Are we born damned or merely damnable? Did God choose a predetermined number of human beings to bring to ultimate bliss, and alternatively select a predetermined and far more numerous group of humans on whom to inflict incalculable eternal suffering, before the world was even made, before a fall from grace, before anyone could in fact do anything—just to increase his “glory”? Or is election to salvation based on foreseen merit or faith—or both? Damned if I know—but don’t miss Jonathan’s Baer’s excellent review of Peter Thuesen’s equally excellent Predestination: The American Career of a Christian Doctrine. You may not get the answers you want, but you’ll know all the right questions to ask.
For many onlookers, to parse the grammar of predestination is akin to calculating the age of the earth from Genesis 1-3—it’s to read poetry through prose-colored glasses. But for others, namely theo-geeks like me, who remain entangled in this theological hairsplitting, much is at stake—namely, what kind of God is it that we worship? How can we relate honestly his intentions to unbelievers if we don’t know whether the deck has been stacked against us? And are we free in any meaningful sense—or are we trapped in a play in which by the final act, as in Hamlet, almost all are doomed?
If Calvinism, especially in its supralapsarian form—which argues that God foreordained the eternal fates of humans not yet created in a world not yet created, never mind fallen—is true, then most of us are lost, and not just because, in the words of Dirty Harry, we don’t feel particularly lucky, but because we are asked to love a monster. A deity who out Hitler’s Hitler in a blood-thirsty self-preening is too repellant to contemplate, never mind adore. Especially one whose obsession with his own glory reduces every person to nothing more than an adornment. If this is true, let’s please stop talking about the sanctity of human life. In this horrific scheme, there is nothing more expendable than a human being. “I need more glory—throw another baby on the barby!” (Whether non-elect infants go to hell has been a long-fought controversy within the Reformed world, admittedly, but there’s nothing it its confessions or theology that seriously argues against it.)
Reformed folk for whom Jonathan Edwards and Cornelius Van Til are theological mainstays should take a step back, attempt some objectivity, and ask themselves, “Were I presented with this scheme in the name of another religion, wouldn’t I run screaming, like Brooke Shields from Tom Cruise waving a copy of Dianetics in her face?” To those of us not in the Reformed camp (or no longer in this camp), unconditional election and double predestination—both to heaven and to hell—appear that ludicrous.
So why has Calvinism proved so durable—to the point where even in this pluralistic kumbaya age it is showing such vibrancy, especially among young evangelical Christians? Thuesen notes the growing Calvinist-Arminian debate within the Southern Baptist Convention and the online blogger battles, say, between James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries and Ergun Caner of the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. Are some of us just hardwired to embrace weird or noxious ideas, like those convinced they’ve been kidnapped by aliens or that if they kill the right people for the right cause they’ll fly straight into the arms of 72 virgins? Or were some of us raised in a milieu in which this notion was ground so deeply into our psyches that it’s simply too scary to move away from it, for fear of divine retribution, which itself would prove we were not of the elect—and never had been, and never could be. (Think about that for a while.)
Or perhaps the whole “I’m in, 95 percent of humanity is out” is just fine. As long as I’m in—right? I mean, I am in, yes? Because, if I’m in, then I can’t get out. Which is nice.
Or could it be that a God this horrible just happens to explain why the world looks the way it does? “Ah, now I understand childhood leukemia and Auschwitz and tsunamis—there is a god. And he’s quite mad.”
One of Calvin’s biographers posited that the Reformer’s notion of grace was of an almost quantifiable substance, as if God might actually run out of the stuff were he too liberal in its dispersal. Does universal atonement dilute the power of the Cross? If non-Reformed, even non-Christians (whoa!) were recipients of God’s grace—even his saving grace—would that make it less, I don’t know, desirable? Potent? Gracious?
It was not so much questions like these that drove me out of the Reformed camp, as it was the answers provided by same. It was after reading Van Til and Edwards and some of the Puritans, all of whom were plentiful on the book tables of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, that I realized how easily those 17th- and 18th-century New Englanders could find themselves scrutinizing every errant thought, searching for signs of election, like a working-class mom scratching off the magic number on her Lotto ticket to see if she’d hit the jackpot and could finally be free of her anxieties. But unlike with a lottery ticket, figuring out your election status left you with nothing to cling to but a purely subjective notion of the operation of the Holy Spirit within your life—which could be, as Calvin wrote, “inferior,” and intended by God all along merely to con you into believing you were elect when in fact he had always intended you for hell, and would ensure that you’d would lose your faith before you shook off this mortal coil—just so there was no one to blame but you.
This understanding of election presents problems other than the moral and psychological ones. For Protestants of the evangelical and Lutheran stripe, justification by faith alone is a theological nonnegotiable. The dark irony of Calvinism in its starker lineaments—and even Luther in his Bondage of the Will—is that, for all the talk of preaching Christ alone and justification by faith alone, Jesus is virtually irrelevant. When you get down to it, according to this scheme, we are not saved by Christ; we are saved by a roll of the election dice. If the economy of salvation were a Hitchcock film, the Cross would be the MacGuffin. God could just as easily have dropped a magic black bag from heaven that would travel from elect hand to elect hand, with the anxious believer chasing after it, being hounded by Satan, who looks a lot like James Mason. Or God could have replaced the Cross with a military victory that true believers were meant to eternally memorialize or a mere idea that instantaneously popped into the head of each elect person—thereby denying any “means” of grace or claims to good works.
So does all the theological wrangling finally come down to whatever individual Christians find most convincing or comforting? A belief in the freedom of the will has the longest claim to Christian truth, although, ironically, it is the Catholic saint and doctor Augustine who first spells out the double-predestinarian idea, with Thomas Aquinas parking right up next to it. Yet it was never accepted as dogma until the Reformation, and then in the context of the Reformers’ breaking the back of a sacramental/sacerdotal system, which is also what made for such problems within Lutheranism (with Melanchthon having to modify Luther’s ultra-Augustinianism in order to preserve the means of grace as taught by Lutheran theology).
The Eastern Orthodox, who are barely if at all mentioned in Thuesen’s book, and all too often left out of these discussions, have their own time-tested answer to this question. For what it’s worth, I found Robert Shanks’ Elect in the Son and Life in the Son extremely persuasive (if not his view of the sacraments, although the two may not be separable), not to mention John Wesley’s retort to his Calvinist antagonists.
Perhaps all we can do in the end is admit that the construction of economies of salvation and “golden chains” out of the hidden will of a hidden God who is outside of time can only and always be provisional. Or perhaps the Arminians and Orthodox are correct—we are free, right now, to choose—which is the only way love can be called love. (But wouldn’t Calvinists agree, only adding that we are not capable of loving the Cross until our eyes are opened and our hearts softened, and that by an act of the Holy Spirit?) Perhaps this is all meant to drive us to focus on Jesus and not our ideas about how it all works in the time-eternity matrix. (But doesn’t the significance of the Cross as the means of our salvation inevitably present questions about the extent of its effect and how that effect is appropriated by individual believers?)
Ach.
Thuesen has managed to collate and arrange a broad range of historical data and present them in an accessible and coherent fashion, making his Predestination the perfect introduction to the subject, and popular American religion. But if you’re looking for an answer as to who’s right—the Calvinists, the Arminians, the Lutherans, the Orthodox, or the universalists (never mind the Mormons or the Molinists)—you will be sorely disappointed. Reconciling authentic human freedom, and therefore honest responsibility, with a sovereign God’s ultimate freedom is not something to be accomplished in this space/time dimension—at least not to the satisfaction of most Christians.
But that was a foregone conclusion.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:13 am | #1
There are a number of things we could discuss, but for now I’m curious about these two statements:
“Did God choose a predetermined number of human beings to bring to ultimate bliss, and alternatively select a predetermined and far more numerous group of humans on whom to inflict incalculable eternal suffering…Or perhaps the whole ‘I’m in, 95 percent of humanity is out” is just fine.’”
Where do you come up with these percentages? Do you think that’s an honest and accurate depiction of Reformed theology?
April 19th, 2010 | 11:28 am | #2
Incidentally, folks like you wonder aloud how Calvinists can stomach Calvinism, yet you recycle these stale, oft-refuted objections and caricatures of Calvinism. So why do you find it mysterious of Calvinists find your cliche-riddled objections unconvincing? You’re making no good-faith effort to seriously engage the other side. So why would you expect us to be impressed?
Who’s your target audience? Clearly you’re not attempting to open a dialogue with Reformed believers. Are you merely preaching to the choir? Is that your goal?
April 19th, 2010 | 11:33 am | #3
“If Calvinism, especially in its supralapsarian form—which argues that God foreordained the eternal fates of humans not yet created in a world not yet created, never mind fallen…”
Just as a point of historical theology, what makes you think that supralapsarianism teaches double predestination, but infralapsarianism does not?
April 19th, 2010 | 11:37 am | #4
You reject what you do not understand.
No Calvinist suggests that we are elected by arbitrary luck, chance, or a “roll of the dice.” On the contrary, they assert that we are elected according to God’s sovereign criteria which we are not privy to, although we can be assured (because Scripture assures us) that our salvation not because of any virtue inherent in us.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:41 am | #5
Wow. Well, I guess there is a place for the “Truly Reformed” in the world, just as there is a place for the Sacramones.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:42 am | #6
What do percentages matter? Indeed, if it’s turned the other way round, 95% are “in” and 5% left “out,” it’s an even worse and more arbitrary picture of God’s character.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:48 am | #7
Calvinism=heresy
April 19th, 2010 | 11:52 am | #8
Johnny Dialectic
“What do percentages matter?”
Why does truth matter? Apparently, it doesn’t matter to Johnny Dialectic.
However, some of us actually think it’s important to truthfully represent a position we presume to discuss and critique.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:55 am | #9
Johnny Dialectic
“What do percentages matter?”
Since they figure in Sacramone’s argument, they matter to his argument. Isn’t that obvious?
April 19th, 2010 | 11:56 am | #10
orthodoxdj
“Calvinism=heresy”
Eastern Orthodoxy=heresy.
Gee, that was easy.
April 19th, 2010 | 12:03 pm | #11
One of the reasons I like Steve Hayes is that he reads my mind.
Speaking from Calvin’s perspective, does Calvin think that 95% of all people will be lost? I mean: he was baptizing babies. It seems to me that the tiny bunker of mankind to be saved as the elect is a relatively modern interpretation of the Gospel which stands against the Rom 1:16 exclamation that the Gospel is the power to save and not merely a drop of oilment God will put over the teeming billions burning in hell.
Do I think anyone is saved apart from Christ? No. Do I think any are saved apart from faith in Christ? No. Do I think these facts leverage God into being a “Hitler”? Why would I?
The problem for the non-Calvinist — whoever he is, whatever stripe he wears — is that he has to admit that the scope of salvation, however broad or narrow it will be in the final account, has to be explained equally by his own account of the matter as well as by Calvinism. And that explanation has to equally rely on what the Bible says plainly.
So if one says, “well, most people will never be saved by Christ,” then we can at least start with the problem at face value: somehow what Christ does (in this view) is not very generous — even if by conceding “free will” he is apparently “loving”.
I would rather say, as the Bible does, that “many” will be saved, and “many” will be also lost — and that the competing “manies” are not any indication of God’s generousity or mercifulness because none deserve to be saved in the first place.
Are there any non-Calvinists who would really take offense at that last paragraph? If so, would they really rather accept and defend the previous one?
April 19th, 2010 | 12:25 pm | #12
Non-Calvinist theology is the theology of the Early Church. The Early Church received its theology from the Apostles. They got it from Jesus.
Calvinist theology goes back to one man who developed his doctrines 1500 years after Christ.
Yes, this is very easy.
April 19th, 2010 | 12:32 pm | #13
Either You’re In or You’re Out
God loves me and saves me through the sacrificial work of the Lamb on the Cross.
All because of Jesus… I’m In!
To God be the Glory! And to Him be the Glory Alone!
April 19th, 2010 | 12:41 pm | #14
orthodoxdj, check out John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.”
Reformed theology in a nutshell.
April 19th, 2010 | 12:48 pm | #15
The more I become convinced that the God is totally sovereign in salvation the more I become convinced that he will save everyone.
April 19th, 2010 | 12:58 pm | #16
Well at least Steve in Toronto has given us something that we all can agree on.
The idea that God will save everyone is heresy, plain and simple.
The longer these conversations go on, the more I see that all the Arminian arguments against Calvinism, are equally arguments against Arminianism.
Only Open-Theism offers a consistent alternative. Unfortunately, Open-Theism is a damnable heresy.
