I want to respond to James (Jim) A. Fowler. Jim is a retired pastor who resides in an area that I grew up in for part of my life (before moving to Long Beach, CA), in the Temecula, CA region (he actually lives in Fallbrook, just down the road). Jim is the founder of Christ In You Ministries, and also studied at the University of Edinburgh, New College under both Thomas F. Torrance & James B. Torrance (which makes me very jealous of him!). He is the author of many self published (and some not) books, which you can see if you peruse his website and ministry page. The reason I am writing this post is because Jim contacted me probably close to two months ago now via email; he wanted to know if I would like a complimentary copy of his recently self published book entitled: The Extent and Efficacy of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ (which you can read as Pdf online at his site). I said, definitely, send it out to me! And so he graciously (of his own expense, thank you Jim!) did that. I read the book in one sitting, and just haven’t had the time to post this response to it (this is not a review of his book). I emailed Jim, just as I was finishing his book up, and wanted to get some clarification on what he asserted about Myk’s and my approach to what we have called Evangelical Calvinism (a la Thomas Torrance from his book Scottish Theology) at the end of his book. I have waited about 3 weeks now since I sent him this email, and have not heard a response back; so I am going to go ahead and proceed with this post and public response to Fowler. Just to let you all know at the out-set I take exception to the way that Jim has caricatured what Myk and I have been doing with Evangelical Calvinism. That said, let me quote, what I will afterwords respond to, by James A. Fowler; he writes (and of us):

Around the turn of the century, I began to detect a growing theological emphasis on “universalism.” I wrote a booklet on “Universalism: It’s Form and Fallacies” (2004), and mentioned “Calvinistic universalism” for the first time. In 2009 at this conference I mentioned that this form of universalism was likely to become an avalanche in the theological world. Well, the theological tsunami is upon us!

We cannot reconstruct all the earth-shaking origins of this wave of universalism (many students of Barth and the Torrance brothers are promulgating their thought in churches, theological schools, and in hundreds of books today), but we will consider one particular part of the wave that is most likely to be on the horizon of those attending this conference.

C. Baxter Kruger received a doctoral degree under the tutelage of J. B. Torrance after Torrance had become head of the theology department in Aberdeen, Scotland. Kruger came back to [sic] U. S. and founded Perichoresis Ministries and wrote several short books. In conjunction with John McKenna, who studied under T. F. Torrance, they influenced the leaders of the Worldwide Church of God (formerly associated with Herbert W. Armstrong) to adopt the Barth/Torrance theological structure. They entitled this theological persuasion “Trinitarianism” in large part to convey that the WCG now believed in the Trinity (whereas previously they had denied such). The WCG has since changed the name of their denomination to Grace Community International (GCI).

A few years ago, C. Baxter Kruger met with such men as Paul Young , Malcolm Smith, and Steve McVey, who all seemed to subscribe to this new theological paradigm. When Steve McVey (who had been affiliated with the Exchanged Life Ministries group) began to share with his followers that he had changed his theology, a tempest in a teapot began to brew. Some of his staff left his ministry, and several in the Exchanged Life group (which McVey resigned from) were quite upset, hurling charges of heresy, and attempting to attack the theses of this so-called “Trinitarianism” or “Trinitarian Universalism” as some have labeled it. Let me note that I think it is a real shame that this movement has hijacked the orthodox terminology of “Trinitarian” and turned it into “Trinitarianism” or “Trinitarian Universalism.” On a broader scale, this theological movement is more likely (and more accurately) to be labeled “Evangelical Calvinism” in the long run, as it has been on a website [this one, mine], and will be in a book to be published this year (2012) by Myk Habets and Bobby Grow. [James A. Fowler, The Extent and Efficacy of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, 161-63]

He goes on and provides a list of key theological points that he believes defines ‘Evangelical Calvinism’. There is a lot to say, and I won’t have the time or space to express all that I would like. Let me say initially that Fowler’s claim that Myk and I are somehow associated with what he calls “Trinitarian Universalism” is absolute nonsense! My cackles are up, and so I will try, by the Spirit, to try and remain in a cackles-down posture. Let me order my response by way of bullet points.

