Before closing the last thread on bashing Calvinism, I noted this as one of the comments:
If it is contended that people go to Hell because God elects them to Hell, then I absolutely believe that Calvinism is antithetical to Scripture because the Bible tells that God wants all to be saved, that Jesus died for all people, and that God wills the good, and that Hell is not good.
Well, that’s an interesting perspective.
Let’s make sure we get a couple of things right if this is where the discussion is going:
[1] Some people in the reformed camp would contend double predestination — that God actively elects the salvation of those who are saved and actively predestines the damnation of those who are finally sent to hell. I admit I understand the logic of this and can gravitate this way, but I also am certain that this is not the classic reformed position. It is a later systematic adaptation, and I would put it up for discussion as to whether it’s actually hypercalvinism or not. It may not be, but I’m saying that I can see how it might be. The person from the comments, above, is against double predestination, and I thank him for it.
[2] The classic reformed position is that God elects the saved and simply doesn’t do anything for those not elected from an eternity-past standpoint, offers them the Gospel as a choice in the present, and will condemn those who do not repent and believe on the basis of their works in the final account. The elect are predestined, and those who do not come to faith are condemned for their sin. The WCF says it this way:
God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgement is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged; but likewise all persons, that have lived upon earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fulness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord: but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgement, both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity: so will he have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.
And for good measure, the WCF also says this:
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.… [To those not elect], God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.
The LBCF says it in a different way:
By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glorious justice.
So as we hail down the scorn upon myself and the other calvinists poking about, let’s remember that the idea that some are actually actively predestined to hell in an active way is of somewhat-dubious paternity.
[3] In the final account, God does actually condemn people to hell. This is an inescapable and undeniable fact of Scripture. Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man spells this out plainly; His warning about the consequences of sin makes it clear in Mark 9. “Well, Turk: those people may be in Hell, but God didn’t send them there,” may come the rejoinder — to which I say, “horse-feathers.”
In Rev 20 is says with no qualifications:
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
There is only one who is seated on the great white throne, and he judges all the dead who are brought before his throne. And by his judgment, they are cast into the lake of fire.
So as one contends for God’s character, contend for all of it — both the love and the wrath. It’s not any kind of shame to say that God wants Justice.
April 21st, 2010 | 11:01 pm | #1
I’d add that the commenter is wrong to say that hell is not good. True, hell isn’t good for the damned, but that’s true for retribution generally. Yet retributive justice is good. Punishing the wicked is good. It may not do the wicked any good, but that misses the point.
Indeed, we could upend the commenters objection: whatever God does is good; God punishes the damned in hell; therefore, hell is good.
April 21st, 2010 | 11:38 pm | #2
Well, thanks Frank for staking out your position here. I’d have to check the early history of Reformed thought to confirm whether single predestination is the classic position. Bullinger is certainly in favor of single predestination, and that’s how it gets into the Second Helvetic Confession.
However, Peter Martyr Vermigli clearly held to a double predestination. Just look at Frank James’ book on Peter Martyr in which he argues that Martyr drew on Gregory of Rimini, a late medieval Augustinian who held to it. And, Peter Martyr taught at Zurich with Bullinger toward the end of his life.
So, I would say that both views go back to the beginnings. Regardless, theologically I think the single predestination perspective is the best option and it has a long pedigree going back to Augustine, as you no doubt know.
This was the point I was trying to make on the other thread about the supra, infra business. It seems to me that if, on the supra view, you postulate that in the divine mind election preceded fall in terms of purpose, then you are making the claim that God purposefully intended the fall. And God did this prior to any creative act. It was God’s intention to elect a group out of all free creatures to salvation, which means that it was God’s intention to damn a group (before they ever sinned!). This is not the same claim as the one that God knew the world he created would include the fall as an unintended consequence. Yes, all Christians have to answer the question of why God would create a world knowing the fall would occur. But I do not see that as the same thing as claiming that God’s primary purpose is to elect a group and reprobate a group. It means God intended to bring about the fall. Moral evaluation normally involves intention and action–that’s how we determine the difference between killing and murder, and different types of murder. Intentionality is key. If it is the divine intention to bring about the fall, as the supra position implies, then I don’t really know what is just because everything humans have said about justice does not apply to that scenario. All I can say is that whatever God does must be by definition just. But, as I said, this criticism does not apply to all the Reformed positions. Rich Mouw, a wonderful Reformed scholar, says this of the supra position:
if we ask a supralapsarian a question about anything that happens in the universe, the full and correct answer must always be articulated in terms of the eternal destinies of these two classes of human beings. Why did Plato write The Republic ? So that the decrees of election and reprobation might be actualized. Why did Babe Ruth hit sixty home runs in one season? Why did President Kennedy approve the plan for the Bay of Pigs invasion? Why did the Tokyo stock exchange experience serious declines during 1998? In every case the answer is that the final point of these events is that they promote the realization of God’s decision regarding elect and reprobate human beings. And all this God does for his glory and his glory alone. It was because of the theodicy issue that Heidelberg theologian Ursinus opposed the supra position and offered an infra alternative, and it has been the dominant Reformed position.
This is why I appreciate your post–it brings out the differences within the Reformed camp, and that helps keep down misconceptions on the part of others.
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:02 am | #3
Steve Hays: “Indeed, we could upend the commenters objection: whatever God does is good; God punishes the damned in hell; therefore, hell is good.”
That’s revelatory for me. I have never thought of it that way. Thanks Steve for conceptualizing Hell in a novel way.
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:46 am | #4
Steve Hays writes: whatever God does is good; God punishes the damned in hell; therefore, hell is good.
ME: I think the conclusion to draw is the following: therefore, God’s punishing the damned in hell is good. From this, it does not follow that hell is good.
April 22nd, 2010 | 7:14 am | #5
Most I’ve read in the Reformed camp believe that the ideas of unconditional election and unconditional reprobation are incompatible. Instead they opt for a view that says election is unconditional while reprobation is conditional. The problem is that I am not sure anything can truly be conditional in a system that is careful to say that God cannot be conditioned by his creation in any way. If God ordains everything then he responds to nothing, and it seems reprobation is unconditional. That is the real crux of the matter.
April 22nd, 2010 | 7:37 am | #6
David,
I would look back to day 6 of creation where God saw that everything He had made was “very good”.
And then I’d ask, did God make hell?
Of course He did. Ergo, hell must, at least in the view of God, be good.
Adam,
I think Scripture is clear that God is saying “You have sinned, therefore into the flames with you.”, whereas, to the elect He has said, “I have chosen you apart from anything you have done, enter into my rest.”
So, in a sense you are both right and wrong (huh?). God does make vessels of wrath and vessel of glory, but it’s not as though the vessels of wrath (all of us, initially) don’t willingly spit in God’s face.
