VHC, ch. 2
I will be briefer in summary here to keep it more readable.
Boersma believes that while violence is necessary for divine hospitality, the Christian faith rejects that God has violence "inscribed in the heart of his being" (54). However, a belief in double predestination, says Boersma, causes violence to overtake hospitality in God's being. (Double predestination remains a belief among many, though not all, Calvinists.) Yet, one should not be too quick to condemn Calvinism's decree of double predestination. It is, after all, out of his hospitality that God elects some, says Calvin, not on the basis of foreseen faith (strict Arminianism). Further, violence does not disappear altogether even if one rejects double predestination. So, with or without double predestination, one will have to deal with divine violence. Boersma finds a place for violence in the historical contingency of God's acts (chapter 3), not in his eternal decrees and very nature (56).
Boersma traces three elements in Calvin's notion of double predestination. First, it is an eternal decree. Second, it is an individual matter. Third, is futuristically oriented (57-58). While predestination is found in the secret (or hidden) will of God, Calvin emphasizes the revealed will of God, as well. In this emphasis Boersma says that the center of Calvin's theology is not predestination, but the Trinity. (This is how Calvin structured his Institutes.) This is reinforced by Calvin never losing sight of Jesus Christ. Christ is the electing God. Boersma then traces the "in house" discussion of Calvinism in his earliest followers (e.g., Theodore Beza) regarding effectual/ineffectual calling and the importance of the hidden will of God; the hospitality of John Calvin's presonal theology; and limited atonement and hospitality at the Synod of Dort.
Ultimately, Boersma says that the hidden will of God being most prominent trumps Calvin's desire to look at Christ to overtake the hospitality of God with divine violence (61).
Through tracing the discussions merely mentioned above (Calvin's theology; later Calvinism's debate; Dort), Boersma concludes that Calvinism believes double predestination makes "God's love...a powerful and violent love, a love that force[s] the stranger to enter into the Father's mansions, and one that exclude[s] those who [fall] under the spell of God's eternal decree of reprobation.... Thus, Calvinism's limited hospitality, drawing violence into the heart of God, end[s] up undermining the unconditional hospitality of God" (73).
Boersma believes that while violence is necessary for divine hospitality, the Christian faith rejects that God has violence "inscribed in the heart of his being" (54). However, a belief in double predestination, says Boersma, causes violence to overtake hospitality in God's being. (Double predestination remains a belief among many, though not all, Calvinists.) Yet, one should not be too quick to condemn Calvinism's decree of double predestination. It is, after all, out of his hospitality that God elects some, says Calvin, not on the basis of foreseen faith (strict Arminianism). Further, violence does not disappear altogether even if one rejects double predestination. So, with or without double predestination, one will have to deal with divine violence. Boersma finds a place for violence in the historical contingency of God's acts (chapter 3), not in his eternal decrees and very nature (56).
Boersma traces three elements in Calvin's notion of double predestination. First, it is an eternal decree. Second, it is an individual matter. Third, is futuristically oriented (57-58). While predestination is found in the secret (or hidden) will of God, Calvin emphasizes the revealed will of God, as well. In this emphasis Boersma says that the center of Calvin's theology is not predestination, but the Trinity. (This is how Calvin structured his Institutes.) This is reinforced by Calvin never losing sight of Jesus Christ. Christ is the electing God. Boersma then traces the "in house" discussion of Calvinism in his earliest followers (e.g., Theodore Beza) regarding effectual/ineffectual calling and the importance of the hidden will of God; the hospitality of John Calvin's presonal theology; and limited atonement and hospitality at the Synod of Dort.
Ultimately, Boersma says that the hidden will of God being most prominent trumps Calvin's desire to look at Christ to overtake the hospitality of God with divine violence (61).
Through tracing the discussions merely mentioned above (Calvin's theology; later Calvinism's debate; Dort), Boersma concludes that Calvinism believes double predestination makes "God's love...a powerful and violent love, a love that force[s] the stranger to enter into the Father's mansions, and one that exclude[s] those who [fall] under the spell of God's eternal decree of reprobation.... Thus, Calvinism's limited hospitality, drawing violence into the heart of God, end[s] up undermining the unconditional hospitality of God" (73).
posted by Aaron Perry at
9:55 AM
1 Comments:
James K.A. Smith's review of Boersma's work in the Calvin Theological Journal makes one good point and one poor point. First, Smith rightly points out that any theology that does not end in universal salvation is a "limited hospitality." However, I think the argument could be made in Boersmian terms that the only limit (or condition) of God's hospitality is that it is **God's** hospitality. In other words, if one wishes to be in covenant with God they must be in covenant **with God** (and not their own construction). He himself is the condition of hospitality. Any rejection of God's hospitality, then, is not by God's limiting nature, but by the agency of the person to whom he offers hospitality. Further, since hospitality is interrelational (i.e., there must be at least two for hospitality to reach its end and be hospitality), then "unlimited hospitality" is an oxymoron. There is always the condition that the one offering hospitality is a subject that the one to whom hospitality is offered may or may not like.
Smith's poor point is in trying to remove Boersma's charge of violence on the heart of God by saying that the decrees are postlapsarian--made in response to sin. Of course, the ultimate exclusion of some by God without salvific recourse still remains in the nature of this God, who therefore remains inherently violent, in my opinion.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home