I feel like this thread has been a huge success.

I was open to it to the point where I would have cut off a body part if that is what it would have taken. I really mean quite literally that I cannot believe it.

I'm curious as to why NotReady's response was convincing.

You failed to mention what that reason is. I'm curious as to what it could be.

Calvinism would say that you are predestined to hell - you CAN'T believe. Though I agree one can't believe through their own strength and ability, I believe that God makes it possible, through what Arminians call "prevenient grace", for anyone to accept or reject freely.

I'm getting very interested in Wright - I've known about him for years in a vague kind of way but he's always been on the back burner for me. So I looked up what he has to say on predestination and found this:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/euangel...ection-in-pfg/

So I guess he has some thoughts on the subject. From this blurb it would seem he takes something of the approach stated in my link from tektonics on Romans 9-11. I wonder what he says about election in general and how it fits in with his Calvinism. I can't see him as a hyper Calvinist at all.

Edit:

I came across this series

http://orthodoxyandheterodoxy.org/20...ricized-bible/

a few months ago and found myself mostly in agreement with it. Notice in the footnote he references Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God.

That isn't a reason. That is just a statement of your belief.

I am fine with something along the lines of "7-11 doesn't accept bills over $50, and I am not a Calvinist," but I was expecting something a bit more forthcoming than "I disagree with that because I believe something different."

One of the reasons I don't accept Calvinism is because it teaches double predestination which I believe is an unbiblical doctrine. When you say you can't believe you are agreeing with Calvinism. I think you can believe as stated earlier - you can only do so with the help of God, but it is still your decision to accept or reject.

I can't make it any plainer.

NotReady answered this quite well in the post above, just didn't want to be rude and not respond to you.

I bolded what I was looking for. I was hoping for more specifics, but that will do. I don't think that the Calvinists believe that they are teaching double predestination, but just simple average every day normal predestination.

I would have just been curious as to whether you agreed with his take. Wouldn't have considered it rude.

Intellectually, I agree with NotReady. I do like to play devil's advocate just to get some other perspectives going, and it's not a completely open-and-shut case one way or another.

Well, I had a book review written which I almost posted but I wasn't happy with it and wasn't sure why. All the time I was reading the book something was rattling around in my head but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Then it dawned on me, just as I was about to post - this isn't just about Paul, and a new perspective on his epistles. This is a new perspective on just about everything in the Bible. The sweep of what he's saying is immense and impacts virtually everything, because, in a way, it's a new perspective on God, and especially his plan of salvation, what it is and how he implements it - and that must involve eventually a new perspective on creation itself. I'm not saying he's wrong or right. He's very persuasive, very scholarly, very careful in exegesis - and what he says, if true, has some extraordinary and wonderful implications for how we should think about God and ourselves. But it gets very complicated and because it's so important I find I have to curb my initial enthusiasm and prepare for perhaps a long study of some of his ideas. This could literally take years. His material is going to have to be reviewed with great care by scholars who are open to his ideas, and that may not actually happen in this generation.

So my review is simply - Christians, you ought to read this book and think about what he says and how it fits in with your current understanding of theology. Whether you agree with him, disagree, or like me, just don't know, it is definitely food for thought and worth pursuing. But I think it would be wise not to immediately jump on his bandwagon. Give it some time, it will need a lot of reflection and study.

You gotta love a Christian pastor and theologian who can do this:

read the comments they are hilarious...

Tom can bench press 5 Pat Robertsons. Lol

I like the one:

N.T. Wright was born in a log cabin he built.

I've really gotten interested in this guy, but I do think you have to read him with some judgment. He handles very complicated ideas, he's very knowledgeable, and he's extraordinary in his linguistic style - very good with words, figures of speech, etc. Must pay attention to the content, not just the near poetic nature of his delivery.

NotReady: I was intrigued by your comments about "extraordinary implications" but I didn't want to inquire since I was in the middle of a book and just not to that part anyway.

But as I get deeper I'm still pretty curious what you are thinking of and how it seems so revolutionary? I'd be curious for that review.

Since I wrote that I obtained Paul and the Faithfulness of God from the library, forgetting you are reading it. It's actually 2 volumes, about 2200 pages - since I only have about 3 weeks I'm reading selected sections, mostly the ones in the 2nd half of V2 about Paul's theology.

The more I read Wright the more I'm puzzled about the controversy he seems to stir up. I would say that theologically, from all I've read so far, he seems like a straightforward, conservative, moderate Calvinist.

What he does that is so different is interpret some passages of Paul very differently than has been traditional, but in doing so he isn't changing any doctrine. But he works a subtle shift in my understanding of the whole Bible - parts of it that have been opaque to me, both Old and New Testament, make more sense. He opens up the idea of God's entire plan for creation in a new way, especially the way he relates Abraham and the covenant to OT Israel and then Jesus as the faithful Israelite who brings those promises to fulfillment in the cross, so that all who have faith are Abraham's seed. It isn't that I'm learning anything new about major Christian doctrine, but that he puts those doctrines into a more cohesive context, derived in a very detailed way from the Bible, and instead of minimizing the Jewishness of Jesus and Paul, he underscores it in a way that makes sense of many parts of the NT.

The one doctrine he does reject is the imputation of Christ's or God's righteousness to the believer. He affirms that God reckons us as righteous, but not through imputation. I tend to agree with him on that. I always understood justification as that judicial declaration, but I never quite saw imputation in the text - I just accepted it because it isn't a major doctrine and the result is the same either way.

An example of how he's changed my thinking on a topic is the Torah, or the law given to Moses. The reason God gave it and it's proper use, though I kind of understood, is made so clear by Wright that a lot of Romans that deals with it I now get better. Israel was NEVER supposed to think of the Torah as a way to salvation, and mostly they never did. The Torah was given so that Israel would realize they could not please God through trying to be morally perfect. Wright says that the problem isn't the Law - and he here contrasts both the Reformed and Lutheran approaches to the Law - but sin itself, and especially sinful Israel. So much of Paul's writing in Romans deals with the law, and it can get quite confusing, but Wright's approach is beginning to make some sense of it.

I can't really grasp what the overall implications of his approach are, or how much might need to be adjusted. This is all very new(to me) and his output is truly massive. All I see now is a glimmer of things I never saw before but I have no idea where it's going. He has a good web page so I expect I'll be reading his stuff for a long time. If only he wasn't a Calvinist.

Edit: For some time I thought Romans 7 was Paul describing himself as a Christian ("I don't do what I want, I do what I don't want", etc). Though Wright hasn't spent much time on 7 he says it isn't about the Christian's struggle with temptation, but is describing a Torah oriented Jew (himself as Saul, for instance). I want to check out more of what he says about 7 - he skipped it completely in Justification (he said skipping Romans 7 for a theologian was like an Irishman passing up a glass of Guiness), but I think he has more in this book and elsewhere.

Your reaction that he seems fairly orthodox theologically is the same as mine, which is why I was curious about what you had said previously

Your impression of the way in which he tries to fit everything into the larger worldview and narrative that he ties back to especially second temple Judaism is apt for the first part of the book as well. I'm at page 775-ish.

Thanks for the update

Looking forward to your review. Couple weeks?