Right, wrong or indifferent, I admit my philosophy towards scripture up front: first, I must begin and end with the character of God as He has revealed Himself in scripture, and second, I must consider the full consequences of accepting a certain interpretation of scripture; and these two are intimately intertwined and they are the lenses by which my reading of Gods Message is colored. Now lest one accuse me of placing philosophy first in order of priority and authority over above “God’s Word”, an example is necessary: Say there were a verse in the bible that seemed to attribute darkness to God who is clearly and explicitly revealed as Light, I would feel compelled to wrestle with the “darkness of God” verse until I came to some sort of understand that proved to be non-contradictory to the explicit motif of His “Lightness”. My goal therefore is to be faithful to the scriptures, but (and making an appeal beyond the written word) I also and more importantly (lest I fall into a sort of “bibliolatry”) desired to be faithful to the God of the scriptures.
It is with this biblical hermeneutical philosophy as a back drop that I am prepared to explain why I reject Calvinism and Determinism (or Predestination; though Determinism is not exclusively a Calvinistic term, i.e. Arminians believe in a ‘foreknown’ determined future, none-the-less, in the context that I am entreating it, Calvinism and Determinism [predestination] will hence forth be interchangeable). Please note: what follows is not a polemic against Calvinism; that is, I’m not going to pull together a string of verses that may ‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ Calvinism. My goal here is that while there certainly is a strong case for (and against) Calvinism in the bible by way of a proof-text approach, I wish to explain why I reject Calvinism forthright and not attack or build an exhaustive case against it.
Why I Am Not a Calvinist
There are many possible reasons why I reject Calvinism. For example, I was raised in a Pentecostal/Wesleyan free-will tradition that may have made me predisposed to rejecting divine omni-determinism, yet there have been many raised in the free-will tradition who after many years in church and after faithfully studying God’s word (and certain writers) has exchanged their free-will tradition for an omni-determined one. So appeal to my tradition alone is not enough to conclude why I reject Calvinism today. Some might suggest that because I find it heartless to suggest that God wills and ‘renders certain’ for many (most?) people to go to hell for all time just to glorify Himself, that I have placed my emotions in charge of my brain, and that is why I reject Calvinism. There may be some truth here as well, but I must add with force that if this were the case I doubt I would have spent serious time in the past investigating Calvinism from the writings of Calvinists’ in order to see if they can be reconciled with the God revealed in scripture. In other words, I believe I have given Calvinism a fair intellectual hearing and so to conclude that my emotions have gotten in the way would – I believe – be an unfair, emotional and anti-intellectual response from my critics.
Another factor, it may be said, is that I have chosen to embrace certain ‘proof-texts’ over above other ‘proof-texts’, that is, I wholly embrace some texts such as John 3:16 while quietly passing over others such as Romans 9:13. This may be the case also, but if it is, can the Calvinist escape the same charge? How, I would like to know, does the Calvinists handle Hebrews 6 and 10 for example? Of all I have read of Calvinism, these make up two of the most contrary passages for them to explain and indeed most which I have read simply (quietly) pass over such passages. I would like to know, oh Calvinist, how it can be said of someone who is Totally Depraved (T in T.U.L.I.P) that such a one has been “Enlightened… tasted the heavenly gift, and… shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come”? And if such a one is God’s elect, how can it be said that if they “have fallen away” that it is impossible to “restore them again to repentance” (cf. Hebrews 6:4-6)? None-the-less, I would rebuttal the charge as unfair since I wholly embrace Romans 9-11 yet radically interpret that text differently in a way that reflects the primary motif of Romans in its entirety – i.e. the question of God’s covenantal righteousness – just as a few Calvinists have found a way to explain – albeit in an unsatisfactory way in my opinion – Hebrews 6 and 10.
There are many more reasons why it can be said that I reject Calvinism (or Augustinian or any other type of omni divine determinism for that matter) but of them all there is one reason which stands head and shoulders above the rest.
The ONE, the Achilles Heel!
Omni-determinism is analogous to a knitted sweater with a loose or frayed end; when that loose end is pulled on, that beautiful sweater, which was crafted with patterns by some of the greatest minds in Church history, slowly then quickly unravels until there is nothing resembling a sweater left and the yarn itself looses all usefulness. In that analogy the yarn is the Bible, the design of the sweater and patters in it are the theory of Calvinism and the loose or frayed end is the Achilles Heel of Calvinism which no body wants to talks about.
