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{"id":16685,"date":"2014-10-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1542"},"modified":"2014-10-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T00:00:00","slug":"justification-theory-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/10\/justification-theory-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Justification Theory Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

Douglas Campbell\u00a0responded\u00a0<\/a>briefly to my\u00a0 brief discussion\u00a0<\/a>of his critique of \u201cjustification\u201d theory. In a fit of joie de guerre<\/em>, I respond briefly.<\/p>\n

Campbell rebuts what he considers a \u201cweak\u201d argument in my post, namely, the claim that his decision to set out justification theory systematically and propositionally leaves him vulnerable to straw-manning.\u00a0I shot myself in the foot, Campbell says, and then complained that he <\/em>can\u2019t walk.<\/p>\n

Except he\u2019s not responding to my <\/em>argument. He assumes \u2013 wrongly \u2013 that I criticize him so as to persuade readers that Campbell\u2019s \u201carguments and conclusions can be safely ignored.\u201d Hardly. I didn\u2019t say or imply any such thing in my post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His more substantive refutation is to cite the many pages of endnotes and citations. But I didn\u2019t say he hadn\u2019t documented the \u201cpresence\u201d of justification theory. I agreed that Protestant soteriology has been infected with individualism and contractualism. But the fact that \u201cJustification Theory\u201d is \u201cpresent\u201d in this or that writer doesn\u2019t mean that those writers would state their theory of justification in the terms he does \u2013 which was my complaint about his analysis. Even if one can gather quotations from Calvin and Luther to demonstrate that justification theory is present in both, that doesn\u2019t mean the theory plays the same role in Calvin that it does in Luther.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In any case, I thought my criticism rather friendly; Campbell has a case to make, and he could make it much stronger <\/em>by taking a less systematic-propositional approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campbell\u2019s response ignores the rest of my criticisms of his book: that he unwarrantedly collapses \u201csalvation\u201d into justification; that his treatment of justification theory ignores \u201ctransformational\u201d elements in classic Protestant soteriology; that he lodges charges of \u201cincoherence\u201d when there is simply complexity. I don\u2019t doubt that he has responses to those criticisms, but he doesn\u2019t offer any.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Campbell doesn\u2019t know or care, I\u2019m sure, but I have been critical of classic Protestant treatments of justification, and my conclusions overlap at important points with Campbell\u2019s. See\u00a0this<\/a>, for instance.<\/p>\n

What do I know, though, being no more than a conservative Protestant blogger with bad aim?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"