by Dr. Michael A. Cox, Pastor of First Baptist Church in Pryor, Oklahoma, and author of Not One Little Child: A Biblical Critique of Calvinism
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This is the fifth of a series of articles by Dr. Cox, with a Biblical critique of Calvinism drawn in part from his book Not One Little Child.
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A survey of the New Testament documents harmonizes beautifully with the testimony of the Old Testament concerning human options. Matthew recorded the words of Jesus when he taught His disciples to pray. Jesus stated that there is God’s will and implied that there is man’s will (Matt. 6:10). Jesus said that man may or may not choose to do the will of God (Matt. 7:21), that whoever does the will of God is related to Christ (Matt. 12:50), and that willingness to follow Him rests with man (Matt. 16:24). He further declared that the Father wills that none should perish, not one little child, which all of us begin as (Matt. 18:14). Jesus also implied that doing the will of God is optional when He taught the parable of the two sons (Matt. 21:31). And, I think one of the most fabulous of all passages regarding the human freewill is the one which relates the prayer of Jesus just before His arrest, in which is seen His human will conflicting with the will of God; but Jesus voluntarily submitted His human will to God’s will when He said, “… if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt” (Matt. 26:39).
Mark recorded the words of Jesus as declaring that man can do good whenever he is willing (Mark 14:7). Luke announced that the birth of Jesus demonstrates God’s good will toward all mankind [not simply the elect] (Luke 2:14). Luke further pointed out that killers exercise their wills, for Jesus was delivered by Pilate to the will of the mob (Luke 23:25).
The Apostle John noted that there is a distinction between the will of man and the will of God when he pointed out that those who are born again are not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, and we have already seen that God’s will is for all to be saved and that none perish (John 1:13). This verse is not discounting the human element in salvation, for the previous verse has already asserted that the right to become a child of God is granted to as many as receive Him (John 1:12). Also, we see again that Jesus acknowledged the presence of His human will and God’s will, and that He subjected His human will to God’s will (John 5:30). Further, when Jesus discussed Peter’s future with Him, He intimated that man can conduct his life as he wills, and he can change his will, as did Peter between his early rambunctious years and his later spiritually mature years (John 21:18).
Paul recognized that mankind struggles within between willing to do what is right and actually doing what is right. In Rom. 7:18 he wrote that nothing good dwells in man, but then amended his statement to say that nothing good dwells in one’s flesh, probably implying that something good does dwell in one’s spirit. To say that nothing good dwells in man is not a complete view of saved or unsaved man, as Paul shows by stating that to will to do good is present within him. The desire to do right is present within. The law of conscience is present in all. This consciousness of right and wrong has been damaged but not destroyed. Humans know the difference between right and wrong, but doing what is right is difficult and often unnatural. Paul knew that the sin nature is powerful and understood that there is a cataclysmic conflict between willing and doing. He taught that man can do what he wills, and in the context of 1 Cor. 7:36 it is regarding allowing a daughter to marry. Paul also saw that some have stronger wills than others (1 Cor. 7:37). Additionally, Paul stated that he acted voluntarily concerning preaching the gospel, and not against his will (1 Cor. 9:17). In the case of Apollos, Paul disclosed that he wanted Apollos to pay a visit to Corinth, but that Apollos’ desire was not to do so right then. So we have here a reference to man’s will concerning where to go and minister, and also when to go (1 Cor. 16:12). Paul even recognized that Satan has a will, and he tells Timothy as much (2 Tim. 2:26).
I do not know the name of the human agent God inspired to write the Book of Hebrews. What I do know is that he asserted that mankind can choose to sin wilfully (Heb. 10:26). He also admonished his readers to see to it that they not refuse (Heb. 12:25). Refuse God? Is this possible? Hebrews 12:25 declares that God speaks. As in the case of Jonah, we are not told how, so we are left to deduce that He does so through the conscience, through nature, through His spoken word, through His written word, and most excellently through the blood of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, God can be refused. We all have a choice. First, there is truth. Second, there is knowledge of Christian truth making its appeal to the intellect. Third, there is faith, unable to prove or disprove the truth, venturing to act upon the truth. He wants all to receive Him, not refuse Him. God used prophets to warn people on earth. Prophets of God speak for God. Those rejecting the prophet or his words are actually rejecting God. Those rejecting the warnings of the prophets do not escape God’s wrath on earth. Those rejecting God’s warnings from heaven and turning their back on Him will not escape His wrath. See to it that you do not refuse God. This is the emphatic plea of the author of Hebrews. He employs a present imperative to urge his readers not to decline God’s offers.
Simon Peter declared that shepherds (pastors), and others, can act out of constraint or willingly, meaning that we do have a will (1 Pet. 5:2). He also stated that no human will produces God’s prophecy or Scriptures. There is, then, a clear distinction between man’s will and God’s will (2 Pet. 1:21). Further, Peter said that those refusing God’s truth are willingly ignorant when they question the promise of Christ’s return, in that they fail to notice that creation itself was begun at the word of God; thus, God’s words regarding the return of Christ, which we have not yet seen, are as effective as His words which produced creation, which we have seen (2 Pet. 3:5).
The Apostle John did not cease his writing activities with his Gospel. In 1 John, he reported that man chooses to do the will of God (1 John 2:17). And in the Book of Revelation John affirmed that anyone who wishes may take of the cup of life (Rev. 22:17). The solemn invitation of Rev. 22:17 is that the Holy Spirit beckons all who hear or are thirsty to come. Then the bride says come, suggesting that Christians beckon unbelievers to come to Christ. The one who hears says come, implying that those who know Gospel truth must invite others to come to Christ. The one who is thirsty may come. The one who wishes for eternal life may drink freely. The invitation is open to any and all. Revelation 22:17 is perhaps the most evangelistic verse in the book.
With J. W. MacGorman, I assert that, unless people are free to say “no” to God, neither are they free to say “yes” to Him.1 Along these same lines, Marvin Vincent writes, “The potter does not make vessels in order to shiver them. God does not make men in order to destroy them. God ordains no man to eternal death. He desires to honor humanity, not dishonor it; and the fact that men do become vessels unto dishonor, merely proves the power which God has lodged in the human will of modifying, and in a sense defeating, His sovereign purpose of love.”2 God but persuades, almighty man decrees. Calvinism has an appalling optional weakness which it cannot overcome from the pages of Holy Writ.
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The next article in this series will explore the restrictive weakness of Calvinism.
