Monday, August 9, 2021

Richard S. Taylor on the Absurdities of Reformed Theology and the Perseverance of the Saints

  

But “Perseverance” creates a problem. It is a most embarrassing and unfortunate term. Persevering is what the believer does—yet what humans do has already been ruled out as having any bearing whatsoever on the outcome. Perhaps this is why modern Calvinists have abandoned the term “perseverance” and adopted the term “eternal security.” This seems to keep the outcome dependent totally on God.

 

The older term Perseverance (the “Perseverance of the Saints”) is embarrassing for the further reason that some don’t persevere in obedience. They do not always persevere in holiness. They do not always persevere in faith.

 

What does the Calvinist say about these undeniable failures? Different Calvinists have different answers. A common answer is that failure to persevere is evidence of a spurious conversion; in other words, this person was not really among the elect, after all. God didn’t design that he or she be saved which is the same as saying that God didn’t intend for them to persevere. The grace provided was not sufficiently “irresistible” to assure perseverance.

 

But others—perhaps the majority since Wesley’s day—rely on a peculiar doctrine of “imputed righteousness.” This begins with the assumption that Christ represented the elect by His righteous life as well as by His atoning death. Just as the merit of His blood is put to the account of the elect so likewise is the merit of His righteous life. This means that Christ’s righteousness is “imputed” to the sinner, or ascribed to him or her as if the righteous life had been lived by the sinner instead of Christ. The believer is credited with Christ’s righteousness. Because he is created with Christ’s righteousness, this righteousness is what the Father sees when He looks upon the believing and regenerate sinner.

 

The effect of this doctrine is to relieve the believer of the necessity of being truly righteous in his own character. He has officially “put on” the character of Christ, and by this means he is always acceptable before God. As a consequence actual sin in the believer’s life has no power to separate the soul from Go. Sin cannot constitute a forfeiture of eternal life, fundamentally because sin cannot cancel his status as one of the elect, and secondarily because the Father sees him as righteous in Christ.

 

Of course, there is tension here among the Calvinists. Many devout Calvinists are not willing to go so far as to say that sinning on the part of a born again Christian makes no difference, or that God is not displeased with it. The contradiction here is glaring. For if God sees us covered with Christ’s righteousness our sins should not disturb him; they are already covered by the blood. That was what the shedding of the Son’s blood was for. And we are being told ad infinitum that our sins are already forgiven “past, present, and future.” If they are forgiven, then God doesn’t see them. Then what is the problem about fellowship?

 

But because the moral sense is offended by this picture. Calvinists straddle the fence and bite the bullet of contradiction by saying that sin breaks fellowship with God, but does not rupture the Father-child relationship. How sin which is not seen by God because covered by Christ’s righteousness and because already forgiven (“past, present and future”) can possibly break fellowship is not explained. Since it can’t keep the believer out of heaven, why should it obstruct fellowship now?

 

Clearly this soteriological scheme, by which grace gets around sin, is radically far-reaching. The whole nature of salvation is reshaped. Sin is no longer damning. Salvation becomes an escape from sin’s consequences without it being a deliverance from sin itself. (Richard S. Taylor, A Right Conception of Sin: Its Relation to Right Thinking and Right Living [rev ed.; Nicholasville, Ky.: Schmul Publishing Company, 2002], 18-19)

 

Further Reading

Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness 


An Examination and Critique of the Theological Presuppositions Underlying Reformed Theology