It’s also been a long time since I’ve seen an Arminian portray the Calvinist view correctly…
Orthodj, go and listen to Ligon Duncan’s address on the patristic fathers. You may have seen it on an earlier post. It will disabuse you of the notion that many of the early fathers did not hold to the same views of God’s sovereignty in salvation as Calvin.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:09 pm | #17
Either:
Or:
Which will it be, I wonder?
April 19th, 2010 | 1:21 pm | #18
Oh my.
I regret I didn’t find this in my RSS reader until after a full lunch.
In all my reading, I have not found a definitive answer on this subject. My suspicion is that there isn’t, nor will there ever be, one. Some things we are given to know, and others we simply are not.
But I have a question.
If God chooses to burn this world to a cinder, Christian and non-Christian alike, save none and start again from scratch, would it be wrong of Him to do so?
The God I see represented in the Bible over and over again from Genesis to Revelation is not just some distant, unconcerned deity watching this ant farm’s destiny unfold, nor is He a cosmic gumball machine from which we can gain blessings if we insert the right coinage (such as mere intellectual assent and a properly penitent prayer). The God whose mind and character are represented for us in the Bible is an altogether different being, and totally sovereign over every whisper of the wind and roll of the seas. If He chooses to elect before the founding of the world (as the Bible indicates He does) His elect who will share in the next age of creation with His Son, who am I to question Him? Similarly, if He wishes to wipe humanity from memory and start again in another way, I am equally unworthy to question Him.
I come to a place where I (and I think we all should) feel like Job on the mountaintop with this subject.
Like Frank said, none of us deserve less than His instantaneous wrath in any case. The very fact some of us are marked for salvation is an incredible miracle of love.
My $0.02 of unsolicited opinion.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:21 pm | #19
Thanks Anthony for this post. Yes, there are hyperbolic statements, which strike me as being intentional literary satire to make the point. It clearly has the pro-Reformed wing of Evangel (which are many) out.
On a Reformed continuum, the worst defenses of the position, it seems to me, tend to come from those Reformed thinkers who have embraced divine voluntarism and its concomitant divine command theory. Calvin is in this camp. BTW, infant baptism is not election on the Reformed view and says nothing about whether one is elect. The best defense tend to be those who privilege the nature of God over the the divine will (like John Owens and Jonathan Edwards).
Within the voluntarist perspective the divine will simply determines everything and we must live with the mystery of sovereignty. The arguments about what is just and morally appropriate tend to come down to what God by an act of will determines to be right. Rightness is really determined by divine command and we must simply obey. Thus it is just for God to condemn because whatever God determines by an act of will is by definition right. This can appear somewhat arbitrary to the human mind although Reformed voluntarists will usually appeal to Romans 9-11 and the “Oh the unsearchable. . .” bit. It has all kinds of implications for morality (e.g., no natural law here, but Kant fits nicely).
Once you move out of the voluntarist camp, the question of who deserves to be saved takes on a different meaning. No creature at all deserves to share God’s life if by deserves one means one can claim an inherent right to that life. This is why EO folks think that all talk of “merit” in the west tends to miss the point. No matter how much effort humans put into the process, they simply cannot make themselves incorruptible or immortal; it is beyond what creatures can do. This can only happen if God chooses to share divine life with his creation; and all of this is prior to any fall.
God shares divine life because of God’s own triune character as the full relational expression of love, justice, etc. Thus God acts in concert with his character and this character has been given to humans who were created in his image. So, the question is whether God’s actions as envisioned by single or double predestination correspond to God’s triune character. I say they don’t, but, as I said, John Owen and Jonathan Edwards have attempted to make the best case. Owens does so by moving the concept of covenant back into the triune being of God.
At the end of the day, what I hope my post suggests is that all of this wrangling over something being “biblical” misses just how much must be placed upon these texts in order to reconcile them. This is why a mere appeal to scripture and better exegesis will not resolve the issue. And, I hope that I have not dismissed all Reformed theology but rather said that certain streams offer a better defense of it than others.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:24 pm | #20
Andy,
The Father draws all men. Christ also says in John 12: “If I be lifted up I will draw all men to myself.”
Was He lifted up? He was.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:33 pm | #21
“Reformed theology in a nutshell.”
That might be true if Molinist and Congruist interpretations of John 6:44 weren’t also possible.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:39 pm | #22
Thanks Alphonsus, Orthodoxdj, and Andy for providing a nice example of my point about scripture interpretation.
It’s why we need to see a deeper meaning in these texts and we need tradition to guide us into that deeper meaning. Calvin recognized as much in all of his talk about “anthropomorphisms” and the need to move beyond them to get at what the text is really saying about God. And, you know, I agree.
April 19th, 2010 | 1:41 pm | #23
Also, I think a pastoral difficulty is raised by Reformed views of predestination. If a spiritual seeker comes and asks, “Does God want me to be in heaven with him? Does God Love me?,” can the Calvinist honestly say, “Yes, God loves you and wants you to go to heaven,” while remaining honest to Reformed views about predestination? I mean, if God predestines the damned to hell, can one say that God loves everyone?
April 19th, 2010 | 2:11 pm | #24
[...] 19, 2010 Anthony Sacramone of the Evangel blog at First Things has a great post that tears down the Calvinist doctrine of double-predestination (i.e. that God chose some people to [...]
April 19th, 2010 | 2:15 pm | #25
Alphonsus,
That’s only a problem if the Bible actually teaches us to tell everyone that God loves them and wants them in heaven.
Why not reply as the apostles did? Tell them that if they turn to God and repent, He will forgive their sin and bring them to glory?
Why tell someone who has not repented that God loves them? Nowhere in Scripture does that happen.
An equivalent twist would be to ask the Arminian? “Is God powerful enough to save such a rotten sinner as me? I don’t have the strength to turn. Is He not strong enough to save me without my consent?
The reality is that both views admit that without repentance, no one can be saved. And, both, if being faithful to Scripture, would skirt your question entirely, and go right to repentance.
Why repent, after all, if God loves me and wants me to be in heaven? Surely He can pull that off if He loves me so much.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:16 pm | #26
Dale Coulter
“On a Reformed continuum, the worst defenses of the position, it seems to me, tend to come from those Reformed thinkers who have embraced divine voluntarism and its concomitant divine command theory. Calvin is in this camp.”
He is? That’s been disputed by scholars like Michael Sudden and Paul Helm. Where’s your counterargument?
“This is why EO folks think that all talk of ‘merit’ in the west tends to miss the point. No matter how much effort humans put into the process, they simply cannot make themselves incorruptible or immortal; it is beyond what creatures can do.”
There is more to original sin than corruption and mortality. There is also culpability. Unrighteousness.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:20 pm | #27
orthodoxdj
“Non-Calvinist theology is the theology of the Early Church. The Early Church received its theology from the Apostles. They got it from Jesus. Calvinist theology goes back to one man who developed his doctrines 1500 years after Christ. Yes, this is very easy.”
Calvinism is the theology of Isaiah, Paul, and John. Calvinism received its theology from Jesus and the Apostles. By contrast, Orthodox theology represents the backdated tradition of men. Yes, this is very easy.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:20 pm | #28
Alphonsus,
An interesting set of questions. As someone who is not Reformed, I think the Reformed person could say:
1) God does love you because you are the object of his common grace whether you are elect or not
2) I cannot presume your election (or mine for that matter) and so I can say that that love of God comes to you in and through the mercy of Christ. So God always loves in Christ. And, if you claim Christ, you are loved because a) you could not claim Christ without God first claiming you and b) the Spirit has expressed this love to you. Since I cannot presume your election and thus whether you are genuinely elect, I must tell you what scripture tells you. You are loved in Christ.
3) If you have been baptized as an infant, then you experience the covenant blessings of God’s chosen people and thus you are loved (whether elect or not).
That would seem to me to be three ways I could say that God loves someone and maintain a level of consistency with the Reformed perspective.
To my mind, one of the most difficult questions for anyone to answer is the problem of evil. Reformed theology, especially in its supralapsarian expression, makes the problem almost insurmountable because it suggests that God set in motion a chain of events leading to the fall of humanity. In his polemical treatise on predestination, Calvin basically says that God caused the fall although humans are at fault. He reconciles it by claiming that humans are the immediate cause of the fall and thus they are ultimately responsible even though God is the remote cause. It’s like saying the 15th domino is the cause of the 16th domino falling and thus is at fault even though someone else started the chain of cause and effect.
The best way out of this dilemma is to appeal to divine command theory, which is essentially what Calvin does. Still, it’s a problem.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:26 pm | #29
Anthony Sacramone
“Perhaps all we can do in the end is admit that the construction of economies of salvation and ‘golden chains’ out of the hidden will of a hidden God who is outside of time can only and always be provisional.”
Calvinism doesn’t construct soteriology from the “hidden will” of God. Rather, Calvinism constructs its soteriology from the revealed soteriology of Scripture, as well as the revealed promises of the Gospel.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:29 pm | #30
It has been said:
This is almost entirely missing the point of infant baptism. Does infant baptism make one “elect”?
No, and heck no.
But why baptize infants, I wonder? One gambit is to appeal to “paedofaith”, which in fact is a statement about election — that those who have faith at birth are the elect, and ought to be baptized.
Another gambit is to wash away the stain of original sin — which is, again, an appeal to the state of the elect, to put these little ones in Christ for the sake of saving their souls. It most certainly does relate to who is (or ought to be) elect to baptize an infant with the intent of putting him or her in Christ. (FWIW, this is more Lutheran than Presbyterian, so it is “reformed” is a very broad way of speaking)
Yet a third gambit is to say that they have a place “in the church” and therefore “in Christ” — which is the softest view so far. It places an infant in a wonderful a-mil already/not yet tension, and uses baptism as a kind of paedoevangelism back to which they can look and say, “I was placed in the church, and therefore in Christ, that I might yet have faith.” So while in this version the infant is not elect, he is told he can and should be — he is meant to be among Christ’s people and therefore in Christ. (I would say this is a Weslyan or Methodist view)
The only view of infant baptism which does not make us consider election is the purely-sociological view in whicht he child is merely “christened”. That is, the child is in some sense made part of society by a christian ceremony, in some way validated as a citizen and a person in good standing with a family. (this is a wholly-liberal view of infant baptism)
Infant baptist does, in fact, demand some kind of perspective which one has on election — because baptism in some sense is for the believer even in this case, and for the sake of publicly stating in which kingdom one resides. It’s simply not thinking clearly about what is being said to avoid the conclusion that baptism is in fact a primordial sacramental method of claiming some of God’s elect.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:29 pm | #31
Anthony Sacramone
“But unlike with a lottery ticket, figuring out your election status left you with nothing to cling to but a purely subjective notion of the operation of the Holy Spirit within your life.”
The practical question is no different in Calvinism than evangelicalism generally. Do you have saving faith?
April 19th, 2010 | 2:32 pm | #32
Anthony Sacramone
“Especially one whose obsession with his own glory reduces every person to nothing more than an adornment. If this is true…”
Well, Jeremy Pierce is both a Calvinist as well as a contributor to Evangel, and he’d take issue with your characterization. Have you read his material on the glory of God?
April 19th, 2010 | 2:39 pm | #33
Steve,
Show me where the Early Church taught Calvinism.
April 19th, 2010 | 2:46 pm | #34
Anthony Sacramone
“(Whether non-elect infants go to hell has been a long-fought controversy within the Reformed world, admittedly, but there’s nothing it its confessions or theology that seriously argues against it.)”
And there’s nothing in its confessions or theology that seriously argues for it.
However, the question of infant salvation isn’t just a question for Reformed theology. In terms of historical theology generally, the premise of infant baptism is that assumption that infants are born in a state of original sin, so they require baptism to absolve the guilt of original sin. Otherwise, unbaptized babies are damned.
So, by your logic, just about every paedobaptist tradition (e.g. Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist) worships a “monster” who “out-Hitlers Hitler.” Is that the point you were trying to make?
April 19th, 2010 | 2:49 pm | #35
orthodoxdj
“Show me where the Early Church taught Calvinism.”
Why should I care? There’s no correlation between antiquity and truth. There were heresies in NT times. Some NT epistles are directed at heresies.
What concerns me is not what the “Early Church” taught, but what the Bible teaches.
And, of course, your appeal to the “Early Church” begs the question inasmuch as early heretics claimed to represent the true church. So you need some independent criterion to justify your identification of the “Early Church.”
April 19th, 2010 | 2:53 pm | #36
Ortho,
Listen to that link I referred you to.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:00 pm | #37
Dale Coulter
“Reformed theology, especially in its supralapsarian expression, makes the problem almost insurmountable because it suggests that God set in motion a chain of events leading to the fall of humanity.”
How does that distinguish supralapsarianism from infralapsarianism, exactly? In infralapsarianism, God also decreed the fall? The supra/infra debate involves the teleological order of the decrees. That’s the point of contrast, and not that God decrees the fall (or damnation) in supralapsarianism, while not decreeing those events in infralapsarianism.