1John William MacGorman, Romans, in Layman’s Bible Book Commentary, vol. 20, Romans – 1 Corinthians (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1980), 27.
2Marvin R. Vincent, The Epistle to the Romans, in Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. 3, The Epistles of Paul (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1887; reprint, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1980), 147.
People are not free to say “no” to God. They are bound to say “no” to God.
“No one seeks for God.”
“No one does good, no not one.” (both from Romans)
According to the New Testament, we have a bound will, not a free-will with respect to the things of God.
“…we are born NOT of the will of man…but of God.” (the Gospel of John)
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Until we get this fundamental truth correct, we will always be off kilter when it comes to our Christian faith. It’s like building a wall. If you’re off by a half inch at the start of it, down towards the end of it you’ll be way off.
By the way, the Calvinist wall starts with a faulty measurement, as well.
Thanks for your consideration.
Dr. Cox: Thank you so much for the plethora of biblical citations that shows God did not create automatons. — Norm
Steve,
You are overstating your case. (I don’t think anyone on this site is arguing for absolute free choice by humans.) Not only are we sinners but we are finite. But even in the midst of our finiteness and sin, God still has given us the ability to make libertarian choices for good or evil, to respond to his love or to reject the good.
Consider how you state the opposite extreme: “People are not free to say “no” to God. They are bound to say “no” to God.”
This is not the biblical view of humankind. The whole stream of biblical history is to the contrary. Some humans respond to God and say “yes”; some respond and say “no.” Some say “yes,” but then turn and say “no.” Some say “no” and then say “yes.”
Your statement is a totally negative theological conclusion driven by systematic doctrine, not the overall biblical witness of the flow of the paradoxical nature of humankind and his genuine choices.
It’s true there are a few verses if taken in isolation which make it seem humans have no choice, but there are many, many other verses which state the opposite–that humans do have the ability to respond “yes” or “no” to God.
One needs to balance the paradoxical nature of verses in Scripture. For example consider these verses which show humans do have some choice:
“If a man is righteous and does what is just and right…walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD.
14“Now suppose this man fathers a son who sees all the sins that his father has done; he sees, and does not do likewise: ..19“Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is just and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. 20The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.
21“But if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live. 23Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? 24But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice and does the same abominations that the wicked person does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.
Ezekiel 18:5-
NOTE verse 24, even a righteous man can make a wrong choice, saying “no.”
And even a wicked man can respond to God and say “yes.”
And her husband, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame
Matthew 1:19
17“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ Luke
Luke 15:17
And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man,
Acts 10:22
NOTE: Cornelius isn’t yet a Christian, hasn’t yet responded to the Gospel, but he has made a “yes” choice.
There are countless other verses in Scripture which speak of humans responding with “yes” or “no” and back and forth before being saved.
God’s Spirit wooes.
The decision is ours.
That is the nature of love.
Thanks for the dialog,
Daniel
Daniel,
Wasn’t it you who in the last post lauded the preaching of Charles Finney? The same Charles Finney whose preaches it abhorded by Traditionalists and Calvinists alike? The same Charles Finney who preached a different Gospel.
If you are that off about Charles Finney, perhaps you should start there, work through those major issues first.
Joseph wrote apparently intending some sort of put down of Daniel:
“Wasn’t it you who in the last post lauded the preaching of Charles Finney? The same Charles Finney whose preaches it abhorded by Traditionalists and Calvinists alike? The same Charles Finney who preached a different Gospel.”
In my reading of Daniel’s post I see no reference to Finney. Instead, Daniel made some good points and even included scriptural support.
In response, Joseph **ignored all of it** and responds back with this condescending and belittling comment:
“If you are that off about Charles Finney, perhaps you should start there, work through those major issues first.”
Daniel is doing just fine without having to bone up on Finney first before he can comment about free will and what scripture says about it.
Robert
Daniel,
Look at the two verses I cited. They demolish your argument.
And there are many more I could site. Jesus himself said that no man CAN come to Him… .
Yes, we have a “free-will”, but not when it comes to the things of God. After all “we are dead in our sins and trespasses”. Dead people do not choose God.
After God grabs a hold of us through the gospel, then we do make choices. All kinds of them.
Thanks.
Steve,
If you re-read the New Testament without systematic theology, you will see God “is not willing for any to perish.”
Start with 1 John, where it is states Jesus died for the whole world!
And you didn’t respond to the contrary verses I cited.
The nature of the Bible is paradoxical.
If God doesn’t truly love us, there is no hope.
Obviously,
I don’t believe in the God you believe in.
I trust God loves us all.
Daniel
The Apostle Peter’s text that “God is not willing that any should perish” is a promise to the Church. That is what the context makes clear.
Joseph no where in the passage is the elect mentioned but lets take your position. (once again eisegisis to read text like you want through the system) If Christ has delayed coming on order get the elect redeemed then we can come to two logical conclusions: Either Christ is not coming back ever or the last generation is going to be completely reprobate.
Daniel,
I agree that God does not desire that any perish. I agree that He died for the whole world. I’m not as Calvinist.
But that does not negate the fact that “we are dead in our sins and trespasses and are incapable of choosing God…He chooses us! (Jesus said that, also).
I think the Book of Romans makes it quite clear that God has “given us up to sin”, and that “none of us seeks for God”.
When the Gospel of John tells us that “we are NOT born of the will of man…” and when Jesus tells Nicodemus the exact same thing, “you must be born from above”, to me the evidence is overwhelming that “free-will”, when it comes to the things of God, just does not exist.
Steve,
I am not arguing that God does not desire all men to be saved. I am merely pointing out the fact that the promise that Daniel quotes (2Pet 3:9), he misapplies it to the world because it is a promise to the church. That is who Peter was talking to and of whom Peter was talking about. Context is everything.
You have got in 100% right, Steve Martin. Thank you for sharing these beautiful truths with me, encouraging me. We can just pray that Traditionalists will see the truth about these things for themselves and not miss out on this biblical knowledge.
Thank you, Joseph!
“No one seeks for God.”
“No one does good, no not one.” (both from Romans)”
Yes. And Paul is quoting Psalms which is poetry of man talking to God. Do you also say imprecatory prayers against your enemies? If no one EVER seeks God or does no good, then David was also talking about himself?
Perhaps more folks need to read Jesus in order to better understand Paul.
Lydia, very sad how you reject Paul’s words for what they say. Traditionalism appears to be a cancer that has infected many, causing them to distort clear teachings of scripture.
