The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum NT Wright

I was just curious of your opinions on nt wright. I have read some things written by him including something on the new perspective of paul. At a conference I heard sinclair ferguson speak about wrights error on the new perspective of paul but it did not seem adequate. I think i take issue with wright on his belief about justification. Anyone know much about Wright? like wright? hate wright. disagree with wright? I would be interested to hear.

N.T. Wright denies the historic doctrine of "Sola Fide" (justification by faith alone). You would benefit from reading "Part Three: Modern Revision" of Philip Eveson's excellent book which you can find here, The Great Exchange.

In His Grace,

Thanks pilgrim. I read the first half of part 3 called "Justification: the Wright Position." While much of his logic is quite persuasive i would agree that he has moved away from sola fide. Looks like i was correct in taking issue with his beliefs about justification. I will have to read the second half and see how philip eveson disproves wright.

A great book on this matter is Peter Stuhlmacher's Revisting Paul's Doctrine of Justification.

This short discussion of Wright's view of justification by a PCA pastor in St. Louis, which references Wright's commentary on Romans, is worth considering.

Clay

Thanks onefear, i will definitely read it because i actually had particular questions concerning his commentary on Romans.

Wright's not an easy nut to crack. It's hard to be discerning and judge rightly and avoid inferring what he may not state or imply or caricaturing his views. Another helpful little article is Levels of Theological Discourse and the New Perspective, by Jon Barlow, which posits that in order to interact with Wright it is important to be conscious of how he and we are using theological language. In the short piece he discusses four levels of theological discourse:

1. The natural language of the biblical passages
2. The 'theologies' of the Bible
3. The highly rarified language of systematic theology
4. Popular usage of language from level 3

It's probably worth a read too, though it references only some of Wright's older pieces on the subject. It was posted on the old PCA News site, which apparently is still being hosted.

Clay

If anyone really feels the need to read Wright's or Dunn's (Word Biblical Commentary), please for the sake of truth compare it with Murray's commentary (or some other reliable commentary) so the errors may be recognized and dealt with quickly.

RTS offers a class specifically on this issue and here is their reading list for a more thorough examination:

Required readings will include:

N. T. Wright, What St. Paul Really Said (Eerdmans, 1997)
Guy Prentiss Waters, Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul (P&R, 2004)
James D.G. Dunn, Christian Liberty: A New Testament Perspective (Eerdmans, 1993)

"New Perspective" Commentaries:

N.T. Wright, in New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 10 (Abingdon, 2002)
J.D.G. Dunn (Word Biblical Commentary, 2 vols.; 1988)
Luke Timothy Johnson, Reading Romans (Smyth & Helwys, 2001)
Krister Stendahl, Final Account: Paul's Letter to the Romans (Fortress, 1995)

Non- or Pre-"New Perspective" Commentaries:

John Murray (New International Commentary on the NT, 1968)
C.E.B. Cranfield (either the original International Critical Commentary in 2 vols. [1975, 1979] or the single volume abridgment published by Eerdmans, 1986)
Douglas Moo (New International Commentary on the NT, 1996)
Thomas Schreiner (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT, 1998)

"Of Interest" -- Important Monographs or Collections:

Karl Donfried (ed.), The Romans Debate, rev. & expanded ed. (Hendrickson, 1977, 1991)
Philip Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter (Fortress, 2003)
Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (Yale, 1989)
Peter Stuhlmacher, Revisiting Paul's Doctrine of Justification: A Challenge to the New Perspective (IVP, 2001)
Stephen Westerholm, Perspectives Old and New on Paul: The "Lutheran" Paul and His Critics (Eerdmans, 2004)
N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Fortress, 1991, 1993)

IMO though many can save allot of time, effort, and money by reading the article The Great Exchange which I believe someone else already linked.

Thanks for the excellent list. There's much good to read on the topic. Also useful might be Doug Green's N.T. Wright - A Westminster Seminary Perspective (a .pdf file) and Covenant Theological Seminary's symposium on the New Perspecive in General (I think that the last segment is devoted to justification). Hasn't Wright sought to distance himself from Dunn and Sanders by referring to his viewpoint as a "fresh perspective" or something similar?

