Dominic Bnonn Tennant

⇐ Continued from ‘On the atonement, part 2: the grounds for the universal gospel call’

Previously, I concluded that a particular atonement makes it impossible for any given person—even if he’s elect—to trust the promise of salvation. If you were paying attention, you’d have noticed that as well as making a sincere, universal gospel call impossible, this has a much more serious and direct consequence: namely, the impossibility of Christian faith. In order to draw this implication out, I really only need to define what faith is, since the argument I made in part 2 does the rest of the work for me.

Faith defined

Hebrews tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (11:1) It further observes that faith was both authored and perfected by Jesus himself (12:2)—in other words, he is the exemplar of Christian faith. And I’ve argued in the past that the assurance and conviction which sets the benchmark for our own, being grounded in his perfect communion with the Godhead, was without even a glimmer of uncertainty, wishful thinking, doubt, or unbelief. Therefore, it necessarily follows that faith, at least in its paradigm form, is a justified and true belief.1

More particularly, it is a justified and true belief of God’s favor toward the believer. Thus, since this favor is availed to us by the atonement, the object of faith is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Or we could say that the object of faith is the promise of salvation through that work. In either case, in order for faith to be faith, a believer needs to have a justified and true belief that the work and the promise are actually availed to him. When I speak about a belief being justified here, I mean simply that a person has a good and right reason for holding it.

The problem should immediately be obvious. Just as this work and promise, under a particular atonement, can only be extended sincerely to those actually covered by it, so belief in the work and the promise is only justified in the case of those covered by it. That is, the work and the promise can only be extended to, and believed by, the elect. But how are we to know who the elect are? How, in fact, are the elect themselves to know who they are, that they might have the requisite justification for believing the promise or trusting the work? So it is that a particular atonement, in the absence of any information as to its specific recipients, makes it impossible not only for the work or promise of salvation to be extended to, but also believed by, anyone. Even if some person hears it, he does not know that he is elect, and so he has no justification, no reason, for believing that it’s for him.

A possible answer examined

Now, a particularist may reject my epistemically stringent definition of faith in the hopes of side-stepping this problem. I think he should at least show why the definition is wrong, aside from because it makes his commitment to particular atonement impossible—but if he does reject my view, then he may say that faith is only an internal assurance or conviction of God’s favor toward me which comes by way of the indwelling Spirit. Thus, an external assurance in reference to the atonement, in the form of the knowledge that it can cover me is unnecessary; because I have an internal assurance given by the Spirit, in the form of the knowledge that it does apply to me.

Of course, I agree that the Spirit does lend such assurance. However, notice that my objection has not actually been refuted. The particularist may side-step the difficulty by diluting his definition of faith, but he can’t actually remove it. Subsequently, he is left with a very weak notion of faith indeed. Under it, he believes that God’s favor is availed to him not because he knows that the atonement was made for everyone including him, but merely because—despite it being made only for a chosen few—he experiences certain inward perceptions which convince him that it extends to him.

This seems to me an essentially impotent position. Faith which is not grounded in an external and objective knowledge that Christ atoned for my sins; but rather in an internal and subjective perception that he did so, is not actually faith at all. Faith which is not rooted in the infallible promise that the cross-work extends to me, made by God himself in Scripture; but rather on my own, fallible perception that it does, is as fickle and unreliable as I am. Scripture doesn’t have a directory of the elect tucked away at the back where I can look myself up and make sure I’m actually in there. So, while under a universal view my faith is as sure as the word of God, under a particular view my faith is only as sure as my inward conviction.

This in turn leads invariably into a violation of sola fide. If my faith is only as strong as my own internal perception of God’s favor towards me, rather than the external certainty of that favor grounded in Christ’s work, then my assurance of salvation is derived ultimately from my own spiritual life. When I feel I’m doing well, I feel God’s favor towards me. But if I feel spiritually depressed or weak, if I am failing to overcome sin, if I think I am backsliding, then my assurance is undermined and damaged and potentially even removed entirely. The less confident I feel about myself, the less confident I feel that God really has availed salvation to me. Indeed, knowing how deceitful and wicked my heart is, I ultimately have no assurance at all. If my faith is based on me, then it isn’t faith. It’s more akin to wishful thinking. Maybe God loves me and Christ died for me. But maybe not. Sometimes I feel that way. Sometimes I don’t.

In this way, then, particular atonement utterly undermines Christian faith and the assurance of our salvation.

An objection anticipated

I expect some particularists, at this point if not before, would say that I’m hugely misrepresenting their view. They’d say that their faith is not based on some burning in the bosom; some subjective sensation of their own salvation. Rather, “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”, and they have called on the name of the Lord. Their doing so is evidence that the atonement extends to them. In other words, they merely recognize that the promise of salvation is conditional:

1. If you believe, then you will be saved.
2. You believe.
3. Therefore, you will be saved.

A parallel argument can then be constructed:

4. If you will be saved, the atonement extends to you.
5. You will be saved (from (iii)).
6. Therefore, the atonement extends to you.

But I think it goes without saying that the particularist is playing a bit of a game here. The first premise is conveniently incomplete. “If you believe, then you will be saved”—but believe what? Obviously “the promise”. But that either refers to the very statement at hand, or to the promise that salvation is availed to him. It can’t be the former, namely that “if you believe you will be saved”, because that leads to a vicious infinite regress: if you believe that if you believe you will be saved; if you believe that if you believe that if you believe you will be saved; and so on. But it can’t be the latter either, since that would run afoul of the argument I’ve already given in part 2, and briefly reiterated here, which establishes the impossibility of believing the promise without prior knowledge that you’re elect.

Thus, I believe my objections all succeed: particular atonement is incompatible with federal headship and forensic imputation; it makes a universal gospel call impossible and impugns God’s justice and truthfulness; and ultimately—pressed consistently—it reduces Christian faith and assurance to wishful thinking. Does this mean that the universal view is correct? It certainly seems to imply it; but there are some objections against that view which must be considered on their own merits. The next three parts of this series will therefore attend to that task.

Continued in ‘On the atonement, part 4: God’s desires frustrated?’ ⇒

1. Dominic Bnonn Tennant, The Wisdom Of God; p 140.