Any how, Lydia writes: “Perhaps more folks need to read Jesus in order to better understand Paul.”
Jesus said, “No one is good but One, that is, God.” (Matt. 19:17)
Paul’s and Jesus’ words are in harmony.
Jesus taught that there is no one good but God alone.
“Lydia, very sad how you reject Paul’s words for what they say. Traditionalism appears to be a cancer that has infected many, causing them to distort clear teachings of scripture.”
I don’t “reject” them. I take ALL (meaning ALL) of Romans into consideration. Including the historical context. Romans is a grand narrative for both Jewish and Gentile believers in a church having problems.
“Jesus said, “No one is good but One, that is, God.” (Matt. 19:17)”
Joseph, Are you saying there is NO difference between ”
no one IS good” and no one DOES good”?
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.” -Jesus (John 6:44)
Again, Lydia, Paul’s words and Jesus’ words are in harmony.
Paul taught that no one is good.
Jesus taught that no one is good.
Paul taught that no one seeks God.
Jesus taught that no one is capable of seeking Him unless God first draws him.
Maybe you should read Jesus and Paul again because apparently you have not understood either sufficiently.
“Maybe you should read Jesus and Paul again because apparently you have not understood either sufficiently.”
I happen to agree that no one IS good because we are all born in corrupted bodies into a corrupted earth. You are confusing “DOES good” with “IS good”. Even an athiest can “do” good things. Does not meant they are credited to him in anyway.
We are anything but automatons.
But our fallen state keeps us bound to the ‘self’, and not the things of God, until God changes our heart.
Steve,
The only people who can not “understand, and seek God” are those who have never heard of God. There are numerous commands to seek the Lord in the Bible. They are given to those who know where to find Him. In most cases it’s given to those who are not are following the Lord.
God does not change the heart of unbelievers. God only opens the eyes or the hearts of believers. God does change hearts, but only after repentance and faith.
Don,
God commanding us to do something does not mean we are capable of doing it. Assuming so is your fallacy.
Otherwise, “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” Surely you can do that, right Don, be as perfect as God Himself? God commanded it. No you can’t do it–not without the perfection of Christ being imputed to you. Commanding us to do something does not mean we are capable of doing it. Your reasoning is flawed.
Joseph,
If we keep it in context then yes, we can be perfect like our Father in Heaven. Namely we are to love our enemies, because God loves His enemies.
You can love your enemies equal to how God loves His enemies? I have never heard anyone profess that they could do something equal to God. Except that passage in Isaiah 14, attributed to Satan, I can’t think of any other place in the Bible where someone said they could be equal to God or do something equal to God. Have I really understood you correctly? Maybe you should explain again because it doesn’t sound right at all.
Joseph,
I didn’t say one can do something equal with God. I said we are to love our enemies, because God loves His. We don’t love our enemies as much as God loves His. If we did we would die for them. God’s love is greater than ours, but we can still love.
Of course Christ only died for His enemies and sinners. Now according to my theology, that would be everyone. Right?
It matters little what you said, Don, if it doesn’t line up with the text. What “Jesus” said was be as perfect as God Himself. That means equality with God. That means doing something as well as God does it. That is what Jesus commanded.
Joseph,
“Be ye therefore perfect” the therefore brings one back to the previous statement(s). Which in this case is “Love your enemies. . .” Please show why “therefore” is not drawing us back to “Love your enemies” if you would.
Even if it draws you back to loving your enemies, it still requires you to love your enemies with the same quality God loves His enemies–something you cannot possibly do! Therefore your whole arguement that God commanding us to do something means we have the ability to do it is soundly defeated. RIP
Joseph,
Tell me then what kind of love does God have for His enemies. Since God told us to love our enemies, I assume that means all our enemies. THEREFORE I must also assume God loves ALL His enemies. Please tell me how much God loves ALL His enemies. Hint – John 3:16
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O £Lucifer, son of the morning!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who weakened the nations!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit.
Hello Don,
“If we keep it in context then yes, we can be perfect like our Father in Heaven. Namely we are to love our enemies, because God loves His enemies.”
May I interject here?
When Jesus says “be perfect” this can also be taken as meaning **complete**. Jesus is not telling his disciples to be perfect like God, that is impossible. That was not his point in that passage. Rather, as you have pointed out, in context, he is saying that just as God loves not only the righteous but also his enemies (i.e. God has a complete love for both his own and those who are in rebellion against him), so should we.
This becomes especially important in the context of witnessing/evangelism as people before they are believers are in rebellion to God and so are acting like his enemies. If you don’t love God’s enemies, if you don’t have this kind of complete love for both the righteous and the unrighteous, you won’t be much of an evangelist. Instead, you take God as your example, realizing that because he loves the world according to John 3:16 (with “world” there meaning that group of people who are in active rebellion against God) so should you. If you don’t love rebellious sinners, you will not be an effective evangelist.
In the early church the most effective evangelists were those willing to present the gospel to the most hostile enemies of God (which initially even included the Jewish people, look at their treatment of the disciples in the book of Acts for example). In the first century there was intense predudice and hatred of Jews towards Gentiles, so who does God choose to be his key witness to the Gentiles? A thoroughly Jewish person steeped in Jewish culture and tradition who was actually having Christians arrested and killed. Paul gets converted on the Damascus road and becomes the apostle to the Gentiles! The bible says that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. When I preach or teach on this passage I make sure to let everybody know that prior to our conversion to Christ we acted like enemies of God and rebelled against Him and his ways. Fortunately for us, because God loves his enemies, he can transform an enemy of God into a servant of God. So this theme of loving our enemies as God does is crucial to living an obedient Christian life.
Robert
“God commanding us to do something does not mean we are capable of doing it. Assuming so is your fallacy.”
Yikes! How despairing for those who believe this!
“Otherwise, “Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” Surely you can do that, right Don, be as perfect as God Himself? God commanded it. No you can’t do it–not without the perfection of Christ being imputed to you. Commanding us to do something does not mean we are capable of doing it. Your reasoning is flawed.”
Oh yes, you can strive for Holiness when you are saved. And Jesus Christ sent a guide to help us: The Holy Spirit. Why cannot we not strive for perfection when we are the temple where God resides now, if we are saved?
It does NOT mean equality with God, Joseph, because we live in corrupted bodies on a corrupted earth. So, why would Jesus say it? Because He knows we cannot do it? That impugns His character!
