Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Part 1:

The following is an outline of a response to the common form of modus tollens argument for limited atonement. This form of the argument is a standard argument in limited atonement literature, from John Owen’s Death of Death, to John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied, even to the recent work Pierced for our Transgressions.

This outline takes up one set of responses to the modus tollens argument. It does not attempt to address every relevant issue, permutation or form of possible rebuttal or possible counter. What it does is assume the standard form of the argument, unpack its inner logic and assumptions, and then critiques it.

For the purposes of this outline, I will use the terms and phrases, “delivered up” and “died for” as functionally equivalent.  By “limited atonement” I define and use in this sense, that only the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ.

The name for Paul’s argument is called an a fortiori argument. To establish a case for limited atonement, this argument is first converted into a modus ponens syllogism and then into a modus tollens syllogism.

Firstly, Logical syllogisms, seeking to obtain necessary conclusions, only work by using universal descriptors, all or none, etc, in the major premise. No necessary conclusion can be obtained by use of terms like, we, some, us, our, you, them, etc.¹

The problem is that the major premise as alleged from Romans 8:32, only says, by way of paraphrase: ‘Us… for whom Christ was delivered (ie., died), will be given all things…’

Who are the us? If the us refers to believers as I would argue it does, then no negation or argument can be formed regarding all those outside of the class “us.” Even if the us is the elect as a total class, the same holds good. This is the first exegetical hurdle the limited atonement proponent has to get over.

Proponents of the modus tollens argument for limited atonement, want to insert an assumption into Paul’s meaning in order to get to the needed “universal” referent into the major premise. In Logic, this is called smuggling in a premise or assumption. Here they have hastily converted the “us” into “all” or “anyone.”

This form of their argument then comes to this:

“Anyone (ie., all) for whom Christ dies, will infallibly be given salvation…”

An initial response would be: How do they know that? The text only speaks to believers or the elect (whoever the us are). Like this: ‘We believers/elect, who have been given Christ, how much more will we believers/elect be given all things…’

Limited atonement advocates have inserted a logical parameter which is not in the original text, and for which there is no exegetical justification.

Furthermore, “for,” can mean, “to die in the place of, to bear the sins of,” or it can mean, “to die for some benefit of.” And as the phrase “to die for” also speaks to intention. In terms of what we can be know from the text, there are two possible options.  Paul may be addressing Christ’s dying for the elect, with an elective intention, which is one possible reading. Or, Paul may be referring to Christ’s dying for believers, specifically, in order to assure them that their salvation is infallibly secure.  However, Romans 8:32, alone, does not preclude Christ dying for others with a non-elective (though salvific in some sense) intention, exactly because the actual referent is restricted to “us.” It says nothing about what Christ may or not have done for others. If these facts are allowed, Paul cannot be read as denying any other sense or divine intention behind Christ’s death. Thus standard modos tollens argument for limited atonement is completely inadequate to deal with these nuances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Romans 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Part 1:

The following is an outline of a response to the common form of modus tollens argument for limited atonement. This form of the argument is a standard argument in limited atonement literature, from John Owen’s Death of Death, to John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied, even to the recent work Pierced for our Transgressions.

This outline takes up one set of responses to the modus tollens argument. It does not attempt to address every relevant issue, permutation or form of possible rebuttal or possible counter. What it does is assume the standard form of the argument, unpack its inner logic and assumptions, and then critiques it.

For the purposes of this outline, I will use the terms and phrases, “delivered up” and “died for” as functionally equivalent. By “limited atonement” I define and use in this sense, that only the sins of the elect were imputed to Christ.

The name for Paul’s argument is called an a fortiori argument. To establish a case for limited atonement, this argument is first converted into a modus ponens syllogism and then into a modus tollens syllogism.

Firstly, logical syllogisms, seeking to obtain necessary conclusions, only work by using universal descriptors, all or none, etc, in the major premise. No necessary and/or universal conclusion can be obtained by use of terms like, we, some, us, our, you, them, etc.¹

The problem is that the major premise as alleged from Romans 8:32, only says, by way of paraphrase: ‘Us… for whom Christ was delivered (ie., died), will be given all things…’

Who are the us? If the us refers to believers as I would argue it does, then no negation or argument can be formed regarding all those outside of the class “us.” Even if the us is the elect as a total class, the same holds good. This is the first exegetical hurdle the limited atonement proponent has to get over.

Proponents of the modus tollens argument for limited atonement, want to insert an assumption into Paul’s meaning in order to get to the needed “universal” referent into the major premise. In logic, this is called smuggling in a premise or assumption. Here they have hastily converted the “us” into “all” or “anyone.”

This form of their argument then comes to this:

“Anyone (ie., all) for whom Christ dies, will infallibly be given salvation…”

An initial response would be: How do they know that? The text only speaks to believers or the elect (whoever the us are). Like this: ‘We believers/elect, who have been given Christ, how much more will we believers/elect be given all things…’

Limited atonement advocates have inserted a logical parameter which is not in the original text, and for which there is no exegetical justification.

Furthermore, “for,” can mean, “to die in the place of, to bear the sins of,” or it can mean, “to die for some benefit of.” And as the phrase “to die for” also speaks to intention. In terms of what we can be know from the text, there are two possible options. Paul may be addressing Christ’s dying for the elect, with an elective intention, which is one possible reading. Or, Paul may be referring to Christ’s dying for believers, specifically, in order to assure them that their salvation is infallibly secure. However, Romans 8:32, alone, does not preclude Christ dying for others with a non-elective (though salvific in some sense) intention, exactly because the actual referent is restricted to “us.” It says nothing about what Christ may or not have done for others. If these facts are allowed, Paul cannot be read as denying any other sense or divine intention behind Christ’s death. Thus standard modos tollens argument for limited atonement is completely inadequate to deal with these nuances.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mason:

In defining my own position, and stating what I consider to be the scriptural truth upon the subject, I must be permitted to exhibit what I consider to be the true state of the question, so as to prevent all possibility of misconception.

