“On the atonement, Dabney claimed that the Westminster Confession did not take a position on the order of decrees — the long-standing debate among Calvinists over infralapsarianism and supralapsarianism. Indeed, he held that “if we impute our sequences to God, we plunge into error. The most we can comprehend is that God, in entertaining from eternity one part of this contemporaneous purpose, has regard to a state of facts as to that part destined by him to result from his same purpose as to other parts of his moral government”” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 141-142).

“While Dabney was able to hold the line against any form of racial reconciliation, he was not as successful in his battle against fraternal relations with the Northern church — in 1882, New South Presbyterians within the PCUS repudiated his position. This battle against the Northern church did more to damage his reputation than any other action, and would ultimately be the impetus that relegated Dabney to the margins, both ecclesiastically in his loss of influence within his church and geographically in his “exile” to Texas” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 135-136),

“[Post- Civil War] The issues at home were pressing and demanded Dabney’s energies. While the North had gained the upper hand politically through the force of arms, Dabney sought to maintain a distinctive Southern civilization . . . by strengthening the Southern institutions that remained. . . . It was primarily in the PCUS [Presbyterian Church in the United States, i.e. the Southern Presbyterian Church], not in monuments or Confederate Day speeches, that Dabney sought to preserve Southern identity” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 134-135).

“While before the war [Dabney] had been Virginian first, American second, after the war Dabney was Virginian first, Southerner second, and American maybe” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 130).

“Because he had already memorialized Stonewall Jackson in a powerful sermon after the general’s death in 1863, and because he was both a relative and a former member of Jackson’s staff, Mary Anna Jackson asked Dabney to write a biography of the Confederate chieftain. Dabney spent the rest of the war on his Life of Jackson — researching the battles, visiting Mrs. Jackson, securing Jackson’s remaining papers, and writing the manuscript. The resulting biography was Dabney’s longest-standing literary monument and one of his chief glories” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 128).

“Dabney was interested in seeking another tour in the army as a chaplain and had been old by General D.H. Hill, a fellow Presbyterian, that he could have a position in his division. In the meantime, Stonewall Jackson had sent his wife away from Winchester to stay with her cousin, Dabney’s wife, Lavinia, at Farmville. Jackson, as a result of his wife’s intercession, offered Dabney the position of chief of staff of the Second Corps in the Army of Northern Virginia” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 115).

“It is important to notice themes of honor and patriotism in Dabney’s declaration of war [i.e. the Civil War]. He had advocated peace until it was no longer a ‘virtue,’ until the edge of ‘dishonor’ was reached” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 109).

“Dabney believed that this “penal substitutionary theory” of the atonement was the keystone of Christianity. ‘There is scarcely a leading head of divinity which is not changed or perverted as a logical consequence of this denial of penal substitution consistently carried out,’ Dabney taught. Forsake the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement and other key doctrines were sure to go: God’s distributive justice; God’s immutability; the doctrines of adoption and perseverance; and the church’s teaching on the eternal punishment of the reprobate. Most important, however, was what the denial of the penal theory of the atonement would do to the doctrine of providence. If there was no special providence in Christ’s sufferings, then the problem of evil would forever remain an ‘insoluble mystery.’ Such an idea was unthinkable to Dabney. The scoffers against Christianity would have his objections answered in ‘our doctrine of redemption through Christ’s substitution, and nowhere else.’ God permitted evil in the world and suffered with that world in order to demonstrate his glory through the cross-work of Jesus. Dabney exclaimed exultantly, ‘The Messiah is our complete theodicy!’ Divine providence was saved through the penal substitutionary atonement of Jesus” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 91-92).

“[Dabney] thought that seminary training should be instructed to intellectual labor and “thorough mental culture.” If ministers were to gain pastoral skills, such training would have to occur “under the pressure of pastoral responsibilities,” not in the seminary classroom” (Sean Michael Lucas, Robert Lewis Dabney, 77).