Thursday, April 10, 2008

Not the Reformed View?

In a recent quarrelsome and ad hominem post, Rev. "Trey" Austin, III has the gumption to suggest (with the title of the post) that Dr. White's view in a recent radio debate with Steve Gregg is "not the Reformed view." Nothing could be further from the truth.

After receiving well-deserved chiding from Dr. White in the first comment in the combox of the post, Trey responds by admitting, "Dr. White, the point of my post is precisely with your attitde [sic] and actions as a person." It's nice to see that admission, but it is important to note the title of the post, which was not "Dr. White is a big meanie," but "Not the Reformed View."

Of course, the real reason that Trey is going ad hominem on Dr. White is because Trey's view of the Atonement (at least, given his promotion of it, I presume it is his) evidenced here and generally in his support of the quasi-Amyraldian, David Ponter. It is disappointing to see such positions being advocated (implicitly or explicitly) by PCA pastors, because the position held by Ponter and company is contrary both to Scripture and the doctrinal standard of the PCA.

Perhaps God will use the mechanism of the Westminster Presbytery to rope in Trey's errors in this matter.

-TurretinFan

4 comments:

GeneMBridges said...

Have you noticed, dear brother, how the argument from the QuasiAmys has now shifted from this:

The Reformed family has within it more than one view of the atonement (eg. Amyraldian/QAmy/Multiple Intentions; Infinite Sufficiency (Dort), Pecuniary (Exemplified in Tom Nettles, for example)

to, within a very few years:

This (The QA/Amy view) is the Reformed view.

Am I the only person who has noticed this? Either the broader Reformed family includes a number of views on this or it includes only one. If only one, then the others are all distortions.

Now, speaking for myself, I'm quite happy to say that the Amys are "Reformed" in the broad sense, but I will not stand for it (as you well know) when they resort to what amounts to extortion and distortion to get their way. They demand that we all bow to their will and issue our own personal statements on "the free offer." If we dare disagree with their tactics, we're told they will go to our elders to have us disciplined (a tactic that they have found can backfire I might add), and then they continue get upset when we ask them when they are going to demonstrate that they believe in their own doctrine of the atonement by helping us interact with the Catholic, the Orthodox, the Atheist, the Muslim, etc. Indeed, it seems that when we answer them, they get quite shrill and start talking about what big meanies we are.

Peter Pike said...

BTW, I agree with most of your post, but I do think that one thing should be pointed out. Austin's blog does italicize the word "the" in "Not the Reformed View." That leads me to believe the focus of the blog was supposed to be on how there is more than one Reformed view and he was upset that White seemed to be saying his view was the ONLY Reformed view.

Of course, that's not what White would say in the first place, and I think most of Austin's problems come from his lack of understanding of the debate process. Still, I think it helps to clarify the issue a bit when it comes to the title of the blog post, at any rate, since you made the comment:

---
It's nice to see that admission, but it is important to note the title of the post, which was not "Dr. White is a big meanie," but "Not the Reformed View."
---

Other than that... :-)

Turretinfan said...

Good points, Peter!

Turretinfan said...

Gene,

You also make good points.

I don't have a big problem classifying Amyraldians as Reformed under a broad definition, but they are not Reformed if one defines Reformed by the WCF and/or LBCF.

And those are the most standard definitions. They're less inconsistent than Arminians, to be sure - but their view is neither internally consistent nor Scripturally valid.

-Turretinfan