1. Jim should have, at least, emailed me for clarification before he presumptuously attached Myk and myself to C. Baxter Kruger and what he/they are doing within that trajectory and movement. Obviously, Fowler wrote this book prior to the publishing of ours (which when he originally emailed me, he said that he had ordered, but I’m not sure he had read it or even received it at that point), and so I am hoping that after he has had the chance to check out our Theses in chapter 15 of our book that he will re-think what he wrote (and spoke, apparently this book was really a presentation he gave at some sort of conference he was speaking at—which you can pick up as you read the book, and even in the quote I provide from him above). It should be simple enough for Fowler to correct (i.e. what he claimed of us and our association) what he wrote since his work is self-published and under his immediate control that way. Unfortunately, whomever Fowler was speaking to (at his conference) won’t have the benefit of his retraction about us; if indeed he thinks he ought to do that (I definitely think he ought to!).
2. Fowler places us in his category of ‘objective-determinism’ which necessarily, for him, leads to Trinitarian Universalism or what he thinks is synonymous with our Evangelical Calvinism. Again this is really an absolute misrepresentation of what Myk and I believe and communicate in our book (I will, at the end of this post, quote the relevant Theses from our book that show how misguided Fowler’s [mis]reading of us is). He believes that we have so objectified the faith response to God for salvation, for example, by placing that in Jesus’ vicarious humanity and response for us; that this necessarily must lead to a dogmatic universalism (that all people will eventually be “saved”).
3. Fowler, for his own position, uses the method of dialectic, such that there might seem to be paradoxes inherent with what should be competing beliefs in his theological super-structure (so he tries to provide a balance between the fact that God does everything in salvation, and at the same time we have a responsibility to respond in faith). But when it comes to [mis]reading us, he doesn’t allow us the same privilege of doing dialectical theology and exegesis, and yet this is at the very heart and ground from which Myk and I work!

There is more for me to say, but this post is running long as is, and I still want to quote two Theses from our book that deal with the concern that Fowler has about Universalism. These Theses ought to lay to rest, Fowler’s concerns about our association with what he calls “Trinitarian Universalism”.

Thesis Eleven. Christ lived, died, and rose again for all humanity, thus Evangelical Calvinism affirms a doctrine of universal atonement.

Evangelical Calvinism can genuinely preach the Good News to all that Christ has died for them and their salvation and has forgiven their sins. We affirm a universal atonement and forgiveness of sin through the finished work of Christ. This flows theo-logically from the implications of the Incarnation of Christ: the humanity he assumed was real ontological humanity, which included all of humanity. According to Thomas Torrance:

We must affirm resolutely that Christ died for all humanity—that is a fact that cannot be undone. All men and women were represented by Christ in life and death, in his advocacy and substitution in their place. That is a finished work and not a mere possibility. It is an accomplished reality, for in Christ, in the incarnation and in his death on the cross, God has once and for all poured himself out in love for all mankind, has taken the cause of all mankind therefore upon himself. And that love has once and for all been enacted in the substitutionary work on the cross, and has become fact—nothing can undo it. That means that God has taken the great positive decision for man, the decision of love translated into fact. But because the work and the person of Christ are one, that finished work is identical with the self-giving of God to all humanity which he extends to everyone in the living Christ. God does not withhold himself from any one, but he gives himself to all whether they will or not—even if they will not have him, he gives himself to them, for he has once and for all given himself, and therefore the giving of himself in the cross when opposed by the will of man inevitably opposes that will of man and is its judgement. As we saw, it is the positive will of God in loving humanity that becomes humanity’s judgement when they refuse it.

If we fail to accept this theo-logic, then we are left with the possibility that Christ could have assumed a particular (elect) humanity that was not truly representative of real sinful humanity which potentially injects Nestorianism into Reformed theology.