April 22nd, 2010 | 7:38 am | #7
There is a big difference in God allowing something and God causing something.
That is the choice we have here. God allowed sin, but did not work it in the creatures. God derceed “out of that same lump” of fallen humanity to save some. His double predestination merely resulted from His passing over of some, not His activly working iniquity in them.
That is my layman’s understanding.
I found “Chosen by God” by R. C. Sproul to be helpful in clarifying my thinking. The relevant chapter is “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble.”
By the way, I wish this site could be entered into my Google Reader account as a feed. Lots of good stuff around here.
April 22nd, 2010 | 7:48 am | #8
J.K. Jones,
There’s a blog RSS link up above the Masthead on the right. The only thing I haven’t found is a feed for the comments.
April 22nd, 2010 | 7:50 am | #9
Adam –
You are reasoning fine if there is only one cause for everything. Given that God is not typing this message to you, and your original comment was not typed by God, we have to admit: there are secondary causes and even tertiary causes — things which are mediate and things which are immediate.
The problem with the logic you draw out here is that this is simply not how the Bible tells us to think about the issues. We have an obligation to think about it the way the Bible tells us to, and it causes us to think of God as Real rather than as a logical operator in an argument.
April 22nd, 2010 | 8:08 am | #10
Dale Coulter
“It seems to me that if, on the supra view, you postulate that in the divine mind election preceded fall in terms of purpose, then you are making the claim that God purposefully intended the fall.”
And what’s your alternative? That God capriciously made a world with that outcome?
“And God did this prior to any creative act.”
Well, of course. Naturally the plan is “prior” to its implementation. That’s true on the infra order as well as the supra order.
“It was God’s intention to elect a group out of all free creatures to salvation, which means that it was God’s intention to damn a group (before they ever sinned!).”
Which doesn’t mean God can’t take their sin into account. Do you think that God can only react to events (after the fact)? Are you an open theist?
“This is not the same claim as the one that God knew the world he created would include the fall as an unintended consequence.”
If the fall was a foreseeable consequence of making the world, then in what sense did God not intend that consequence?
“If it is the divine intention to bring about the fall, as the supra position implies, then I don’t really know what is just because everything humans have said about justice does not apply to that scenario.”
That statement is far from self-explanatory. You need to unpack the unstated assumptions feeding into your statement.
And, for me, it’s just the opposite. If God had no purpose is making a world with that foreseeable consequence, then isn’t the pointlessness of his action culpable?
April 22nd, 2010 | 8:25 am | #11
“If it is the divine intention to bring about the fall, as the supra position implies, then I don’t really know what is just because everything humans have said about justice does not apply to that scenario.”
Isn’t it true that this conundrum applies to every Christian understanding of Scripture?
Isn’t this what drove the Socinians and the Open-Theists? An attempt to fit God into human ideas of justice, without letting the Bible inform what God can do and what divine justice constitutes?
Every view that agrees with Scripture that God knows and declares the end from the beginning has to come to grips with the idea that God knew the fall was coming, and did nothing to prevent it, even planning how He would deal with its effects from before Creation.
This is not unique to Calvinism, let alone supralapsarianism.
This also (along the original lines of the post) goes to why hell is a good thing and a necessary thing and not something that is usable as a claim against the righteousness of God. He planned it. And if He didn’t plan it, He created everything, knowing that Hell would be necessary…so yeah, He planned it.
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:10 am | #12
Daryl Little wrote:
“Isn’t this what drove the Socinians and the Open-Theists? An attempt to fit God into human ideas of justice, without letting the Bible inform what God can do and what divine justice constitutes?”
In reading the writings of Calvinists it always strikes me that they have a very itchy trigger finger on the subject of humans substituting some notion of their own for the will of God.
Now, let’s be clear, every orthodox Christian will from time to time conclude that a certain theological argument is directionally idolatrous because it sets up a created thing (or, more precisely, the ideas of created things) as the standard by which to judge God. So there is certainly a place for that type of argument, and I myself (I’m a Catholic) will make it sometimes. I reject much of 19th century liberal Protestant theology for, I suspect, the same reasons you do, and think that Karl Barth, though nutty on some issues, was a step back from the abyss for, I suspect, the same reasons you do.
But it seems as though Calvinists can’t swing a cat without hitting someone who they would accuse of putting God in the dock or otherwise elevating their own sentiments to be the standards of absolute truth. It becomes a theological crutch for a lot of Calvinist apologetics.
Don’t agree with my interpretation of scripture? Well it must be because you think you’re better than God! Don’t think that this or that conclusion of my systematic theological exegesis of Ephesians is consistent with the overall impression of a loving fatherly God found in the whole of scripture? Well it must be because you think human reason is superior to revealed truth!
Memo to Calvinist apologists: sometimes the person you’re arguing with actually wants to submit their will to the will of God as revealed in scripture, but has come to a different conclusion about how to resolve the various thematic and rhetorical tensions in the biblical texts. Everyone, after all, thinks that scripture has a “plain meaning.” There is however remarkable unclarity on what exactly that “plain meaning” is.
I would theorize that the Calvinist belief in Total Depravity makes Calvinists especially prone to this kind of intellectual laziness. If you think that human beings have no ability to reach any part of the truth apart from Grace then its very easy to look at an argument that you disagree with and conclude that its wrong because its an attempt to substitute the corrupted will and reason of man for the perfect revealed truth of God. But if we are Totally Depraved, then the Calvinist too can’t trust his will and reason. He has faith in a God that he thinks he sees in the scriptures, and he believes that that faith is a free gift of that same God. Well, so does the liberal Methodist.
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:18 am | #13
I’m not going to get into another round with you Steve. You must be a supralapsarian because you really seem interested in defending it, but I am happy to be wrong. If I’m not, then write a blog defending your position instead of just waiting for me or someone else to write something and then try to pick it apart.
All I am trying to do is say that within the Reformed camp, even Reformed scholars like Rich Mouw think there are differences between supra and infra, and opt for infra. If you have an issue, then take it up with your fellow Reformed folks, not me. You might begin by reading what Richard Muller has to say about the debate in his Christ and the Decree and his brief summary in the Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms. He says quite clearly in the latter work that the infra position is the confessional position and that it normally goes with single predestination. He also says that the infra position arises out of the problem of the fall and salvation by grace. For my book, Muller is probably the best on Reformed Scholasticism since he has spent his scholarly career studying it. So, again, take it up with your fellow Reformed. I would say the same thing to you Daryl.
As for me, I’m not a Molinist, Open Theist, or Reformed. This is why I simply stopped the conversation. I’m not all that interested in trying to defend positions I don’t share. I am interested in making sure that we have the best representation of a position before we reject it, which is why I even entered that thread. And, that’s why I tried to defend Reformed theology against its caricatures.
