Category Archives: NT Wright (ex-Durham)

Piper has answered Adrian's question: Wright is not preaching another gospel

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A few weeks ago I wrote about what is wrong with John Piper’s theology. But in fact it turns out that in at least one respect his beliefs have been misinterpreted by Adrian Warnock.

I mentioned in my post a post of Adrian’s entitled John Piper: Is N. T. Wright Preaching Another Gospel? (See also the 31 comments on this post, now deleted from Adrian’s blog but saved here.) This was part of Adrian’s series on Piper’s book The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, available online free of charge (PDF format).

Adrian’s title suggests that Piper is claiming that Wright is “preaching another gospel”, and the content of the post seems to confirm this suggestion. But in fact, as I will show here, this suggestion is incorrect: Piper does not consider Wright’s teaching to be “another gospel”.

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The root of John Piper's wrong theology

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I may have got myself into trouble with some comments I made on Adrian Warnock’s blog, on his post 2 Corinthians 5 and Romans 5 – Two Critical Passages on Justification. This post is part of Adrian’s series on John Piper’s new book The Future of Justification. I was commenting mainly on these words which Adrian quoted from Piper:

Justification . . . happens to all who are connected to Christ the same way condemnation happened to those who were connected to Adam. How is that? Adam acted sinfully, and because we were connected to him, we were condemned in him. Christ acted righteously, and because we are connected to Christ we are justified in Christ. Adam’s sin is counted as ours. Christ’s “act of righteousness” is counted as ours.

In my first comment I argued that Piper is here basing his theology of justification on an analogy with Augustine’s understanding of original sin, an understanding which is faulty because, as widely recognised and as I explained in a previous post here, Augustine misunderstood Paul’s meaning in Romans 5:12 based on a poor Latin translation.

I went on to begin to sketch out some alternative views of my own. Continue reading →

Kiwis respond to "Pierced for Our Transgressions"

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I posted earlier about Reuben and Andrew’s initial reactions from New Zealand to the book Pierced for Our Transgressions.

Since then Andrew has posted seven times in response to this book: his first impressions; on the word hilasterion; on penal substitution in the early church; on a comparison with the Ransom from Satan model; and on the views of the atonement of Gregory Nazianzus, Athanasius, and Anselm and Aquinas – all these in just three days! He has certainly been busy, and is justifying his blog name Theo Geek. All very worthwhile background material, showing how one-sided is the evidence presented in the book.

And now his flatmate Reuben, a generally much less prolific blogger at Notions Incognito, has posted the first part of his full review of Pierced for Our Transgressions. The conclusion he comes to from chapter 2 is that there is indeed reasonable biblical evidence for the doctrine of penal substitution, but that this is much less widespread and certain than the authors claim, and there is no proper basis for their insistence that it is a central theme throughout the Bible. He also notes, concerning chapters 2 and 3, that they have “omitted all views and doctrines which do not fit with PS”; so effectively they presuppose rather than argue their point that “it is the foundation of all Christian theology”. His notes on chapter 5 reflect and summarise (but do not reference) what Andrew has written about the history of the doctrine. Reuben rounds up his review of Part I by agreeing with NT Wright’s assessment that the book is “deeply, profoundly, and disturbingly unbiblical.”

I look forward to the forthcoming second part of this review.

Andrew and Reuben are certainly getting value for money out of their shared copy of the book!

Adrian curses Chalke, Wright and me

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My last post on Adrian’s apostasy was not to be taken seriously. But this one is. Apostasy is not quite the right word. But what is the right word for someone who pronounces a public curse on his brothers and sisters in Christ for disagreeing with him on a theological issue?

In fact I rather appreciated most of Adrian’s interview with the authors of Pierced for Our Transgressions. It helped me to understand better where these authors are coming from and why they felt the need to write this book – although I can’t entirely agree with them. It is only in the last few paragraphs of Adrian’s interview that he steps well beyond the mark.

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Illogical condemnation of Steve Chalke

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In a comment philosopher Jeremy Pierce challenges my claim about people who condemn Steve Chalke, that

they show their confusion when, in blog comment after blog comment, they simultaneously accuse Chalke of describing a straw man caricature of PSA and condemn him for rejecting PSA.

Jeremy writes:

Your dilemma seems to me to be a false one: …

I haven’t read the blog posts you’re talking about, but here’s what I suspect they’re saying (because it’s what I’d say). They’re saying is the following. He has described a caricature of penal substitution to tear down, and then he has ascribed that view to all who accept penal substitution by simply calling that view penal substitution …

Therefore, he has set up a straw man and torn it down.

Here I want to defend my claim and demonstrate that it is rational and correct.
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What is Penal Substitutionary Atonement?

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Adrian Warnock has posted his definition of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), and also the definition in the book Pierced for Our Transgressions. But these definitions are by no means the only ones; for example Bishop Tom Wright‘s understanding is quite considerably different. Much of the recent unfortunate controversy has in fact been based on misunderstandings, because different people are working from different understandings of this doctrine.

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The Maltese Cross, or the Christian one?

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Maltese CrossLatin CrossThis post is not really about the visual difference between the Maltese Cross (left) and the shape with a longer lower part, the Latin Cross (right), which is more standard at least in western churches. I could argue that equal-armed crosses like the Maltese Cross are originally pagan, and that only unequal ones like the Latin version are truly Christian. But that is not my point here. Nor is this at all about the modern country of Malta or its inhabitants. But I am using the difference in cross shape as a symbol of a difference between two fundamental theological outlooks which affects the theology of the cross and the atonement.

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