Customers
assumed that Henry Hobson (1544-1631), who rented out horses from his
stable in Cambridge, England, would allow them to inspect his stock and
select from among the forty horses they found there. Of course, such a
system would have led to the overuse of the best horses. So, Hobson
resolved this problem by requiring his customers to take the horse in
the stall nearest the door. This arrangement gave rise to the
expression, “Hobson’s choice,” in which a person must “take what is
available or nothing at all” (Wikipedia).
Whatever
might be said about “Hobson’s choice,” at least it was a real choice.
His clients could choose to accept what he offered or walk away. What
might be called “Calvin’s choice,” on the other hand, is nothing more
than a false choice. John Calvin (1509-64), the French-Swiss Reformer
who popularized the system of religious thought bearing his name, did
not offer the sinner a choice in salvation, though he, or his followers,
might claim otherwise.
An Explanation
Calvinism
is not only the very definition of a mind-numbing “morass,” but it might
also deserve the distinction of being the most blasphemous ideology
which passes under the name “Christian.” Perhaps the preeminent
representation of this is its portrayal of God as unrighteous in
its doctrine of “total hereditary depravity.” “God made Adam upright …
but through his fall he brought spiritual death upon himself and all his
posterity. He thereby plunged himself and the entire race into
spiritual ruin and lost for himself and his descendants the ability to
make right choices in the spiritual realm” (The Five Points of
Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented, David N. Steele and Curtis
C. Thomas, pg. 25). The Calvinistic Westminster Confession of Faith
states: “[Adam and Eve] being the root of all mankind, the guilt of
this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature
conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary
generation. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly
indisposed, disabled, and made opposite of all good, and wholly inclined
to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. … Every sin, both
original and actual … doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the
sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the
law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual,
temporal, and eternal” (Chapter VI, Sections 3, 4, and 6, The
Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in the United States,
1965, pp. 49,50).
Several
aspects of this doctrine confirm and magnify its horrific and
blasphemous nature. (1) Every person is conceived and born with the
guilt and corrupted nature of sin as a result of having inherited such
from Adam. As a result, all infants and children, including the unborn,
still-born, and newly-born, are sinful and subject to eternal
condemnation. Hence, Calvinism presents those who contemplate it with
the specter of billions of people coming to their first consciousness of
existence in hell and having no idea why they are there. (Given the
“hard-core logic” for which Calvinism is praised, this is a picture
which is logically consistent with its premises.) (2) All “actual” sins
which people commit are caused by this sinful nature which they have
inherited from Adam. (3) God arranged for this transmission of guilt
and depravity from Adam to all his descendants. (Herein lies what might
be the most critical weakness of the Calvinistic system. The basis and
manner of the transmission of “original sin” is its linchpin. Yet, its
advocates make little, if any, effort to explain or defend it. They
simply assert it as a fact without bothering to address its
why and how, except to claim that it was in God’s “good
pleasure” to have it so.) (4) God transmitted this sinful nature, and,
effectively, all consequent transgressions which result from it,
absolutely without any consideration of what a person did or would
otherwise have done. The well-known doctrine of “unconditional
election” (or “predestination,” as popularly conceived) has God simply
select some to go to heaven without consideration of any condition in
those he so chooses, and commit the rest to hell because of the
“original sin” He imposed on them.
Had it
not happened, perhaps it would have been thought impossible for humans
to be capable of conceiving and constructing a doctrine which gives to
God an image so far beyond the pale of decency that it would cause even
the worst pagan to blanch. Indeed, Calvin himself gave this idea the
infamous Latin label decretum horribile (“horrible, or dreadful,
decree”).
Lest it
be thought that this exaggerates what Calvin actually said, he will be
allowed to speak for himself from his Institutes of the Christian
Religion: “I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so
many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy
unless that it so seemed meet to God? Here the most loquacious tongues
must be dumb. The decree, I admit, is dreadful; and yet it is
impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be
before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his
decree. … Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only
foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity;
but also at his own pleasure arranged it” (III.23.7, trans. Henry
Beveridge, Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2008, pg. 630).