There are other options to those seen within evangelical circles. You might read David Bentley Hart’s Beauty of the Infinite for starters. Or, you might take a look at Eleonore Stump’s writings who is a Thomist, but also defends a libertarian view of freedom. Stump is Catholic while Hart is Orthodox. They both represent different options.
Well, that’s all I’m going to say. Thanks again Frank for the helpful clarification of your position as over against other Reformed alternatives.
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:22 am | #14
@ Frank Turk:
“The classic reformed position is that God elects the saved and simply doesn’t do anything for those not elected from an eternity-past standpoint, offers them the Gospel as a choice in the present, and will condemn those who do not repent and believe on the basis of their works in the final account.”
What distinguishes the reformed position from the Thomistic position, then? Is it the view of the nature of free will?
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06710a.htm
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:31 am | #15
The classic reformed position is that God elects the saved and simply doesn’t do anything for those not elected from an eternity-past standpoint
Yeah, thanks for nothing.
As if this is a distinction with any real difference.
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:32 am | #16
sd –
While both of them may be wrong, let me suggest that at least one of the interporeters of the Bible you list must be wrong — because their interpretations are at odds.
Let me also suggets that there’s a lot of suspicious lack of connection between “liberal Methodists” and the way the faith was lined out, say, c. 600 or 800 AD (let alone 300 AD) — far moreso than to that of the “Calvinists”. In that, can it really be that we have no way of discerning who is sort of facing the right way on these issues and who is not? Is it really that far-fetched to say that those who frankly deny that Hell is God’s judgment on those who die in unrepentant disobedience are just wrong?
My post here is not about “Total Depravity”. It’s about the fact that God saves — but that not everyone is saved. Unless you deny this fact — which really is a completely transparent fact of Scripture; even the Emergent think that God is going to throw the hypocrites out of the kingdom — you have to come to terms with it.
Here’s why that much is critical: there are things which people who are actually Christians must believe. They must believe those things becuase that’s how you define “Christianity”: the faith which presents a specific world-view. When we look at those things and find out how much we actually do agree on becuase we are Christians, then trying to figure out if “Total Depravity” is a useful way to think about why man needs to be saved becomes easier — because we have a basis for a discussfounded on agreement.
I think that non-calvinists (and note: I have been circumspect to avoid saying “anti-calvinists”) are so worried that Calvinism can start to make sense and start to work out issues that when they see they might agree with a LOT of calvinistic systematics, they change the subject with a “yeah but …” — and lose all hope of ever at least coming to terms with actual reformed theology.
April 22nd, 2010 | 9:33 am | #17
sd,
So…what is your reply to the issue then? How can anyone, without just rejecting Scripture outright, argue that hell and the fall are evils that God didn’t intend, (however He caused/decreed/permitted or whatever it to play out), but merely reacted to and worked around?
If God has complete foreknowledge (which I don’t see anyone disagreeing with) how can it be said that He didn’t intend those things from the beginning?
It’s an honest question and your reply completely missed that. How does the non-open-theist say that God didn’t intend Hell and/or the fall in the Garden, with a straight face, knowing that God knew it would happen and went ahead and created this world anyways?
Or, are you arguing that Socinianism and/or Open-theism are valid options?
There is a difference, incidentally, between saying “You reject Scripture” and saying “How can you say such and so, without rejecting Scripture.”
Incidentally, I don’t think that this is a Calvinism vs. Arminianism issue per se.
Johnny Dialectic can perhaps clarify this, but I don’t think that a true Arminian would deny that God knew all this would happen and created it anyways, thereby recognizing that, at some level, what is, is what God intended.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:03 am | #18
Frank and Daryl,
My point was not that people who hold to an ultra “liberal” (not really a great term, but for shorthand, you know what I mean) interpretation of scripture are correct, or that we can’t make any headway in demonstrating that they are incorrect.
My point was that I observe that Calvinists get lazy in a lot of these disputes by accusing the other side not just of error (which, after all, you then need to demonstrate with a reasoned argument) but of not caring about the will of God altogether.
Look, we all have our intellectual crutches. Catholics have them too. But different theological traditions will make men more vulnerable to different kinds of crutches. And one of the crutches that Calvinists, in my experience, seem especially vulnerable too is to dismiss contray arguments by suggesting that those who hold to them are worshipping the human intellect rather than God. That’s a pretty infalmatory charge, and one which, in my opinion, is justified less often than the charge is made (note that I didn’t say its never justified).
I would agree with you two that its hard to see how someone can read the same Bible as we do and conclude that God doesn’t damn some people to Hell. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t see how someone can read the same Bible as I do and not conclude that Jesus intended to institute a Sacramental Eucharist that would be one of the most common and powerful means by which his Grace was poured out into the world. So I think that Protestants, broadly speaking, are dead wrong in their theology of the Eucharist (Or the Lord’s Supper, if you prefer that term).
But I wouldn’t in any way suggest that they are wrong because they want to substitute the authority of Martin Luther or John Calvin or Thomas Crammer for that of Jesus Christ. I would say that they agreed with Martin Luther’s or John Calvin’s or Thomas Crammer’s flawed interpretation of the authority of Jesus Christ. But the difference is that the former is a sin of pride or rebellion against God, while the latter is a theological error. The truth matters, and right doctrine matters. But being incorrect and sinning aren’t precisely the same things.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:17 am | #19
sd,
I understand and that makes sense, everyone can tend to argue in a bad way, …but it’s not anything like what I was asking you.
Care to answer what I did ask?
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:19 am | #20
I believe that whatever God creates is good, not evil or defective of good. Hell is full of the glory of God, but the wicked who are consigned to it are unprepared for the manifestation of that glory and, therefore, for them it is torment.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:21 am | #21
Johnny,
“Yeah, thanks for nothing.
As if this is a distinction with any real difference.”
You see no real difference between (1) God allowing someone who deserves judgment in hell to continue in their willful rejection of him, and (2) God actively preventing someone from being willing to repent & accept him?
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:29 am | #22
To take a comparison, if a police sharpshooter caps a bankrobber who has murdered several hostages, and is about to murder yet another one, then what the sharpshooter did is a good thing. It wasn’t good for the bankrobber, in the sense that it wasn’t for his benefit. Indeed, it’s to his detriment.
But it’s good for the remaining hostages. And it’s morally good.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:40 am | #23
I think one foundational issue that is being ignored in these debates about predestination is the grounding of God’s knowledge about who will commit which sins. Does God know that a person will commit a sin through some kind of media scientia or because he has decreed, prior to creation, that said person will commit a sin? If the latter, it seems difficult IMHO to avoid concluding that God wants people to sin and is the author of evil. Any thoughts?