I have to wonder where some commenters get their information?
For that matter, how does this distinguish Calvinism from Arminianism or Molinism? In Arminianism, if God made a world in which the fall was a foreseeable consequence, then he set in motion a chain of events leading to the fall of man.
Likewise, in Molinism, if God chose to instantiate a possible world in which the fall occurs, then he thereby set in motion of a chain of events leading to the fall of man.
What I’m encountering in this thread are many elementary misstatements of Reformed theology, along with an illogical grasp of the alternatives.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:05 pm | #38
Many responses.
Let me begin with infant baptism. I tend to interpret the possibilities differently:
1. Catholics baptize infants because they hold that the habit of charity (sanctifying grace) is bestowed upon the infant at that point. There sill is no faith on the part of the infant because an infant with an undeveloped intellect cannot exercise faith. The church believes for the infant.
2. The Reformed model as I understand it is that infant baptism places the child in the orbit of the covenant much like circumcision did for an Israelite. So, I guess you could say that this is related to election in the sense that the child experiences the blessings of the elect people of God and these blessings are secondary causes that help the “elect” child realize his/her election.
In light of this, I could agree with your basic point that “for the elect” infant baptism can be a secondary cause in the same way that preaching the gospel or personal testimony or anything else like that is a secondary cause.
My point was to say that infant baptism is not ultimately what makes one elect. And I would say this as being the case even more than preaching or witnessing because Word and Spirit must come together for election to be realized. It is the regenerating activity of the Spirit that enables the person to realize election through the preaching of the Word, and this occurs with or without infant baptism. This is how Reformed Baptists, etc., can all come together.
On Calvin as a voluntarist, I guess it all depends on how you read Calvin’s use of the dialectic of the two powers that came out of the Middle Ages. I have not read Paul Helm on this point even though I know his work since he was at King’s College, London when I was at Oxford. However, he may be arriving at his position by way of Calvin’s rejection of the two powers dialectic even though others, such as Francis Oakley, have argued that Calvin sneaks it back in. So, it’s a matter of interpretation, which I will grant. Calvin’s followers like Francis Turrentin used it for sure.
I’m not sure how to respond to the “more to original sin” statement because I don’t understand the point of the claim. Maybe some clarification?
April 19th, 2010 | 3:28 pm | #39
Steve,
You have essentially conceded the argument. History doesn’t matter to you. God’s people do not matter to you. Living the Scriptures does not matter to you. You are the pope. The church is in your image and likeness. The faith was once for all delivered to you.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:35 pm | #40
Dale Coulter
“I’m not sure how to respond to the “more to original sin” statement because I don’t understand the point of the claim. Maybe some clarification?”
Biblical hamartiology and soterilogy has a forensic dimension that your leaving entirely out of account.
Sin doesn’t merely leaves us liable to death. It leaves us guilty before God. Morality as well as mortality.
Now maybe your EO filter screens out that central strand of the Biblical witness but it is there, all the same.
So I don’t see that you can swap in corruption/mortality categories for merit/demerit categories (or their Biblical equivalents).
April 19th, 2010 | 3:41 pm | #41
Yes, I understand the distinction between supra and infra with respect to divine decrees. It seems to me that if you posit that prior to the decrees to create or permit the fall, God decreed to elect some to salvation, then you’re in for a rough time with respect to getting out of the problem of evil. If you go with the infra position, which became the dominant Reformed position because of the Heidelberg theologians, then it’s not as bad. God draws the elect from the mass of damned humanity not prior to creation or any fall whatsoever. You can then argue, as Ursinus and Zanchius did, in support of divine permission and concurrence as a way out of any kind of determinism and to affirm freedom and contingency.
However, if you want to claim it’s the same, be my guest.
It’s also misleading to keep using the tag Arminian as though everyone who rejected Reformed theology was or is a follower of Arminius. If you can talk about misconceptions and misnomers, so can I. It is a debated point that Wesley ever read Arminius, but he did read the Greek Fathers like Clement of Alexandria. As historians have shown “English Arminianism” is a different animal and owes more to Greek Fathers than to Arminius’ modified Thomism.
On the Molinism bit, I would have to say that I disagree with that particular read of Molinism. God knows that given counter factuals of creaturely freedom, a person placed in a particular set of circumstances will do X. However, such counter factuals must unfold over the course of history. In other words, God does not by an act of will set in motion a predetermined order of events that unfold in a particular way. God sets in motion a series of events that can unfold in a variety of ways given counter factuals of creaturely freedom. However, there are other philosophical problems with Molinism that have nothing to do with this particular debate. I once saw Tom Flint, an ardent Catholic defender of Molinism, come under intense fire from Richard Swinburne and Keith Ward at Oriel College during a debate on this subject. It wasn’t pretty, but Flint held his own.
And finally, even if you think I’m making “elementary” mistakes, let’s please be more charitable in calling me out on them. My simple request that you can either accept or not.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:45 pm | #42
orthodoxdj
“Steve, You have essentially conceded the argument. History doesn’t matter to you. God’s people do not matter to you. Living the Scriptures does not matter to you. You are the pope. The church is in your image and likeness. The faith was once for all delivered to you.”
Bible history doesn’t matter to you. And church history points in all different directions.
The Eastern Orthodox don’t have a monopoly on “God’s people.” Sorry to disappoint you.
The EO don’t live the Scriptures. They live their traditions.
Your pope is the Greek Fathers and 7 ecumenical councils. My “pope” is God’s word. I like my “pope” better than yours.
You’ve made the church in the image of EO representatives.
The “faith once delivered” is an allusion to a NT text, not postbiblical traditions.
I’d also note that I have yet to see to present a single argument for your position. What distinguishes you from a Mormon who merely stipulates the truth of his position? All you’ve done is to posit that EO is true. Well, anyone can do that.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:48 pm | #43
Steve,
My EO comment had nothing to do with sin at all so I’m still not sure why you’re invoking original guilt here.
My point was that even prefallen human beings could not realize the divine purpose for their lives apart from God sharing his life with them. No human can cross the chasm from finitude to infinity. Either God builds the bridge or it does not get built. Thus, to put it in Reformed categories, there was no “covenant of works” in the Garden because such a perspective does not see salvation ultimately as participating in divine life (theosis).
I suppose I could say that humans were “righteous” in the sense of innocent in the Garden just like the book of Job calls Job righteous before the Lord. And I could say that humans had a fundamental integrity about them that Anselm called “original righteousness.” But none of this qualifies as immortality or incorruptibility. So, either God had to give it to them even before the fall or they would not have it. Sharing divine life is a gift that God alone can give because sharing divine life comes about by God making us like himself, which we, as creatures, cannot accomplish no matter how much we live rightly.
April 19th, 2010 | 3:59 pm | #44
“Why tell someone who has not repented that God loves them? Nowhere in Scripture does that happen.”
All right. Then let’s put forth the question as, “Does God want me to repent?” How would a Calvinist answer that? If they are elect, the answer is “yes,” but if they are predestined to Hell, the answer would be “no.”
‘An equivalent twist would be to ask the Arminian? “Is God powerful enough to save such a rotten sinner as me? I don’t have the strength to turn. Is He not strong enough to save me without my consent?’
That question would only be asked be a cause for worry for a scrupulous person, i.e. a person with a form of psychological problem. They need a counselor, not a theologian. First, if the person is sincerely worried about pleasing God, wouldn’t that indicate consent to His grace? Second, who said it’s a question of “is God powerful enough?”? I think most Molinists, for example, would say that God could force anyone into heaven (i.e. against their free will) but would not out because of His justice and charity.
“Why repent, after all, if God loves me and wants me to be in heaven? Surely He can pull that off if He loves me so much.”
Ironically, the caricature you present seems rather similar to what you have when one accepts ideas like double predestination, total depravity and irresistable grace: “Why repent? If God wants me to repent, He’ll just send me some irresistable grace. He hasn’t, so I can conclude that God wants me to keep on sinning. I’m totally depraved, so I just couldn’t do otherwise, anyway…”
God Bless.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:00 pm | #45
Dale Coulter
“It seems to me that if you posit that prior to the decrees to create or permit the fall, God decreed to elect some to salvation, then you’re in for a rough time with respect to getting out of the problem of evil.”
Since that’s not an actual argument, there’s nothing to get out of.
“However, if you want to claim it’s the same, be my guest.”
Did I say that were the same? No. In context, I said they were the same in reference to the fact that, either way, God decreed the Fall. Some commenters don’t seem to be conversant with what the supra/infra positions actually represent, even though they act as though they do.
“It’s also misleading to keep using the tag Arminian as though everyone who rejected Reformed theology was or is a follower of Arminius.”
Well, since I didn’t use it that way, there’s nothing misleading about my usage.
“On the Molinism bit, I would have to say that I disagree with that particular read of Molinism. God knows that given counter factuals of creaturely freedom, a person placed in a particular set of circumstances will do X. However, such counter factuals must unfold over the course of history. In other words, God does not by an act of will set in motion a predetermined order of events that unfold in a particular way. God sets in motion a series of events that can unfold in a variety of ways given counter factuals of creaturely freedom.”
i) If God knows what a person will do in a given situation, and God creates that situation, then it will unfold accordingly.
ii) In Molinism, God is not instantiating a wide-open scenario. Rather, he’s instantiating one possible world to the exclusion of another (or other) possible alternative(s). It’s not two or more possible worlds bundled into one actual world–as if contraries are simultaneously instantiable.
“And finally, even if you think I’m making “elementary” mistakes, let’s please be more charitable in calling me out on them.”
That comment didn’t single you out.
However, if you’re concerned with charitable discourse, you might redirect your concerns at Sacramone, who went out of his way to use the most incendiary invective he could think of.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:17 pm | #46
Steve,
OK, I need to know how someone who holds to a supralapsarian position can claim some sort of causal concurrence between the divine will and the human will with respect to the fall. It seems to me that an infralapsarian position can because it sees the fall as involving a permissive will on God’s part. In the supra position, God is actively bringing about the fall of humanity, not by permission. So, one option for the infra position has been removed by the supra position to my mind. Maybe I’m wrong here.
Your description of Molinism seems to assume that God directly creates every possible scenario when, in fact, that is not what happens. There is a possible world instantiated with a number of possible scenarios within that world. Out of these possible scenarios history unfolds as creatures are presented with counter factuals of creaturely freedom. God knows regardless of the counter factual presented what the creature will choose by virtue of his Middle Knowledge, but this does not mean that God has actually brought about the counter factual as some proximate cause or even in the sense of a direct chain of cause and effect. It’s not wide open, but it’s not so predetermined as your comments seem to imply.
My apologies on the misunderstanding about how you were using Arminian and to whom your comments were directed. Since you’re not using Arminian as a blanket term, maybe you could throw in Wesleyan every now and then just to give us Wesleyans a bone or two. Thanks.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:21 pm | #47
Alphonsus,
I don’t know if you’re comments were directed at my response to your original post but I’ll let the Reformed folks field that one.
However, I hope that Reformed folks posting here will see by my defense of a position I do not hold that I am trying to read them as charitably as I can.
Boy, you throw out a post on Reformed theology and the thread develops rather quickly. But I have enjoyed the back and forth so thanks Steve, Frank, et al.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:23 pm | #48
Alphonsus,
You missed my point. The point was that you were asking how a Calvinist would answer a question that the Bible never addresses.
I answered as faithfully to Scripture as I could. Assure them that God will never turn away a repentant sinner.
In the same way, I assume that if you were asked the question I posited “Is God powerful enough to save such a rotten sinner as I without my help?”, Of course you would (or should) say “Of course He is so powerful. You are right that you are a rotten sinner, only repent and He will, with no help from you, save you completely.”
Was that so hard?
The question, as you raised it, included the question “Does He want me in heaven?”
I submit that unless they repent, there is no reason to conclude that He does. We know from 1 Peter, that He wants all of His elect in heaven, but that’s it. If they repent, you know that God wants them, after all, He has just granted them the gift of repentance.
If, by that question, you meant “Will He take me?” I think I answered that to the affirmative. “If you repent, of course He will take you, the Bible says that all those who come to Him, He will in no wise, cast out.”
I fail to see how you can honestly say that God wants someone in heaven whom He is willing to cast into hell. If God really wanted them, He would get them. You make it sound (and, it seems to me like Arminianism makes it sound) like God doesn’t want me in heaven so much as He wants me to jump through some prescribed hoops, and if I do, I get heaven as a reward.
I believe the biblical view is that God wants, above all, to be glorified, at all costs. That cost includes the salvation of some (that He be glorified in His mercy and grace) and the damnation of others (that He be glorified in His justice, wrath and holiness) and a host of other things I know little or nothing about.