Several
of Calvin’s points should especially be noted: (1) Even “infant
children” are involved in condemnation. (2) This condemnation is
“eternal death without remedy.” (3) Such a divine decree, he admits, is
“dreadful.” (4) The fall of Adam and the consequent spiritual ruin of
his posterity was not only foreseen by God but was also “arranged” by
Him. (5) God made this “dreadful” arrangement by “his own pleasure.”
The last
of these points directs attention to a fundamental and foul fallacy in
Calvinistic thinking: it is diametrically opposed to the righteous
character of God. As such, its runs counter to every one of the
hundreds of Biblical texts which assert the righteousness and love of
God. A small sampling of texts to this effect represents the many
others which say the same: “The
LORD, the LORD God, [is] compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and
abounding in lovingkindness and truth” (Ex. 34:6, NASB).
“… The
Lord is upright … and there is no unrighteousness in Him” (Psa.
92:15). “… There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never
be!” (Rom. 9:14). “For God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son …” (Jn. 3:16).
Yet, so
inextricably and obdurately attached are Calvinists to their doctrines
that they are even unmoved by otherwise plain but contrary texts which
teach that God actually wishes for all to be saved. When confronted
with passages which say that God loved the world (Jn. 3:16), that
He “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4), and that He does
not wish “for any to perish” (2 Pet. 3:9), they, in essence, deny
them by claiming that the words do not mean what they obviously mean but
that “all” simply refers to “all kinds,” or the elect (James R. White,
The Potter’s Freedom, pp. 135-150,193,194). It is not the
purpose of this article to make a detailed examination of such claims.
Rather, it is enough to pause and let the reader absorb the fact that
Calvinists do not believe that God wants every sinner to repent and be
saved. Their doctrines not only imply this, they themselves say it and
even wrest the Scriptures to preserve their doctrines. It requires a
special kind of bias, obstinacy, and obtuseness to prefer such heinous
doctrines over the plainest of Scriptures which teach otherwise.
Yet,
Calvinists would not disagree with assertions of God’s righteousness.
Their failure consists in their inability to see, somehow, that their
peculiar doctrines conflict God’s righteousness. Thus, more to the
point is the observation that it is contrary to the principles of God’s
moral character for Him to cause sin. (While Calvinists might balk at
such a frank statement of their beliefs, this is, nevertheless, the
effective conclusion which any objective assessment would yield.) The
Scriptures say that God will not punish the innocent or impute sin to
those who do not have it from an exercise of their own will: “The
person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the
father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s
iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and
the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself” (Ezek. 18:20).
This judicial principle is originally part of the righteous character of
God and was extended to the civil law of Israel (Deut. 24:16; 2 Kgs.
14:6). That God means for this principle to be used beyond the
father-son relationship to which it is specifically applied in Ezekiel
is shown by the fact that He also uses the generic references,
“righteous” and “wicked.” Furthermore, that righteousness and
wickedness are non-transferrable is shown by the fact that God says they
will be upon the righteous and wicked, respectively. In other words, to
be held guilty for wickedness, one must actually do wickedness.
This is
evident in God’s conversation with King Abimelech, who had unwittingly
taken Abraham’s wife as his own. “But God came to Abimelech in a dream
of the night, and said to him, ‘Behold, you are a dead man because of
the woman whom you have taken, for she is married.’ Now Abimelech had
not come near her; and he said, ‘Lord, wilt Thou slay a nation, even
though blameless? Did he not himself say to me, “She is my
sister”? And she herself said, “He is my brother.” In the integrity of
my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.’ Then God said
to him in the dream, ‘Yes, I know that in the integrity of your heart
you have done this, and I also kept you from sinning against Me;
therefore I did not let you touch her” (Gen. 20:3-6). God’s
assertion that Abimelech was a “dead man” was proleptic and conditional,
for He shortly said, “But if you do not restore her, know that
you shall surely die, you and all who are yours” (cf. vs. 7b). God did
not hold Abimelech guilty and kill him, because, though he had taken
another’s man wife, he had not done so knowingly and willfully. Thus, a
deed that would otherwise have been sinful and gotten Abimelech killed
was not a sin, because he did not have the knowledge to permit him to
act other than as he did.