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:51 am | #24
Case in point:
This omits the rest of the very sentence, doesn’t it? It ignores entirely the explanation proseneted.
But far worse — far more self-incriminating — is the fact that this is exactly what the non-Calvinist claims to believe about all people!
What has God done for all people in eternity past? Made certain they were saved? No. The non-Calvinist view is, at best, that he knows who will repent and believe — and Christ does what Christ does with an eternally-decided intent knowing some will not repent.
That is: God does something knowing some will repent and some will not, and he does nothing extra for those who will not. How is that substantially different than the confessionally-astute version I have already presented? I’d be interested to know since this view has met with clear derision.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:54 am | #25
“But far worse — far more self-incriminating — is the fact that this is exactly what the non-Calvinist claims to believe about all people!”
Eh? Most non-Calvinists that I’ve talked to believe in something like Prevenient Grace–that God draws everyone.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:03 am | #26
Message to the sheep sliding down the chute to the slaughterhouse blades:
God didn’t put you on the chute. He’s just not taking you off it, like he did with those others in the meadow.
There’s a distinction that should give us all great comfort. Thank you, Dr. Sproul, for clearing that up.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:09 am | #27
Alphonsus asked:
I have to admit that I think Molinism doesn’t get God “off the hook” of this complaint, William Lane Craig notwithstanding. God’s knowledge of “what free creatures would do if they were instantiated” (cf. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) is merely rolling it back to say that God doesn’t really know what will happen but only what could happen. It’s a muddled view that really misses the point that God takes action in the real world, and therefore all the deflection the Molinist allegedly gains for God’s predestination (completely against passages like Acts 2 and Is 46, for example) is lost the first time God does something knowing all the consequences.
Maybe in eternity past, prior to ex nihilo creation, God had “middle knowledge”. As soon as God said, “Let there be light,” and something was instantiated, middle knowledge is an inadequate explanation of what is going on.
Let me said rather that we should reason through this in the way God offers us rationale in the Bible, and admit that what happens in the Divine Mind is utterly not what happens in our minds, and in some sense we have to settle for the revelation in Scripture and not go beyond it whether we are calvinist or non-calvinist.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:11 am | #28
Juggy –
That’s what God is doing now. I said as much in the sentence our critic has clipped. In eternity past, God did nothing for those he knew would be lost.
That is unequivocally the non-calvinist position.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:12 am | #29
Don’t answer the question, Johnny. Don’t engage the issue. It might teach you something, and you might be better for it.
We can’t have that.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:25 am | #30
Johnny,
That’s why I specified “someone who deserves judgment in hell”.
Apparently, you don’t believe that we deserve hell; that’s it’s punishment. You don’t see us as being by nature objects of wrath–we’re just innocent sheep who stumbled onto a dangerous chute accidentally. It’s not that our willing sin puts us in need of salvation.
I imagine you know better–but when you come to this issue and formulate your emotional reaction, you forget it. It’s not part of your emotional calculus. The idea that we really, truly deserve hell doesn’t seep into your heart.
Change your picture to a group of willful rapists and murderers on their way to the chopping block, and your emotional reaction will be closer to the truth. That’s what makes God’s mercy so kind, loving, and undeserved, a la Romans 5:7-8:
“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:25 am | #31
The classic reformed position is that God elects the saved and simply doesn’t do anything for those not elected from an eternity-past standpoint, offers them the Gospel as a choice in the present, and will condemn those who do not repent and believe on the basis of their works in the final account. ~ Frank Turk
I used to be Calvinist for about 25 years. Gave it up about 5 years ago.
One of the problems I have with Frank’s description of God’s action is that it portrays God in a way that seems to me to out of sync with what the Scriptures teach us about love. We are to love our neighbors, and Jesus even tells us something about who our neighbor is ~ the Samaritan and the man from Jericho who was mugged were neighbors, and the Samaritan did not pass by on the other side and neglect his neighbors need.
But what seems out of sync between that and Frank’s portrayal of God is that, in his version, God is able to cause one group to inevitably repent and believe but is indifferent to the plight of the other group. If He is able to cause one group to believe and be obedient, we can assume He is likewise able to cause the other group to believe, but He simply chooses not to. The classic reformed view, as Frank describes it, makes God appear to me like the priest and the Levite who ignored the man in need when they could have come to his assistance.
April 22nd, 2010 | 11:49 am | #32
@ Frank Turk
I think, though, that middle knowledge is at least partly about the metaphysics/epistemology of freedom and divine omniscience. If God does not possess/utilize middle knowledge, what would you propose as the mechanic by which He infallibly knows what person x will freely do?
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:00 pm | #33
The essence of Hell is rebellion against God. It is choosing something other than God. How is that good?
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #34
Jeff,
One thing about that–I have to point out the same thing that I just pointed out to Johnny.
The story of the Samaritan is about helping a victim; leaving sinners in non-repentance isn’t. The latter is about judgment, the former is about neglect.
I empathize with your question–why does God bring fewer to repentance than he could? Wouldn’t it be more loving to bring everyone to repentance? Wouldn’t the Cross and the destruction of Satan still demonstrate his wrath, even if no people were in hell?
So, I’m not sure that this distinction is the full satisfactory answer. But it’s an important part of the biblical picture, and it sure seems relevant. (At the very least, you can’t make the comparison to the good Samaritan and gloss over this distinction.)
ortho,
It’s the punishment of that rebellion that is good.
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:06 pm | #35
Rebellion against God is the essence of the *inhabitants of hell*.
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:08 pm | #36
Johnny D.,
“Message to the sheep sliding down the chute to the slaughterhouse blades:
God didn’t put you on the chute. He’s just not taking you off it, like he did with those others in the meadow.”
Add in to that story, that the sheep, in rebellion to the shepherd, jumped onto the chute, and you have almost exactly what the Bible teaches.
Jeff Doles,
You’re confusing what we must do in order to love, with what God must do in order to love (and be holy and just and wrathful etc.)
Orthodj,
The essence of Hell is not rebellion against God. Hell is a place God created for the purpose of punishing Satan and his angels and whoever else rebels against Him.
C.S.Lewis had it wrong, we don’t make hell, God did, and for His own just and holy and good purposes.
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:38 pm | #37
Alphonsus asked:
The first important answer to this question is this: The Bible does not answer this question. The answer I give is derivative of the Bible’s information/story/theology, and it is (I think) consistent with the Bible’s info/story/theology, but the Bible does not give the epistemological and metaphysical details out.
The two times this question is explicitly asked (Job and Romans), the reply is simply this: none of your business. Job wasn;t there when God planned out the whole universe, so his counsel and question is not welcome; In Rom 9, Paul says simply, “who are you to ask the potter when you are merely the clay?”