RC Sproul says that it means ” complete”. I am quoting him since he seems to be the go to guy you all listen to.
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/qas/when-jesus-says-be-ye-perfect-your-father-heaven-p/
I am simply amazed that you guys seem to make God into a monster who would give us commands we cannot do. What a great excuse not to do them!
I am amazed how quickly you traditionalists are willing to call God a monster. Well did the Scripture warn of people like you:
“You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?”
Romans 9:19-24
“I am amazed how quickly you traditionalists are willing to call God a monster.”
Joseph, You know better than this. You are simply projecting here. Your determinst God filter from Calvin is the overlay that ends up impugning God.
Again, you are not taking the historical context of Romans into consideration. Perhaps it would help to read Jesus to understand Paul better, too.
One of Jesus’ first sermonettes was “Repent and believe”. Why would He tell people to do something they are incapable of doing?
Yes, and the interesting part is that Paul is writing to believers about believers!
Steve,
I don’t know why some find it so difficult to realize that the only choices fallen man is capable of making fall are those choices which fall in line with his fallen nature–such as choosing to sin.
“why some find it so difficult to realize that the only choices fallen man is capable of making fall are those choices which fall in line with his fallen nature–such as choosing to sin.”
The difficulty lies in that God the manufacturer of automatons would have designed (decreed? even) automatons so badly that they can do nothing but sin.
The problem with your statement is further that when you say “the only choices”, this means that there are no other choices and therefore those things you call “choices” are no real choices at all.
The real problem is that your doctrine on freewill is unscriptural. And the reality is that our doctrine on an enslaved will is throughly scriptural. That is the real problem you face.
Joseph,
That’s the problem, “our doctrine on an enslaved will” it’s YOUR doctrine. Get YOUR doctrine from the Bible, not Luther.
Luther got his theology from the Bible.
I dare say that he knew the Bible much better than do most of us. He had it memorized and could recite any verse forwards and backwards.
That said, he was a sinner just like us. But we owe him a lot for the stand he took against the Catholic Church and it’s abuses of the gospel.
He also had harsh words for the ‘enthusiasts’ of his day, saying that they and the Catholics had basically the same theology, even though they hated each other. He said they were “two wolves tied at the tail” (because they each had this ‘a lot of God and a little bit of me’ theology).
“your doctrine on freewill is unscriptural”
I don’t think I mentioned that as my doctrine, but please explain why it would be unscriptural.
Also, be prepared to answer this question: is God the author of sin/evil? Feel free to skip right away to that question as inevitably you will get there.
Also, may I call your attention to the fact that when I pose questions to you, I do expect answers (and “I don’t know” is perfectly acceptable with me). But please do not come with some evasions into other subject, like you have done now repeatedly. Thanks for respecting that.
Holdon,
My response that “freewill is unscriptural” is documented best in Martin Luther’s biblical thesis against freewill. Please read and overthrow that book, then get back with me. But you might have your hands full, as no one has overthrown the biblical arguments Luther makes in that book yet in all these centuries.
You can download it for free here as a PDF: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/luther/bondage.html
Happy reading.
If that is all you can do, then I would recommend you read Erasmus’ reply to that. Or have you already?
Luther took Erasmus to school and made him look and sound silly.
Get a copy of ‘The Bondage of the Will’ and read it for yourself. Luther faithfully highlights Erasmus’ positions in that book.
“Luther took Erasmus to school and made him look and sound silly.”
Oh yes, Luther made those who didn’t agree with him look silly. He was very good at that. That alone should warn you not to take him too serious, if you respect Christian values at all.
Too me it is certainly curious to see the violence of spirit (Erasmus rightly gauged Luther’s spirit) reproduced in some of his followers even today.
By the way, it is also interesting to see that Luther was apparently not free from a certain “dualism”, just like the Manicheans had taught Augustine long time before, of which I think he might not have been completely freed in his thinking either, despite his conversion from them to Christianity. Luther wrote:
Determinism will inevitably lead to such thinking, because if all is determined (decreed as Calvinists say) by God, then certainly evil must come from there as well.
Holdon,
The problem of evil is a problem no one can give a satisfactory answer to, unless you are a Open theist, which just presents worse problems. The fact is, your theology and mine maintains that God knew ahead of time that Lucifer and God knew ahead of time that Adam would fall (and all the wickedness that would follow) and God allowed it any way. There is no getting around it.
God knows this moment that somewhere some women is going to be brutally raped. He knows it is going to happen; He knows who is going to do it, and God is going to do nothing to prevent it. And a million and one acts of wickedness is going to happen just like that throughout the world this week, and God is going to do nothing to prevent it. And God knew that all this sin, compounded by thousands of years of time was going to take place if he allowed Adam to fall, and God allowed it to happen anyway, knowing full well all the wickedness that would ensue. This is what your Traditionalism leads to and it is what my Calvinism leads to. The problem of evil is a problem for everyone except for heretic open theists.
“And God knew that all this sin, compounded by thousands of years of time was going to take place if he allowed Adam to fall, and God allowed it to happen anyway, knowing full well all the wickedness that would ensue. This is what your Traditionalism leads to and it is what my Calvinism leads to. The problem of evil is a problem for everyone except for heretic open theists.”
It’s not a problem for me, and I am not an open theist. In your (reformed) scheme evil had to happen. In mine it didn’t. In your scheme God not only allowed it, but wanted it. In mine God did not want it but allowed for a better reason. In your scheme God decreed all evil and sinful deeds. In mine, man is solely responsible for his deeds.
There is a world of difference between your reformed scheme where evil is coming from the hand of God in the first place, and mine where a creature had the ability to be independent of God in self-will, and incongruent with God’s will.
No one, including Calvinists, argue that God is the “author” of evil.
Holdon wrote: “God did not want it but allowed for a better reason.”
Can you tell me what the good (or better reason) is that comes out of a child being raped, tortured and killed? Does good really come out of every sinful act? Sometimes the child grows up, and disbelieves God precisely because of what happened as a child.
Your statements are fluff. You cannot “solve” the problem of evil. No one has been able to.
“Can you tell me what the good (or better reason) is that comes out of a child being raped, tortured and killed?”
Well, in your scheme God wants these kinds of things. (that’s problem for a Holy God, who hates evil). In my scheme man is is solely responsible.
“The problem with your statement is further that when you say “the only choices”, this means that there are no other choices and therefore those things you call “choices” are no real choices at all.”