Likewise,
though Esau and Jacob struggled with one another in their mother’s womb
and did that which in adults would be sinful, Paul declared that “though
the twins were not yet born,” they “had not done anything good or
bad” (Gen. 25:22; Rom. 9:11). Since young children, such as Esau
and Jacob were, cannot distinguish between good and evil (Deut. 1:39;
Isa. 7:15), they cannot be held guilty for doing what, in those who
do know the difference, would be considered wrong. Thus, knowledge and
ability spell the difference between a sinful act and one which is not.
This is why Paul was able to tell the Corinthians, “… In evil be babes”
(1 Cor. 14:20), for babes are “innocent in what is evil” (Rom.
16:19).
The Criticality of Free Will
Given
God’s absolutely righteous character, it would seem to be a natural,
unavoidable conclusion that He would have no interest in depriving men
of their ability to choose between good and evil. As just shown, human
knowledge which allows one to distinguish between good and evil and the
free will which allows him to exercise that knowledge is critical to
human responsibility for sin, and human responsibility for sin is
critically essential to relieving God of responsibility for it.
Yet,
Calvinism disallows human free will, thus making God the cause of sin,
at two points: (1) original sin and (2) actual sin.
According to Calvinism, no human ever conceived ever willed to bear
original sin. It was imposed upon him through no choice of his own. It
could not be otherwise, since original sin, being supposedly imposed at
conception, begins in a person with his existence. Therefore, according
to Calvinism, one is no more capable of choosing original sin than he is
capable of choosing to come into existence.
Furthermore, a consideration of actual sin does nothing to relieve the
Calvinists’ conundrum. This is because they believe that all actual
sins are necessarily caused by original sin. The Westminster
Confession of Faith says, “From this original corruption, whereby we
are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and
wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions”
(Chapter VI, Section 4). So, not only, according to Calvinism, is
everyone conceived/born sinful, but everyone sins thereafter as a
result. No one has a choice in any of this.
The
Calvinistic doctrine of “Irresistible Grace” is also confirmatory of
this conclusion about the relationship between original sin and actual
sin. “Because men are by nature dead in sin … they are of themselves
unable and unwilling to forsake their evil ways and to turn to Christ
for mercy. Consequently, the unregenerate will not respond to the
gospel call to repentance and faith. … Such an act of faith and
submission is contrary to the lost man’s nature. Therefore, the Holy
Spirit, in order to bring God’s elect to salvation, extends to them
a special inward call … . Through this special call the Holy
Spirit performs a work of grace within the sinner which inevitably
brings him to faith in Christ. … For the grace which the Holy Spirit
extends to the elect cannot be thwarted or refused, it never fails to
bring them to true faith in Christ!” (Steele and Thomas, op. cit., pp.
48,49).
So,
according to Calvinism, all people are conceived/born in original sin,
which necessarily causes them to commit actual sin. Thus, if one is to
be lost, he cannot choose to be saved, and if he is to be saved, he
cannot choose to be lost. If human language is capable of expressing a
denial of free will, it is impossible to imagine how it could be used to
do so more clearly and effectively.
Human
free will has an absolutely essential and direct bearing on the
righteousness of God. (“Free will” is actually a tautology. If one
possesses a will, it is, by its very nature, inherently free.
Otherwise, it is someone else’s will and not his own. However, because
of its historical familiarity, this expression is used here for purposes
of accommodation and emphasis.) This is because someone must be
responsible for sin. Only two possibilities ultimately offer themselves
in the assignment of responsibility for sin: God or humans.
If God is ruled out, this leaves only humans themselves to be held
responsible for it. Yet, there is a catch: in order to hold humans
responsible for their sins, they must be afforded free will. It is
axiomatic that, without the freedom to choose not to sin, humans cannot
be held accountable for their sins. Thus, if there is no human free
will, there can be no human responsibility for sin, and the
responsibility for it must then pass to God.