That Achilles Heel, that loose end of Calvinism is the question; if God has omni-control and nothing ever (EVER!) happens outside of His will, His plan, and His purpose how does sin escape the hands of God? Calvinists have created a doctrine called Compatibilism as a means to justify their position, but not even Compatibilism gets them off the hook, and the real honest Calvinists are at least willing to admit this much, for such a one there is a fall back position which is found in the word “mystery” (see “Q&A” below)!
What is Compatibilism? Compatibilism is the belief that humans (and angels?) are responsible for their sin because they sin out of the desires of their hearts, but God is the one who gives them their desires! (Hence human free choices are compatible with God’s omni-control.) So because humans (and angels?) do what we want (our desires) we are accountable for our actions and will be judge accordingly, even though we could not have done otherwise because God is the one who gave us our desires! Perhaps an illustration will help. Say a pedophile abducts a little girl, rapes her repeatedly and then dumps her body in a ditch, according to Compatibilism, he did this because God willed it, planned it, purposed it and rendered it certain (for some mysterious so-called greater good) that this would happen, as a matter of fact God is the one who gave the pedophile his desires to do what he did so that the pedophile could not have chosen to do otherwise. Who is responsible for the actions of the pedophile, him or the one who ‘rendered his actions certain’ (i.e. God)? The Calvinist would say the pedophile is responsible since he is the one who desired to abuse the little girl and acted out those desires. But I do not see how God cannot also be held accountable for the very same actions since God willed it, planned it, purposed it, “was in control” of the whole ordeal and made it certain that the event could not have happened any other way. To down size our illustration; say a mother pushers her toddler down the stairs, who is responsible for the preschoolers’ injuries? Obviously the mother is. But what if the father pushes the mother intentionally into the child for the purpose of causing the child to fall down the stairs, who now is responsible, the mother who’s body pressed against the child thus being the direct cause of the child’s fall, or the father who pushed the mother into the child in order to render the child’s injuries certain? I think we would all agree that the responsibility falls on the father given what we know of the scenario! How can we escape this conclusion with God?
The Sweater Unravels! The Dark Side Revealed!
Luther of the reformation was a brave man. Not only was he willing to put his life on the line in his zeal to reform the Church, he was also willing to follow the logical conclusions of his own theology wherever they would lead him; something most Calvinist’ lack the guts to do. What I mean is this, I have a quote somewhere of Luther (who like Calvin, was an omni divine determinist in the Augustinian tradition) in which he admits that there must be a ‘dark side to God’! Let me add unequivocally: if Calvin is right, then so is Luther. If Calvinism is true then so is Luther’s conclusion, there is no way to escape it!
The first human sin, the first angelic sin, every sin since then, every evil act, every desire and inclination of mans hearts, every natural evil, all of it, everything from Adam to Auschwitz, from Sodom to Satan, they all and every act and inclination thereof find their origins in God – if Calvinism is true. If Calvinism is true then darkness is not simply the absence of light, and sin is not simply the absence of holiness, for both find their origins in God.
Pull on this loose string long enough and the yarn of scripture as the Calvinist understands them unravels the whole sweater. Is God perfectly good? He is also perfectly evil. Is God light as the scriptures teach? He is also darkness. Is Satan the father of lies, well no, God is since all lies originate in the intention of God! If we cannot trust what the scriptures teach of Gods goodness, holiness, justice, lightness, that He is ‘the Truth’, and that He is ‘the Light’, and that He is ‘the Way’ to the Father but rather that He is also the Lie, the Darkness and the Way to hell etc. the bottom line is that the scriptures become wholly untrustworthy and we might as well toss them in the garbage because the bible itself has lied about who God is and, as Roger Olson is known for saying, in Calvinism it is difficult to distinguish between God and the Devil!
Calvinism may begin on the scriptures, but it is also their undoing. They may appeal to certain ‘proof-text’ as evidence for their belief, but in the end their interpretation of these ‘proof-texts’ leads to the annulment of the whole of scripture, including the very ‘proof-texts’ they originally appealed to!
The End
I hope I have not been too unfair, or unfairly presented the Calvinist model; but my purpose here was to share quite simply my opinion of Calvinism as the question was presented in the previous blog. There are many writers I respect who hold to the Calvinistic model and I don’t wish to demonize any of them for their views, many brilliant men throughout the ages have embraced omni divine determinism and I am nothing before these giants; but until one of them can explain to little ol’ me how Calvinism can avoid the conclusion above I am bound to the God revealed in scripture to take the position I have.
Sincerely His,
Derek.
Q & A
Q: Most Calvinist will readily say that the bible teaches both that God is in complete control and that he holds humans responsible for their own ‘free’ actions and that we should not push the issue, but rather we should simply believe the scriptures and accept the apparent contradiction or paradox as a mystery. What is wrong with an appeal to ‘mystery’ here?