The Bible does say this, however:
[1] God declares the end from the beginning. He knows what’s going to happen because it’s his decree that makes it happen. Is 46 is useful to see that.
[2] We do what we want to do, both when we obey and when we disobey. Lots of good things to cite there, but I’d cite Mark 7 for starters as the principle — and it’s not just about what we do bad, but what we do when we obey as well. Deu 10 goes along with that as well.
[3] God’s knowledge of what is actually going on is exhaustive. The many places where God can tell exactly what is happening and what will happen spell this out clearly.
[4] Men are still responsible for the things they do and want to do. Mat 5-6-7 and Rom 6-7-8 make this clear.
How that all works metaphysically is unknown. Trying to figure it out for ourselves leads to all kinds of mad thinking and then bad action.
That may not be satisfying, but it is what it is.
For good form, here’s what the WCF says:
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:56 pm | #38
“whatever God does is good; God punishes the damned in hell; therefore, hell is good.”
Heh. Reminds of the occasionally uttered phrase “hellasgood” like when a teenager bites into a really juicy hamburger and exclaims “Whoa! This is a hellasgood burger!”
April 22nd, 2010 | 12:56 pm | #39
Going to Hell is not good given that there is a better alternative, Heaven. God wills that we choose. In that, I agree that going to Hell is based on the good of free will. Lewis never argued that man made Hell. He argues that Hell is a place/mode of existence people choose. The choice to not receive the goodness of God is the essence of Hell. After all, what’s worse than missing out on the very thing for which we were created? We were made by Christ and for Him.
It’s not good to go to Hell. Would Christ warn us against a good thing? How could He desire both that we avoid Hell and that we go there, at the same time and in the same respect? I argue He can both will that we avoid Hell and will that we use free will to choose. It is a contradiction to say God wills that no one go to Hell and that He wills some go to Hell.
On Judgment Day suppose someone who is being to condemned to Hell asks why He is being condemned. God responds with, “You are sinner.” Hell-bound man replies, “So are the people who are going to Heaven.” God replies, “They repented.” Man asks, “Was I ever given a chance to repent?”
What do you think God’s response would be? Would it be, “Yes, and you never cared.” Or would it be, “No. Only the elect can do that.” Perhaps man replies, “What could I have done to be one of the elect?” God answers, “Nothing. Election was my decision.” Man, “So I’m going to Hell because of something totally beyond my control? The way into Heaven is through repentance, and the only ones who will repent are the elect, and I wasn’t elected, so I literally could not have done anything but end up in Hell?” God, “Yup. Goodbye.”
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:00 pm | #40
The Cross Saves Me From Hell.
Jesus is Love.
Thank you Jesus.
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:17 pm | #41
Daryl,
I am arguing from what God has revealed about love. I have no problem with God pouring out His wrath on those who are rebellious. God is love, and He is holy and just, and none of that precludes His wrath.
The Bible says that God is love and it teaches us something about the nature of love. But if we make what the Bible teaches about love not applicable to God, who the Bible declares IS love, then that seems to me to be incoherent.
The nature of love is that it does not treat those in need with indifference (e.g., as the priest and Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan did). It does not “pass by on the other side.” Since God IS love, we should therefore expect that He will not treat those in need with indifference.
But that is how the classic reformed position seems to portray God — as treating one group in tremendous need with indifference while assisting an identical group. Both groups are deserving of His wrath and have the same need. God is able to help both equally; He is, after all, infinite in His power. It depletes Him no more to assist both groups than to assist the one group (bear in mind, the assistance I am talking about is that which I outlined in my post above, that of causing them to inevitably repent and believe). But if He does that for only the first group but ignores the same exact need of the second group, then He is not acting according to the nature of love as presented in Scripture.
Now, understand that I am not questioning God, nor am I questioning Scripture. Rather, I am questioning the way God is portrayed in the classic reformed position, because it does not seem to jibe with nature of God, the nature of love, as it is presented in the Scriptures.
Instead, I believe that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, a prevening grace that enables all to repent and believe without making it inevitable that all will do so.
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:20 pm | #42
Orthodoxdj: “Man asks, “Was I ever given a chance to repent?”
What do you think God’s response would be?”
God could use a variant of the answer you provided in comment #13 of the thread “As I was saying”:
Orthodoxdj: “I think the point being lost here is that we can know truth from error even without the Bible, and that Bible builds on many of those truths.”
I.e., God to Hell-bound man: “As this fellow orthodoxdj once said, ‘I think the point being lost here with your questions is that you knew truth from error even without the Bible, and yet you still persisted in rebellion.
And also as orthodoxdj stipulates: ‘God foreknew who among humans would not repent of their actualized Evil, and yet He created them anyways, and then these unrepentant people got cast into Hell, and God is not responsible for them being cast into Hell.’
In other words, Hell-bound man, “I foreknew who among my creation would not repent of their actualized Evil Sins, and yet I created them anyway, and then these unrepented people are being cast into Hell, just like you are, and I am not responsible for them or you being cast into Hell.”
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:33 pm | #43
I don’t see a gigantic difference between the concept of predestination and double predestination; in fact, I would say the difference is hardly enough to create a distinction between the two. With both, the same end result is achieved; the only difference is one that one passively condemns nonbelievers to hell while the other actively condemns people to hell. (This dichotomy reminds me of the divide between the “actively killing” and “passively letting die” in the classic trolley dilemma). On one hand, the double predestinarian says that God both a) tells people they go to heaven and b) tells people they go to hell. On the other hand, the predestinarian says that a) God selects those who go to heaven and b) tells the others that they aren’t allowed in. The problem with the latter case is that there is no alternative to heaven or hell. The dichotomy is plain. God is still condemning people to hell, albeit passively.
The degrees of motive and culpability within the classic trolley dilemma are complicated and shifting (insofar as many variants of the dilemma exist), but here I do not see a morally relevant distinction between God actively damning and God passively damning. In either situation He is putting a human being in an inescapable place. To me, epistemologically, it seems irrelevant how God condemns in this case.
Just a thought.
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:48 pm | #44
Nikolai,
I keep coming back to this: The examples that people present always remove “judgment for sin” and “having mercy” from the picture.
Even if Calvinism is incorrect–how can you do that?
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:50 pm | #45
Nikolai Volk: “I do not see a morally relevant distinction between God actively damning and God passively damning. In either situation He is putting a human being in an inescapable place.”
versus Orthodoxdj:
“So according to your logic, God foreknew that Satan would actualize evil before God had even created Satan. And yet God still created Satan anyways.
According to you, God foreknew the coming actualization of Evil, created Satan anyways, allowed Evil to occur, and God is not the Author of Evil. God created the actualizer of Evil and God is not responsible for Evil.
This is what you believe, Orthodoxdj?”
Orthodoxdj: “Indeed.