Faced
with the insoluble dilemma of holding two diametrically contradictory
propositions (i.e., denial of human free will and assertion of divine
righteousness) at the same time, Calvinists resort to some fantastic
feats of illogic. Yet, to try to follow the reasoning of Calvinists in
their struggle to reconcile their doctrines with divine righteousness
and human free will is to enter the realm of the surreal. Calvinism
simply defies all attempts at rational understanding. Were it not so
perverse, tragic, and ridiculous, it would be amusing, if not
fascinating.
One
tactic to which Calvinists resort is to attribute God’s choices to His
“own good pleasure” and glorification, though how it brings God pleasure
and glory to condemn billions to an eternal hell through no choice of
theirs is incomprehensible. A second tactic is simply to warn the
enquirer not to contemplate such thoughts and deny him the right to ask
such questions. A third tactic is simply to acknowledge this
contradiction as a “mystery” or “paradox” which human minds are
incapable of comprehending. [Yes, every believer eventually comes to
questions which steadfastly resist answers, and he must determine to
hold these questions in abeyance until he learns the answers either in
Scripture or in heaven (Deut. 29:29). However, there is a
critical difference between God withholding answers and God
giving self-contradictory ones. God never gives answers which are
inconsistent with His character or His word. The Scriptures cannot be
broken (Jn. 10:35). They must be harmonized as to their
teachings. Therefore, no doctrine which allows sin to be traced for
responsibility back to God and, therefore, challenges His righteousness,
can be permitted to stand. It simply will not do for Calvinists to hide
behind false piety on this point.]
A fourth
tactic might actually be one of the weirdest, most bizarre theological
claims ever made. Since it partakes of the spirit of a fantastic but
familiar fairy tale, it might appropriately be called “the emperor’s new
clothes” approach. Calvinists behave as if there is no contradiction.
They ignore it, or pretend it does not exist, by asserting both
contradictory propositions as if they were not contradictory. In other
words, they simply make the assertion (sometimes eased by the grease of
equivocation) that humans both have free will and do not have free will.
Hence,
the Westminster Confession of Faith says, “God from all eternity
did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and
unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither
is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the
creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established” (Chapter III, Section 1), and “Man, by his
fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any
spiritual good accompanying salvation … and dead in sin, is not able, by
his own strength, to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto.
When God converteth a sinner and translateth him into the state of
grace, he freeth him from his natural bondage under sin, and … enableth
him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good …” (Chapter
XI, Sections 3,4). The elect are promised the Holy Spirit “to make them
willing and able to believe” (Chapter VII, Section 3) and are drawn to
Christ “yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his
grace” (Chapter XII, Section 2). Furthermore, “It is the duty and
privilege of everyone who hears the gospel immediately to accept its
merciful provisions; and they who continue in impenitence and unbelief
incur aggravated guilt and perish by their own fault” (Chapter X,
Section 3). Later, it also says, “This perseverance of the saints
depends, not upon their own free-will, but upon the immutability of the
decree of election …” (Chapter XIX, Section 2).
According
to Calvinism, it might safely be said that everyone has lost his free
will by virtue of original sin. This is so true that people cannot
independently respond in obedience to the gospel but are dependent upon
the grace of God as exercised upon them by the direct operation of the
Holy Spirit to cause them to respond to the gospel. Nevertheless, it is
their “duty” to respond to that which they have no power of their own to
respond to, and if they do not respond to that to which they have no
power of their own to respond, then they perish by their “own fault.”
Furthermore, an elect person will certainly persevere to the end, since
his perseverance does not depend upon his “own free-will.”