Clay

Something of help is also James White's 3 audio lectures, available on-line for free. White first reads various sections from Wright's book, "What St. Paul Really Said", and then responds to it.
Dr. James White - The New Perspective on Justification

grace & peace,
Carlos

onefear, i take it you like NT Wright. Am i correct?

Yes, he is attempting some distancing. However no matter the distance he attempts he is causing many problems and embracing a false theology as the New Perspective has issues (if carried to it logical ends) with forensic justification, embracing baptismal regeneration, and destroying the Perseverance of the saints, etc.

J Edwards, could you explain how it leads to "embracing baptismal regeneration, and destroying the Perseverance of the saints, etc." Not that i disagree but i definitly do not know how it does.

Im not sure how relevant this is but here is an email i received from someone who i am debating NT Wright with.



"“As for me, my justification is with God. In His hand are the perfection of my way and the uprightness of my heart. He will wipe out my transgression through his righteousness.”



“From the source of His righteousness (here righteousness means His covenant faithfulness) is my justification and from His marvelous mysteries is the light in my heart.”



“As for me, if I stumble, the mercies of God shall be my eternal salvation. If I stagger because of the sin of flesh, my justification shall be by the righteousness of God which endures forever.”



- (1 QS 11.2-3, 5, 11-12)



If you asked a Jew in Christ’s day, “What is your great hope?” They would likely have answered, “When God comes to restore His people from exile.” (Deut. 30). For Jews, it wasn’t a matter of going to heaven when you die. The OT doesn’t even really talk about salvation in the NT sort of way. Everything is wrapped up in the idea that God would one day come and restore His people. And so the question is, how would they know that they would be a part of that restoration, or how do they know they’d experience that salvation. I can almost guarantee you that if you asked that question to a Jew today, their answer would NOT be because they keep Torah. It would be because they are a part of God’s chosen people. They belong to Abraham. And God made promises and covenants with Abraham and His offspring. NT Wright is suggesting that you’d get a similar answer from Jews in Christ’s day. “How do I know I will be restored? Because I belong to God’s true chosen people. I belong to Abraham. I belong to the covenant. And God is a righteous God, He is a covenant faithful God.” Now, you ask them, well how do you know you belong to God’s people? “Because I’m circumcised and I keep Torah.”



So when you get to Galatians, you wonder why Paul has this big ol’ section about his acceptance with the apostles and his confrontation with Peter (1:11-2:14). The law isn’t mentioned once in that passage. If Galatians is all about going after legalists, why take up 20% of the book on something that has nothing to do with law? Because the issue is not so much the law, but that God’s grace has been given to someone outside the people of Israel. National Israel is the not the center of God’s redemptive activities. So first he goes after the centrality of Israel (1:11-2:14), then he goes after the law (2:15-4:7), then he goes after circumcision (5:1-12). The flip side for Paul is that the promises belong to Christ (3:16) and all those who are IN CHRIST through faith (3:26-29). It’s not a matter of being in Israel through circumcision and the law, it’s a matter of being in Christ through faith."


Any comments on this particular email?
I sent him a link to the book pilgrim recommended, The Great Exchange.

I would suggest reading the books refuting the New Perspective movement as: (1) this is a difficult subject, and (2) it takes a lot of discussing to get anywhere. Briefly, when we come to “justification” Wright contends that it is not the central focus of the Romans, etc.

Wright’s asserts that “the works of the law” were not the effort of the Jewish people to earn their salvation. Here Wright accuses many Protestant exegetes as having imported the Augustine-Pelagius debate into their interpretation of Galatians, Romans, etc. He and others contend Paul sets forth the doctrine of justification which demonstrates “the covenant faithfulness of God” and “the identity of His covenant people.” In his theology we have the supplanting of soteriolgy with ecclesiology. However, let us let them speak for themselves:

Another way of saying this that may be clearer is—“I am right with God because I am in the church.” In this statement, the New Perspective view believes that we enter into a saving relationship with God through entry into the Church. Since baptism is the sacrament of entrance into the church it also becomes the means into all of salvation's blessings. Rich Lusk states:

However, salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (Eph. 2:8-9). According to WCF XIV.1, baptismal grace does not create faith but strengthens existing faith. From here I am sure you can see that without forensic justification the Perseverance of the Saints in Wright’s exegesis would depend on his ecclesiological argument and thus there is no assurance, et. al.