Torrance further surmises that there is

no suggestion that this atoning sacrifice was offered only for some people and not for all, for that would imply that he who became incarnate was not God the Creator in whom all men and women live and move and have their being, and that Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour was not God and man in the one Person, but only an instrument in the hands of the Father for the salvation of a chosen few. In other words, a notion of limited atonement implies a Nestorian heresy in which Jesus Christ is not really God and man united in one Person. It must be added that the perfect response offered by Jesus Christ in life and death to God in our place and on our behalf, contains and is the pledge of our response. Just as the union of God and man in Christ holds good in spite of all the contradiction of our sin under divine judgment, so his vicarious response holds good for us in spite of our unworthiness: “not I but Christ”. . . .

This ties back into thesis 8, and the idea that Christ is primary over all creation; Colossians 1:15 is apropos, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” The extent of the atonement is an interlocking reflection of the extent of his all encompassing life as the Triune God; no-one can escape the reach of God’s life of love and grace.

And,

Thesis Twelve. Universalism is not a corollary of universal redemption and is not constitutive for Evangelical Calvinism.

This thesis juxtaposes with the previous one. Classically, it is thought that if Christ died for all, then logically-causally all will be saved, following the so called physical theory of redemption. But this is only the case if we follow a logically schematized rendition of a metaphysics that necessitates this outcome. Per thesis 9 and Evangelical Calvinism’s commitment to theo-logic, we resist succumbing to the necessitarian constraints that Classical Theism operates from; and prefer to allow the inner-logic of Scripture to determine the interpretive moves it makes within its open Christ-ward approach. Robert Walker has said that

For Torrance, apprehension of the cross involves a conversion of the reason in which we bow our own reason before the reality and mystery of Christ and seek to understand it (as far as we may) out of itself without reducing it to logical schemata of our own making which inevitably break it up into separate elements and distort it. We need to hold together what scripture holds together, refusing to categorise it in ways that distort that wholeness. If we cannot understand how scripture holds together certain things which we find difficult (such as the unconditional love and forgiveness of God for all, the finished work of Christ, the gospel imperative to repent and believe, and the fact that some refuse and are judged by the very gospel that offers them life) then it is not open to us to resolve the tension through a man-made logical schema which emphasises some elements as [sic] the expense of others. We need to be crucified with Christ in our natural reason and through the transforming of our mind begin to penetrate into ‘the interior logic of scripture’ so that we may learn to think as scripture thinks and hold together what it holds together in Christ. Both universalism and limited atonement for Torrance fail to do that. . . .

Universalism, like double predestination, suffers from imposing upon God a logical necessity that is foreign to his being and act. Universalism, correctly understood, posits that all humanity, by necessity, must be saved. This, as has been pointed out many times in the tradition, rejects the freedom of God and reduces grace to a logical abstraction. Rather, following Calvin, and in harmony with the thesis already here presented, we have to say that salvation is due to election and election is due to grace. But grace is the hidden cause (God’s “Yes”) and faith is the manifest cause (men’s and women’s “yes”). For the reprobate, we must also posit grace as the hidden cause (God’s “Yes”), given there is only one will in God, and unbelief as the manifest cause (men’s and women’s “no”). Now simply because grace is the basis for both the elect and the reprobate does not mean universalism. It means a universal atonement but not a universal salvation (universalism). But to make this argument one must adopt a theo-logical method, not, Classical Calvinism’s logical-causal schema, (the method of an Augustinian-Newtonianism as Thomas Torrance would say).

If we logicalize universal atonement, as does Classical Calvinism, we end up with a split in the being of God which necessitates two wills and its consequent double predestination. Why does and how can humanity reply “no” to God? Evangelical Calvinists, again following Calvin, can only reply that it occurs accidentally—that is per accidens. It is, to use a mathematical phrase, a surd, and as such no more can be said about it. [Myk Habets and Bobby Grow, eds., Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church, (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications and imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2012), 444-47]

I hope, Jim Fowler, that if you read this, this will help clarify where Myk and I are at on this continuum. I hope you will see that you were too quick in characterizing us a certain way, and I further hope that you will re-write the section of your book where you mis-associate us with what you call “Trinitarian Universalism.” I, as does Myk, reject Christian, dogmatic, and/or hopeful universalism as legitimate alternatives based on the revelation we have in Jesus Christ and through the written Word, the Scriptures.