Sunday, February 03, 2008

The Deleterious Effect of Particularist/Universalist Propoganda

I stumbled across this shocking quotation: "Amazingly, Dabney, Charles Hodge, and William Shedd all distance themselves from theologians like Francis Turretin on the relationship between the decree of God and the cross of Christ, and even go so far as to explicitly reject key exegesis that underlies the “limited atonement” argument found in John Owen’s The Death of Death." (source)

This is just not true.

I've commented on the harmony between TurretinFan's views and the views of Dabney (link), Hodge (both A.A. and Charles), and Shedd (link) on the subject of the atonement.

If that were enough, we can see that each of the men in question rely on Turretin in their teaching on atonement:

Shedd (Dogmatic Theology, p. 481)

Dabney (Chapter 35 of his Systematic Theology)

Hodge (Systematic Theology, p. 474) (And of course, Hodge is famous for insisting that his students read Turretin (as recalled by his son))

I can guess where Ben got the idea: from one of several misinformation sites out there: "Calvin and Calvinism" "Theological Meditations" and the like, at which Amyraldian and Amyraldian-esque men pretend that Calvinism is something other than what it is, at the expense of the truth.

I hope Ben will consider actually getting a copy of Turretin's Institutes and reading it, or of any of the systematic theologies of Shedd, Dabney, or Hodge. He seems to be a bright young man who has just grabbed a few wrong sources. I'll be looking forward to watching him blossom.

Remember that there is a lot of false advertising (link1, link2) out there.

May God assist us in maintaining the truth!

-Turretinfan

UPDATE: Oddly, I've seen what seems to be the exact same article in several other places. Perhaps Ben is not the author after all. (link) (link2)

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