I might say that that’s an odd, or cruel or silly way to glorify oneself, but I am not God and have really, no clue what would perfectly glorify God, so I would be sinful in the extreme to say those things. No, I must be content to believe what Scripture tells us. (Not saying you are not content also to believe Scripture, just saying how I’m thinking here.)
April 19th, 2010 | 4:36 pm | #49
Steve,
The Mormon argument you make is more consistent with your position. Mormons don’t care about Church History. All they care about is their interpretation of the Bible. Their interpretation is not to be found in the EC, just like Calvinism. Calvinism was never the teaching of the Church.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:45 pm | #50
Orthodj,
Why not advance an actual argument?
Even once would be a start…
April 19th, 2010 | 4:48 pm | #51
Dale offered this:
I wouldn’t say otherwise, Dale — that is, I wouldnt say less than this for sure regarding the RC view of baptism. But there are three things which I think are critical that you have excluded in this brief summary — and it is brief, so I caulk the omissions up to that:
1. Except for extreme cases of martyrdom, the RC do not believe that the unbaptized can enter into heaven. So in that sense, baptism does delineate the elect from the non-elect in RC theology.
2. Because baptism is this sort of act of charity, it is the method by which they see themselves opening the door of faith for the child — who is stained by original sin otherwise. In this sense, the RC doctrine holds the child in some sense in relationshop toward the elect.
3. The massive short-coming of RC theology in this matter is its abject refusal to see that the Bible repeatedly distinguishes the people of God in the final sense from all other people by using the term “the elect”. The Catechism uses the term “the saints” but neglects the term “those chosen by God” in a pretty stark way. This has to at least position the RC approach in contrast to Scripture’s view of what God is doing even if it does not over turn the RC view; in that, what the RC view refuses to explicitly say about the effects of baptism in terms of election can be at least observed if we line up the cathechetical view and the biblical view.
Dale also said:
I would say that this is the best-in-class paedobaptist view. Baptism is a form of aggressive evangelism for those who are born to believing parents.
Finally, Dale said:
This is true insofar as it goes. The problem is that baptism is ultimately for the elect. It does not make one elect any more than having fleas makes on a dog, so to speak. But the purpose of baptism is, in a material and public way, show that the elect are called out.
Baptism shows us who the church perceives to be called out.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:52 pm | #52
Men meant their sin for evil but God meant their sin for good. (If you disagree ask Joseph or Christ).
All talk about salvation or damnation, divorced from the IMMEDIATE application of the cross, is worse than foolish. (Ask Calvin).
The import then of the words, Who shall ascend into heaven? is the same, as though you should say, “Who knows whether the inheritance of eternal and celestial life remains for us?” And the words, Who shall descend into the deep? mean the same, as though you should say, “Who knows whether the everlasting destruction of the soul follows the death of the body?” He teaches us, that doubt on those two points is removed by the righteousness of faith; for the one would draw down Christ from heaven, and the other would bring him up again from death. Christ’s ascension into heaven ought indeed fully to confirm our faith as to eternal life; for he in a manner removes Christ himself from the possession of heaven, who doubts whether the inheritance of heaven is prepared for the faithful, in whose name, and on whose account he has entered thither. Since in like manner he underwent the horrors of hell to deliver us from them, to doubt whether the faithful are still exposed to this misery, is to render void, and, as it were, to deny his death.
Infra-supra-molin-hamarti-tradition competely irrelevant. Words people like to argue over so they can ruin themselves. (ruin=damn). If you disagree ask Timothy.
NOTHING NOTHING NOTHING can be comprehended apart from the cross.
April 19th, 2010 | 4:54 pm | #53
Daryl,
I fail to see how you can honestly say that God wants someone in heaven whom He is willing to cast into hell. If God really wanted them, He would get them. You make it sound (and, it seems to me like Arminianism makes it sound) like God doesn’t want me in heaven so much as He wants me to jump through some prescribed hoops, and if I do, I get heaven as a reward.
Since Arminius operated within Reformed scholastic categories, that may be the case. But it is not the case for Wesleyanism or EO. First, salvation just is not about entrance into heaven at the end of the day. You probably don’t think so either, but the juridical framework with which you operate suggests it is.
Second, it’s not so arbitrary as jumping through hoops. Wesleyans privilege sanctification, which concerns the transformation of persons from sinners to saints. This transformation cannot occur without human willing, which even Reformed folks would agree with. Regeneration is commensurate with repentance whether you hold to synergism or monergism. Thus the ultimate point, it seems to me, is not the guilt problem but the depravity issue from which personal guilt arises.
However, even with all of this there is still the point that sharing God’s life involves a movement from mortal to immorality and corruptible to incorruptible (resurrection language).
I say all of this to say that when one talks about divine intentionality (what God really wants), one has to keep several ends in mind. God wants to heal humans from the disease of sin, God wants to share his life with humans, God wants to share his life in such a way as is commensurate with the gift of human freedom. And the glory God receives is in sharing his life in such a way as to allow the creation to fulfill the original purpose for which he created it. As Athanasius, Anselm et al. indicate, God is not going to allow the creation to flounder in corruption, death, chaos and darkness. When God works so as to share his life in such a way that creation flourishes through realizing its divine purpose, then God gets the glory. My good and God’s glory do not have to be in conflict with one another as you suggest.
I think we can all agree with these ideas. Now the question becomes how best to resolve them. Does the Reformed perspective resolve them more effectively than other perspectives?
April 19th, 2010 | 5:08 pm | #54
Frank,
It’s always good to spar with you. You are Baptist right? I thought I gleaned that somewhere along the way. Your answer at the end,
This is true insofar as it goes. The problem is that baptism is ultimately for the elect. It does not make one elect any more than having fleas makes on a dog, so to speak. But the purpose of baptism is, in a material and public way, show that the elect are called out.
Baptism shows us who the church perceives to be called out.
This sure sounds like a good Baptist statement. And, I’m happy to agree since I myself hold to believer’s baptism. I don’t think it changes my point, but I could clarify by saying that infant baptism is not how one realizes his/her election, which is from Word and Spirit. Infant baptism might testify to it by way of looking forward to it in the same way that adult baptism looks back to it, but that’s it.
As to the RC position, well, I think there is some wiggle room for different interpretations there. For example, the Catholic Catechism does say that the church knows no other way that infants can get in apart from baptism, but it leaves open the possibility that there are indeed other ways it does not know about. In any case, that’s another debate for another time.
Thanks again for the exchange.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:14 pm | #55
Dale.
I would say that the Reformed perspective resolves these issues best, precisely because it is the biblical view. But you probably knew I’d say that.
You said this one thing that, I think, shows exactly where a significant problem lies.
You said “God wants to share his life with humans”.
But the Bible says differently. The Bible tells us that God wants to save a Bride for His Son. And it consistently identifies His Bride as distinct from the rest of humanity.
Even Jesus, in his High Priestly prayer says that He prays for the church while specifically not praying for the world.
You are right that I don’t see salvation as entrance into heaven only. But nothing happens without regeneration and nothing happens before regeneration. And, in fact, when Paul says ” Those He justified, He also sanctified and those He sanctified He also glorified” indicating that for God, starting anything makes it’s completion a done deal.
Ergo, if He doesn’t finally saved someone, He never started. And if He never started, why?
Because He has chosen a bride – out of humanity – not all of humanity in general.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:15 pm | #56
If God is infinite for He has no beginning or end, and if His Creation is finite for it does have a beginning and an end, then God must have existed prior to his Creation. Therefore, if God is truly all knowing, then God must have known the fate of everyone before creating them.
But knowing is not the same as deciding, so the important question is, ‘Can we really choose for ourselves a fate not part of God’s plan?’ or ‘Just how free is our Free Will?
April 19th, 2010 | 5:22 pm | #57
Frank Turk wrote:
“1. Except for extreme cases of martyrdom, the RC do not believe that the unbaptized can enter into heaven. So in that sense, baptism does delineate the elect from the non-elect in RC theology.”
Um, incorrect. That Catholic Church teaches that salvation is possible via three potential routes:
1) Sacramental Baptism, which washes away that stain of original sin (but not the lifelong side-effect of constsnt temptation away from the good), confers Sanctifying Grace (much as do the other Sacraments) and incorporates the Baptised into the Body of Christ. As a consequence of these effects Baptism restores the capacity of the Baptised’s will to respond to the Grace of God.
2) Baptism of Blood, which has the same “effects” as Sacrmatenal Baptism but which acrues to those who die willingly for the Faith in Christ but do not have access to Sacramental Baptism before their martyrdom.
3) Baptism of Desire, whereby it is possible that a person who does not know Christ might be saved by Christ nonetheless if they possessed a sincere desire to seek the Truth and to conform their life to it the best they can.
It should be pointed out that the Catholic Church hold out category #3 as a possibility without saying dogmatically whether the number of souls thereby saved throughout history is 0, 5, or billions. Rather, the existence of category #3 is a reminder that while man may be bound by the Word, Christ is the Word who is free to save whoever he desires and that we should not assume that our interpretation of this or that passage of scripture gives us perfect understanding of His desires.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:22 pm | #58
Daryl,
The Calvinism debate has been done over and over on this blog. I can pull up all kinds of old posts if you like. My point was made when it went conceded that the historic consensus of Christian history knows not Calvinism. As a philosopher I know that WHEN a belief started does not prove whether or not a belief is true or false. However, I think all of us can see that Church history matters. The fact that the Church did not hold to Calvinism should tell us something. Did it really take 1500 years to discover the truth?
April 19th, 2010 | 5:26 pm | #59
Dale Coulter
“Your description of Molinism seems to assume that God directly creates every possible scenario when, in fact, that is not what happens.”
i) No. Remember that I’m responding to the metaphor of “chain reaction.” By definition, a chain reaction is a case of indirect causation. A indirectly causes E because A causes B, which causes C, which causes D, which causes E.
ii) And I didn’t say the Molinist God creates “possibilities.” Rather, I said the Molinist God creates actualities by choosing which possibility, or set of possibilities (i.e. possible world) to instantiate.
“There is a possible world instantiated with a number of possible scenarios within that world. Out of these possible scenarios history unfolds as creatures are presented with counter factuals of creaturely freedom.”
You’re blurring possibility and actuality. Possible worlds or world-segments represent alternate possibilities. These are abstract objects. When the Molinist God instantiates a possible world, that’s a complete, self-contained, and consistent set of concretized possibilities, in contrast to unexemplified alternate possibilities.
God is selecting from contrary alternatives when he instantiates a possible world, not combining contrary alternatives in the same world–which would be incoherent.
Not all possibilities are compossible. An actual world can’t exemplify incompossible alternatives.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:31 pm | #60
orthodoxdj
“My point was made when it went conceded that the historic consensus of Christian history knows not Calvinism.”
There’s no such thing as consensus in church history.
“However, I think all of us can see that Church history matters.”
Beginning with NT church history.
“The fact that the Church did not hold to Calvinism should tell us something.”
Yes, it tells us something about groupthink, institutional inertia, and the fact that theological dissent criminalized.
“Did it really take 1500 years to discover the truth?”
I can just imagine the Sanhedrin using the same argument at the trial of Christ.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:44 pm | #61
Dale Coulter
“OK, I need to know how someone who holds to a supralapsarian position can claim some sort of causal concurrence between the divine will and the human will with respect to the fall. It seems to me that an infralapsarian position can because it sees the fall as involving a permissive will on God’s part. In the supra position, God is actively bringing about the fall of humanity, not by permission. So, one option for the infra position has been removed by the supra position to my mind. Maybe I’m wrong here.
i) There are no passive decrees. The decrees don’t merely allow things to happen. They ensure their occurrence.
ii) The basic distinction in the supra/infra debate is over different teleological arrangements. What presupposes what? What’s a means and what’s an end?
iii) Then there’s the question of how God implements his plan. Broadly speaking, that involves fiat creation, providence, and miracles. Primary and secondary causes.
iv) But the Bible doesn’t have a philosophical theory of causation, and there are various theories of causation. Calvinism isn’t committed to any particular theory of causation.
Theologians frequently avail themselves of the philosophical resources of the day, as well as the “scientific” models and metaphors available to them. And that, of course, varies from one time and place to the next.
April 19th, 2010 | 5:48 pm | #62
Never have so few said so little. In keeping with the title of this thread, Auf Wiedersehen
April 19th, 2010 | 5:55 pm | #63
Steve,
Thank you.
April 19th, 2010 | 6:33 pm | #64
OK, I’m done. I think we’re talking past one another now Steve.
