Imperishable Inheritance

The fourth post in my series on reformed theology will cover theological criticisms on a reformed interpretation of the Scriptures. Every theological system has its critics, and reformed theology is not above this criticism. I will cover criticism leveraged against reformed theology that I mentioned in my second post on issues that all reformed Christians are in agreement about (I feel safe making that broad statement).

Criticisms Against Reformed Soteriology

The largest attack against Calvinistic view of salvation and sovereignty comes from the theological persuasion of Arminianism. Their 'five points' are in stark contrasts to the tenants of Calvinism. They believe that the Bible teaches only partial depravity instead of total depravity. They also believe that election is something that God bases on foreseen faith from the foundation of the world. Operating grace is always resistible in the Arminian system, and the atonement is more general in nature than the Calvinistic interpretation. I could write quite a bit about each of their arguments, but I want to just overview their complaints against our view of salvation. I will provide links to resources arguing against each of these topics in more detail.

Many Christians from all different theological and philosophical persuasions attack the Calvinistic interpretation of the compatibility of divine sovereignty and human responsibility as espoused in reformed soteriology. The traditional view of freedom in Calvinism is that God can indeed ordain or 'determine' future events, but He does so in such a way that does not violate man's true responsibility. In other words, even though an action may be determined does not annul that fact that when a decision is made it is indeed out of that agent's true moral disposition. Two camps argue against this: Libertarianism and Hard Determinism (Fatalism). While many think that the Calvinistic system by logic necessitates a fatalistic view on history it is not the predominant view. There are some who espouse Hard Determinism which is the view that determinism is incompatible with genuine human freedom, and therefore man's freedom is an illusion. On the other side, metaphysical Libertarianism says that a decision is only free when agents can chose A, B, or ~A/B. They would deny the view that God is a determinative agent in the history of man.

Criticisms Against Covenant Theology

The greatest argument against a covenant theology view of the Scriptures comes from the theological persuasion known as Dispensationalism. They argue that covenant theology doesn't read the Scriptures "literally." Herein lies the largest difference between these two camps—hermeneutics. Since both of these systems provide over-arching grids in which to interpret the Biblical revelation from beginning to end how one looks at the relevant texts under this umbrella will drastically alter our theology. Common arguments is that covenant theologians "spiritualize" a lot of the Old Testament prophecies which is leveraged most against the land restoration promises given to Israel. The presupposition that the body of Israel must be distinct from the "Church" pushes Dispensationalism to their theological conclusions. Covenant theologians due tend to place a higher emphasis on using Biblical typology which Dispensationalists love to attack. Also, many reformed theologians take a post or amillennial view on the millennium and eschatology. This is a violation of the basic 'literal' interpretation of prophetic literature which leads Dispensationalists to the premillennial position.

The Five Solas

While no Protestant should disagree with the five solas there are some professing Protestants who don't hold to the reformer's definition of the solas. Sola Fide or "faith alone" included the positive imputation of Christ's righteousness which is denied by adherents to The New Perspective on Paul. Also, the Church of Christ and other congregations who believe in baptismal regeneration deny the sufficiency of Christ alone for our justification.

Sola Scriptura is something that many Protestants profess, but few actually hold to this in practice. Often times, emotion is exalted to a position above the Scriptures such as in certain charasmatic circles; and others have relegated the Scriptures to a place of secondary importance in trying to contextualize the Bible such as the extreme versions of the Emerging Church.

Reformed Theology As Divisive

Reformed theology also has a heavy reputation as being very divisive. While God's word is often controversial that doesn't necessitate the view that all of reformed theology or studying theology in general is only divisive and not edifying. While many young Calvinists suffer from the "cage stage" syndrome. John Newton writes in More Than A Calvinist: "To be enabled to form a clear, consistent, and comprehensive judgment of the truths revealed in the Scripture, is a great privilege; but they who possess it are exposed to the temptation of thinking too highly of themselves, and too meanly of others, especially of those who not only refuse to adopt their sentiments, but venture to oppose them."

More Information

• Bad Arguments Against Calvinism
• Evaluating Premillennialism: "The Hermeneutic of Literalism"
• Reformation Essentials (The Five Solas)
• More Than A Calvinist