A really good brother known as, TCR, has given me my own post (A Portrait of John Piper’s God) on John Piper. TCR thinks Piper’s theology is wonderful, and in a previous post (to the one that he dedicates to me) he was extolling some things about Piper. Don’t get me wrong, I know that Piper loves Jesus with all of his heart; but that’s not the issue, his theology and then the spirituality that that promotes is. Here is a re-post on Piper that I did quite awhile ago, at another blog of mine. It highlights, at a pastoral level more than anything, why I find Piper’s soteriology highly problematic. Enjoy π :
How do you know if you’re a ‘heaven-bound’ Christian? I am intrigued by John Piper’s recent statement in a sermon he gave:
I am more concerned about nominal hell-bound Christians who feel loved by God, than I am about genuine heaven-bound Christians who donβt feel loved by God.
H/T: Glen Scrivener
Now I haven’t listened to the sermon from whence this quote is taken, but I have listened to plenty of other sermons from Piper to understand the context of his theology; and thus what serves as the informing impetus for his concern here.
There is a problem here. Do you notice what serves as the crux of Piper’s concern, “FEELING.” For the nominal Christian he is concerned that they “feel” loved by God, but really aren’t — according to Piper — at least in a saving way. And then the second group is Christians who don’t “feel” loved by God, but are — according to Piper — in a saving way.
My concern is for the thinking person (maybe a bit introverted and OCD), the person who might hang on what Piper is saying as their pastor. Piper’s statement is severely grounded in “feeling,” or in “subjectivity.” So my question is, is there something more than feeling — whether referring to justification (Piper’s nominal group) or sanctification (Piper’s second group)? If I was sitting “under” Piper, and didn’t have recourse to other sources of soteriology; I would be in a quandry (like many Puritan laity were back in the day). How does one know if they are in the first group or the second group; by “my feeling?” Yet this is what much of Puritan soteriology offered, and insofar as Piper mimicks this, what he offers his parishoners. Certainly there is more than feeling.
The answer, of course, to Piper’s dilemma, is that salvation is grounded objectively in Jesus Christ. That’s why John, the disciple who Jesus loved, can say:
“And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. 12. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. 13. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. ~I John 5:11-13 (NASBU)
If you look to Christ when you think of salvation, then you have a healthy view; if you look to yourself, before you look to Christ, then you have an unhealthy view. Piper, in my view, offers the latter kind — how can he not, he bases much of soteriology within a subjectively oriented view which leaves people hanging in mid-air.
Bobby:
The same is true with “confirming call and election” in 2 Peter 1.10 which is objective confirmation by progress in moral way of life rather than subjective assurance.
Ian,
Of course, I would see “election” much differently than classically understood (see: http://evangelicalcalvinist.com/2009/09/07/i-game-on-introducing-evangelical-calvinist-predestination-and-election/). And I am going to ground “progress” through the vicarious humanity of Christ — which creates the “objective” space wherein we can “subjectively” move by the Spirit (all in Christ).
So in other words, contra Piper and what is known as “experimental predestinarianism” (a la the Puritans, this is the nomenclature that speaks to folks living in a way that proves they are one of the “elect” for whom Christ died . . . and that they don’t just possess “temporary faith”); I don’t think “election” is talking about “me” (first), but instead “me” in Christ “for us” (as He is the “elect one”). The result is that I am not trying to “prove” anything about “my election;” since my “election” isn’t contingent upon whether God choose “me” in particular, and then died for “me” in particular. It didn’t happen that way, at least that’s what I will continue to argue π .
There are also more significant problems, like when he adopts Origen’s view and makes sin necessary to the glory of God. Thus, he has construed God dialectically.
“There would be no manifestation of Godβs grace or true goodness, if there was no sin to be pardoned, no misery to be saved from…
So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world;”
p. 350 of Desiring God.
http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/round-and-round-the-mulberry-bush/
Absolutely LOTG, that is definitely the what’s at the bottom of critiquing the “kind” of theology that Piper forwards. Although I often find that this point is almost too theologically abstract for the laity or folks w/o theological training to appreciate the way it should be.
I’ve tried to deal with the issue you mention, but again, this is lost on most Fed Calv. Even R. Scott Clark pooh-poohed this when I brought this up to him at his blog when he was taking comments; and before he banned me from commenting there π .