This is the cognative dissonance that is Calvinism. Unbelievers “choose” to sin but they can do nothing else but choose sin. Still, it is their “choice” acc0rding to Calvinists. (Anything to explain away determinism)
This is one example of how every single convo with them goes in circles. And the best part is when they accuse others of not using logic. :o)
It’s funny to me that the anti-Calvinists just keep cranking out why Calvinism is evil, and unless I’m blind I don’t see the Reformed camp railing over and over against the other side. I’m personally exhausted hearing how much you guys dislike Calvinists and Reformed folks. Why don’t you try just talking about Arminianism instead of bashing the other side? It works for the Reformed camp…….
Perhaps it is insecurity regarding their biblically inadequate Traditionalism that makes them continually rale against the truth of Calvinism?
We hit(critique) both sides.
Listen to this sermon (probably the best sermon I have ever heard regarding how it is that we become Christians:
http://theoldadam.com/2012/01/25/preaching-this-sermon-would-probably-get-you-thrown-out-of-saddleback-church-calvary-chapel-or-willowcreek/
Give it 6 minutes to get into the meat of it.
Brian, why would discussing/analyzing Calvinism seem like “bashing” to you? I can understand why analyzing Calvin/Luther/Augustianian doctrine up close is very upsetting to many who have given their lives to it. Normally, they simply teach it from a stage or a book and there is very little interaction concerning the premise. This is analyzing it is a good thing. It should have happened long ago and the internet has been a blessing for this reason.
About the only arguments the Calvinists have really brought forth is that we just don’t understand it. But many of us do understand the determinist filter read back into scripture. It is uncomfortable and that is why Calvinists always resort to ad hominem like you did. You are following the lead of the Reformers in that. Martin Luther did the same as did Calvin. Of course, back then, few dared to disagree up close and personal for fear of the rack.
I’d take this post serious if the author actually had some workable covenantal framework or view of redemptive history that made sense of election & providence. But alas, this hymn [inspired by the post] will have to do.
God But Persuades
by Efrem Saffik
2012
Verse 1
Praise all to man, the Almighty
The crown of creation
O my soul, blessed
For thou are the reason He saved me
Thy God persuades, but I must choose him to take
Praise Him for making me sovereign
Verse 2
Praise to the Lord
Who o’er most things so wonderfully reigneth
He has left my will to me
I, so gladly sustain it
Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been
Granted in what I ordaineth
Verse 3
Praise to the Lord
Who might prosper thy work and defend thee
Maybe His goodness and mercy would daily attend thee
Ponder anew what the Almighty could do
If with His love we would let Him
Verse 4
Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him
All that hath life and breath
Come now with praises before Him
Let the ‘amen’ sound from His people again
Gladly for aye we adore Him
Efrem,
So much for your attempt at comedy.
You started off on the wrong foot. God doesn’t but presuade, He doesn’t persuade at all. Man persuades, God convicts.
Don,
The title of the song was taken from a careful reading of the post.
“God but persuades, almighty man decrees.”
I’m glad we can agree that “God doesn’t but persuade”.
Joseph wrote:
“God commanding us to do something does not mean we are capable of doing it. Assuming so is your fallacy.”
And:
“Therefore your whole arguement that God commanding us to do something means we have the ability to do it is soundly defeated. RIP”
God commands us to do things and we are to obey, period.
“Whom he calls he enables” is the way they used to say it in the old days. Meaning if God calls you to do something he gives you the ability to do it as well.
I hope Christians never get to a point where they stop assuming that if God tells us to do something we have the ability to do it. I wonder what is going to happen to the preaching on Sunday mornings if people really start believing this nonsense that God commands you to do things that you do not have the ability to do? What a convenient excuse for all those who want excuses for why they don’t have to obey God (whether believers or unbelievers). The bible makes it much more simple: if you obey God it is through the strength/ability he gives you to do so. If you disobey God it is through your own choice to disobey what God commands.
Robert
Robert,
Did God command people to obey His law, yes or no? And were they able to obey His law, yes or no? Jesus is the only person who has ever obeyed God’s law completely. I rest my case.
You have failed again.
Joseph displays ignorance of both scripture and Jewish thinking in his comments here. Anyone who knows their bible knows that while the Jews did not keep the law perfectly, they did keep it partly. In fact, their confidence in keeping the law is what Paul says was a major reason for their rejection of Christ. Paul says in Romans that the unbelieving Jews instead of putting their faith/confidence in the righteousness of
God found by faith in Christ. Instead they were putting their confidence in their law keeping!!! James in his book makes the same point saying that the Jews were putting their confidence in their law keeping. They would not have been doing so if they could not keep the law at all. They were partly keeping the law, and yet James says that God does not grade on a curve. It is pass or fail, so James says to those who want to be justified by the law, one miss is like missing them all. So if they wanted to go the law keeping route they had to do so perfectly. But while they were keeping the law and able to keep the law, they were not doing so perfectly.
Joseph wrote: “Did God command people to obey his law, yes or not?”
And the answer is YES.
Joseph then wrote: “And were they able to obey his law, yes or no?”
Yes, though not perfectly. Again, if they were not able to keep the law at all, why were they placing their confidence in their keeping of the law???????
“Jesus is the only person who has ever obeyed God’s law completely.”
That is true.
Joseph then adds: “I rest my case.”
What case? That no one can keep the law perfectly? No need to make that case, that one is obviously true.
but that is not what Joseph was inplying, he was implying a different case: that no one keep the law at all. He miserably failed to make that case.
He concluded with his usual arrogance and condescension: “You failed again.”
When will Joseph’s arrogance ever cease??
I never suggested that people can keep the law perfectly. I suggested that when God gives a command we have the ability to obey the command. Just because we cannot obey perfectly, just because we don’t always obey God’s commands, does not mean that we never can obey them.
Joseph will need to go back to his drawing board again. His argument has failed and he has merely displayed his ignorance and arrogance once again.
Robert
Robert,
Just to add to what you’re saying. Paul speaking of himself before becoming saved “. . . touching the righteousness which is in the law, BLAMELESS.” Phil. 3:6
Robert,
Every read the book of James? Your comments make it seem like you have never cracked the book of James open. Otherwise you would be aware of this text:
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10) The fact that the Jews or anyone else did not obey the law perfectly means, according to James, that they were guilty of all of it!
Joseph,
That we think we are capable of making some choice that will determine our salvation, is a sign of how lost we really are.
But when you are taught a doctrine of “free-will” it is awfully hard to overcome.