As for what God knows in relation to determinism, the fact of God’s knowledge is in no way related to God CAUSING people to commit evil. There is no causal link from “God knows what I will do” to “God makes me do what I do”. God knows what people will freely do.”
April 22nd, 2010 | 1:50 pm | #46
Jeff Doles,
We’re not talking about a group “in tremendous need’, we’re talking about a the whole of humanity who hates God with everything it has.
Out of that group, God has chosen to save some. To make them alive in Him and bring them to Himself.
This isn’t about ignoring a tremendous need at all.
Ortho,
Again you show that you’ve never understood what Calvinism teaches, or what the Bible teaches.
No one goes to hell because of a lack of repentance. We are condemned because of our sin.
That means, chance to repent or no, we all stand condemned for our sin.
God grants repentance to those whom, for His reasons, choses to save.
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:00 pm | #47
Daryl,
You spelled out very clearly why I believe Calvinism is morally repugnant. You say
“God grants repentance to those whom, for His reasons, choses to save”
That was preceded by you saying that repentance is not why people go to Heaven. Thus, you have put the burden squarely on God. You are saying no one can go to Heaven unless they are of the elect, and that God has not elected all to go. The alternative to Heaven is Hell. That’s also what Nikolai was arguing, as it seems to me, anyway. He’s claiming that there’s no meaningful distinction between predestination and double predestination, and with that I concur. I claim, and have consistently maintained, that the Hell is a real choice, not a compatiblist choice, i.e., one could have chosen otherwise.
Based on what has been argued by the Calvinists on this blog, the FUNDAMNENTAL difference between those in Heaven is not a matter of repentance, faith, works, or sin. It is about unilateral election Who is the elector in the given schema? God.
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:06 pm | #48
Quick note: a couple of my posts appeared as written by Nikolai because he used my computer. I didn’t update my email address and name. I can assure you he is not me, nor me him. The first post by Nikolai is by him. The second is by me.
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:09 pm | #49
Nick,
Ultimately, yes, The issue is always God.
Sin and repentance, are, in some sense, secondary, although, they are actually, the way it works out in our lives.
I sin, and so I deserve my punishment. From our perspective, we get what we deserve.
Just because God has willed it so, in no way absolves us from our responsibility. As Paul, in Romans 9, makes clear.
Steve Hays works out the matter of real and perceived choice on his blog, although you’d have to search for it, I don’t have the link to the article.
He demonstrates very well how, to be real, a choice doesn’t actually have to be possible, but it merely needs to be perceived as possible.
For example, if I decide to kill myself by jumping off the Empire State Building, it doesn’t matter that you have decided to put pillows all around to prevent any jumpers from dying, thus making the realization of my choice impossible. I have still made a real choice to do a real thing, despite the impossibility of the thing.
But, Nick, we cannot judge any of this to be morally repugnant or not, all we dare to judge is whether or not it is Biblical.
If it is Biblical, it cannot be morally repugnant. And conversely, if it is not Biblical, it doesn’t matter how good it sounds, is it not then morally repugnant?
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:14 pm | #50
Nikolai said:
Scenario 1:
I am following my son down the sidewalk, walking toward on-coming traffic. I see the bus coming down the street building up speed. My son is a careless boy, and I take two extra steps quickly to grab him around the waist and pull him away from the on-coming traffic. As I turn my back on the bus to look at my son, I hear the breaks squeal. Turns out that someone I wasn’t trying to save got hit by the bus.
Scenario 2:
I am following my son down the sidewalk, watching him and another person walking toward on-coming traffic. I see the bus coming down the street building up speed. My son is a careless boy, and I take two extra steps quickly to grab him around the waist and pull him away from the on-coming traffic; as I do that, I push the other person in front of the bus. As I turn my back on the bus to look at my son, I hear the breaks squeal. Turns out that someone I wasn’t trying to save got hit by the bus.
________________________________
I think there is a big difference between 1 and 2.
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:34 pm | #51
@ Daryl:
“I have still made a real choice to do a real thing, despite the impossibility of the thing.”
You’re confusing intention (which relates to the will and choice) with the ability to carry out the deed intended (i.e. the consequences). The question is not, “Can I freely carry out that deed?”, but “Can I freely intend that deed?” A choice/intention that is only perceived is, by definition, not a real choice/intention.
@ Frank Turk:
Given that you don’t don’t want to wade into speculative matters of philosophy, what are your objections to Congruism based on Scripture?
April 22nd, 2010 | 2:47 pm | #52
Alphonsus,
No, it isn’t. Whenever anyone makes a decision, whether or not the decision can actually be carried out is not the issue. The intent is the issue.
In my example, if I didn’t know that I wouldn’t or couldn’t die by jumping from the Empire State Building, does that mean I didn’t decide to kill myself by jumping?
No, it doesn’t. My choice was real. My ability is another thing entirely.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:21 pm | #53
Well, of course it is a tremendous need! It is being dead, separated from God and condemned. If God had not done something, we all would have an eternity without God. I can’t think of a greater need than that. We all need to be saved, redeemed, delivered. That is why Jesus came, to seek and to save that which was lost. We were all lost and needed to be found.
But in the classic reformed view, God reaches down to save some and enables in such a way that they will invariably repent and believe, but He is indifferent to the rest, who are in just as much need of salvation. But God, in this view, “passes by on the other side,” like the priest and the Levite.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:26 pm | #54
Jeff,
But you’re forgetting the crucial point!
He’s not passing by, like the Priest & the Levite. He is striking them down, like any king does to His sworn enemies.
We are helpless in that we cannot please God and have no desire to do so.
We’re not helpless in the same way as the beaten victim.
Until we realize that we won’t understand what great love was shown on the cross, and how unworthy we are.
The guy in the Good Samaritan wasn’t spitting at the priest and the levite. We do spit at God.
Besides, the story of the Good Samaritan was about ‘who is my neighbour”, not “Who gets to heaven.”
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:28 pm | #55
Now, what if you were aware that someone else was about to get hit by the bus, and you could just as easily save both him and your son as well, but you choose not to? That would be indifference. In legal terms, it would be depraved indifference, and quite blameworthy.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:38 pm | #56
Jeff,
And what of the distinction I mentioned in comment #34?
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:41 pm | #57
…and mine in #54… :)
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:43 pm | #58
Well, if He is striking them down, then it appears we are not longer talking about the classic reformed presentation a la Turk. He is not passively allowing them to be doomed but actively condemning them.
Even so, they are just as much in need as the ones God does help. For God to irresistibly draw some but not others in the exact same situation is indifference that does not correspond to the nature of love as presented in Scripture.
Yes, we are helpless in a different way than the beaten victim; we are deserving of the worst. But it is still a tremendous helplessness and need that we find ourselves in, apart from God. And so the question of indifference still pertains.