It is
difficult to imagine how anyone could contrive a more convoluted,
contradictory, and confusing conception of “free will” had he set out
with the deliberate intent to do so. Calvinists claim free will, but
when they are done claiming it, it is hard to find any trace of it in
anything they say. Perhaps to be impressed with the full impact of the
double-speak involved in this Calvinistic conception of “free will,” the
reader ought to contemplate it as concentrated in the words, “they come
most freely, being made willing.” “Made willing”? One would be
hard-pressed, indeed, to find a more compact and classic exemplar of “a
contradiction in terms.”
So,
Calvinists have some sense of the problem in giving up on free will,
even if they must resort to a contradiction in terms to retain some
semblance of it. Thus, if God elects a person to salvation, he is “made
willing” to respond to the gospel. However, if a person is “made
willing,” does he have a choice about being willing? And if he is not
willing by his choice, is he not forced or coerced to will? And if his
will is coerced, can it be free? And if his will is not free, is it
really his own?
Thus,
when Calvinists assert a “free will,” they mean only an apparent
“free will.” A person only senses that he is acting on his own
volition, but that is only because even the consciousness that he is
doing so is given to, or forced upon, him. Despite this, some
Calvinists will bristle at the suggestion that they are saying that the
human “will” is coerced, or forced. Yet, they only delude themselves by
replacing such terms with synonymous, but less offensive, expressions.
Indeed,
Calvinists will often assert (free) will in one breath and retract it in
the next. This constant Calvinist reneging and determination to have it
both ways might remind the reader of the line attributed to Henry Ford:
“Any customer can have a car in any color as long as it is black.” For
the Calvinist, the unelected sinner can make choices; it is just that he
cannot choose anything but sin (ultimately). “Left to their own
choices, [sinners] inevitably follow the god of this world and do the
will of their father, the devil. … Those who were not chosen to
salvation were passed by and left to their own evil devices and choices”
(The Five Points of Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented, pp.
30,31).
Such
circumlocution is by no means unusual in Calvinistic circles. Indeed,
it is standard. David Steele and Curtis Thomas provide a particularly
remarkable specimen of this phenomenon in The Five Points of
Calvinism Defined, Defended, Documented: “… Through his fall,
[Adam] brought spiritual death upon himself and all his posterity. He
thereby plunged himself and the entire race into spiritual ruin and lost
for himself and his descendants the ability to make right choices in the
spiritual realm. His descendants are still free to choose — every man
makes choices throughout life — but inasmuch as Adam’s offspring are
born with sinful natures, they do not have the ABILITY to choose
spiritual good over evil. Consequently, man’s will is no longer free
(i.e., free from the dominion of sin) as Adam’s will was free before the
fall. Instead, man’s will, as the result of inherited depravity, is in
bondage to his sinful nature” (pg. 25). The observant reader needs no
help here. It is not unusual to encounter inconsistencies in a false
teacher, but one could hardly expect to meet with such rapidly rotating
reversals that they threaten the reader with vertigo.
Yet, the
consciences of some Calvinists are still sensitive enough that they are
repelled and rebel. One of them is Norman Geisler, who committed his
efforts to moderate Calvinism to his book, Chosen But Free.
There, he relates a couple of truly illustrative stories. “Many years
ago when the late John Gerstner and I taught together at the same
institution, I invited him into one of my classes to discuss free will.
Being what I have called an extreme Calvinist, he defended Jonathan
Edwards’ view that the human will is moved by the strongest desire. I
will never forget how he responded when I pushed the logic all the way
back to Lucifer. I was stunned to hear an otherwise very rational man
respond to my question ‘Who gave Lucifer the desire to rebel against
God?’ by throwing up his hands and crying, ‘Mystery, mystery, a great
mystery!” I answered, “No, it is not a great mystery; it is a grave
contradiction.’ …
“The
second example is also tragic. A well-known conference speaker was
explaining how he was unable to come to grips with the tragic death of
his son. Leaning on his strong Calvinistic background, he gradually
came to the conclusion: ‘God killed my son!’ … I thought to
myself, ‘I wonder what he would say if his daughter had been raped?’
