“Two – An admission that your real issue with Calvinism is simply that you don’t get the final say.”

You’re right and wrong. You’re right in that I believe a theological system that says that people do not have libertarian free will with regard to their ultimate destiny is BOTH unbiblical AND philosophically untenable. You are wrong in what I think another meaning you are intending, which is the idea that you I believe I am my own god, or that I am the captain of my fate in some sense that makes me in control of God.

I believe that loving intimacy is only meaningful when each party has a genuine will in the matter. I think Calvinism takes that element away. My for love God depends on God’s initiating love for me since I am a contingent being, but His love for me is not sufficient for me to love Him. I am not an extension of Him. Therefore, there is a real me that chooses. I know Calvinists call that anthropocentric, but that’s a misunderstanding. God has set up the system, so He respects His own design. Free will is an inherent quality of personhood.

See, I find that interesting because, with the exception of your second sentence (about choice, and even that would take a little bit of explanation to see where we differ) and your avoidance of the word “alone”, I see nothing there that is inherently non-Calvinistic.

I would say that your uneasiness with the word “alone” betrays more than just a different meaning. “Alone” is pretty clear I think.

I would take exception with your bit about the Sacraments, but that’s not particularly a Calvinist issue, many Calvinists have a similar view of the Sacraments. I reject that as unbiblical, but, TR’s excepted, my view is certainly not a Calvinist distinctive.

I agree with your last paragraph as well. I don’t think it’s quite that simple, but this is a blog, not a term paper…

It’s funny, your comments, where Calvinism in concerned, show two things.
One – (and I know you deny this, but I’m just sayin’) a huge lack of understanding of Calvinism.
Two – An admission that your real issue with Calvinism is simply that you don’t get the final say.

None of those are particularly novel, nor are they settleable in this setting. But that’s what I see.

Oh, and I think you’re misusing the word “mystery”. As I understand it, when referring to salvation as a mystery, the Bible means “a mystery now revealed”.
Romans spells it all out pretty well I think.

I’m not convincing you…I get that…just thought I should respond to your response.

Later.

I believe that salvation is accomplished by God working in and through me and never against my will. I believe that I have a choice to be damned or saved. I believe that salvation is a participation in the divine life of God. I believe the Cross was necessary, as was the Resurrection. How it all works is beyond me, and I believe it is beyond all of us. That’s why salvation is a mystery. I no longer use terms like “faith alone” and “Christ alone” because as you pointed out, the terms have very little meaning if we use only the phrases but have a different construct.

The argument that I’ve heard made on here many times, “A Mormon would say that, too”, is really a bad way of arguing. I can say to a Calvinist, “You say God determines salvation for individuals. A Moslem would say that, too!” Where does that get us? I believe that Christ transforms sinners. I believe that faith in Him and participation in the Sacraments are His means of making me into what He wants.

Maybe I can answer your question with respect to the first video on a therapeutic model.

First, a little honesty about where I come from. As a Pentecostal, I place myself in a theological stream that runs back through the Wesleyan-Holiness movement of the 19th century to John Wesley in the 18th century, to the Caroline Divines of Anglicanism in the 17th century to the Reformation, the medieval church, and early church.

Within this theological line, therapeutic models that emphasize sanctification and salvation as transformation, or a reordering of human desire, dominate. I realize that Horton is drawing on a more contemporary idea of moral therapeutic deism, but based on what he has said elsewhere (see my quotation above) about the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition and Charles Finney, he seems to want to apply it to the form of Christianity where I locate myself. To my mind, this is a move peculiar to the Reformed Scholasticism of a Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield. It does not represent the pietistic emphasis of Puritanism (remember that Baptists and Quakers came out of left-wing Puritanism and John Owen himself was a congregationalist). Nor does it represent the pneumatological perspective of a Martin Bucer, who, by the way, talked about a double justification (justification of the godly and a justification of the godly through works) with the regenerating and sanctifying activity of the Spirit central to them. Wesley picked up on this idea of a double justification and noted that what connected initial justification with final justification was sanctification.

So, to my mind, a therapeutic model of salvation grounds it in the sanctifying work of the Spirit who reorders human loves as divine love poured out. This compliments quite nicely a modified Christus victor model of the atonement in which Christ “in the power of the Spirit” renders satisfaction by reordering the universe through his death and thereby overcoming all the “powers.”

So, I guess when Horton talks about the emphasis on moralism within evangelicalism, I think he’s talking about my theological home, which has always emphasized sanctification and holiness. If he’s just talking about seeker sensitive churches, then fine, I agree about that kind of watered-down Christianity.

Having said all of this, I am prepared to be wrong and stand corrected about all of this. Mr. Benson’s portrayal of Michael Horton has caused me to decide to look more deeply into it. I could easily be over-reading it because of my experiences with RC Sproul, who I did have as a professor at RTS in Orlando.

But even there, you haven’t agreed even with the phrasing. No mention of “alone”.

Even the Mormons would affirm what you said. Not saying you’re on par with a Mormon, but it does make one wonder how thick the ice is where you are standing.

Would you at least affirm (I assume you would), that you are saved by, and on account of, Christ alone?

Horton does say the Gospel according to the Reformation is THE Gospel. He mentions that anything other than “grace alone”, “faith alone”, etc., is a drift into a therapeutic model.