But Holy Scripture cries out against it.
Amen Steve.
Michael Cox,
I haven’t read through the comments so this might have been said above, but I find it interesting that you say the following:
And, I think one of the most fabulous of all passages regarding the human freewill is the one which relates the prayer of Jesus just before His arrest, in which is seen His human will conflicting with the will of God; but Jesus voluntarily submitted His human will to God’s will …
and then in the next paragraph you say:
Luke further pointed out that killers exercise their wills, for Jesus was delivered by Pilate to the will of the mob
The reason why I find both of these statements interesting is that you use these texts to emphasize a “freewill” of man. It appears you are suggesting that this is the more ultimate cause of the events you describe – Jesus’ free will and the mob’s free will.
But the Apostle Peter does not share your emphasis. In two distinct places Peter instead emphasizes the sovereignty of God – not the will of man in the crucifixion of Jesus. First in Acts 2 he says:
Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
Clearly, Peter emphasizes not the will of man, but the work of God. If this was the definite plan of God, then should we take Jesus’ actions of submitting to God’s will and make the claim that it was His free will upon which we should place our emphasis? Should we emphasize the penultimate will of the mob, if rather the ultimate cause is indeed found in the Sovereign plan of God?
Later, then, in Acts 4, together with John, Peter gets even more specific about this event and God’s sovereignty within it. There the Apostles say:
…for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.
Here, not only is the emphasis again on the hand of God and His predestined plan, but the entire context is a testament to God’s sovereignty over human will. This is because this was spoken by the Apostles in response to their release from prison in order to exhort and uplift the gathered Church. The entire discourse there is a doxology affirming the absolutely sovereignty of God over and above the will of man! And they are praising God for that! And not only that, it is at that very confession that the walls are shaken and the Holy Spirit fills the place where they were meeting.
It just seems clear that God never intended these passages to be used to teach of a “free will” of man, but rather they are given in order to emphasize the Sovereignty of God and His plan over and above any other. Thus when we emphasize such a thing as “free will” we actually strip these texts of their foundational meaning and apply a paradigm to them that is foreign to the context. This is also why I think when you apply Occam’s Razor to the whole of the Bible, the simplest explanation is indeed the Calvinistic view of God’s sovereignty. And for that I praise and worship our Sovereign God, whose will is never thwarted and whose plan always comes to fruition!
D R Randle,
Correct me if I’m not understanding exactly what you’re saying “affirming the absolutely sovereignty of God over and above the free will of man.”
If you go out and commit adultery tonight and your wife finds out, do you say I know I shouldn’t have done it honey? But just remember God predestinated it to happen, so there was nothing I could have done. I wonder what your wife would say.
Don,
First, are you actually asking for a correction to your misunderstanding, or are you really just trying to assert an age-old argument (a “gotcha” fallacy, if you will) that has been answered more times than it’s ever been asked on this website?
If it is the latter, then I have no desire to dialogue with you – no matter what I say, you aren’t seeking understanding, but rather simply a way to use a series of argumentum ad absurtums in order to avoid actual dealing with the text and the classical view of Calvinists for centuries.
But if indeed it is the former, then allow me to make two main points:
1) The argument above fails to distinguish between God’s active predestination and His passive predestination. The same is true when someone asks, “Does God predestine people to hell without any chance of repenting?”
Let’s begin by answering the above question. While God actively predestines some to salvation through regenerating their hearts (and the passive predestination of our response in faith – though I do believe these happen virtually simultaneously), He also passes over those who are not elect (passive predestination), resolving in reprobation. In both cases, the individual gets what he or she wants. The one with a changed heart receives the desires of his or her heart, which is eternal life. The one with an unregenerate heart will get what he or she wants as well – to continue in sin and unbelief – resulting in hell.
The same is true when it comes to sin. For the unregenerate man, he will do as he pleases and sin as he desires in his heart. If he desires adultery, he will get adultery. If he desires greed, he will pursue greed. God doesn’t actively predestine his sin – He simply allows the man to continue in it (passive predestination). God can, however, actively restrain that sin from occurring for His purposes.
2) The argument above assumes a high view of man’s morality. First, it forgets that if God didn’t restrain sin, the man above (we can assume he is real for a moment – but not me) would commit adultery as often as he could do so (and possibly much worse). Second, it assumes that the man didn’t want to sin, but was forced to do so by God by His active predestination. The reality is that the man in his evil heart desired to sin in this way and God simply allowed the man to pursue his evil desires – those to which he finds himself in bondage. He is responsible for the actions that come from his evil heart. He cannot legitimately blame God for not restraining the very thing that he desired to do. He can only blame himself.
Don, if after reading this response you want to continue honest dialogue about what I wrote, then I welcome it. But if you only desire to play gotcha, then I would ask you, in Christian charity, to make that clear.
D.R. Randle,
I didn’t ask if an unregenerate man committed adultery, my question was if you did. I’m not suggesting you would. I’m asking if you did, could take some comfort knowing it was predestinated by God. I ask the question based on your statement “affirming the absolutely sovereignty of God over and above the will of man.”
Don,
The answer is essentially the same. However, were I (or anyone else who claimed to be a Christian) to attempt to take comfort (or really in this case simply blame God – contra James 1:13-14), then such wickedness might very well reveal that there is actually an unregenerate heart behind it all. Only one who is desperately wicked and outside of Christ would seek to justify his sin in a moment like that. The regenerate man would weep as David did and blame his own heart.
D.R. Randle,
I assume from your answer, God did predestinate the adulery, but you would take all the blame.
Since you brought up David, why do you think it took about a year after the fact for David to weep and blame his own heart?
Don,
I will say that the man desired to commit adultery and God allowed him to do what he wished. God did not restrain the man’s desires and in doing so, the man will be held responsible for the sin. God’s purposes, however, will not be thwarted because of the sin and ultimately He will take glory in the destruction of the man’s flesh (by showing forth His own holiness and allowing the consequences of sin to pour down on the man) and, should he never repent and exercise faith in Jesus Christ, God will take glory for the destruction of the man’s soul forever in Hell – showing again that He is Holy and Just.
In any case, this again is an example of passive predestination – not active predestination. The man did what he wanted to do – there was no forcing in the way that is often implied when the word “predestine” is used. And there is no comfort for the man in God’s sovereign will.
As for David, it’s not a cut and dry answer since the Holy Spirit did not dwell with him the same way He does with us. But, we can still say that likely David suppressed the truth he knew until the day when God no longer allowed him to suppress it.