Would he not be able to come to grips with the matter until he concluded
victoriously that ‘God raped my daughter!’…”
He
followed this with a trenchant comment the likes of which must often
occur to those who encounter assertions of extreme doctrines carried to
their logical ends: “Some views do not need to be refuted; they simply
need to be stated” (pg. 138).
Geisler
was roundly criticized by hard-line Calvinists, among them James R.
White, who took on Geisler in his book, The Potter’s Freedom. At
one point, White complains, “In all fairness it appears that Dr. Geisler
lives on both sides of this issue …” (pg. 123). It might betray a sense
of satisfaction to find that one Calvinist frustrates another to say so,
but here is a “news flash” for James White: of course, Geisler lives on
both sides of the issue; he is a Calvinist, and all Calvinists,
including White himself, live on both sides of the issue! It is
what they do! Inconsistency is in their blood! Their doctrines demand
it!
This can
be demonstrated in White himself. Does he believe in human free will?
“What do Reformed Christians believe concerning the will of man? The
reader of CBF [Chosen But Free] would have to conclude
that true Calvinists believe man’s will is ‘destroyed’ and done away
with, resulting in nothing more than an automaton, a robot. But this is
not the case at all” (The Potter’s Freedom, pp. 77,78). So, the
reader must surely think he has found White unequivocally declaring
himself for human free will.
Yet, no
one really knows what a Calvinist like White believes until he has heard
him on the other side of the issue, for he soon says, “And so we now
respond to the attempts to promote the myth of man’s free will and
creaturely autonomy” (pg. 88). Wait! Did he not just deny that
Calvinists believe that man’s will is “destroyed”? Then, what is this
about “the myth of man’s free will”? Furthermore, how is it that
“creaturely autonomy” is a “myth” but man is no “automaton”? How is a
creature without autonomy not an automaton? So, a human is neither
automatous nor autonomous? Perhaps James White would enjoy
more success getting another White to understand such fantastical
thinking — in this case, Alice in Wonderland’s White Queen, who boasted
that she could sometimes believe as many as “six impossible things
before breakfast.”
However,
in all fairness to White, toward the end of his book, he appears to
remove all doubt on this point: “Giving in to [atheists] and affirming
the humanist doctrine of free will is not the way to win the battle. …
But I do not believe in free will, nor do I believe in a grace that is a
mere helping force and not the renewing power of God” (pp. 334,335).
Thus, the reader can hardly escape a strong sense of irony as he reads
White at the end of his book accusing Geisler in his book of “using
words in a manner that is utterly self-contradictory” (pg. 336).
God’s Choice
It might
be inappropriate to conclude this article without at least a brief
affirmative statement about Biblical election and predestination. After
all, the Bible does teach that the saved are chosen to be what they are
by God and that they are predestined. For example, Paul said, “…
He chose
us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
blameless before Him …,” and “also we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things
after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:4,11). Therefore, it is
not a question of whether God chooses and predestines those who
are saved but how He does. To be sure, and given the preceding
considerations, it must be in some way and sense which do not violate
the free will of the saved to choose to be saved.
First,
God chooses the saved corporately. This is to say that He
chooses them as a class or collectively, not individually.
Second,
God chooses the saved conditionally, not arbitrarily. This is to
say that He chooses the conditions or characteristics of those who will
be saved, not who will meet those conditions.
To
illustrate, a seller of masonry materials determines to provide
customers with stones or gravel of a certain size. Yet, the seller
does not select these stones singly or by taking them one-by-one and
chipping them with a hammer and chisel until they are the right size.
Instead, he takes a very large number of stones and shakes them through
a series of screens until he gets a batch of stones in the size he
desires. Now, it might be said that the stones which land in the hopper
under the screen with a grid whose squares will allow only stones of a
certain size to fall through were pre-selected. Yet, they were not
selected individually but as a class. Members of the class were chosen
only by virtue of their size being pre-determined and the conditions
arranged to select only those of their size.
