L P has left a new comment on your post "Make This a Dialogue on UOJ":
Sorry to come late.
OK here is my bit. I am reviewing the Schleicher Paper.
He asked Is Objective Justification Universalism?
Me: Does he still need to ask? (LOL)
OK seriously we have these
1. The need to identify universalists societies which the paper does is useful but in the end, irrelevant. Why? Because one can be inventing its own brand of universalism and the fact that your position does not match the others do not imply your position is not a form or shape of universalism.
2. God has declared the world righteous for Jesus' sake. This is an objective reality, whether anyone believes it or not. Even if the whole world rejected the message of the gospel, it would still remain an objective reality that God had acquitted the world of sin.
Does the author believe in Law and Gospel distinction? Or in the first place does the author KNOW the distinction between Law and Gospel? It does not appear that he does by that statement. Proof: If the whole world is now declared righteous for Jesus sake, then what is the need to preach the Law and then the Gospel?. There is no more Law to preach. For what does the Law accuses us - precisely we are WICKED we are Unrighteous. But since the Gospel - so he says is that - God HAS declared the world righteous of Jesus sake, already then there is no more Law to preach. Since the author misses the Law, by default, he misses the Gospel as well. Even if he does what Dr . Siegbert Becker says - you do not preach the Gospel to the impenitent wicked (his words) unbeliever, still the Law he preaches is actually a farce. For he knows that this unrepentant unbeliever by his "Gospel" is already forgiven even before he was born, so the Law he preaches carries no sincere threat. The Law has been reduced to hypotheticals, it becomes a myth.
3. Another one he says Calvin would accept that justification is objective in nature (as it applies to the elect)
He is right about Calvin but he does not see that UOJ is really Calvinism in spirit. Calvinism sees at least for the elect already saved even without faith, which is what UOJ does except it does this universally!
4. Again category mistake equating the Atonement with Justification as on bottom paragraph p.5 God has justified the world
5. This paper is filled with so many flaws, I could not keep count of them. For example quoting Mt 9:2 and arguing that believing is synergism. Did this author even read carefully the passage? For in that verse before Jesus pronounced the forgiveness of sins, Jesus saw something ..."and Jesus seeing their faith, said to the paralytic - Take courage My son your sins are forgiven".
Clearly this teaching says believe you are already justified and so you are. Or else believe that you are not and so you are not. It all depends on what you believe. Now who is making faith in this manner a form of works?
Just like Calvinism, this paper muddles up the object of faith. For example, the paper mentions belief in Jesus. But what does believe in Jesus mean?
6. The paper is flying at mach speed, in lampooning faith in Christ as a none event, as if faith is something easy. Yet it is precious to God. The category mistake is just disheartening. For example when quotes "It is finished" - He mistakes this payment as automatically equivalent to justification. Rather it meant "paid in full". Tetelestai. In fact in the Bible, if you disbelieve this, you are still in your sins and the Scripture describes you as not righteous but "wicked". So one needs to wonder, if God declared the whole world already as righteous, then how does and why does he send them ever to hell (any of them for that matter). So God sends people whom he already declared righteous to hell. Or when anyone who is already declared righteous and then disbelieves God takes it back and calls them wicked. This paper make God an Indian giver (so to speak).
More could be said...
LPC
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GJ - LP is good at examining the contradictory nature of UOJ. What keeps the little UOJ Klan operating is their inner conviction that they have the true Gospel.
My advisor at Notre Dame was Tjaard Hommes, a Remonstrant (Arminian) from Holland. His interest in Calvin, Schleiermacher, and Barth encouraged me to do plenty of research in those areas. Since he earned his doctorate at Harvard, the books I read were written by his professors and fellow students at Harvard. That was a far cry from the yellowed dog notes of the Mequon Sausage Factory, where brains are permanently entombed in talking points.
Remonstrants broke with traditional Calvinists over a number of points. They rejected Limited Atonement and Double Predestination. In keeping with the traditions of Zwingli and Calvin, they did not reject Enthusiasm.
Therefore, UOJ is Calvinism without the Limited Atonement. As Luther warned, when the Means of Grace are denied, all kinds of foul errors rush in.
At Notre Dame I edited a number of articles, written by Hommes, for scholarly journals. The process of getting them ready and seeing them in print was another stimulus for research rather than repeat-after-me slogans. As the sole Lutheran in my area, I was always being asked about Lutheran doctrine. But it was the anti-Lutheran, divorced, adulterous clergy in Columbus who really energized my research in the Confessions. They were UOJ and Church Growth, just like their counterparts in Texas.