I really don’t know what you mean by concretized possibilities when God instantiates a possible world. My point was that the possible world God chooses to actualize or instantiate, contains within it a set of possibilities, which are only actualized as history unfolds. So within world A, there are a number of scenarios that could unfold given creaturely decisions. This is not to confuse the possible with the actual. You seem to keep assuming that once God instantiates a possible world, then all events in that world are already determined in some Reformed way. That is, God’s making an actual world necessitates God’s making all possible events within that world actual. I dispute this point. But I think, as I said, we’re talking past one another here.
When I said permissive I was merely echoing Jerom Zanchius’ own language when he says that God decrees to permit the fall. Yes, the decree itself represents God’s active will insofar as it expresses divine purpose/intention (teleology as you put it), but the will is to permit it. This move allows Zanchius to attempt to reconcile how God wills something and yet humans will it through concurrent causality as the decree is actualized in time.
But, you know, I am happy to be wrong on this point. However, I do find it interesting that the Heidelberg theologians themselves thought there was a difference. Maybe you know better. If you think supra and infra both reduce to the same position in that God is actively willing the fall of the human race so that God can be glorified by actively saving some, then fine. Since I’m not Reformed I don’t want or need to continue to defend any difference. As I said, to my mind, this complicates the problem of evil considerably because it attributes the introduction of evil into the world ultimately to the a divine act (not what God knows, but what God actively wills to be the case). If God stacked the dominos in such a way that the fall happened necessarily, well, you’ve got a problem. Maybe you don’t think so, but I do. Molinism does not lead to this position.
Well, thanks for the generous and vigorous debate.
April 19th, 2010 | 6:47 pm | #65
Oh, I forgot to say something to Daryl. Since you were generous to respond to my concerns, which I appreciate.
I guess I interpret the NT use of family language as implying a sharing of lives. Abba in Galatians, new humanity in Ephesians, bride in Revelation and Ephesians, etc. This set of terms compliments other sets like citizens, stones in the temple, etc.
April 19th, 2010 | 6:58 pm | #66
Oh, I agree Dale, clearly it is a sharing of lives. How else can we claim to be brothers & sisters, or even stones builded together, right?
The question is, sharing of lives with whom (besides Christ I mean) , and, more importantly, who has the freedom to determine who the whom will be?
I take John 6, when it says “All the Father gives me will come to me, and I will raise him up at the last day.”, to mean a finite number of humanity, chosen by the Father before they come to Christ.
Like wise Act 13:38 (I think that’s the reference) when it says “all those ordained to eternal life, believed.” to mean a particular group of people chosen before they believe, for reasons known only to God.
So I see no disconnect between the “salvation to eternal life” idea and the “sharing the life of Christ” motif.
Where we essentially differ is what the determining factor in how that group of believers/sharers in the life of Christ, come to be, is.
I’ve also enjoyed the discussion. Thanks.
April 19th, 2010 | 7:20 pm | #67
Dale Coulter
“I really don’t know what you mean by concretized possibilities when God instantiates a possible world.”
Mere possibilities don’t exist in time and space. To concretize possibilities is to exemplify them in time and space (or at least in time).
“My point was that the possible world God chooses to actualize or instantiate, contains within it a set of possibilities, which are only actualized as history unfolds.”
Which doesn’t mean a set of contrary possibilities.
The abstract ensemble of possible worlds is like a garden of forking paths. An actual world instantiates one of those paths.
“So within world A, there are a number of scenarios that could unfold given creaturely decisions. This is not to confuse the possible with the actual.”
Except that it does. To say that within world A are contrary possibilities is to embed two or more possible worlds (or world-segments) within the same actualized possible world–which is incoherent.
“A number of scenarios that could unfold” represents different possible worlds for different branching possibilities–not different forking paths which occupy the same concrete reality. Different timelines are represented by different possible worlds, and vice versa.
To select one possible world from many, then realize that possible world, is to realize that possible world rather than some contrary set of possibilities.
“You seem to keep assuming that once God instantiates a possible world, then all events in that world are already determined in some Reformed way.”
No, they are determined by God’s selection of one to the exclusion of another (or others).
“That is, God’s making an actual world necessitates God’s making all possible events within that world actual.”
I didn’t discuss how God brings about all events, whether directly or indirectly. That’s not the issue.
April 19th, 2010 | 7:41 pm | #68
Dale Coulter
“When I said permissive I was merely echoing Jerom Zanchius’ own language when he says that God decrees to permit the fall. Yes, the decree itself represents God’s active will insofar as it expresses divine purpose/intention (teleology as you put it), but the will is to permit it.”
A “decree to permit” is not the same thing as merely permitting it (“bare permission”), as if it would happen all by itself unless God actively intervened to prevent it.
“This move allows Zanchius to attempt to reconcile how God wills something and yet humans will it through concurrent causality as the decree is actualized in time.”
In supralapsarianism, it’s not as if human agents are forced to act against their will. There is no sense of compulsion.
And, in supralapsarianism, human beings are secondary agents. They can and do various things. They also deliberate.
“As I said, to my mind, this complicates the problem of evil considerably because it attributes the introduction of evil into the world ultimately to the a divine act (not what God knows, but what God actively wills to be the case).”
Your terminology is very imprecise. The decree is a divine “act” in the same of a mental act. On the other hand, it’s not a divine act in the sense of a creative act.
And it’s hardly adequate to say that God merely foreknew the Fall. God is the Creator. If the fall was a foreseeable consequence, then God introduces evil into the world by knowingly creating a world in which the Fall will occur.
At the same time, this is a necessary rather than sufficient condition. Counterfactual causation (i.e. unless A occurs, B will not occur).
“If God stacked the dominos in such a way that the fall happened necessarily, well, you’ve got a problem.”
That depends on what you mean by “necessarily.” Unless you’re an open theist, it follows that if God chooses to create a world in full knowledge of the outcome, then the foreseen world which he makes will unfold exactly as he foresaw it.
“Molinism does not lead to this position.”
Except that it does. If God chooses to instantiate the set of possibilities known as world A rather than the set of possibilities known as world B, or vice versa, then those and only those possibilities will eventuate.
April 19th, 2010 | 8:06 pm | #69
How grumpy can Anthony Sacramone be, tossing this pointless stink bomb onto the blog? A little exasperated with the New Calvinists? Unfulfilled from time at the Reformed Vatican of Redeemer Pres.? Boo-hoo. All the complaints he airs sound very close to those of New Atheists against all believers. “It doesn’t make sense!” “There are contradictions!!” Sorry God did not get your very intelligent memo there. What’s more offputting is how breezily he dismisses Augustine and Aquinas as if he is a superior authority, when he cannot even manage data confirmation like if EOs “are barely” or “at all” mentioned in Thuesen’s book. A post that displays lots of learning and little grace. Not the best way to recommend a book one is so enthusiastic about. I think Calvin would have been muck kinder!
April 19th, 2010 | 8:37 pm | #70
The descent into looking for one’s election is where Calvinism does end up. There is a reason that in those places where Calvinism had full sway (Puritan England and New England) the church went unitarian within several generations. The introspection is not psychologically sustainable and ultimately turns to rationalism for some relief.
April 19th, 2010 | 8:40 pm | #71
It’s a good point to be noted that the category of Desire exists in Catholic theology, but that the category contains a total of zero souls dogmatically.
However, even if there are unknown billions in that category, it does not minimize my point that baptism even in the Catholic conception has some obvious relationship to election. The function of baptism is to set a people apart in a way that corresponds to the setting apart God has already done.
April 19th, 2010 | 9:25 pm | #72
Don Bryant,
You may be right. We are people, and all people who are aware of God will tend to look at themselves to see if they can find evidence of right standing before God. Without exception.
As an Arminian prior to seeing the Doctrines of Grace in Scripture, I can tell you that I looked constantly at myself to see if I believed enough, or right enough or whatever. And sure, while I finally have a biblical and sufficient answer to turn to, I still look at myself too much and God too little.
Introspection, while no doubt present in Calvinist folk, is no less so (and in my experience, actually more so) in the non-Calvinist folk.
Either way, to look at ones life is prescribed by Paul anyways. “Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith”…
If you can find someone who claims to never do this, I suspect you’re looking at a non-believer.
And, even if what you say is true, it is irrelevant. All it would prove is that we are all sinners, of the worst sort. Which is exactly what Calvinism, and Paul confirm.
The argument for Calvinism is not that it produces this effect as over against that effect. It could produce a mess all over the place and still be true.
The argument must always be “It is (or is not) biblical.”
The rest doesn’t even matter.
April 19th, 2010 | 11:22 pm | #73
In Scramone’s article, there is a lot of heate rethoric, but nothing of scriptural substantiation. It seems that the only purpose he had in mind, was to inflame the minds of those who don’t care to know what the Bible says.
I had encounter some of those arguments alsewhere: “The god of calvinism is a blood thirsty god”, etc. Is this kind of thinking serious enough? Nope.
I still want to see an Arminian who can present a truly consistent arguments against Calvinism. If he does, he will have to drive in only two directions: 1) Open Theism, or 2) Universalism.
There is no way Arminians can get rid of this without being inconsistent. That’s why fellows like Clark Pinnock COULD NOT remain in Arminianism. He saw the real deal of Arminianism.
Thanks.
April 20th, 2010 | 12:10 am | #74
Steve Hays,
One of the things I find most annoying about internet apologists and these forums is when someone decides to win an argument by flooding the combox with so many questions that the inevitable lack of response by the poster makes it look like you won the argument.
April 20th, 2010 | 7:19 am | #75
This was said:
Oh please. While we should always hold Wikipedia at some sort of safe distance from the final word on any subject, I highly recommend the article on the history of Unitarianism for those who would say it’s a consequence of “calvinism”. In the best possible case, in the quest to deny “calvinism” the opponents of such a thing generally will say anything to do so, and as the wiki atricle notes, in the reaction against calvinism pass through the stages of Arminianism, Arianism, to rationalism and a modernism based on an acceptance of the results of the comparative study of all religions.
Calvinism does not cause unitarianism: the effort to overturn or reject calvinism causes people to do all manner of things which generally turn out badly.
April 20th, 2010 | 7:21 am | #76
I find myself worndering still which it it will be. Either:
Or:
Anyone?
April 20th, 2010 | 8:11 am | #77
“However, even if there are unknown billions in that category, it does not minimize my point that baptism even in the Catholic conception has some obvious relationship to election. The function of baptism is to set a people apart in a way that corresponds to the setting apart God has already done.”
@ Frank Turk: Well, I think it might be correct to say that, according to the Catholic view, in “standard” situations baptism is necessary but not sufficient. I think certain differences crop up due to diverging views about perseverance and the resistability of grace. According to Catholic theology, a person who has been redeemed may reject God’s grace and end up damned. Baptism provides grace sufficient for salvation, but the person can still botch things if he so chooses.
@ Daryl: I think I have a better idea where you’re coming from. I understand what you mean about “If God really wanted them, He would get them” because a Catholic holding to the Thomistic model of grace and free will might say something similar. I understand answering the seeker with a conditional (If you repent…) but I am still concerned about the conclusion that God doesn’t want some people to repent. I would means that there are some people for whom the answer (albeit unknown by us) to the question, “Does God want me to repent?” would be “No, He wants you keep on sinning.” It would mean that some people were /supposed/ to sin. It introduces a problematic situation where God makes it impossible for certain persons to follow moral laws yet punishes them for being unable to do so. It seems to make God a schizophrenic lawgiver who forbids sins yet commands people to do the things forbidden.
In any case, you might be interested in this article about the Catholic systems of grace:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06710a.htm
God Bless.
April 20th, 2010 | 8:21 am | #78
‘“many” will be saved, and “many” will be also lost — and that the competing “manies” are not any indication of God’s generousity or mercifulness because none deserve to be saved in the first place.’
Well, it /might/ be an indication of God’s generosity and mercy. It would indicate that God wasn’t equally merciful and generous towards all sinners. Although you’re right that God’s justice would not require the forgiveness of any sinners.
April 20th, 2010 | 8:52 am | #79
Where do we find that God is equally merciful and generous to all sinners?
The Bible is plain that some are made for noble uses and others for ignoble purposes. It’s also plain that there will be a judgement.
Is it not true, were God to decide to be equally merciful and generous to all sinners, that all should be saved? But the Bible is plain that all will NOT be saved.
What then? What comfort is it to the dying man to say that I’ve offered him a cure that he will not accept? Can I then say that I’ve been merciful and gracious to him?
Or would he call me cruel for offering something that I know he won’t take?
If a drowning man won’t take my hand, would he hate me for jumping in and pulling him out (assuming he’s not suicidal…), or would he be grateful that I did whatever it took to save him?
So there’s the problem. With the biblical view of God’s sovereignty, God does whatever it takes to save those whom he wishes to save. And it works. Every time.
In a scenario where God respects human “free will” above just about everything, how is He being more merciful and gracious, offering what He knows will be rejected, rather than finding something that won’t be rejected and offering that?