I never said or supposed that the parable of the Good Samaritan was about who gets to heaven. It is precisely because it is about “who is my neighbor?” that it is pertinent. The beaten man and the Samaritan are neighbors. The beaten man is the neighbor in need and the Samaritan is the neighbor who did not pass by indifferently on the other side but reached out to help the neighbor in need. It did not matter that they were not friends or that they did not even like each other. It did not matter that the beaten man may have hated Samaritans and thought little of them. He was a neighbor anyway, and he reached out to help his neighbor in time of need. To pass by on the other side, as the priest and Levite did, would have been gross indifference, and blameworthy. But he is commended as a neighbor precisely because he did something to help.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:44 pm | #59
Jeff Doles:
Well played.
It is quite true that the God presented by this “distinction without a difference” game is every bit as non-biblical as the Double Predestination model. But apparently the gamesmanship is unseen by the gamers themselves, which makes this a product unfit for Christmas.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:49 pm | #60
I am not God’s neighbour.
I am either His child, or His enemy.
And which I am is His decision, not mine.
April 22nd, 2010 | 3:58 pm | #61
And in anticipation of the “I told you so comments”
His decision, ultimately. Of course I am told to repent and believe, and I must. So, in that sense, I chose.
However, as Scripture says, both faith and repentance are gifts, from God.
You get my drift…
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:00 pm | #62
The metaphor of “neighbor” points up the matter of indifference. The Jew from Jericho might have though, I am not this Samaritan’s neighbor, but did not the Samaritan have an obligation to help him anyway? Or would he have done just as well to pass by in depraved indifference?
Yes, ALL of us were enemies of God. We were all in the exact same boat with nothing in us to differentiate us before God. So for Him to irresistibly rescue some and not the others, as Calvinism posits even in its gentlest form, is indifference for the others. Even the despised Samaritan did better than what the “classic reformed position” supposes of God.
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:11 pm | #63
In the parable of the Good Samaritan because the man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho it would have been assumed the man was a Jew
to those listening. And as a Jew the Samaritan would have been his enemy and not simply a helpless victum.
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:17 pm | #64
“Well, if He is striking them down, then it appears we are not longer talking about the classic reformed presentation a la Turk. He is not passively allowing them to be doomed but actively condemning them.”
You’re conflating 2 things.
The passivity that Frank talked about was allowing them to continue to be willfully unrepentant and hostile to God.
“Striking them down” is talking about sending them to hell. Which is something you also believe, isn’t it? That God sends Satan, Satan’s angels, and unrepentant sinners to hell? That hell has to do with the wrath of God?
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:19 pm | #65
Johnny and Jeff,
Also, I still have no idea what your response is to the distinction I have repeatedly pointed out. Your examples involve the suffering of an innocent victim, not the punishment of a willful, hostile winner.
Why?
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:20 pm | #66
“So for Him to irresistibly rescue some and not the others, as Calvinism posits even in its gentlest form, is indifference for the others.”
Jeff, everyone, except universalists, believe that He rescues some and not others.
If it’s the irresistibility you don’t like, I’d suggest that it comes out of His all-powerfulness. What God sets out to do, He does.
What’s the problem?
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:29 pm | #67
Jugulum,
I don’t think the Samaritan would have necessarily known whether the beaten Jew was an innocent victim or not. And as a matter of the obligation to love one’s neighbor, I don’t think it would have made a difference. For the Samaritan, here was his neighbor, badly in need of medical attention. So the Samaritan had compassion on his neighbor. Were the priest and Levite commendable for passing by in their indifference? Would we say that they loved their neighbor? Would the Samaritan been commended if he had done just as they had?
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:36 pm | #68
So because God commands us to love our neighbour, He is then not permitted, morally, to save some and not others, even though we all know that God is perfect and, in fact, saves some and not others?
Got it.
The Good Samaritan story is utterly irrelevant to the question. But it does let us avoid the evil rebellion of man, and the hatred he has for God, until God regenerates him, doesn’t it?
Sorry Jeff, but it’s beginning to look like that.
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:51 pm | #69
I don’t think irresistibility is a necessary corollary to God’s all-powerfulness. If God was able to give Adam the ability to choose obedience and Adam chose disobedience instead, and it did not invalidate God’s sovereignty, then there is no reason why He cannot so enable men today in regard to faith. That enabling grace need not be irresistible in order to be valid. Is not the sovereign God free to choose to limit Himself in certain respects?
(I spoke of the Adam situation in the other thread, “Either You’re In or You’re Out,” at #156 and #162)
And here’s something I’ve noticed about the “grace of God that brings salvation” and that “has appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). That very same grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live “soberly, righteously and godly in this present age” (Titus 2:12).
Now, inasmuch as Christians are still able to sin, get into worldly lusts and live less than sober, righteous and godly lives, it appears that this grace is resistible. It is the same grace in verse 12 as in verse 11. Since it is resistible in verse 12, is there a reason to think it is not likewise resistible in verse 11? Is not God just as all-powerful in verse 12 as He is in verse 11?
April 22nd, 2010 | 4:52 pm | #70
Jeff,
Obviously, the Samaritan didn’t know that the beaten Jew was sinless, but I doubt that’s what you mean.
The Samaritan did know that being left beaten by the wayside wasn’t the penalty from a righteous judge for his crimes. Didn’t he?
I’m having trouble figuring out what you mean. I can’t tell how you’re applying the comparison, or bringing in the distinction I’ve been stressing.
Even if it had been a legal punishment, that punishment was over–the Samaritan would be helping the beaten Jew after the punishment was over. But that’s not relevant to the distinction I made, is it?
April 22nd, 2010 | 5:00 pm | #71
@ Daryl:
“No, it isn’t. Whenever anyone makes a decision, whether or not the decision can actually be carried out is not the issue. The intent is the issue.”
That’s exactly one of the points I was making!
I think it’s impossible to maintain that a /merely/ perceived intention (i.e. an intention that only appears to be freely chosen) is the same thing as a real intention (i.e. an intention that is actually freely chosen). Underneath the perception of choice, there must be an actual choice.
“What God sets out to do, He does.”
But I imagine most would agree that God would not and could not do something logically impossible (e.g. create a square circle). To an incompatibilist, it would be logically impossible to irresistibly compel a person to do something freely. It would be like being a married bachelor.
April 22nd, 2010 | 5:14 pm | #72
I agree that God saves some and not others. But I do not think He is indifferent to the desperate need for salvation in the others, as the classic reformed position portrays Him. Rather, I believe that He extends the opportunity of salvation to all, by means of prevenient grace that enables them, but irresistibly so, to repent and believe. “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.”
