Self-justification?

Derek Thomas expresses what he thinks Calvin would have said. Much of this is simply incapable of interaction because I have no idea where Derek is getting his version of the New Perspective. My wish is that people would respond to Dunn, or Sanders, or Wright, or Garlington, etc. It is simply too hard to pin down what is the target when one hears of the dreaded “New Perspecitve.” Often it sems to be a catch-all for everything that is wrong in the world in the eyes of the critic.

I will address one thing that Derek writes:

As someone who believed medieval Rome taught a piecemeal salvation through a treadmill of sacramental performance, something which he equated in its essence to that of inter-testamental Judaism (aka Pharisaism) as a religion which rung the changes on works-righteousness — seeing both of these as examples of man’s innate tendency to idolatry and self-justification…

This is interesting. Partly, I do think Thomas has a point, not about what would have happened if Calvin had met someone from the twenty-first century, but rather what did happen. Calvin did read Romans and Galatians as mostly a theological treatise on human efforts in salvation over against trusting what God had done in Christ. Calvin’s theology was fine but I don’t think it is as central to Romans and Galatians as Calvin thought it was.

On the other hand, Calvin also viewed Rome and Judaism alike precisely because his view was big enough to permit something that looks quite a bit like “the new perspective” as far as I can see.

Self-justification can just as easily refer to presumption on grace, as the claim to have earned God’s favor.

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