So the merciful/gracious God bit will always be an issue to be wrestled over, unless we admit that God has His reasons for choosing whom He will save, unknown to us and unrelated to anything we do (as Romans 9 belabors mightily), and that those whom He choses to save, are actually and eternally saved.
Holding up the mercy and grace of God, above all other attributes, doesn’t let any system of Christian belief off the hook. It just digs the hook in deeper.
April 20th, 2010 | 9:06 am | #80
It’s funny that this is an argument against the idea that Baptism points at election. What you’re ultimately working toward (and I think you would say it in another context) is that no man can rest in the assurance that Jesus saves. To that end, fair enough: but how many in the set who will “botch things if he so chooses” are also in the set “baptism of Desire”?
It seems to me that this set of people is transparently empty — so it doesn;t prove anything.
But arguing that baptism doesn’t point to election because some will fall away misses the point that the overt act of baptism is for the purpose of making sin’s power and consequences null. The overt necessity of baptism points to something — especially the act of paedobaptism. And the only reason for me to make this case it to point out that those who are allegedly opposed to “calvinism” but are doing paedobaptism need to evaluate the purposes of the sacraments. The explciit purpose of the sacraments — whether they can be resisted or not — is to set apart a people.
Denying that is pointless — in fact, it is destructive to your own good faith becuase it makes the sacraments/ordinances so much less than what they have been intended for for millennia.
April 20th, 2010 | 9:34 am | #81
This is actually the point. The charge against Calvinists is that somehow God is a monster and a Hitler if he’s the Calvinists God from Eternity Past who is both Creator and Sustainer not just of the duckies and bunnies but also of the mercy of heaven and the punishment of hell.
The problem for all parties — insofar as it is a problem — is that it is God’s judgment which puts people in Hell, and it is their sin which earns them their place, and God himself knows who the sinners are and will be, and who those who will repent and be saved will be.
This is a problem for the non-calvinist because somehow, they have to account for God Almighty, God Sovereign like whom there is no other. In their account of things, God is made good by allowing people not to be saved. No matter how many times that gets said, I am always flabbergasted that this is how the non-calvinists assesses “good” — by God’s unwillingness to save those who are sinners. You simply can’t look at this and say it’s not a problem because in any other situation the non-Calvinist would say someone who passively lets someone else suffer is a villain.
For the Calvinist, the problem is two-fold:
[1] The non-calvinist “interpretations” of Calvinism: The non Calvinist will say all manner of things to make the God described by “calvinism” into a monster. They will call election a lottery; they will call a God who predestines a man to hell a sadist; they will manufacture views of calvinist “evangelism” which are patently false. And the problem for the calvinist is overcoming these intellectually-flat caricatures in order to get a word in edgewise.
[2] Being true to the Bible consistently: see — I get it that many, many calvinists are not really very biblical because they do let their perceptions of what the Bible says get fouled up by having to deal with problem [1] and taking a defensive posture. But the truth is that election is not a cursed problem for the believer: it is his hope and his refuge. It is the place he wants to bring every man who will come — because it is the place where Christ is actually saving someone not just in theory or in potential, but as a fact established before creation and to not be shaken when the heavens fall away and a New Earth is established.
You should think about something: you should be convinced, and Paul was, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. And the reason for this is that your salvation, in Christ, by Grace, through faith, is the will of God.
Ponder that as you realize that God doesn’t change his mind. Ponder that as you consider that when Christ did what he did, it was in fulfillment of the Scriptures, and that he did it for anyone who will believe. Think of how safe that place is for a sinner like you, like me.
This is why Calvinism has any standing at all: because it takes the Bible seriously about the scope of God’s action in the world.
Let me suggest to you that other systems are less serious than Calvinism about the Bible and its statements about God’s continuous action in the world. You may disagree, but after years of interacting with the deniers I am convinced.
April 20th, 2010 | 10:59 am | #82
If Calvinism is Christianity, I’m not a Christian (although I may be one of the elect).
April 20th, 2010 | 11:20 am | #83
This is the nothing more then a dishonest caricature of Reformed theology.
April 20th, 2010 | 11:26 am | #84
OrthoDJ –
Blahblah blah. If you wanted to say less and still nay-say, I’m not sure you could.
Tell me: which of the following things do you deny:
[1] God is Father, Son and Spirit.
[2] God is creator.
[3] God declares the end from the beginning.
[4] Man is lost.
[5] Jesus saves lost men.
[6] Nothing and no one else saves lost men.
If you deny none of these, you are a calvinist in theology.. You systematics may be sloppy, but you’re a calvinist.
So let us know which ones you deny. Thanks.
April 20th, 2010 | 11:37 am | #85
Frank,
you are clearly once again 4 times greater than I.
thank you
April 20th, 2010 | 11:53 am | #86
Let me suggest to you that other systems are less serious than Calvinism about the Bible and its statements about God’s continuous action in the world. You may disagree, but after years of interacting with the deniers I am convinced.
Well, that settles it! All of us less serious folk should put our Bibles away now and just listen to Calvinists, especially of the canis lupus blogus family (see “Calvinism, Internet Bulldogs of”). It certainly does make life simpler. Cold and joyless, but simpler. That’s for me!
April 20th, 2010 | 12:19 pm | #87
I’m not a theologian, and in fact as a Catholic feel like a total spectator here, (ie no dog in this fight), but Frank Turk haven’t you defined Calvinism as Arminianism? What am I missing; could you explain your view of Arminianism, so I can understand how it differs from Calvinism?
And for that matter if as you say:”It (salvation)is the place he (God? or the Calvanist) wants to bring every man who will come”, and we leave in place: “God Almighty, God Sovereign ” are you not a Universalist?
Just asking out of curiosity; Peace
April 20th, 2010 | 12:36 pm | #88
@ Frank Turk:
“What you’re ultimately working toward (and I think you would say it in another context) is that no man can rest in the assurance that Jesus saves.”
That’s a very ambiguous statement. What I was saying was that people can choose to reject God’s grace. It is Calvinism that requires that some people just can’t rely on Jesus. If a person’s not elect, it seems to go, Jesus doesn’t want him to repent or trust in him.
Anyway, we’re having a problem of terminology. If grace is irresistable, then the elect will obviously persevere. Indeed, how could they do otherwise. If grace is resistable, doesn’t it make sense that person could reject Christ?
“The problem for all parties — insofar as it is a problem — is that it is God’s judgment which puts people in Hell, and it is their sin which earns them their place, and God himself knows who the sinners are and will be, and who those who will repent and be saved will be.”
But why did they sin in the first place? Did God decree that they sin? See my points above about about the schizophrenic lawgiver model or this discussion on Dave Armstrong’s blog:
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2010/02/anti-catholic-calvinist-turretinfan-sez.html
“Ponder that as you consider that when Christ did what he did, it was in fulfillment of the Scriptures, and that he did it for anyone who will believe. Think of how safe that place is for a sinner like you, like me.”
Isn’t the Calvinist position that I can only believe if God wants me to and I can’t choose to resist his grace? If you or I are not elect, God wants us to sin and be damned.
@ Daryl:
“Where do we find that God is equally merciful and generous to all sinners?”
I never argued that. I was responding to Mr. Turk’s assertion that selective salvation would not indicate anything about God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Please answer this question: Does God want the peope to sin?
God bless.
April 20th, 2010 | 12:45 pm | #89
I think the main problem that underlies this post is that for God to get to irresistable grace he has to irresistably bring about sin and evil. And then “judgment” and “mercy” are dispensed accordingly and are seemingly arbitarirly. That is the key difference between a deterministic view of sovereignty and one that allows creatures a degree of autonomy.
April 20th, 2010 | 12:50 pm | #90
Frank,
I deny none of what you listed. I deny that God elects people to Hell or even that He chooses only SOME to be invited to Heaven.
April 20th, 2010 | 1:01 pm | #91
OrthoDJ –
That’s hillarious.
Tell me — when did I or any self-respecting Calvinist say, “[God] chooses only SOME to be invited to heaven”?
April 20th, 2010 | 1:01 pm | #92
Alphonsus,
I assume that you left out an ‘l’ rather than including an extra ‘e’ in your question…
The answer is, predictably, yes and no.
Yes, in that His will is that He accomplish all His purposes. Some of those purposes require sin to occur. For example, look at Pharaoh’s sin in not releasing the Israelites.
God wanted that, and even told Moses (at the burning bush) that He would ensure that it happen, so that He might display His glory to the Egyptians and the world.
Acts makes it clear that all the events leading up to – and involved in – Jesus’ crucifixion were predestined by God, so there God’s purpose required sin (of the highest order).
God wanted to destroy Ahab, so He sent a lying spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophet. That prophet sinned in giving a false prophecy to Ahab, and God’s will was thereby done.
You see my point.
On the other hand, God does not want people (or the pope, depending on the nature of your typo) to sin, *for sins own sake*. That is, God wills good to happen because it furthers His ends and because good, being good glorify’s God in and of itself (take an unseen, beautiful flower, it serves no purpose save to be beautiful and so, glorify God).
He takes no pleasure in sin, that is He doesn’t want, sin for it’s own sake.
For example, God sent Babylon to destroy Israel. It pleased Him to do so so that His will would be done. And yet, He turned around and destroyed Babylon for destroying Israel because sin, even sin that God wants, is evil and must be punished.
Also, in Isaiah 53 we read, speaking of Jesus, that “it pleased the Lord to crush Him”. So there God wanted Jesus crushed and killed, but Jesus Himself, said to Pilate, of the Jewish leaders “they are guilty of the greater sin”. So punishment was on it’s way…for a sin that God, for His purposes, wanted.
So…all that said, to sum up. Yes, God wants people to sin, so that He might be glorified as He sees fit, but He does not want people to sin for and inherent value in the sin itself.
One other thing you said—
“It is Calvinism that requires that some people just can’t rely on Jesus. ”
Actually, the Bible teaches that no one can rely on Jesus, nor do they want to. but that God regenerates us to faith that does want to rely on Christ.
It’s not that God makes some bad people want to rely on Christ, it’s that He makes some dead people live. And then the living people do what living people were designed to do. Trust Christ.
April 20th, 2010 | 1:03 pm | #93
Frank Turk wrote something that is extremely misleading. I actually work with literal con men and one of their techniques is not that what they say isn’t actually true, but it is what they intentionally leave out that is what you need to really be paying attention to! :-)
Turk wrote:
“Blahblah blah. If you wanted to say less and still nay-say, I’m not sure you could.
Tell me: which of the following things do you deny:
[1] God is Father, Son and Spirit.
[2] God is creator.
[3] God declares the end from the beginning.
[4] Man is lost.
[5] Jesus saves lost men.
[6] Nothing and no one else saves lost men.
If you deny none of these, you are a calvinist in theology.. You systematics may be sloppy, but you’re a calvinist.
So let us know which ones you deny. Thanks.”
As another commentator, Tom B, already noted, his six propositions here could and would be affirmed by Arminians as well as many Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants that are not calvinists (such as Lutherans), Independents, virtually any bible believing Christian.
So what is the problem here?
Well the problem is **what** Turk has **intentionally left out**. And what he has intentionally left out is precisely where the disagreements are between non-Calvinists and calvinists.
Let’s add some propositions that Turk left out to make things more clear:
[7] People sometimes have and make their own choices (i.e. free will as ordinarily understood). Simultaneously, God has not exhaustively predetermined all events that occur (which would mean that we never ever have a choice).
[8] God desires the salvation of all men, though not all men will be saved.
[9] God provides Jesus as an atonement for the sins of the World. Jesus died for the whole world.
[10] The preconversion work of the Holy Spirit enables but does not necessitate a person to have a faith response to the gospel message. And this work of the Spirit can be resisted.
Every bible believing Christian is going to agree with Turk’s six propositions. And believing those six propositions alone does not make you a calvinist which is why his post is so misleading.
Turk’s claim that “If you deny none of these, you are a calvinist in theology.. Your systematics may be sloppy, but you’re a calvinist” is false and misleading. Just the kind of thing to be on the lookout for when someone is trying to con you. :-)
The dirty secret, the skeleton hidden in the closet, the fine print that Turk hides from view, in his post, is that the non-Calvinist affirms these additional propositions while the theological determinist denies them.
Turk’s con job fails. Hopefully, no one was fooled here though some may have been mislead and confused.
Robert
April 20th, 2010 | 1:09 pm | #94
Alphonsus said:
I’d like you to document any “calvinist” of any meaningful good-repute saying anything which would resemble that remark.
April 20th, 2010 | 1:13 pm | #95
*clutches sides of head*
Never have I wished I had my copy of Grudem’s Systematic Theology at work more than now.
