DK has left a new comment on your post "Trying To Fathom the Newest ELCA Breakoff":
Hi Professor, this is a little off topic, but I was wondering if you'd help me parse out a quote from David P. Scaer's essay "The two sides of justification".
>>"Unless justification is prior to faith but without ever denying that it actualizes itself in faith, the gospel is no longer indicative in describing an already existing condition of God’s contentment with the world, but it becomes a conditional offering of terms that must first be fulfilled before and in order for the sinner to be justified. Conditional justification, even if it is dependant (sic) on faith, is no longer an act that God universally accomplished for all men in Christ: it degenerates into separate happenings occurring in the life of each individual believer. The theocentric or Christocentric view of justification is lost to an anthropocentric one."<<
Maybe I'm slow, but I can't shake the feeling that this is a circular argument. Isn't he really saying that: "justification must happen prior to faith (i.e. it's Universal) otherwise it wouldn't be Universal."?
In any event I disagree with him. If Faith is created solely through Word and Sacrament, how can he claim that "justification given as a result of faith" makes justification Anthropocentric?
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GJ - Scaer began with the assumption that Walther's Easter Absolution sermon is the ruled norm. When I took Klemet Preus' class on argumentation, we had to list logical fallacies we heard. I listed a few from Scaer's class. Klemet said, "That was too easy, using Scaer."
This Scaer quotation is a Straw Man fallacy. Scaer offered up a false version of justification by faith and demolished his own Straw Man. In fact, he poured scorn on the Biblical concept - not a good way to build up UOJ. So it does appear to be circular reasoning. The trouble with logical fallacies is that their definitions overlap so much.
The boogey-man is faith. The UOJ Stormtroopers assume faith is a virtue or a meritiorious work. In this case, the argument misses the entire emphasis upon receiving the Means of Grace in faith. Therefore, Scaer made forgiveness conditional, gliding from justification by faith to synergism. And yet his own final result is synergism or semi-pelagianism.
The Holy Spirit creates faith through the Gospel Promises. Man receives forgiveness in faith (justification by faith). The Atonement means that Christ has already paid the price, not that the entire world has been pronounced forgiven. Confusing the Atonement with justification is typical of Calvinists, who cannot grasp the Means of Grace.
In the double-justification scheme of Knapp, Walther, Kokomo, and Scaer, everyone is already forgiven. But to be really forgiven they have to accept the truth of universal absolution. That is synergism at best, although most synergists would be shocked at the universalism of UOJ. Synergism means that man cooperates in his salvation.
No wonder Ft. Wayne pastors run screaming to Rome and Constantinople! A few lost along the way turn to Pentecostalism and Babtist dogma. UOJ, Romanism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Pente-babtistry are flavors of Enthusiasm.