(various sources)

thanks J Edwards

I have lost two of my friends to NT's teaching. I saw there view of scripture dwindle. Their view of works role in salvation grow. And they have become closed to being challenged concerning scripture. I discipled one of these guys and he is a Pastor. The other was an Associate Pastor under him. If Dr. White is correct this NT stuff is dangerous.

credocovenanter, you said you saw your friends "view of works role in salvation grow" because of nt wright. While i agree with J Edwards that wright denies the forensic part of justification, I do not think he teaches a salvation by works. Am I wrong though? I am now reading his article, "Romans_Pauls_theology" that can be found here http://www.ntwrightpage.com along with a lot of his other writings. I have not seen him teaching a salvation of works, although he does believe Jews in Jesus's time believed this. I hope i am not "losing" my friend who wrote that email i posted to wrights teachings. He goes to WTS and apparently some of his professors embrace a lot of what right says as well.

I think he is saying a lot of very valuable things and many erroneous things. Certainly this will ultimately be proven true of every piece of non-God-breathed writing (although by then we'll be too overwhelmed with the glory of Christ to care about anything but worship). So instead of some thumbs up or thumbs down vote on him, I'd like to see the gold in his work mined and refined, and the slag discarded.

I haven't read enough of his work to give a thumbs up or down on his view of justification, for example, though reasonable people whose grasp of the Gospel I know and respect disagree on it. That always gives me pause.

I posted Barlow's piece on theological language, because I think that people who read Wright or anyone else should interpret what they read most favorably (charitably, if you prefer) to the author until given conclusive evidence that such a reading is not warranted. Most often this involves learning the language of the author, which can be very different from the language of the reader, even if the same words are used. I think (and would expect) Wright is bound by the conceptualization of the Gospel in his own tradition, and so we should expect his language to be a bit different and strive to understand what he intends by it, rather than automatically glossing his writing with the meanings of words from our own little theological pond.

It seems to me that many in the Evangelical Reformed camp also fall easily into an either-or trap where both-and is a possibility (this is one of the points in Meyers's piece). By advancing his thesis on justification, Wright isn't necessarily denying the veracity of our traditional Reformed thesis.

Having said that, from what I have read of Wright, I think he is guilty of using theologically loaded terms intending a different meaning than the traditional meaning. The burden is on him to define his terms, and he fails to do this effectively sometimes.

Wright's writing is complex and subtle, and it is often hard work to discern his understanding of the concepts and ideas he writes about. I think many critics of Wright in the Reformed camp have missed an opportunity to learn truth about God by failing to respond to Wright in the way described above. Thus, in my posts I hoped to offer some resources that would encourage a balanced and thorough consideration of the topic, even though I haven't yet had the time to consider it myself.

onefear

Sorry, but I have to disagree with Barlow and yourself on this matter when an author takes a long-established and fundamental doctrine, e.g., "Sola Fide" to task and challenges its veracity. The onus is upon the author to PROVE that the Church has erred, which Wright has tried to do yet failed miserably. Many a good man has showed Wright his error(s), yet he persists in promoting them, along with those of similar ilk, e.g., Shepherd, Saunders, Wilson, Barach, Schlissel, &co.

This call for "tolerance" has been one of the major causes of heresies allowed into the Church. Every heretical group/individual that I can recall has consistently cried "foul" against those who have resisted their false teachings and accused them of intoleration, possessing an unloving spirit, etc., ad nauseam. I have no desire to "entertain" heretics in my home for the purpose of allowing them free-expression and/or an open forum to proliferate their false teaching. The Galatians were rebuked for doing exactly that and I for one am determined to learn from their mistake and not repeat it. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


O contrare, mon frere! Wright has clearly denied one of the most fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, albeit in a way which is a compliment to the Father of Lies, who was the most subtle of all the animals of the Garden. His methodology is also typical of those who would desire to deny biblical truth, i.e., by using language familiar to the hearers but redefining its terms so that what he writes is not what it appears to be. Contrariwise, the Church has labored to be perspicuous in its Creedal and Confessional statements; both negatively and positively so as to guard against further error creeping into its midst.

