Westminster Seminary Names New President
April 2005
Dear Friends,
The Board of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia has just announced (via several
puffs of smoke from Van Til Hall) that Dr. Peter Lillback has been chosen as the
Seminary's new president.
In January 2002 The Trinity Review published a review of Dr.
Lillback's book, The Binding of God. Here are the concluding paragraphs of that
review:
"Calvin never taught
justification by faith and works. But Lillback desires to find this doctrine
in Calvin. The reason is that Lillback, though he is a Presbyterian and a
professor at Westminster and Reformed Episcopal Seminaries, himself holds
this heretical doctrine. And he holds it as part-and-parcel of his doctrine
of a conditional, breakable covenant.
"Lillback’s
theology of a covenant of grace-and-works accompanied by a doctrine of justification
by faith-and-faith’s-works is not an isolated phen-omenon in Reformed
churches. It is part of a widespread movement now surfacing in reputedly conservative
Reformed and Presbyterian churches. The movement is advanced by prominent
Reformed and Presbyterian theologians. The movement intends to introduce justification
by faith and works on the wings of a doctrine of a conditional, breakable
covenant of grace and works, or it intends to establish the doctrine of a
conditional, breakable covenant of grace and works even though this means
the introduction of the doctrine of justification by faith and works. Whatever
the primary intention, whether a conditional covenant or justification by
faith and works, the movement promotes these doctrines as related teachings.
"The scholarship
of The Binding of God is flawed. The doctrine is heretical. Nevertheless,
it is an important work because it makes two things plain: (1) a conditional
covenant of grace and works implies justification by faith and works; and
(2) the apostasy at the highest levels of reputedly conservative Presbyterianism."
To read the entire review
of Dr. Liillback's book, please go to http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=116
Cordially,
John Robbins
The Trinity Foundation
www.trinityfoundation.org
April 20, 2005
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