Self-Deceit

A couple of weeks ago Prince Blog wrote an extended post that appeared to wave a truce flag at his “enemies.” Of course, he only calls a truce when he needs time to reload, but that’s not the point here. The point is that he closed his post with these words:

In short, I want to be active in this controversy to the extent I need to be — I don’t want to shirk — but neither do I want to be defined by this. If any my friends out there see that definition forming, please feel free to say so. (“All Wolves, All the Time,” emphasis original)

This statement is interesting for a number of reasons; I want to consider one. After the post went up, it moved a friend of mine (who knows Wilson very well) so much that he called to say, “For the first time in my life I actually feel sorry for the man.” Not having read the post I said, “Okay, you have my attention — why do you feel sorry for him?” My friend played off Orwell, saying, “By the time a man turns fifty, he has the reputation he deserves. Doug has systematically defined himself over the last decade with one scandal after another, particularly this Federal Vision mess and his hostile disruption of the PCA’s process. It’s as though he specifically intended to make a spectacle of himself all these years and despite this, he wrote, ‘neither do I want to be defined by this.’ I pity him. He is so self-deceived that he has no idea he is defined.”

This leads to another interesting quote, which I took from Dr. Clark who quoted an article written by Dr. Darryl Hart on the Federal Vision in the Nicotine Theological Journal. Dr. Hart wrote,

Never before have such heavy guns as the church’s highest courts and multi-year study committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous theological novelty.

Consider this. Dr. Hart is Adjunct Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California and he probably has more letters after his name than all the CREC ministers combined. In other words, he’s not a popular story teller. He doesn’t imagine historical revisions and self-publish his fantasies in book form calling them factual accounts. Moreover, he’s not an anonymous attack blogger who fully documents each of his posts. And as long as we’re on it, he isn’t even a self-willed autonomous attack blogger who pretends his federation of marionettes holds him accountable. Dr. Hart is the real deal with real credentials, and he wrote, “Never before have such heavy guns as the church’s highest courts and multi-year study committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous theological novelty.”

This leads to yet another fascinating quote from Prince Blog, who just the other day posted this comment on Green Bagginses:

All the refutations of FV I have read that maintain an FV/Westminster contradiction generally get that result by misrepresenting what FV is saying, or Westminster, or both.

Of course, we all know that these words have served as the FV party line since the beginning, but the remarkable thing is that (1) they still repeat it, and (2) it’s possible that Wilson actually believes it, which is an extremely frightening thought for him. Read the two quotes back to back:

Never before have such heavy guns as the church’s highest courts and multi-year study committees been used to defeat a meagre and frivolous theological novelty. (Dr. Darryl Hart)

All the refutations of FV I have read that maintain an FV/Westminster contradiction generally get that result by misrepresenting what FV is saying, or Westminster, or both. (Douglas Wilson)

A church historian (who is also an officer in the church) observes that the Church has never used such heavy guns to defeat such a deficient theological novelty, and Wilson cavalierly accuses every one of these big guns of misrepresenting his doctrinal frivolities and the Westminster Confession of Faith, as if the two stand side by side.

On my sidebar to the right there’s a section called “A Great Cloud of Witnesses: Fœdero Links.” Beneath it there’s a long list of articles and official reports published by various Reformed denominations, presbyteries, federations, and seminaries. Every one of them, without exception, repudiates the Federal Vision in unmistakable terms. More specifically, five denominations — the BPC, the OCRC, the OPC, the PCA, and the RPCUS — identified Douglas Wilson by name in their reports, yet he steadfastly maintains that all of them, without exception, have misrepresented the FV and/or the Westminster divines.

These facts lead me to believe that my friend is on to something. Douglas Wilson really is pathetic. Self-deception can’t run much deeper than this — can it? He pays magnificent lip service to Mother Kirk with grand, exalted language, but when Mother Kirk replies to him — by name — condemning his doctrine with overwhelming judgments of breathtaking proportions, he accuses her of misrepresentation instead of repenting of his sins. And yet he does not want this to define him. Yo mama.

Prince Blog of the land of Mablog may deceive himself, esteeming his “meagre and frivolous theological novelty” greater than the unanimous opinion of the Church’s highest courts. Indeed, he may delude himself by thinking that this monumental folly — this catastrophic error in judgment — has not defined him. To be sure, he may even fix his madness in stone by mocking the Church and her ministers all day long to his heart’s delight. But the future does not bode well for Prince Blog because all his self-deceit cannot change the one simple truth that these things are defining moments and they have defined him. Even worse, Scripture offers no cure for his definition, or condition, as the case may be, for Solomon warns, “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.” Just ask Saddam Hussein.

Thank you.