(half spoof piece; half serious [though one should note that all the areas of debate listed below are doctrines unlike the original piece I am responding to])
In a recent blog piece entitled “On the Alleged Indeterminacy of Evangelical Protestant Doctrine,” Evangelical scholar Jean Martin Zwingli argues that “that Protestant doctrine is impossible to pin down.” Not so, according to Zwingli. Even though they don’t produce detailed creeds, he argues, this doesn’t mean “that Protestantism lacks any and all doctrinal clarity.” As proof, Zwingli rattles off a list of 50 questions he typed up quickly the night before: Does God exist? Is Jesus God’s Son? Did Jesus organize a church? And so on. He concludes:
Protestant teaching doesn’t aspire to be like a system of geometry, with propositions, theorems, and deductive proofs. But that doesn’t mean that Protestantism is a doctrinal free-for-all, a total chaos in which all is confusion.
Zwingli’s blog article does a fine job—of diverting attention from the issue.
No one claims that Protestantism is unclear about absolutely everything. We all know that Evangelical Protestants believe that God exists, that Jesus existed and rose from the dead, that Jesus taught justification was a legal fiction, and so on. What Zwingli has done here is to knock down a straw man. When Latter-day Saints (like me!) talk about the difficulty of pinning down what Evangelicals teaches, we are not talking about everything Evangelical Protestants think but about key doctrinal issues on which clarity ought to be available in a religion that claims to have living prophets and an overabundance of scripture.
· Baptismal regeneration
· Mode of baptism
· Infant Baptism
· Eternal Security
· Nature of the Eucharist (e.g., consubstantiation vs. spiritual presence view vs. purely symbolic view)
· The nature of sola fide
· The nature of “saving faith”
· The intent of the atonement (limited vs. universal vs. hypothetical universal views)
· Nature of predestination
· Whether God is active or passive in reprobation (supralapsarian vs. infra/sublapsarian perspectives)
· If God’s saving grace can be resisted
· Whether repentance is necessary for salvation
· Nature of justification
· Nature of sanctification
· Nature of “righteousness” in justification
· Whether Christ has one will or two wills
· The nature and limits of sola scriptura itself
It is not just LDS apologists and other critics of Evangelical Protestantism who point this out--Evangelicals themselves are forced to recognise such, too. For instance, in their book, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2002), Gregory A. Boyd and Paul R. Eddy discusses some of the many doctrinal divisions among Evangelical Protestants. Here is a listing:
Inspiration of the Bible:
Inerrantist View
Infallibist View
Providence Debate:
Calvinist View
Arminian View
Foreknowledge of God:
Classical View
Open View
How to interpret the book of Genesis and its relationship to science:
Young earth view
Day-Age View
Restoration View
Literary Framework view
Divine Image:
Image of God is the Soul
Image of God is our God-given authority
The Image of God is our relationality
Human Constitution:
Dichotomist View
Trichotomist View
Unitary Self
Christology:
“The Unavoidable Paradox of the God-man” (the classical view)
Kenotic view
Nature of the Atonement:
Penal Substitution
Christus Victor
Moral Government view
Salvation:
Calvinism
Arminianism
Sanctification:
Sanctification as a declaration by God (Lutheran)
Sanctification as Holiness in Christ and in Personal Conduct (Calvinist)
Sanctification as Resting-Faith in the Sufficiency of Christ (Keswick)
Entire Sanctification as Perfect Love (Wesleyan)
Eternal Security:
Eternal Security
Conditional Security
Destiny of the Unevangelized:
Restrictivist view
Universal Opportunity View
Hope beyond the Grave (Post-mortem evangelism view)
Inclusivist View
Lord’s Supper:
Spiritual Presence
Memorial view
Baptism:
Believer’s Baptism
Infant Baptism
Charismatic Gifts:
Continuationist View
Cessationist View
Women in Ministry:
Complementarian View
Egalitarian View
The nature of the Millennium:
Premillennial view
Postmillennial view
Amillennial view
The Nature of Hell:
Unending torment of the wicked
Annihilationist View
On p. 265 of this book, the authors list 12 other doctrinal issues dividing Evangelical Protestants:
1. How Should Evangelicals “Do” Theology? The Theological Method Debate
2. The Psychological and Social Models of the Trinity
3. Was Noah’s Flood Global or Local?
4. Must Wives Submit to their husbands?
5. Christians and Politics: Three Views
6. What Happens to Babies Who Die?
7. The Debate over the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
8. Is Speaking in Tongues the Initial Evidence of Receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
9. Can a Christian be Demonized?
10. The Debate over the Book of Revelation
11. Has Jesus Already Returned? The Preterist Debate
12. When Will Jesus Return? The Rapture Debate
(I focus on Boyd and Eddy’s volume, apart from the fact that they are brilliant [their book, The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition is a must-read], but also due to convenience—it arrived in the mail today—one could point to other volumes discussing such issues).
Finally, my friend, Andrew Sargent, responded to Bowman's original article on his blog:
Answering Bowman
Finally, my friend, Andrew Sargent, responded to Bowman's original article on his blog:
Answering Bowman
