The Diverse Unity of the Reformed Tradition: The Myth and Reality of "Hypothetical Universalism"

Greystone Conversations

What do Reformed Christians mean today when they refer to limited atonement or particular redemption? Is it the same idea that has prevailed in the Reformed tradition historically and confessionally? Are there different Reformed ways of understanding and affirming the truth that God in Christ saves his people by his obedience and sacrifice?

It is always difficult to discover that what we first learn about something doesn’t quite fit the reality of the thing on closer inspection. The difficulty is often less theological and intellectual than emotional and psychological. This is true for many Reformed Christians who converted to the Reformed tradition of faith and worship by way of the many influential popular presentations of Reformed theology, often connected in some way with popular conferences and personalities. It can be jarring to discover, as some do eventually, that the so-called five points of Calvinism are not really a summary of the Reformed theology of anything, including salvation, and were never intended to be. It can also prove eye-opening to learn that most of the key distinctives of the Reformed theological tradition aren’t unique to the Reformed at all but reach far back into the deep Christian tradition shared by other Christians and of which the Reformed fathers insisted the Reformed tradition was but one--though the most faithful--expression. But learning the real history and theology of the Reformed tradition is important, not only to represent it correctly in conversations and in preaching, but also to ensure that our quest to advance and build the Reformed theological tradition is advancing and building something that really does exist.

The nature and purpose of the atonement is one doctrine that has enjoyed a close reexamination in terms of the actual texts, events, and figures of the critically important 16th and 17th century periods of rapid theological development and of confessionalization. This includes the reconsideration of the often misunderstood language of limited atonement, and the also often misunderstood or mischaracterized teaching of a remarkably capable Reformed theologian named John Davenant, the famous Bishop of Salisbury and prodigious British scholar. Dr. Michael Lynch knows Davenant’s teaching on the atonement very well, and has just published a full monograph on the topic with Oxford University Press called John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy. Whatever your own view of the matter, if you thought John Owen’s teaching on the atonement was or is the only Reformed way of saying things, or if you thought Peter Lombard was a medieval hair-splitter with no relevance to contemporary theology on the person and work of Christ, or if you thought the diversity of the Reformed tradition was a problem remedied by the confessions, you’ll appreciate what you learn in Dr. Lynch’s book and also find my conversation with him in this episode quite interesting.

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