Credo Ut Intelligam

FV: Wilson and Clark on justification sola fide.

It started when R.S. Clark challenged FVers to repent of "trying to enlarge faith in the act of justification to be more than simply 'receiving and resting' on Christ and his finished work, of trying to include fruit and sanctity in the act of justification in either faith or the ground of justification rather than simply allowing them to be fruit and evidence of justification."

There is potential ambiguity in this language of faith in the act of justification". Does he mean 1. faith when it plays its role in justification; or 2. faith insofar as it plays its role in justification. From what he says later it is clear that he meant 2. But as the debate continued Wilson kept taking him to mean 1, in spite of his clarifying remarks.

Clark never denied that regeneration precedes faith. That notion came from an argument Wilson was making against a thesis he wrongly took Clark to hold. Clinging to interpretation 1, Wilson figured Clark was saying that faith had no holiness about it when justification happened. Wilson argued against this by using the premise that regeneration precedes faith and drawing the conclusion that justifying faith is, from the start, obedient faith; He then "dared" Clark to deny the premise. But Clark does not deny the premise. In fact, he accepts the whole argument as sound, but he thinks it misses the point. And on this I agree with Clark.

What is at issue here is not chronology. Clark calls that a "red herring". What is at issue is not whether justifying faith IS always already living faith. Yes, Wilson's argument proves that to be the case, but that was never in question. What is at issue is not a matter of IS but a matter of BECAUSE (as Clark put it in a later response to Wilson). The issue is: Does faith play the role it plays in justification [which we all agree is an instrumental role only] in part BECAUSE it is a living, obedient faith. Wilson says yes:

The fact that my faith is alive makes it possible to see Christ, the sole basis or reason for anyone's justification. If my faith were dead, it would be blind also, and incapable of looking to Christ as the sole ground of justification.

Faith looks to Christ, and sees Christ for justification, according to Wilson, BECAUSE IT IS ALIVE. It is this proposition that Clark thinks is heretical, and that I think is within the bounds of orthodoxy as long as you don't go further and affirm the proposition I labelled (b) in my prior post.

(Clark's response to Wilson's argument by analogy, by the way, is just that the analogy fails. While in some respects the analogy of the seeing eye is a good one; like all analogies, when pressed too far, it falls apart; as my alternative analogy shows: although it is because it is alive that an eye can see, it is not because the compasses are red that they aid in navigation of the ship, and it is not because faith is active, obedient, and holy that it plays its role as instrument of justification.)

Here is Clark in his own words:

There's no question whether faith obeys. The question is why and to what effect and what are the logical (not chronological - that is a red herring) relations between my obedience and my justification? Yes, obedient faith is the only kind of faith that God gives to his elect, Amen, but faith doesn't justify because it obeys. To say that is to forfeit the Reformation. Faith obeys because it unites to Christ, because of God's grace. That is why all the Reformed confessions are structured: guilt (law), gospel (grace) and gratitude (sanctification). The last flows logically from the former. No one is defending dead faith. ...

It's as simple as the difference between is and because. The accompanying graces and virtues are a matter of "is." They do exist. They must exist, but they don't play any role in justification other than evidence and fruit.

Posted by mccartney at December 27, 2007 01:17 PM | TrackBack