D.R. Randle,
I disagree, I don’t believe God predestinated the adultery in any way, shape, or form (Jer 19:3-5).
I do agree however, that David was not regenerate.
D.R. Randle,
The danger of alleging God is like you say: “our Sovereign God, whose will is never thwarted and whose plan always comes to fruition!”
is that then
this sort of thing often happens:
Baptist theologian John Leadley Dagg saw Confederate setbacks as “fatherly chastisements, designed for our profit.” Nevertheless, he was insistent during the war that the failure to protect slave marriages “is only part of the general evil. We have not labored, in every possible way, to promote the welfare, for time and eternity of our slave population, as of dependent and helpless immortals whom God has placed in our power and in our mercy.”
Thom Bassett teaches in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. He is writing a novel about William Tecumseh Sherman. New York Times”
Again, a Baptist speaks of God “placing slaves” in the “power” of white Southerners’. Of course to be treated right…
Check out how many Baptists supported slavery because they considered it God’s will. I’ve even read recently of two modern Calvinists who still claim slavery isn’t inherently evil!!
A Confederate abolitionist who is a non-Calvinist (partially for this very reason)
Daniel
Do Daniel, let me get this straight, ok? You are not a Calvinist because you read where a few other Calvinists have used their theology to promote false and unBiblical conclusions?
I’m sorry man, but that seems crazy to me. Here’s why:
1) Almost as many, if not more Calvinists, in America at the time of the Civil War, fought against slavery and saw it as an evil that God was actively ending through the means of prayer, war, and Biblically-faithful preachers. In fact, some like Samuel Cox, congressman in 1863, blamed New England Puritanism for the abolitionism that led to the Civil War.
2) Some of the greatest abolitionists in history were Calvinists – John Newton who inspired William Wilberforce along with Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp. And that’s not to mention those in America like John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and African American Lemuel Haynes (a very strict Calvinist minister).
3) While you mentioned a Baptist, you failed to take into account the dominant Presbyterian view of slavery, which was expressed in 1818 by the General Assembly who wrote:
We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves and as totally irreconcilable (i.e., slavery) with the spirits and principles of the gospel of Christ . . .
Now, I will stop there, but I could mention many other major Calvinist scholars who were against slavery prior to, during, and after the Civil War (working like B.B. Warfield for racial integration in the Churches and ministry training schools). I could even mention dozens of influential Calvinists who are currently working to end the slave trade today – like those at Passion 2012 (Louie Giglio, Francis Chan, etc), the Acts29 Network, and various Reformed Churches in both the U.S. and Europe.
Thus, I would say that making a decision about whether Calvinism is Biblically true on the basis of how some Calvinists have misappropriated its teachings (as well as the selective reading of other Calvinists during that same period) is a poor way to engage in theological discernment and I hope given this evidence you will reconsider your views and reexamine the texts involved.
D.R.Randle,
You quote, “We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves and as totally irreconcilable (i.e., slavery) with the spirits and principles of the gospel of Christ . . .”
BUT
how is this reconcilable to Presbyterian greats such as R.L. Dabney who even after the Civil War! was still justifying slavery. I’ve read his book. This is the Dabney who is being quoted and commented on on this blog in the last few days, the chaplain of Stonewall Jackson.
Also, as I recall Hodge of Princeton Seminary also supported slavery.
Also, the Calvin evangelist George Whitfield petitioned the king to have slavery introduced into Georgia, where it wasn’t permitted.
My background is on American history, especially the Civil War. I recently finished a biography of Stonewall Jackson and have read extensively of the relationship of Christianity and the justification of slavery.
But I admit I am not an authority on Presbyterian Church scholars and their opposition to slavery. Who would be other great scholars of the P.C. who actively opposed slavery?
You state, many other major Calvinist scholars who were against slavery prior to, during,” the Civil War.
Would you give me a few of their names?
(This is a sincere request.)
As I pointed out earlier, I understand why many non-Calvinists supported slavery in the 1800′s. They sinned because of their own libertarian free will.
But repeatedly Calvinists emphasize that God ordains all things, that every action and event is his will. So according to many Calvinists I’ve read, God willed for their to be slavery.
In your opinion, why did the God of Calvinism ordain slavery and ordain that theologians like Dabney and Dagg support it? And why did such a powerful evangelist as Whitfield support slavery?
And how is it that they couldn’t know that slavery is inherently evil, yet they claim to know that God foreordained most of us humans to eternal damnation before the beginning of time (U of TULIP, Calvin’s statement, etc.)?
More a bit later,
Daniel
Daniel,
The founding fathers of this country were slave owners. Given your decision to reject Calvinism based on such odd evidence, may I suggest you be consistent and also stop waving your American flag and foresake your American citizenship.
Joseph,
You say, “The founding fathers of this country were slave owners.”
I know this well. I am a retired American literature (and history) teacher. Just finished another scholarly tome on the American Revolution.
BUT Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who were slave owners weren’t Calvinists! They didn’t think God had foreordained/willed for them to own slaves. In fact Thomas Jefferson as
well as Ben Franklin and others strongly
opposed Calvinism.
My point of bringing up slavery in relationship to Calvinism was to show the danger of attributing human sin such as slavery to the will of God.
We all sin, but Calvinists claim we sin because God has foreordained it so.
(If in doubt read John Calvin, A.W. Pink, etc.)
Then you add,
“Given your decision to reject Calvinism based on such odd evidence, may I suggest you be consistent and also stop waving your American flag and foresake your American citizenship.”
Only if its predestined by the God of Calvinism;-)
Daniel
Daniel,
Can you not see how selective you are being in your focus here? Let me point you to one resource you should read – Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition by Kenneth J. Stewart. In it Stewart spends a large amount of time discussing the foundations of the slave trade and how many Calvinists actually suspended their theological views (Covenantalism – all nations being God’s focus from the very beginning) in order to continue in a system they inherited from the Catholic Church, which inherited it from the Roman culture. Reading that you should see that association does not equal causation. Calvinists might have continued the slavery of the past and some even used theological arguments to do so, but to say that Calvinism’s conclusions could lead to slavery is to say something that is dubious at best.
It just seems you are taking one or two theologians (who no doubt are major influences – but not representative of the larger groups like the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at that time) and extrapolating from that that the theology inherent in Calvinism leads to such a defense of slavery. But you have failed to consider how many Calvinists in that era actually saw the opposite of that being true. And it seems you assume that such sins (which may be just as bad as slavery) wouldn’t also be justified by Arminians.