There is, I apprehend, a distinction to be always carefully maintained, between the work of atonement and the work of redemption. The one does not necessarily imply the other; redemption includes atonement, but it includes more; it includes its actual results; it is the application of the atonement issuing in final and complete salvation. The one, therefore, in its nature may be more extensive than the other. An unredeemed sinner has. even now a deep interest in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and whether eventually lost or saved, will feel that interest through the ages of his deathless being. With this understanding, redemption certainly is not general; and to affirm that it is limited is but stating the plainly revealed fact, that all men will not be saved.

In the view which we take of the subject, moreover, we separate the nature of the atonement from any secret unrevealed purpose of the infinite mind respecting its application. We do not deny the existence of such a purpose; so far from it that we cannot conceive of an intelligent, all-wise being acting in anything without design, and we cannot, without detracting from the honor and glory of him who is no less wise than holy in all his works, suppose otherwise than that in this great plan, and I may add effort of forgiving mercy, he had in view some certain, specific results. We do not believe that the issue of the atonement is in the infinite mind an open question. The results of a Redeemer’s work are not contingent results. They are absolutely certain. It is fixed, unalterably fixed, that the Savior is to be rewarded for his life of toil and ignominy, and his death of shame and agony. He is to “see of the travail of his soul and to be satisfied;” and a multitude greater than any man can number, of those who “have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,” shall give grace and glory to his triumph. But the ultimate design of the atonement as it exists in the mind of God is a very different thing from the nature of the atonement itself, as it is spread out before our view upon the pages of revealed truth. The question before us is not, what God intends to accomplish by virtue of the sacrifice of Christ; not how far the efficacy of that sacrifice will in point of fact reach; for upon these questions God has thrown a veil of impenetrable darkness; but what is the great moral, revealed purpose of the atonement; what is its intrinsic value and sufficiency; how far is it available in its own nature to the salvation of men? Did God mean to spread it over only a part, or the whole of the race? Are men, all men, as lost sinners, so interested in the atoning death of Jesus Christ, that they may, if they will, be saved by it? This is the question, and we unhesitatingly take the affirmative. Our position is, that through the sacrifice of Christ, God can be just, and yet forgive. Such is the character of the atonement, that, “it would comport with the glory of the divine character, the sustentation of God’s government, the obligation and honor of his law, and the good of the rational and moral system, to save all men, provided they accepted of Christ.” “Every legal bar and obstruction in the way of the salvation of all men is removed.”¹ Such is the nature and efficacy of the atonement of the Son of God, that the relations not merely of some men, but of the entire race, are totally different from what they would have been, had the Savior never suffered and died; different, I mean, in this sense, that since this great atoning sacrifice has been offered, God can upon the ground of it consistently pardon the sins of all, and nothing now shuts a man out from forgiveness and hope, but his own unwillingness to accept of the offers of mercy made to him in the gospel. Such is the view of the fullness of the atonement which we desire to advocate, and which we would fain commend to the intelligent faith of our hearers.

Erskine Mason, “Extent of the Atonement,” in A Pastor’s Legacy Being Sermons on Practical Subjects (New York: Charles Scribner, 1853), 274-276. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

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¹Associate Reformed Synod’s Report, p. 53.

Mason:

EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.

“And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”–First Epistle of St. John. ii. 2.

THE amplitude and all-sufficiency of God’s provision for the lost, is a no less important article of the Christian faith, than the fact itself, that such a provision has “been made. Everyone must feel, the moment the subject is laid before him clearly, that the value of the atonement, to anyone, is inseparable from its sufficiency for all. To tell me in my sorrows, under a sin-oppressed conscience, that provision is made for forgiveness, and yet to east suspicion upon its fullness, is but to awaken a hope, the warrant of which is uncertain, because it leaves me entirely in the dark upon the question, whether that provision is within my reach. There is nothing here to relieve my straitened spirit, nothing to authorize my confidence; so far as all practical effects are concerned, I am in very much the same condition as before the announcement of pardon, through the atonement, was made. Better not say anything of forgiveness of sin, if in the same breath you must suggest a doubt as to the possibility of my forgiveness. You do but make my case the more wretched, as you awaken a hope only for the purpose of destroying it.

The great question which throws its overwhelming burden upon the mind, in view of its spiritual relations, is, after all, a personal question–it relates to my own individual circumstances and hopes. The value of the gospel, therefore, to me as a sinner, grows out of the answer which it furnishes to this question. The mere fact that God can forgive sin, is nothing, except as it is brought home to my own personal interests. The pages upon which that fact is announced, may beam with the bright and the beautiful, but if they do not bring home to me, as an individual, this truth as a certainty, that God can be just and forgive my sin, they have no brightness and beauty for me; they do but put me in the condition of the famishing wretch, who is told of abundance, but not that he may touch it, or the victim of some dreadful disease, who is told of a certain remedy, but not how he may reach it.

The question, then, as to the extent of the atonement, is not a question, as some men would have us believe, of mere speculative theology, but one of vast practical interest. Every man can understand its importance, if he will but observe how the whole aspect of the gospel will vary; how its power over his own spirit will be increased or diminished, according to the views which he may take of this single question; and I cannot, therefore, think that I am giving myself up to a useless task, or one without its interest to all my hearers, when I undertake to agitate, for the purpose of reaching a satisfactory conclusion, the inquiry as to the extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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