{"id":5620,"date":"2020-06-07T11:17:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T18:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5620"},"modified":"2020-06-07T14:47:43","modified_gmt":"2020-06-07T21:47:43","slug":"nicholas-hopman-presents-a-pseudo-forde-a-forde-open-to-inerrancy-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=5620","title":{"rendered":"Nicholas Hopman presents a pseudo-Forde, a Forde open to inerrancy – 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Please click here for a pdf version of this document<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nicholas Hopman writes in praise of Gerhard Forde in a recent Lutheran Forum<\/em>.[1]<\/a> He notes that Forde warned about the problem of understanding the gospel in terms of a system of law.[2]<\/a> How ironic, because Hopman himself throws eternal law out the front door, only to sneak it in the back door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopman is a PhD graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary. He, Steven Paulson, and Mark Mattes have edited the Lutheran Quarterly\u2019s <\/em>third volume of Forde essays titled: The Essential Forde. Gerhard O. Forde, Distinguishing Law and Gospel<\/em>.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopman reflects: \u201cMy appreciation for Forde\u2019s ability to home (sic<\/em>) in on the essence of Lutheranism has only grown.\u201d[4]<\/a> Phew, Forde wins the approval of one who knows \u201cthe essence of Lutheranism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be sure, Forde\u2019s abiding concern was for the gospel and what it means to distinguish properly law and gospel. He chartered a future course he called post-liberal Lutheranism:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u201cpost-liberal Lutheran\u201d<\/strong> is, of course, something of a shadowy, if not menacing, figure on the contemporary scene, perhaps not yet clearly defined, often a puzzle to both friend and foe, usually mistaken simply for a hard-line conservative confessionalist or orthodoxist. But<\/strong> that is seriously to misread the situation.<\/strong> It is a post-Enlightenment, post-liberal position. A post-liberal Lutheran<\/strong> is one who has been through the options spawned since the Reformation and realizes that they have all been used up. Least of all does infallibilism or reactionary conservatism of any sort provide an answer.<\/strong>\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to imagine Hopman calling himself a post-liberal Lutheran because he finds hope, in fact, the \u201cbest hope<\/strong>,\u201d in the inerrantist wing of American Lutheranism: \u201c[T]he Missouri Synod is American Lutheranism\u2019s best hope.<\/strong>\u201d[6]<\/a> Moreover, Hopman lifts up Steven Paulson, a defender of inerrancy, as a faithful interpreter of Forde.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSteven Paulson, who edited Forde\u2019s final book on the bound will, has followed in his footsteps. The Bondage of the Will <\/em>is the central source for his three-volume Luther\u2019s Outlaw God<\/em>. Paulson\u2019s work\u2014for example, this sentence, \u201cthe only answer to the unanswerable absolute is by absolution\u201d \u2013 swills Forde.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSwills Forde\u201d? Guzzles him? To the contrary, Paulson contradicts Forde.[9]<\/a> Thus, while Hopman salutes Forde, he follows in Paulson\u2019s footsteps, which lead to inerrancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Paulson, Hopman presents Luther\u2019s response to Erasmus in The Bondage of the Will <\/em>as a defense of inerrancy. They each use slightly different terminology, but the end result is the same: They throw eternal law out the front door, only to sneak it in the back door through the decalogue:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hopman: <\/strong>\u201cLuther\u2019s theologoumenon, put on full display in The Bondage of the Will<\/em>,is the distinction between God preached and God not preached.<\/strong> By adopting the theologoumenon as his own, Forde displaced the superstructure of orthodoxy\u2019s eternal law (lex eterna<\/em>) as the center of Lutheran theology. This move gave Forde the freedom to preach, describe, and deal with the law<\/strong>\u2014not in the abstract<\/strong>, which was orthodoxy\u2019s favorite kind of law, but as it really is in the concrete<\/strong> (or better said: flesh and blood) reality<\/strong> of created life under God.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paulson: <\/strong>\u201cThe second volume [Luther\u2019s Outlaw God<\/em>] will address this greatest of all theological dialectics, unpreached and preached God<\/strong>, and show how Luther employed it prolifically in his exegetical theology. This allowed him to avoid<\/strong> abstract questions by attending to the details of Scripture\u2019s text as they show God\u2019s two words of law and gospel at work, and then<\/strong> apply them directly to people in need.<\/strong>\u201d[11]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Hopman and Paulson, eternal law (abstract law) is bad. Throw it out the front door! But then bring eternal law in the back door, through the decalogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, writes Forde. That is to misunderstand Luther:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe issue is exposed when one comes up against the deus absconditus. <\/em>Erasmus does not know what kind of a trap he is in. The fallacy of his whole argument is that he is left to infer what God must be like merely from the law, while the Holy Spirit is out making assertions apart from the law concerning the Father\u2019s only Son, Jesus Christ. In the middle of the argument Luther breaks out in the confession, \u2018He sent his Son <\/em>to save us.\u2019<\/strong> That is the heart and soul of his entire argument.<\/strong> The work of theology is<\/strong> not for making inferences from the law,<\/strong> but for a proclamation that is all about Christ.<\/strong>\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe only way to overcome the problem of the hiddenness of God not preached is by God preached. But<\/strong> that will not happen by attempting to infer God\u2019s will from the law.<\/strong>\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against Forde, Hopman, like Paulson, views biblical law as revelation, as \u201cGod\u2019s law.\u201d[14]<\/a> For them, it is proper to infer God\u2019s will from the law. It is how they do an end run around the cross. They give lip service to the deus absconditus<\/em>, but they unmask the hidden God by inferring God\u2019s will from the law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forde was a leading voice of the twentieth century Luther renaissance. Forde\u2019s insight into Luther\u2019s understanding of sola scriptura <\/em>and the clarity of scripture in The Bondage of the Will <\/em>is shared by other leaders of the twentieth century Luther renaissance, including but not limited to the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n