A: I see a grave mistake in appealing to ‘mystery’ in the light of the logical conclusions of Calvinism.
The great Church philosopher of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, has become famous for acknowledging that even God has at least one limitation, that is, God cannot do that which is logically impossible to do. For example, God cannot ‘not be God’ and ‘be God’ at the same time (When Jesus came to earth he did not cease to be God, for the scriptures testify that in Him the fullness of the Deity dwelt! Col. 2:9); another example is that God cannot hear ‘nothing’ for the simple reason that ‘nothing’ is the absence of noise and so there is simply nothing to hear, if God could hear ‘nothing’ then ‘nothing’ would then become a ‘sound’, it would be ‘something’ and not ‘nothing’. In other words, God cannot hear ‘nothing’ because that would constitute a logical contradiction, it is logically impossible to hear the un-hearable! (Hold that thought.)
There is a BIG difference between a paradox which we can acknowledge as a ‘mystery’; and that of a clear contradiction which we should either seek to reconcile or if it cannot be done, we should readily abandon. Take for example the Trinity; it took the early church several centuries to develop and carefully articulate the dogma of the divine Godhead, in the end they concluded that we are to understand the Trinity as ‘One Being eternally existing in three distinct Persons’. The Trinity is a ‘paradox’ which humans are incapable of understanding, and so we can refer to it as a great mystery – and it is! But it is not a contradiction. It would be a contradiction if the Church said that ‘God is One Person and also three Persons’, for God cannot be both ‘one person’ and ‘three persons’ at the same time, since that would constitute a logical contradiction (see previous paragraph). But if the Trinity were a clear contradiction, the Church would never have settled comfortably with it as a dogma declaring it a mystery; no way! They would have wrestled with it (as they did) until they could understand it (philosophically) in terms that were faithful to the texts of scripture but also without contradiction!
Finally, (in light of the two previous paragraphs) you will have noticed that I have shown – convincingly I believe though it is doubtful any Calvinist would agree – that the logical conclusions of Calvinism ultimately negates the scriptures, and through Calvinism Gods’ character is irrevocably tarnished to the extent that God’s Word, including the very texts that Calvinism relies on, have become wholly untrustworthy. Calvinism leads to a clear contradiction of the character and nature of God as He has chosen to reveal Himself in and through His Word and so to appeal to ‘mystery’ – I believe – is wrong for any reflective Christian to invoke in this context!
It is with this biblical hermeneutical philosophy as a back drop that I am prepared to explain why I reject Calvinism and Determinism (or Predestination; though Determinism is not exclusively a Calvinistic term, i.e. Arminians believe in a ‘foreknown’ determined future, none-the-less, in the context that I am entreating it, Calvinism and Determinism [predestination] will hence forth be interchangeable). Please note: what follows is not a polemic against Calvinism; that is, I’m not going to pull together a string of verses that may ‘prove’ or ‘disprove’ Calvinism. My goal here is that while there certainly is a strong case for (and against) Calvinism in the bible by way of a proof-text approach, I wish to explain why I reject Calvinism forthright and not attack or build an exhaustive case against it.
Why I Am Not a Calvinist
There are many possible reasons why I reject Calvinism. For example, I was raised in a Pentecostal/Wesleyan free-will tradition that may have made me predisposed to rejecting divine omni-determinism, yet there have been many raised in the free-will tradition who after many years in church and after faithfully studying God’s word (and certain writers) has exchanged their free-will tradition for an omni-determined one. So appeal to my tradition alone is not enough to conclude why I reject Calvinism today. Some might suggest that because I find it heartless to suggest that God wills and ‘renders certain’ for many (most?) people to go to hell for all time just to glorify Himself, that I have placed my emotions in charge of my brain, and that is why I reject Calvinism. There may be some truth here as well, but I must add with force that if this were the case I doubt I would have spent serious time in the past investigating Calvinism from the writings of Calvinists’ in order to see if they can be reconciled with the God revealed in scripture. In other words, I believe I have given Calvinism a fair intellectual hearing and so to conclude that my emotions have gotten in the way would – I believe – be an unfair, emotional and anti-intellectual response from my critics.
