Craig Blomberg has a post here, reviewing N.T. Wright’s book-length response to John Piper’s book. Justin Taylor has some good comments on the related issue of active obedience here. And now I have some comments, with no link necessary, because as it turns out, you are already where you need to be. Just scroll down.
I would like to respond to a large handful of Blomberg’s points. The first has to do with the nature of the Piper/Wright debate. What actually happened was this. Piper went through Wright’s arguments, interacted with them closely, asked Wright to review what he had done, made adjustments accordingly, and his book was published. Wright responded to this with his book, but it contains just a cursory response to Piper’s arguments. Rather, it is better described as an attempt to explain himself just “one more time.”
“In fact, Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision is by far Wright’s clearest and most extensive explanation to date of his convictions about this central Christian doctrine, and should allay many of the concerns of all but the most intransigent of his detractors. Sadly, Piper may turn out to fall into this latter category, but we can hope for the better.”
Blomberg appears to acknowledge here that Wright’s book was more of an explanation than an answer, but also appears mystified why it might not be satisfactory to Piper, who sees his actual positions and arguments being ignored. Such critics of Wright start to feel like a reporter from the
Toad Flats Gazette in the middle of a crowd trying to get the president to answer a serious question while he is working the rope line at the airport for five minutes. And off he goes. Nice try.
One time many years ago I debated Gordon Stein on the question of God’s existence. This was after Greg Bahnsen had dismantled him in “the debate,” so he should have been aware of the existence of presuppositional arguments. I presented my opening case, to which Stein said something like, “I am glad Doug did not present the traditional arguments for God’s existence, because this is what I would have said if he had . . .” But while it is always nice to debate the opponent you wish you had, that is not the same thing as actually engaging in debate.
How many actual citations of Piper’s book are in Wright’s book? How many particular arguments does he engage with and actually seek to answer? And the problems that attend this above-it-all, breeze-by approach also show up in Blomberg’s review. If the claim is that Piper misunderstands Wright, would it be too much to ask to be shown where and how he does? It is too easy to lump a particular critic in with a crowd of assumed (and more easily handled) critics, and there to demolish him. But suppose that means misunderstanding the critic? Maybe the critic has a body of work that ought to have been read before he is assumed to be standing for something else. Here is an example. Blomberg says:
“Put another way, those who find sixteenth-century formulations of theology the best ever produced in Christian history and not to be tampered with in any fashion, even on the basis of Scripture itself, will struggle with Paul’s repeated references to the Christians being judged according to their works.”
Okay, here is a question for everybody. Does Piper agree or disagree with the idea that there is an eschatological judgment according to works? And if he says that, has he perhaps said so repeatedly?
In other words, Wright needs to come to grips with the fact that there is not a monolithic category called the North American TR Association (NATRA). If you are going to write a book answering somebody, there needs to be some research in to what that somebody thinks. This is different than finding out what certain unnamed people think, with whom your interlocuter is assumed to be associated.
Here is another example, involving me this time. Blomberg says:
“Throughout his prolific writing career, Wright has increasingly centered his attention on the breadth of the gospel message being much more than how an individual attains salvation, defined as life in heaven after death. Instead, Wright wants to keep reminding us that God’s plan for his creation extends to the re-creation of the entire cosmos, climaxing in new heavens and new earth.”
Yeah, but. Yeah, but. I have spent the last several years answering Wright in terms of a cosmos-encompassing, life-affirming, culture-transforming vision of the lordship of Christ over all things, and Wright has not engaged with me at all. Now why would he not engage with me? Yes, I understand — I am a nobody pastor in the chimney part of Idaho. But other than
that, why would he not engage? The good people of Elk River, just down the road from me a piece, want to know.
Then there is Blomberg’s misunderstanding of the relationship of the Reformers and culture.
“Fixate on the Reformers’ (understandable) preoccupation with how an individual becomes right with God (crucial in its day against medieval Catholicism) and one may miss the bigger picture, in which the fulfillment of God’s covenant with Abraham through the children of Israel as progenitor of the Messiah looms even larger.”
Notice what is being juxtaposed here. The
Reformers had a individualistic fixation on getting individuals into heaven when they die. But
we, upon whom the new perspective has shone, now understand that there is a “bigger picture.” I see. And what did the Reformers do with their narrow vision? Well, they toppled kings, transformed laws, overhauled cultures, settled a continent, built nations, founded schools and colleges, inspired musicians and painters, and we could continue in this vein for quite a while. And what do
we do, entranced as we are by the new perspective? We write academic papers, download podcasts of academic lectures that we can listen to in the privacy of our ear buds, and we go white in the face if conservative Christians suggest that Jesus might have an opinion about the ongoing slaughter of the unborn. John Piper, with his preaching on the pro-life issue,
challenges the principalities and powers. The soft statism that goes with trendy theology these days does nothing of the kind — it simply suggests (but not too loudly) that we need kinder, gentler principalities and powers.
Blomberg’s response also betrays a curious confusion on the question of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ. He notes, first, that this is the one area where Wright differs with most (but not all) of the Reformers. Here is Blomberg’s summary.
“This is the particular form of imputed righteousness that insists that Jesus had to live a sinless life (in addition to dying a representative, substitutionary, atoning death for the sins of humanity, which Wright warmly affirms) so that the ‘active’ obedience of his life and not just the ‘passive’ obedience of his death could replace our sinful status in Gods eyes.”
This objection is just bizarre, because Blomberg then goes on to summarize (in different words) something that Wright teaches, which amounts to, as you may have guessed, a doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s active obedience.
“En route, Wright again frequently re-defends the new perspective’s rendering of pistis Christou and similar expressions as the faith(fulness) of Christ rather than as our faith in Christ. Conceptually, this fits the unfolding covenant with Abraham superbly. Where Israel failed to live up to its obligation, the faithful Jewish Messiah succeeded” (emphasis mine).
Yes, exactly. Where Israel had disobeyed, the new Israel had now obeyed. Not only did the new Israel die to suffer the penalty of the old Israel’s disobedience, but the new Israel also lived it right.
He lived as faithful Israel because Israel needs to have lived faithfully. He obeyed, He was faithful Israel, in whom we also (by faith) may be faithful Israelites. Does Wright use the doctrinal jargon of Reformed theologians, does he use the
shibboleth of “active obedience”? I couldn’t care less. But I
would be very interested to see an argument that demonstrates any substantial difference at all between the doctrine of the imputation of the active obedience of Christ, as advanced by the best and most careful Reformed theologians (see Justin Taylor’s point), and the doctrine represented by Blomberg’s summary above.
Just two more points and I’ll get out of your hair.
“Of particular interest is his observation that Ephesians, which he suspects is Pauline . . .”
I suspect Ephesians was by Paul too. The first word of this epistle provides a few hints in this direction, and so we can say confidently that it was either by Paul, or a pious first century skunk who had the unvarnished gall to tell
me that I needed to “speak the
truth in love.”
And here is my last comment, at least for now.
“His light-hearted, semi-popular, and somewhat polemical style will no doubt annoy his detractors because over and again, in a variety of ways, he basically insists that they just don’t ‘get it.‘ But if those detractors don’t at least qualify or moderate some of their criticism of Wright after reading this volume, they will demonstrate the accuracy of his assessment of them!”
I have been living in this debate for about seven years now, and I can testify to the fact that Wright
does have detractors who are talking through the back of their necks. There are men out there who don’t know anything more about the NPP than what enables them to scare dutiful parishioners, in order to keep them out of the woods. This means that, had Wright been engaging with
them, his tone of semi-exasperation would have been fully appropriate. But he wasn’t, and it isn’t.