Likewise,
when James says, “... Did not God choose the poor of this world to be
rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those
who love Him?” (Jas. 2:5), it means that God chose the poor, not
individually because they were poor, but by choosing a set of kingdom
conditions which would tend to be appealing to the poor and off-putting
to the wealthy (cf. Matt. 19:23,24; Lk. 6:20). Furthermore,
these conditions did not prevent the rich from entering His kingdom, as
long as they met His condition, for some Christians were wealthy (cf.
1 Tim. 6:17-19).
A
Biblical illustration is also helpful. Both God and Israel are
specifically said to have chosen Israel’s first king, Saul: “And Samuel
said to all the people, ‘Do you see him whom the LORD has chosen? Surely
there is no one like him among all the people.’” (1 Sam. 10:24),
and “Now therefore, here is the king whom you have chosen, whom you have
asked for, and behold, the LORD has set a king over you” (1 Sam.
12:13, cf. 8:18). Both made genuinely free choices, but the choice
of neither excluded the other’s choosing also. Israel chose Saul as
king by choosing a monarchy as the kind of government they would have.
In other words, they chose Saul by choosing a class (viz., kings) of
which he would have to be a member. If Saul had been other than a king,
they could not have been said to have chosen him, though they did not
choose him specifically. God, on the other hand, chose the specific
person (viz., Saul) who met the qualifications or conditions of that
class chosen by Israel.
Likewise,
God chose those who would be saved only as He generally determined the
qualifications or conditions of the members of the class of those who
would be saved. The saved, on the other hand, got to choose whether
they would meet the conditions necessary to be members of the class of
the saved. Thus, God chose the saved by their choosing to be what He
chose the saved to be. In this way, both divine righteousness and human
free will were respected and preserved.
Conclusion
This
writer is by no means the first to notice the self-contradictory nature
of Calvinism. Thus, it is difficult to think of a more fitting way to
summarize what has been said than to quote Robert Shank, who wrote two
lengthy and thorough exposés of the Calvinistic doctrines of election
and perseverance, Elect in the Son and Life in the Son,
respectively. Toward the close of the latter, he gives his judgment of
Calvin’s theology: “It is true, as Calvinists delight to contend, that
there is a hard core of logic at the center of Calvin’s theology. But
it is a logic which proceeds on the erroneous assumption that the will
of God has but a single aspect, and which is totally invalid. It is
therefore inevitable that, despite its core of logic, there should be
much in Calvin’s theology which is horribly illogical — a fact which
Calvinists concede, but which they excuse on the plea that the frightful
paradoxes are ‘mysteries’ which our finite minds cannot comprehend. It
is odd that men who glory in the ‘logic’ of Calvin’s theology are so
ready to accept all that is grossly illogical in it. Even more
distressing is the fact that they are quite ready to accept the many
ingenious and artificial interpretations of simple, explicit statements
of Holy Scripture which the defense of Calvin’s theology requires” (pg.
356).
To close
this article where it began, one might imagine that John Calvin, seeking
to rent a horse, arrives at Henry Hobson’s stable. Hobson replies,
“Yes, sir! I have a stable of many fine horses. Feel free to inspect
the whole lot and choose any horse you like — as long as it is this old
swaybacked nag over here.” Calvin protests, “Why, that gives me no
choice at all!” To this Hobson rejoins, “Sure it does! You simply
choose the horse that I select for you! And furthermore, I will not
allow you to leave my stable today without choosing to ride out on that
old swaybacked nag!” In fact, that sounds like the makings of a good
comic strip. Perhaps it could be called Calvin and Hobson.
Other Articles by Gary Eubanks
A Fools Approach
Some Practical
Considerations for Those Considering Marriage
Talking Code
If You Remain Silent - Intolerance of
Controversy
Fathers, Divorce and Brethren
The Sunday Supper
Negative About Positivism
- Caffin,
B.C. (1950), II Peter – Pulpit Commentary, H.D.M. Spence
and Joseph Exell, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).
|
For Past Auburn Beacons go to:
www.aubeacon.com/Bulletins.htm
|
Anyone can join the mailing list for the Auburn Beacon! Send
your request to:
larryrouse@aubeacon.com |