I do not think the parable of the Good Samaritan is irrelevant. I think it shows us something very important about love, that love is not indifferent to the desperate plight of others. Since God IS love, I think that the nature of love is very pertinent to everything God does. The classic reformed position, in portraying God as indifferent to those who are damned, does not appear to measure up to the biblical standard of love.
I have made no attempt to avoid the “evil rebellion of man, and the hatred he has for God.” Indeed, I recognize that evil rebellion and hatred. But I believe the love of God is concerned enough and the grace of God is big enough to do something about it, including the extension of grace to enable repentance and faith in all. The difference is that I do not think that that grace is irresistible.
April 22nd, 2010 | 5:30 pm | #73
Jug, I think I’ve answered your “distinction” in every comment I’ve posted here. It makes no difference for the slaughtered sheep, lawless and powerless as he is, to end up slaughtered, whether he is placed there directly by God or if God chooses not to save him (while saving others, with no conditionality whatsoever).
I know you think this is a real distinction, but outside the lenses of Calvinism, it is unpersuasive and, in my view, unbiblical.
April 22nd, 2010 | 5:41 pm | #74
Jugulum,
The reason I bring up the parable of the Good Samaritan is that it tells us something about the requirement of love.
The obligation to love God and love your neighbor go together. If God IS love, should we expect that He will do less than love His neighbor? I don’t think so. To have a neighbor is to be a neighbor. If God is going to love His neighbor, He is going to be a neighbor.
“Who is my neighbor?” the man asked. Jesus tells the parable and asks, “So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?” See, the question was not, “Who is the victim here?” or “Was the beaten man deserving of help?” but “Who is the neighbor here?”
The neighbor in this parable turned out to be the Samaritan, who stopped to help his neighbor in need of rescue, and did not pass by on the other side, as the indifferent priest and Levite did. The Samaritan did not do what he did because the man was deserving but because the man was badly wounded and needed rescue.
Why did God choose to rescue any of us? Was it not because of love? For God IS love, and God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. I don’t believe that God loves some but is indifferent to others ~ I don’t think that squares with Scripture.
I’m not here to say that Calvinists should stop being Calvinists ~ that’s not my job. I’m just offering why I no longer find Calvinism to be adequate.
April 22nd, 2010 | 5:45 pm | #75
Johnny,
“It makes no difference for the slaughtered sheep, lawless and powerless as he is, to end up slaughtered, whether he is placed there directly by God or if God chooses not to save him (while saving others, with no conditionality whatsoever).”
That’s not the distinction I was referring to–between active and passive. Go back to the last thing I said to you, in comment #65: “Your examples involve the suffering of an innocent victim, not the punishment of a willful, hostile winner.”
When you first mentioned “sheep” in comment #26, I said the following, in #30.
“That’s why I specified “someone who deserves judgment in hell”.
Apparently, you don’t believe that we deserve hell; that’s it’s punishment. You don’t see us as being by nature objects of wrath–we’re just innocent sheep who stumbled onto a dangerous chute accidentally. It’s not that our willing sin puts us in need of salvation.
I imagine you know better–but when you come to this issue and formulate your emotional reaction, you forget it. It’s not part of your emotional calculus. The idea that we really, truly deserve hell doesn’t seep into your heart.
Change your picture to a group of willful rapists and murderers on their way to the chopping block, and your emotional reaction will be closer to the truth. That’s what makes God’s mercy so kind, loving, and undeserved, a la Romans 5:7-8:
“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.””
Yes, you addressed the distinction between active and passive. You did not address the distinction between victim and hostile criminal; you literally have not said a word about it, though Jeff did.
April 22nd, 2010 | 8:03 pm | #76
Daryl,
“So because God commands us to love our neighbour, He is then not permitted, morally, to save some and not others, even though we all know that God is perfect and, in fact, saves some and not others?
Got it.
The Good Samaritan story is utterly irrelevant to the question. But it does let us avoid the evil rebellion of man, and the hatred he has for God, until God regenerates him, doesn’t it?”
No, God is not morally obligated to save everyone because He commands us to love our neighbour. But because God is Love it is His nature to love the neighbour. Which is why He commands us to do the same. The Good Samaritan demonstrated his love by helping the helpless. God demonstrated His love for the helpless by dying for them.
He died only for the helpless, which of course means ALL, EVERYONE, the WHOLE WORLD.
The story of the Good Samaritan is very relevant.
Your order of regeneration is backwards. Man first repents and then God regenerates.
Repentence and faith always precede regeneration.
April 22nd, 2010 | 8:11 pm | #77
Don,
You prove too much. If what you’ve said is true, then God, to be love, must save everyone.
It’s small comfort to the lost for God to say “Well, if you would’ve chosen me, I would’ve saved you”, when we know right well the God, if He so choses, could save everyone.”
All this talk of love and mercy unless God a) has a people that He save sovereignly chosen to save, and does so, or b) saves everyone.
How loving is it, really, to say, sorry pal, you didn’t ask, so it’s off to the furnace with you.
April 22nd, 2010 | 8:47 pm | #78
Daryl,
If God could save people by His love, then yes, everyone would be saved.
God made the way of salvation possible because of His love by dying for everyone.
However God saves people by His grace and mercy not His love. Those that request God’s
grace receive eternal life. Those that reject God’s grace receive eternal death.
April 22nd, 2010 | 10:13 pm | #79
[...] important than your next breath, your well-attended schedule, the next sports activity… A short bit about Hell Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 10:37 PM Frank [...]
April 23rd, 2010 | 7:21 am | #80
Frank,
I was talking about double predestination with my pastor the other day and this is basically what I said. Please correct me if there is serious error in my thinking.
If I need to use a marker, and there are two markers, one red and one green, and I choose the red one, on some level I have actually _not_ chosen the green one. There were two options, and I chose one and was aware of not choosing the other.
If I reach my hand into a gallon of M&M’s and grab a handful, I have chosen (using the word loosely) some but I am fairly unaware of the others. There might be the best M&M ever at the bottom of that pail, and I have no idea about it.
My current position is that God’s election of his saints is more like the first than the second. If God is infinite, if his call is utterly effective, and if he knows all, then how does his choosing some not also, in some way, necessitate stating he at least chose-not-to-choose others?
April 23rd, 2010 | 7:25 am | #81
Jug, the “victim/hostile” distinction is one you added, not I. The analogy of the sheep I gave works to demonstrate my point: that God selects some to save, but passes over others, is a distinction without a difference vis-a-vis Double Predestination. Since your “victim/hostile” idea is inapt and irrelevant to that point, there’s no need to say anything about it.
April 26th, 2010 | 9:27 am | #82
What sin is so great as to be worthy of eternal punishment? There is no finite crime, not even Hitler’s or Stalin’s, that could justify an infinite punishment. They are out of proportion to each other.
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