Is that Perry Robinson’s blog you’ve provided a link too? Oh my . . . π I wonder if that hooded sith lord who doesn’t consider me a brother in Christ is lurking around here somewhere π ? We’ll see.
Bobby,
Thanks for theo-reciprocity. π
Here’s the grind: my post in question, where I said all those “wonderful” things about Piper’s theology is confined to Christian Hedonism, not soteriology. In the past, I’ve objected to Piper’s soteriology and some of the passages that he commandeers to support it.
No problem, TCR! Happy to oblige π . I should really work on something that deals directly with your concern though.
I just don’t see how you can separate a doctrine of God, salvation from Piper’s “Christian Hedonism;” as I understand Pipers thought, these are all necessarily and inseparably related themes.
How would you go about trying to appropriate “CH” apart from Piper’s doctrine of God/salvation? And then, why?
Bobby,
Here’s Piper’s summary of Christian Hedonism (CH): “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” Now I can appropriate this poetic summary into my Christian Hedonism without espousing Piper’s doctrine of God. Why? Because the text of Scripture portrays God as acting on his own behalf and when we delight ourselves in God by being obedient to him, this glories him. This is simply the witness of Scripture, not the colored thoughts of a Piper.
Well, if that’s all you meant, why didn’t you just say so? π BUT, you did couch this, originally, through Piper; and the thing is, is that we can’t just wrip Piper’s “CH” out of its context into a pretext of our own. In other words, now it seems that you were really saying that you were only using Piper in an equivocal way; but that’s not how it originally came off to me.
Of course EC would want to spin this differently too, God being most glorifed. We would want to ground the “Us” part in Him for us in Christ. Or as I said to Ian above, in the vicarious humanity of Christ. This way we don’t end up with a kind of adoptionistic of us in relation to God, but we end up with us in union with God through His humanity for us. Anyway you slice it, TCR, unless you frame it in an EC way you can’t win π π hehe.
@ Bobby, In the EC conception of the doctrine of God, I can’t for the life of me understand why the basic insight of Piper’s hedonism can’t be understood as fitting with EC’s Trinitarian God. If the basic insight is pleasure as motive for action. Doesn’t the trinity have pleasure in it’s self Love among the members and isn’t this the “highest” and most glorious thing- God loving God and as a consequence humans being brought into this state of affairs by a “mystical union.” Bobby -Isn’t the end of everything we seek to do a desire for God and his community. Aside from all the nice labels and stupid sounding technical words, isn’t the basic idea of seeking God because it is a pleasure, the reason why you seek God. If that is the case and we are made in the image of God why would it be any different for the one we are made to be like.
Kenny,
By the way, I got back at you over at “New Leaven” π , you must be feeling frisky today π . If we could use “CH” as a pretext and reify it — which we could (just like we can with the TULIP) — then fine, yes, no problem (qualified the right ways, de jure). BUT, and this is the point of this whole little thing; TCR didn’t qualify it in that way, it is couched, uncritically, in Piper’s full-blown theological framework.
What I don’t understand is why folks don’t understand why I would have a problem with this; given the nature of what I think about such things. Kenny, you must know that Piper, more explicitly than anyone else I’ve ever heard, forwards a “two-willed God.” EC’s basic premise about God is that He only has “one will;” which makes sense, since He is One God and that’s what Jesus reveals and Scripture bears witness to.
That is the basic problem “I” have in a nutshell with trying to appropriate something like “CH” as couched in a Piper framework.
Does that help?
Bobby thanks for the return comments. Another question is in order by your affirmation of only one will in God. Do you mean by “one will,” one purpose, one action, one coequal decree, etc, that the three persons share, which makes it one, or do you mean that the persons share one “will” not inherent to the distinct persons but somehow exist in the ousia of the divine? It seems we have to place three wills in the Godhead if we are going mean anything by the word person. Now when we add a human/divine Christ who prays “not my will but thy will be done” we start to have some problems with god having only one will in any normal sense of the term. I would affirm that scripture seems to display a constant non metaphysical use of the term will in reference to God, one that should be understood as revealing a command for people to follow, and these commands do seem to be contradictory from time to time. Point is scripture seems to display multiple wills in God and ones that might not might mean anything for us in 2011 and some that might. I think to try and collapse the tensions of multiple wills into one will is damaging to the narratives purpose. But I say all this only because I’m a Voluntarist.