As one who is a Calvinist, I am genuinely suspicious of those who would desire to challenge the fundamental doctrines of the faith and especially those who speak in vague terms. I take seriously the doctrine of Total Depravity and its consequences as well as the long history of how the Devil has launched attacks against the sons of God. Most error has started from within the Church by those who were members in good standing and often of high repute. The door swings both ways..... Those in office should beware of the "bleating of the sheep" and the sheep should be on the lookout for wolves in sheep's clothing.

"Showing mercy to the wolf is showing cruelty to the sheep."

In His Grace,

Much of this very well may be true. Given the nature of SDG's inquiry, I think it's best that SDG doesn't adopt a hermeutic that automatically determines the answer to the question under consideration. So I posted some material that suggests that Wright requires careful consideration to separate the gold (if any) from the surrounding rock.

Reasonable men have reached your conclusions, Pilgrim, after much consideration of Wright's views that was both charitable and discerning. On the other hand, some have rendered a verdict without adopting such an approach. Whatever the verdict on Wright (something I cannot render because I have not read enough of the material in question), I hope SDG approaches Wright seeking to understand before he seeks to adjudicate. I am not advocating some sort of big tent tolerance of serious error. I am advocating merely a hermenutical approach that seeks understanding; takes into account the breadth, complexity, and ecclesial context of Wright's teaching; and eschews judgments about Wright's intentions and desires (used twice in your post, Pilgrim, strongly imply for example that Wright "desires to deny Biblical truth) that are not discernable outside a close personal relationship with Wright himself.

Blessings!

onefear

Well, I know that they believe they can lose their salvation now. You judge what they are saying. I believe most of the NPP Theologians believe this. The Book of James is now interpreted differently also. Faith + Works = Salvation. They have crept incredibly close to the Roman Doctrine of Justification.

onefear,

First, we are to treat those who profess to be "sheep" and who have much learning and/or have positions of authority in the Church much stricter than simple "lambs". In Wright's case, he is no novice to the teachings of the Scriptures.

Second, we are to extend more grace and tolerance when the subject being addressed is not a fundamental article of faith. However, "Sola Fide" is not a doctrine which gives any latitude. You either have it right or you have it Wright and are therefore wrong.

Third, If Wright has no "desire to deny Biblical truth", then why has he attacked the Church's doctrine of soteriology and sought to correct it from its alleged error? Is this something he has done against his own will? Men always choose to do that which is most desirous at any particular time. Since Wright has made a conscious effort to overthrow a fundamental article of faith and introduce something which has already been considered and discarded over several centuries, I cannot but conclude it is his deep desire to deny that faith once delivered unto the saints. There is no need for me to know N.T. Wright personally. "Ye shall know them by their fruit."

Lastly, those whose agenda is to influence men to depart from sound doctrine are not to be extended the right-hand of fellowship but rather they are to be deemed "wolves" and cast out of the assembly lest they destroy the souls of men. In doing so, it is everyone's hope that they will consider the severity of the action against them and repent of their evil and return to the flock. Once again I would rest upon the apostle Paul's words and actions toward the Judaizers of Galatia to whom he wished they would not only castrate themselves (Gal 5:12), but pronounced them "anathema" (Gal 1:7, 9).

"I am not permitted to let my love be so merciful as to tolerate and endure false doctrine. When faith and doctrine are concerned and endangered, neither love nor patience are in order.... when these are concerned, neither toleration nor mercy are in order, but only anger, dispute, and destruction - to be sure, only with the Word of God as our weapon." - Martin Luther

In His Grace,

Pilgrim,

"By their fruit you shall know them"

Believe me I am desperately trying not to break any of the rules. I think the Lord has simply blessed me by making me an astute observer.

It always amazes me the way in which heresy works in a visible way into the church. At the very same time the doctrine of "Justification by Faith Alone" is forgotten or destroyed, the self-righteousness of the church leaders begins to make a visual presence.

The leaders of the Auburn Ave. Church are now parading around in eclesiastical "costumes". I will not mention any names but there is one among us who made it a point to show us his "costume credentials".

Denny

Roms 3:22-24

Bryan Chapell weighs in with a helpful lay summary, particuarly wrt the impact of such theology on and in the PCA.