Snoeberger Review III

A friend e-mailed me concerning my writing on Snoeberger. (Emphasis mine)

Dear Stephen:

"I want to pass along a couple of items that may be of use to you in your critique of Snoeberger's article.

First, it is curious that he can state in a matter of fact manner "the point of the passages is not to announce logical priority within an ordo salutis" (62-63) regarding those passages yet he can assume they do for passages that he believes supports regeneration preceding faith.

Secondly, on page 81 he quotes from D. A. Carson's "Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension" on John 1.12-13 to support the priority of the new birth to receiving and believing. However, Carson in The Gospel According to John, written a decade later than the other book, says that one cannot read a priority one way or the other out of this passage:

"Some have argued that faith (v. 12) is the logical and temporal condition of the new birth (1:13; e.g. Barrett, p. 164); others have argued precisely the reverse (e.g. Holtzmann, pp. 40-42). In fact, these verses refrain from spelling out the connection between faith and new birth. Those who receive the Word are identical with those who believe in his name, and they are identical with those who are born of God (cf. further discussion in Carson, pp. 181-182)" (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991, p. 126).

Unfortunately, he argues in The Sovereignty of God and the Responsibility of Man that 1 John 5.1 suggests regeneration precedes faith. However, the point of the Commentary quote is that he undercuts those who seek to see a precedence one way or the other. I believe Snoeberger's earlier words are quite appropriate to John 1.12-13, "the point of the passages is not to announce logical priority within an ordo salutis." Obviously Snoeberger disagrees."

Yes, it is simply more glaring contradiction and inconsistency from the Reformed crowd.