical continuity.