Another factor, it may be said, is that I have chosen to embrace certain ‘proof-texts’ over above other ‘proof-texts’, that is, I wholly embrace some texts such as John 3:16 while quietly passing over others such as Romans 9:13. This may be the case also, but if it is, can the Calvinist escape the same charge? How, I would like to know, does the Calvinists handle Hebrews 6 and 10 for example? Of all I have read of Calvinism, these make up two of the most contrary passages for them to explain and indeed most which I have read simply (quietly) pass over such passages. I would like to know, oh Calvinist, how it can be said of someone who is Totally Depraved (T in T.U.L.I.P) that such a one has been “Enlightened… tasted the heavenly gift, and… shared in the Holy Spirit and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come”? And if such a one is God’s elect, how can it be said that if they “have fallen away” that it is impossible to “restore them again to repentance” (cf. Hebrews 6:4-6)? None-the-less, I would rebuttal the charge as unfair since I wholly embrace Romans 9-11 yet radically interpret that text differently in a way that reflects the primary motif of Romans in its entirety – i.e. the question of God’s covenantal righteousness – just as a few Calvinists have found a way to explain – albeit in an unsatisfactory way in my opinion – Hebrews 6 and 10.
There are many more reasons why it can be said that I reject Calvinism (or Augustinian or any other type of omni divine determinism for that matter) but of them all there is one reason which stands head and shoulders above the rest.
The ONE, the Achilles Heel!
Omni-determinism is analogous to a knitted sweater with a loose or frayed end; when that loose end is pulled on, that beautiful sweater, which was crafted with patterns by some of the greatest minds in Church history, slowly then quickly unravels until there is nothing resembling a sweater left and the yarn itself looses all usefulness. In that analogy the yarn is the Bible, the design of the sweater and patters in it are the theory of Calvinism and the loose or frayed end is the Achilles Heel of Calvinism which no body wants to talks about.
That Achilles Heel, that loose end of Calvinism is the question; if God has omni-control and nothing ever (EVER!) happens outside of His will, His plan, and His purpose how does sin escape the hands of God? Calvinists have created a doctrine called Compatibilism as a means to justify their position, but not even Compatibilism gets them off the hook, and the real honest Calvinists are at least willing to admit this much, for such a one there is a fall back position which is found in the word “mystery” (see “Q&A” below)!
What is Compatibilism? Compatibilism is the belief that humans (and angels?) are responsible for their sin because they sin out of the desires of their hearts, but God is the one who gives them their desires! (Hence human free choices are compatible with God’s omni-control.) So because humans (and angels?) do what we want (our desires) we are accountable for our actions and will be judge accordingly, even though we could not have done otherwise because God is the one who gave us our desires! Perhaps an illustration will help. Say a pedophile abducts a little girl, rapes her repeatedly and then dumps her body in a ditch, according to Compatibilism, he did this because God willed it, planned it, purposed it and rendered it certain (for some mysterious so-called greater good) that this would happen, as a matter of fact God is the one who gave the pedophile his desires to do what he did so that the pedophile could not have chosen to do otherwise. Who is responsible for the actions of the pedophile, him or the one who ‘rendered his actions certain’ (i.e. God)? The Calvinist would say the pedophile is responsible since he is the one who desired to abuse the little girl and acted out those desires. But I do not see how God cannot also be held accountable for the very same actions since God willed it, planned it, purposed it, “was in control” of the whole ordeal and made it certain that the event could not have happened any other way. To down size our illustration; say a mother pushers her toddler down the stairs, who is responsible for the preschoolers’ injuries? Obviously the mother is. But what if the father pushes the mother intentionally into the child for the purpose of causing the child to fall down the stairs, who now is responsible, the mother who’s body pressed against the child thus being the direct cause of the child’s fall, or the father who pushed the mother into the child in order to render the child’s injuries certain? I think we would all agree that the responsibility falls on the father given what we know of the scenario! How can we escape this conclusion with God?
The Sweater Unravels! The Dark Side Revealed!
Luther of the reformation was a brave man. Not only was he willing to put his life on the line in his zeal to reform the Church, he was also willing to follow the logical conclusions of his own theology wherever they would lead him; something most Calvinist’ lack the guts to do. What I mean is this, I have a quote somewhere of Luther (who like Calvin, was an omni divine determinist in the Augustinian tradition) in which he admits that there must be a ‘dark side to God’! Let me add unequivocally: if Calvin is right, then so is Luther. If Calvinism is true then so is Luther’s conclusion, there is no way to escape it!
The first human sin, the first angelic sin, every sin since then, every evil act, every desire and inclination of mans hearts, every natural evil, all of it, everything from Adam to Auschwitz, from Sodom to Satan, they all and every act and inclination thereof find their origins in God – if Calvinism is true. If Calvinism is true then darkness is not simply the absence of light, and sin is not simply the absence of holiness, for both find their origins in God.