You all make my head hurt, I’m going back to studying for my Isaiah class tonight.
April 20th, 2010 | 1:20 pm | #96
Frank Turk wants to engage in some calvinist spin to minimize the problems with Calvinistic reprobation.
“This is actually the point. The charge against Calvinists is that somehow God is a monster and a Hitler if he’s the Calvinists God from Eternity Past who is both Creator and Sustainer not just of the duckies and bunnies but also of the mercy of heaven and the punishment of hell.”
The problem that the non-Calvinist has with calvinism is that if the calvinist is correct about what God is doing then this ****maligns God’s character****.
According to His own revelation He is loving (e.g. John 3:16) and seeks to have mercy on all (Romans 11:32) desires the salvation of all (1 Tim. 2:4, etc.) and provides Christ as an atonement for all (e.g.1 John 2:2). In addition to these clear verses (clear unless you are a determinist and then must **reinterpret** them to fit your theological system) the scripture as a whole presents God as having this incredible loving and merciful and kind and faithful character. All of this is clearly and unequivocally presented in scripture. And as it is so clear non-Calvinists (including Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants and independents) agree as to this great and awesome character of God.
The theological determinist however, comes along and says that these biblical statements are not true (God really does not love the world, he really did not send Jesus as an atonement for the world, he really desires only to have mercy on a few, etc. etc.) and that God has predetermined everything including the eternal destinies of all people. And most of these people are hell bound and this was decided by God and fixed before their birth and completely independent of their actions, and so they were set up to be damned. The bible does not teach this and the non-Calvinist again aware of what the bible does in fact state about God’s plan of salvation and His character is troubled by this determinism because of what it says about God’s character if it were true.
It would mean for example, that you cannot believe or trust His explicit statements in scripture (e.g. he says he desires the salvation of all, but in reality he has a secret and sovereign will that desires most to be damned). The non-Calvinist thinks through what the truth of exhaustive determinism would mean about God’s character and it is in thinking it through that he/she then sees that the person who would do this kind of thing to human persons has a real lack of character and is extremely hateful of most of them (i.e. the “reprobates”). Such a person is not at all like the God who so clearly reveals Himself in scripture. And this is where the comparisons to Hitler or the devil come in. We know what evil character looks like in these kinds of examples and in their actions especially in the way they treat human persons.
We then compare what the God who does what the determinists say that he does, with the actions of persons like Hitler or the devil, and sadly the character is very similar. We think of how Hitler hated the Jewish people and wanted to destroy them all simply because they were Jewish. We compare this with a God who delights in reprobating human persons by predetermining all of their evil actions so that they could not have done otherwise, who then at a final judgment assigns them to Hell for doing the very things he ensured they would do, and then they suffer eternal punishment for playing their pre-assigned part in the completely prescripted play. Well that is pretty hateful. Even theological determinists who are honest understand and realize this.
Angus Stewart a theological determinist/supralapsarian calvinist in a message on John Calvin’s view of reprobation makes some clear statements that are true if his theological determinism is true. Here are some comments about the fact that Calvinistic reprobation is a hateful thing to do to human persons:
““This is talking about a will of God in reprobation to damn people forever for their sins in hell. That is hatred. There could not be a greater demonstration of hatred than that. Think about it. Any idea this is something less than hatred just will not do.”
He is correct, what could be “a greater demonstration of hatred than that”?
He says “think about it” and many non-Calvinists have done precisely that and agree with him. This kind of hatred of an entire group of people (in this case the reprobates) is chillingly similar to the kind of hatred Hitler had for the Jewish people.
Stewart says if any should doubt that this calvinistic reprobation, which he demonstrates in his message that John Calvin clearly held to, really is hatred:
““If that is supposedly loved less I ask you what more could God do if He really hated them? . . . .If that’s not hatred, I don’t know what hatred is.”
Again, he is making it clear what the Calvinistic reprobation leads to: a God who hates the reprobates. And again this contradicts the biblical revelation of the character of God. For the non-Calvinist we accept the biblical revelation of the character and actions of God and so reject calvinism. And it is precisely because we know the God of the bible’s character through both his revelation and our own personal experiences with him that we reject calvinism and its gruesome doctrine of reprobation. And no amount of spin by theological determinists will overcome the biblical revelation of what God’s character is really like. Nor will any amount of spin and reinterpretation of biblical texts change God’s own plan of salvation which desires the salvation of all and provides Christ as an atonement for all(for the World).
Turk also wrote:
“[1] The non-calvinist “interpretations” of Calvinism: The non Calvinist will say all manner of things to make the God described by “calvinism” into a monster. They will call election a lottery; they will call a God who predestines a man to hell a sadist; they will manufacture views of calvinist “evangelism” which are patently false. And the problem for the calvinist is overcoming these intellectually-flat caricatures in order to get a word in edgewise.”
The problem is that they are not caricatures. As Stewart recognizes (and many other calvinists are not forthright enough to acknowledge): Calvinistic reprobation is the most hateful thing that God could do to a human person. If the best possibility is to be in saving relationship with God the flip side is that the worst possibility is to be eternally separated from God. In the Calvinistic view God does the worst thing imaginable to the “reprobates” and **ensures** that it be so. In non-Calvinism God makes salvation available to people and only those who reject Him for a lifetime end up eternally separated from God. In one view God clearly hates the reprobates in the other God loves even those who ultimately and continually reject him. The statements by non-Calvinists about God being like Hitler or a sadist, etc. are all based upon understanding what kind of character would be involved if the theological determinists are right about God’s actions towards the “reprobates”.
Robert
April 20th, 2010 | 1:29 pm | #97
Aha! Someone who wants to engage what I actually said!
Robert said that I left these things out:
This is not Calvinism. This is not even Arminianism. There are a sum-total of ZERO calvinists who would say that people do not do what they are completely and utterly willing to do, so whatever it is that you are saying here doesn’t actually address what’s at stake.
Regarding the future, however, God is exhaustively informed of it — because it does not occur without his overty and decreed assent. That’s #3 in my list. The world will not last one microsecond longer than God has already decreed — and any who deny that deny specific and clear affirmations of Scripture.
There is no Calvinist who would deny this. Any who would is not a calvinist but in fact a Bible-denying hyper-calvinist.
If you mean that all people now have their sins forgiven, you are a denying the Bible’s clear teaching that those who go to hell do so for the sake of their own sins.
If you mean that Jesus’ death make the Gospel formula “repent for the forgiveness of sins” a paid-for transaction in which any man who repents will be forgiven, there are no Calvinists who deny this. Thsi is a necessary consequence of #5 and #6 on my list/
I am tempted to ask “by whom has it ever been successfully resisted,” but I’d be willing to say this instead: in what way is Jesus a Savior? In the view you are presenting, Robert, you are saying Jesus might save — and in some sense, Jesus may not have saved anyone. That is: when Jesus said, “it is finished,” in your view, whatever finished was not the work which saves those whom Christ himself called “the elect” (cf. Mt 24:22, 24, 31; Mark 13:20, 22; Luke 18:7). In your view, there are some for whom Christ did the work which removes all sin so that before God they are found “innocent”, and those have thereafter done something other than sin which makes God pour out His wrath on them for all eternity.
This seriously about that: is that “salvation” — to be put in the position that you might escape the wrath of God? That doesn’t sound like salvation to me: it sounds like mere coersion. “Please please please let me save you, little sheep,” rather than the Good Shepherd who leaves the 99 to save the 1, and lays down his life for the sheep.
April 20th, 2010 | 1:58 pm | #98
Robert: “Frank Turk wrote something that is extremely misleading. I actually work with literal con men and one of their techniques is not that what they say isn’t actually true, but it is what they intentionally leave out that is what you need to really be paying attention to!”
Robert, would it be better if Frank Turk had unintentionally left things out?
“Well the problem is **what** Turk has **intentionally left out**. And what he has intentionally left out is precisely where the disagreements are between non-Calvinists and calvinists.”
Frank Turk, did you intentionally or unintentionally leave things out?
P.S. Couldn’t the same charges be brought against Anthony Sacramone?
April 20th, 2010 | 2:03 pm | #99
@ Frank Turk:
‘I’d like you to document any “calvinist” of any meaningful good-repute saying anything which would resemble that remark.’
Of course no one comes out and says, “If a person’s not elect, it seems to go, Jesus doesn’t want him to repent or trust in Him” (although Turretinfan has said some rather similar things), but isn’t that statemen a logical conclusion of TULIP? If repentance relies on irresistable grace, and God doesn’t give a person that grace, is it not true that God does not want that person to repent?
@ Daryl:
“It’s not that God makes some bad people want to rely on Christ, it’s that He makes some dead people live. And then the living people do what living people were designed to do.”
That’s just an indirect way of saying “God wants some people to be regenerated and saved, the others he wants to sin and be damned.” All the same, God wants some people to keep on sinning.
Daryl, would you say that God is the author of evil?
April 20th, 2010 | 2:05 pm | #100
Anthony
Your hatred of the God of Scripture could not be more evident. Ever since the Fall when Man first gained a “knowledge of good and evil” independent of God’s revelation, mankind has used that “knowledge” to stand in judgement of the Most High. The Bible tells us that the natural man is enmity with God and your post is a good example.
I am quite certain that you have created a god more to your liking to worship, idolatry will not save you. Neither will a god who is not Sovereign save anyone.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:14 pm | #101
Robert said this:
That’s fantastic. It omits that in Jn 3:16 God loves the world so that those who believe may not perish, ignoring the scope and purpose of God’s love (you don’t have to leave the verse to see that); it omits that Rom 11 is talking about all Israel and not all people (which, again, you don’t really have to leave the verse to discover, but you do have to admit that the verse occurs in an extended argument); it omits that any Calvinist would accept the reading that all men are the object of the proclamation of the Gospel; and it finally omits that, again, any Calvinist would say plainly that anyone who repents will be forgiven and does have propitation.
It’s stunning what someone who will call others a “con man” will do to simply mis-state what is plainly true.
It’s interesting what you call “reinterpretation. tell me: who shall not perish but have eternal life in John 3:16? If it’s not “the whole world”, then I suspect that you have done the reinterpreting.
That’s fine insofar as it goes. I wouldn’t deny that God is Love, or that his lovingkindness endures forever. No Calvinist would.
The problem is that your system cannot account for the Biblical picture of God’s wrath. The two must somehow exist together, and in your view, they cannot. Any view which was that God’s wrath is as in-evidence and in-pay as God’s love is at all times in all of eternity is, as you define it, a denial of God’s character. Sadly, Jesus’ own view is against yours. Compare your view to his view of the master in the story of the 10 talents, or the one to whom some will say “Lord, Lord,” but he will say, “I never knew you.”
God is both Justice and Mercy, both Love and Wrath. The Calvinist view makes this transparent — but your view does not. I wonder why.
I like it that you have utterly omitted the fact that “Protestants” are in fact the consequence of Calvinist theology. It speaks to your historical perspective.
Tell me how the Council of Orange (a catholic council) plays into your account of how all this theology works out.
Let me say this about that:
[1] This way of saying what is clear Presbyterian (that is, protestant) doctrine omits this bit of the WCF:
As well as this portion:
It never makes a whit of difference to mention it, but it has to be mentioned: the caricature that Calvinism is merely fatalism is false, and it is the main reason non-calvinists who enjoy railing against Calvinism make no sense to Calvinists: they simply don;t know enough about it to be fair critics.
And that’s the charitable way to say it; far be it from me to say that they intentionally con people by omission in order to influence them unfairly.
Really? Calvinism teaches that “most people” will not be saved? Does Calvinism teach that — or is that an invention of the non-calvinists who need a hook for their fishing line?
here’s what the LBCF says about the Gospel and the extent of God’s Grace:
You cannot portray that as in any way saying that “most people are damned to hell.”
My suggestion is this: unless it is your personal view that most people will not be saved, don;t foist it upon Calvinists or calvinism; and if it is your view, let me say immediately then that it is your problem to resolve and not calvinisms. Your personal biases about the ability and intent of the Gospel to actually save some, many, most or all are your own; don’t trot them out for someone else to resolve.
I’d like to see explicitly where and what Robert thinks is the scope of salvation (meaning: how many will actually be saved, and by what means) taught by the Bible — because it seems to me that when he does this, it will be not by citing verses which pledge the potential of salvation but only by citing verses which, either prophetically or decretally, say specifically, “God will save.”
As soon as we tread into the territory of God saying plainly, “I will save [anyone in particular],” we are in Calvinism’s home court.
A blessing to you, Robert — may your zeal for God’s character become a zeal for his whole character and your zeal for his authority become for all of his authority.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:16 pm | #102
I hate it when TUaD sticks up for me.
