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According to Oden, my critique contains an advocacy of Arminianism, and I "apparently" want "to defend Arminians from overweening Calvinists." But I stated outright that I am not Arminian, so that the critique hardly advocates Arminianism. And by making my defense of Arminians against overweening Calvinists cover the issue of justification by the imputation of Christ's righteousness, Oden neglects the limitation of that defense to the matters of free will and, for many but not all Arminians, a second work of grace or an empowering baptism in the Holy Spirit usually subsequent to conversion. Therefore his citing agreements between Arminians and Calvinists on justification is beside the point of my objecting to seemingly anti-Arminian statements on the other matters.
Oden says that "Celebration" does not attempt to answer "in detail" the questions whether "empowerment for Christian life and witness requires a work of the Holy Spirit above and beyond justification by faith" and whether "all Christians have experienced this further work." Not in detail, to be sure; but the statement that "the Gospel assures us that all who have entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ are born again … [and] empowered … by the Holy Spirit" does not seem to lack clarity. As one who in the past seriously considered the Holiness-Pentecostal view (if for the moment I may merge the two similar views into one), read widely in literature and listened to many sermons advocating it, and held that view for a while, I can say that if I did still hold it this statement in "Celebration" would wave a red flag in my face. Oden's attempt to soften the statement by reading into it a question of "the extent" to which the Holy Spirit's empowerment takes place at conversion founders on the parallel drawn by "Celebration" between that empowerment and being born again. For surely he and his fellow drafters do not read a question of extent into rebirth by the Spirit. But I am glad to learn that regardless of wording, there is no intention to deny evangelical citizenship to those who disagree with an immediate empowerment of all Christians. For in other quarters I have heard just such a denial.
Though doubting its contextual support, I myself noted a way in which free-willers might accept the statement that "our faith itself is the fruit of God's grace." But Oden's claim, "The free will that is enabled by grace is strongly affirmed in Celebration," spurs me to ask, Where? As to the observation that "Arminius's theology is to be understood as a type of Calvinism," I said almost as much in my own observation that "Arminians as well as Calvinists trace their roots back to the Protestant Reformation and can speak of faith as the fruit or gift of God's grace in the sense that he gives human beings opportunity to believe and by his Spirit prompts them to do so by an act of their own free will."
"The critic dislikes repetition in 'Celebration.'" Where do I say so? I only point out that the repetitiveness with which justification by an imputation of Christ's righteousness is put forward makes for a huge, advertised emphasis. My concentration on this point of doctrine simply reflects that emphasis in "Celebration." It does not represent inconsistency with a dislike of repetition qua repetition.
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