Pull on this loose string long enough and the yarn of scripture as the Calvinist understands them unravels the whole sweater. Is God perfectly good? He is also perfectly evil. Is God light as the scriptures teach? He is also darkness. Is Satan the father of lies, well no, God is since all lies originate in the intention of God! If we cannot trust what the scriptures teach of Gods goodness, holiness, justice, lightness, that He is ‘the Truth’, and that He is ‘the Light’, and that He is ‘the Way’ to the Father but rather that He is also the Lie, the Darkness and the Way to hell etc. the bottom line is that the scriptures become wholly untrustworthy and we might as well toss them in the garbage because the bible itself has lied about who God is and, as Roger Olson is known for saying, in Calvinism it is difficult to distinguish between God and the Devil!
Calvinism may begin on the scriptures, but it is also their undoing. They may appeal to certain ‘proof-text’ as evidence for their belief, but in the end their interpretation of these ‘proof-texts’ leads to the annulment of the whole of scripture, including the very ‘proof-texts’ they originally appealed to!
The End
I hope I have not been too unfair, or unfairly presented the Calvinist model; but my purpose here was to share quite simply my opinion of Calvinism as the question was presented in the previous blog. There are many writers I respect who hold to the Calvinistic model and I don’t wish to demonize any of them for their views, many brilliant men throughout the ages have embraced omni divine determinism and I am nothing before these giants; but until one of them can explain to little ol’ me how Calvinism can avoid the conclusion above I am bound to the God revealed in scripture to take the position I have.
Sincerely His,
Derek.
Q & A
Q: Most Calvinist will readily say that the bible teaches both that God is in complete control and that he holds humans responsible for their own ‘free’ actions and that we should not push the issue, but rather we should simply believe the scriptures and accept the apparent contradiction or paradox as a mystery. What is wrong with an appeal to ‘mystery’ here?
A: I see a grave mistake in appealing to ‘mystery’ in the light of the logical conclusions of Calvinism.
The great Church philosopher of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, has become famous for acknowledging that even God has at least one limitation, that is, God cannot do that which is logically impossible to do. For example, God cannot ‘not be God’ and ‘be God’ at the same time (When Jesus came to earth he did not cease to be God, for the scriptures testify that in Him the fullness of the Deity dwelt! Col. 2:9); another example is that God cannot hear ‘nothing’ for the simple reason that ‘nothing’ is the absence of noise and so there is simply nothing to hear, if God could hear ‘nothing’ then ‘nothing’ would then become a ‘sound’, it would be ‘something’ and not ‘nothing’. In other words, God cannot hear ‘nothing’ because that would constitute a logical contradiction, it is logically impossible to hear the un-hearable! (Hold that thought.)
There is a BIG difference between a paradox which we can acknowledge as a ‘mystery’; and that of a clear contradiction which we should either seek to reconcile or if it cannot be done, we should readily abandon. Take for example the Trinity; it took the early church several centuries to develop and carefully articulate the dogma of the divine Godhead, in the end they concluded that we are to understand the Trinity as ‘One Being eternally existing in three distinct Persons’. The Trinity is a ‘paradox’ which humans are incapable of understanding, and so we can refer to it as a great mystery – and it is! But it is not a contradiction. It would be a contradiction if the Church said that ‘God is One Person and also three Persons’, for God cannot be both ‘one person’ and ‘three persons’ at the same time, since that would constitute a logical contradiction (see previous paragraph). But if the Trinity were a clear contradiction, the Church would never have settled comfortably with it as a dogma declaring it a mystery; no way! They would have wrestled with it (as they did) until they could understand it (philosophically) in terms that were faithful to the texts of scripture but also without contradiction!
Finally, (in light of the two previous paragraphs) you will have noticed that I have shown – convincingly I believe though it is doubtful any Calvinist would agree – that the logical conclusions of Calvinism ultimately negates the scriptures, and through Calvinism Gods’ character is irrevocably tarnished to the extent that God’s Word, including the very texts that Calvinism relies on, have become wholly untrustworthy. Calvinism leads to a clear contradiction of the character and nature of God as He has chosen to reveal Himself in and through His Word and so to appeal to ‘mystery’ – I believe – is wrong for any reflective Christian to invoke in this context!
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AWESOME. I'm thankful that you've thought a lot about this and have written on it so succinctly! It's important what we believe about our Lord we worship; our beliefs always have implications in every area of our lives. I hope this discussion and pursuit of our Lord through His Word, by His Spirit, and in this life will be actualized through us being more reflective and active in our faith towards God! Blessings bro in Him! Let His joy, peace, love, and humility fill you as you grow in the knowledge and faith(action) of Christ!
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