I don’t think I omitted anything, as my response to Robert makes plain. In fact, I think I said much more than he did in the initial 6 points.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:26 pm | #103
“I hate it when TUaD sticks up for me.”
What can I say?
That’s who Frank Turk is.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:33 pm | #104
“Daryl, would you say that God is the author of evil?”
It depends what you mean.
If you mean, was it God’s plan and purpose that evil exist, and did He intentionally remove His hand from individuals, knowing and intending that sin would result, then yes, I would absolutely say that He is the author of evil.
This would work in a similar way to the author of a book. No one accuses the author of a book of murder, even though a character commits murder in the story the author has written.
(Note, that this definition of “author of evil” implicates every possible theological system that doesn’t strip God of His power)
If, on the other hand, by “author of sin” you mean inventor and perpetrator, then plainly the answer is “no”. God cannot sin, nor can He tempt anyone to sin.
Adam and Eve, and Satan and all of us sin because we want to and because God permits it. Not because God makes us sin.
So…God has willed and continues to will that sin exist. If He did not, by any theological system, it would cease to exist. Nothing can exist or occur apart from God willing it.
But, again, by any theological system, God does not make sin happen. All that He needs to do is to remove His keeping hand, and sin will result.
What Calvinism, and to my knowledge anyone, does not claim, is to know how sin came to be in the first place. What started it all? What caused Lucifer to sin?
Scripture is silent here. All we know is that, had God determined that it should not happen, there is no possible way that it could have. That one gets filed under *the secret things that belong to God*.
What the “author of evil” question does is make it clear that the only understanding of Scripture (that I know of), for which evil is not an unsolvable problem is Calvinism. Not because evil magically becomes a non-problem, but because, even while we don’t understand it, evil, when recognized as part of God’s will, has purpose.
Without God willing evil to exist, then all we have left if pointless evil acts perpetrated for no good reason, other than God hasn’t gotten around to stamping it our just yet. And worse, we have an attempted coup in heaven that almost succeeded. After all, how does an angel round up a full 1/3 of all the other angels onto his side, before God can run him out?
Within Calvinism (and, I would argue, Scripture) all sin, no matter how big or small, is part of the larger purpose of bringing ultimate glory to God.
How that works, I have no idea, but the Bible is clear that He works all things to the praise of His glory.
And given that His is infinitely wise, I can rest in knowing that He knows best how to bring Himself glory.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:38 pm | #105
Daryl,
Where did you get the idea that “God regenerates us to faith.”
I ask because the Bible teaches “faith precedes
regeneration.”
Thanks
April 20th, 2010 | 2:44 pm | #106
Alphonsus saith:
Because of your e-mail address, dude, I know you;re a Catholic, and let me suggest something: until or unless you;re willing to debate Catholicism based on every daffy statement ever made by a layman Catholic apologist (a wholly-losing proposition), then I suggest that you stick to the more-repuatable systematic statement of people who actually influence the Calvinist stream of thought and not cite any ol’ blogger who seems to make your point. I have said it else where, and I’ll say it here again: we’d be well-served is “discernment blogging” shrunbk as a cottage industry by 95%. I like TF, but I also think his view of reformed systematics is idiosyncratic at best.
If you admit no one says such a thing, then move on.
Nope. You form the syllogism that goes from TULIP to that conclsuion and see oif you can make it work. There is absolutely no question that the free offer of the Gospel for men to repent and believe is central to Calvinists systematics.
Nope. Re-read the end of the book of Deuteronomy maybe. There God offers Israel the Blessings and Curses — and says this is the time to make your choice. And Israel says, “We choose YHWH!” (that’s a paraphrase)
but then God takes Moses and Joshua aside and says, “Who do they think they are kidding? They cannot serve me.”
Now seriously: there is no place where God says, “I don’t really want them to obey me — watch this, it’ll be funny …” Instead it is clear that God wants them to obey and they refuse.
What is left for us to resolve is whether or not God knew about this and was planning on it from the start. Does it really seem likely that God is the master of contingency and replanning rather than being the God who declares the end from the beginning? Is Jesus really Plan B for the problems that men caused? If not, how can God be sure that Jesus as the solution will work?
Scripture gives us the answer to all of these questions — it doesn’t just trumpet that God loves and that’s the end of that. The Gospel declared by peter at Pentecost was that there is judgment coming, but that in Christ there is forgiveness for repentence — not that God is just overflowing with love and we’re all getting splashed upon.
This has to mean something — we have to understand it. When we do, we look like Calvinists.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:53 pm | #107
BTW, that’s my last word in this thread. If you have more to say, God bless you for it and keep you. I’ll have a full-fledged post on this subject up tomorrow at TeamPyro.
April 20th, 2010 | 2:59 pm | #108
Don Johnson,
Where did you get the idea that ”faith precedes
regeneration.”
I ask because the Bible teaches “God regenerates us to faith.”
You might want to provide a case for your claim…
A simple (non exhaustive) case for mine follows:
“…even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have you been saved)” (Eph. 2:5)
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3
When we were dead, God made us alive.
Not to mention “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
Is it pleasing to God that we believe and repent? So can that happen without faith? And if we didn’t first believe, whence the faith?
Don’t suggest that all folk have faith, which may or may not be placed in Christ, because Paul says in Ephesians “By grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.”
April 20th, 2010 | 3:20 pm | #109
Incidentally, the horrid formatting that crops up near the bottom of this comment thread made me peek at the HTML. Could someone please forward this to the appropriate webmaster?
There’s a bug in the template for each individual comment–a closing </li> that should be two closing </div> tags. (The “commentbox” and “commentid” divs never get closed.)
Surrounding the entire comment section, there’s an ordered list tag (<ol class=”commentlist”> </ol>), even though there’s no <li></li> tags inside. It looks like someone changed the template from being based on ordered lists to being based on divs, but didn’t quite finish.
Here’s example code from one of the comments. I added double-asterisks to the beginning of the lines with offending unbalanced tags.
————————–
**<div id="commentbox" class="color2">
**<div class="commentid">
<cite>
<span class="author">steve hays</span><br /><a href="#comment-9572" title="">April 19th, 2010 | <span class="time">11:13 am</a> | #1 </span>
</cite>
<div class="commenttext"><p>There are a number of things we could discuss, but for now I’m curious about these two statements:</p>
<p>“Did God choose a predetermined number of human beings to bring to ultimate bliss, and alternatively select a predetermined and far more numerous group of humans on whom to inflict incalculable eternal suffering…Or perhaps the whole ‘I’m in, 95 percent of humanity is out’ is just fine.’”</p>
<p>Where do you come up with these percentages? Do you think that’s an honest and accurate depiction of Reformed theology?</p>
</div>
**</li>
————————–
While they’re at it, maybe they could fix the individual comment links that don’t work–the date-time stamp on each comment is an in-page link to something like “#comment-9678″. But for that to work, one of the divs in the comment needs that as its ID name.
April 20th, 2010 | 3:22 pm | #110
Daryl,
Did you just ask if it’s possible to believe and repent without faith?
April 20th, 2010 | 3:26 pm | #111
Daryl,
I agree “when we were dead, God made us alive.” However that statement nor Eph. 2:5 or
John 3:3 say or infer that “regeneration precedes faith.” One can only come to that conclusion using eisegesis when using those texts.
Thanks
April 20th, 2010 | 3:39 pm | #112
Jug,
Why yes, I did. But not because I think the answer is yes.
Don Johnson had told me that faith must precede regeneration and I was taking issue with that.
Hence my question. Don’t fear, I know that the answer is “No, it’s not possible”.
I said it badly. I just reread my comment, and had to read it again to understand myself.
Here’s another verse:
“everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.”
To believe that Jesus is the Christ, in a saving way (contra the demons who also believe that), is to have faith. No? And John in 1 John 5:1 is telling us that the one who believes *has been born or God*, not will be but has been.
April 20th, 2010 | 3:39 pm | #113
If God is the author of evil, then morality is a sham, epistemology is a joke, and life is a farce.
If God is the author of evil (meaning He is responsible for actual evil, not simply the possibility of evil by virtue of making persons), then I hate God, I wish I didn’t exist, and Heaven and Hell are arbitrary so it really doesn’t matter what I want.
If Christianity teaches that God is the author of evil, then I am not a Christian, I do not wish to be a Christian, and I will gladly renounce Christianity for life and for all to hear.
Since I believe that God is not the author of evil, and since I believe that God hates evil and in Him there is no darkness at all, and since I believe Christianity is truth and is a record and expression of the Truth, and since the truth is that God is not evil, I am a Christian, I want to be a Christian, and I want to be like my LOVING Father.
April 20th, 2010 | 3:44 pm | #114
Don,
The point, at least in part, of John 3:3, is that unless you can see the kingdom of God, you have nothing to have faith in. It is only when one is born again that they can even see the kingdom and the Christ in whom they must believe.
And, in an instant, they do.
John is clear that God’s work (our being born) happens first, and gives us what we need to believe.
Otherwise, I’ve got a great case for boasting. After all, I decided to believe and my neighbour didn’t.
But no, I can’t boast, because I was dead, and God made me alive, with out asking first. And so, as a result of God’s work, I believe and have faith.
April 20th, 2010 | 3:54 pm | #115
Daryl,
I actually wasn’t concerned that you thought the answer was yes. I was concerned because it seems to be a nonsensical question in the first place–because “faith” is “belief”.
So you asked if it’s possible to believe & repent without belief. A very “zen” kind of question–obviously, the answer is no, but that doesn’t actually tell us anything. Is it possible to fly without flight? To eat without consumption?
1 John 5:11 is different. But I don’t see how to glean anything about faith & regeneration from Hebrews 11:6. When I try, it comes back around to “You can’t believe and repent (which please God) without believing.”
April 20th, 2010 | 3:57 pm | #116
Another Zen question. Is it possible for God to be the essence of love AND be evil?
April 20th, 2010 | 4:00 pm | #117
Find someone claiming that God is evil Ortho…
Or who believes that God had no clue evil would come of creation…
Or who thinks that knowing evil would come, but carrying on with creation, hoping that it wouldn’t absolves anyone.
The God you describe has no idea what the future holds…
April 20th, 2010 | 4:07 pm | #118
orthodoxdj,
We agree: Certainly not.
Is it possible for God to be good AND predestine that the most horrendous evil in history should occur? Since the prayer of the church in Acts 4, Christians have said “yes”.
The question is how to put that together. How does “predestine” can work out without making God evil, or morally responsible for what he predestined? How can God act (or “intentionally allow things”) to bring it about, without becoming responsible? Where would it cross over into “God did evil”, and where would it cross over into “God didn’t predestine it”? How do we articulate the lines?
And do we have enough guidance from Scripture to be able to do it? If so, where’s the teaching? If not, how much can we say?
April 20th, 2010 | 4:15 pm | #119
We can say that in God there is no darkness. We can say that evil is darkness. We can say that God cannot commit evil. We can say that creating people for Hell is evil. We can say that making personal beings and saving only some because of divine decree is evil. We can say that love wills that salvation of all, that God does NOT delight in the death of the wicked.
April 20th, 2010 | 4:18 pm | #120
I’m not going to engage anyone because the discussion has advanced far beyond my mere mortal powers. But I have to say that team pyro–Daryl and Frank–are out in force. And so is the other side. It’s like the fight scene in Matrix II when more and more Mr. Smith’s keep showing up and Neo just can’t beat them all.
I had to laugh several times at the sarcasm being hurled back and forth. Everyone seems to be giving it as good as their getting it given to them. And a good time was had by all. . . .
April 20th, 2010 | 4:18 pm | #121
OrthodoxDJ: “Since I believe that God is not the author of evil,….”
I thought Daryl Little gave a sufficiently nuanced response in #104….
But let’s agree that God is not the “author of evil”.
So then OrthodoxDJ, who do you think is the “author of evil”?
April 20th, 2010 | 4:31 pm | #122
Daryl,
The new birth (regeneration) is certainly necessary to see (John 3:3), to enter (John 3:7) or to inherit (1 Cor. 15:50) the kingdom
of God. However, neither John nor anyone else states or infers that “regeneration precedes faith.” Simply saying something time and again does not make it so.
Thanks
April 20th, 2010 | 4:33 pm | #123
Others will as confidently say it is evil for God to send people to Hell for any reason. They will reject “your God” as evil with all the hatred and vitriol that you show toward the Calvinist understanding of God. All because they hold their understanding of “good”, “love”, and “evil” as infallible and uncorrectable.
As long as their hold their private judgments as above correction, they will continue hating the true God, based on their distorted vision–hating goodness itself.
Reject Calvinism as long as you’re persuaded Scripture teaches otherwise, and allow Scripture to refine your understanding of everything. Even assuming you happen to be right about everything, I can hardly imagine that this kind of pride would please God.