On that last point for example – consider now who are the most ardent supporters for abortion (which many a theologian and cultural commentator has likened to slavery – and I believe rightly so)? Is it the Evangelical Calvinists who hold deeply to the Doctrines of Grace? NO! Look at who supports abortion and claims to be an Evangelical – they are the liberal Churches who have become man-centered in their theology – Denominations like the CBF, the UCC, the ELCA, and the Episcopal Church in America – these are actually groups who have left their Reformed underpinnings and, moving to a man-centered theology, have evolved into supporters of heinous sin.
And that’s to say nothing of the Civil Rights Era and the support by so many in the almost fully Arminian SBC at that time. There’s actually a great story you should look up about FPC Jackson, MS and its movement away from racism due to the reinvigorated teachings of staunch Calvinists like its current pastor, Ligon Duncan, clearly showing that culture (and greed) had much more to do with racism than theology ever did.
So Daniel, again I just don’t think you have thought through this issue enough – you have taken far too much of a simplistic approach to a much more complex issue. And you have assumed that the arguments of a few are dominate with the whole. Also, you have failed to examine the evidence I just noted, actually asking for more before you have had a time to search through what was provided. You have attempted to push your evidence over mine as if the words of one or two men are stronger and more dominate than that of an entire denomination at that time. These are all mistakes that any historian should not make. This are the sorts of things that lead to believing myths over actual history.
Seriously, let’s consider that last one before I move on and allow you time to process this information. You are actually arguing above that R.L. Dabney’s comments about slavery (and those of Whitfield) should be taken as more authoritative on Calvinism’s inherent racism than the statement of an entire denomination? Why not consider that Dabney and Whitfield may be the exception and not the rule? Why not consider the General Assembly, working as a team with accountability and debate and not speaking as individuals, to be a better source of an authoritative vision of Calvinism and slavery?
Hope again you will think through these things and apply greater logic to your historical research. And I do hope that it will lead you to take the Biblical record at face value and consider if Calvinism is true, rather than first examining the slippery slope conclusions of a few adherents.
D.R. Randall
Hello again:-)
I’ve got a question from your earlier post where you said lots of Calvinists opposed slavery and quoted a P. Assembly.
Would you then disagree with this statement:
It is difficult, if not impossible, to harmonize the position taken in this report, unanimously adopted by the Assembly, with the action of the Old School General Assembly of 1845 which resolved by a vote of 168 to 13 that the existence of domestic slavery, under the circumstances in which it is found in the southern portion of the country is no bar to Christian communion and that the petitions that ask the Assembly to make the holding of slaves in itself a matter of discipline, do virtually require this judicatory to dissolve itself (Minutes, 1845, p.18).
Principles of Conduct
Aspects of Biblical Ethics
By: John Murray
http://www.knowsouthernhistory.net/Articles/History/Prior%201850/presbyterian_church_on_slavery.html
(I wish I had all the books I’ve read on the Civil War and Christianity here now, but instead I have to rely on the Internet. Sorry)
You wrote: “you should see that association does not equal causation. Calvinists might have continued the slavery of the past and some even used theological arguments to do so, but to say that Calvinism’s conclusions could lead to slavery is to say something that is dubious at best.”
I tried to explicitly explain that I wasn’t saying that Calvinism leads to slavery. (But maybe I stated that in a different post.)
I don’t think C. led to slavery. My point was that when Calvinists posit that God foreordains everything, they then often end up supporting evil institutions and evil actions in history. (I could give you about 5,000 pages worth of examples if you wish, probably more.) And don’t forget, Calvinist God’s “unlimted election” is also what led Calvinist South Africans to support Apartheid!
Whatever theology we hold does affect our ethical lives. It does not necessarily “cause” our actions, but in most cases does justify them if we defend them.
Then you say, “It just seems you are taking one or two theologians (who no doubt are major influences – but not representative of the larger groups like the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at that time) and extrapolating from that that the theology inherent in Calvinism leads to such a defense of slavery.”
No, those were just two examples which came up because Calvinists have been holding forth on how great of theologians they are.
I can give you many more examples.
But why go to the Presbyt.? This is a Baptist website. Read a little in Baptist history. The vast majority of Baptists did
support slavery in the 1800′s.
I don’t think their Calvinism forced them to support slavery, but I do think they used/or believed their Calvinism justified their support of the institution of slavery.
Then you add: “But you have failed to consider how many Calvinists in that era actually saw the opposite of that being true.”
Actually, I am aware of Calvinists who opposed slavery, though my understanding is that a fair number of them did so because they were influenced by non-Calvinists. Case in point: Wilberforce as I recall was influenced by nonCalvinists. My understanding is that the Presbyterian Lyman Beecher who became opposed to slavery was influenced
by Charles Finney and other Arminians. In fact his church accused him of heresy.
And there is history such as this:
“James Henry Thornwell, a prominent South Carolina Presbyterian clergyman, the purpose of which was to justify the church’s secession from the parent church. A political moderate and opponent of the church’s participation in secular affairs such as the slavery issue prior to 1860, Thornwell became a champion of the Confederacy and one of the strongest advocates of slavery in the South. The part of the Address dealing with the slavery question is reprinted here.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States has been enabled by the Divine Grace to pursue, for the most part, an eminently conservative, because a thoroughly scriptural, policy in relation to this delicate question. It has planted itself upon the word of God and utterly refused to make slaveholding a sin or nonslaveholding a term of communion.”
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1124
“The 1861 letter from the PCCSA addressed to “’all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the
earth,; they give a defense of the morality of slavery.”
…addressed to “all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the
earth,” they give a defense of the morality of slavery.”
You next say,
“And it seems you assume that such sins (which may be just as bad as slavery) wouldn’t also be justified by Arminians.”
Ah, but there is the difference.(Let’s not even deal with the fact that John Wesley and other non-Calvinists all the way back to the Mennonites opposed slavery).
Let’s just deal with the fact that thousands of Arminians did support and own slaves.
BUT
here is the key difference: they did so because they themselves of their own libertarian free will chose to sin!
In contrast, all the Calvinists I’ve read and dialogged with believe the original “source/order” of slavery was because God foreordained that humans would own slaves.
That’s two very different animals as I’ve been trying to explain.
I won’t go the abortion discussion route since I am convinced abortion is murder. and as I’ve stated when Christians of all sorts support abortion, they are sinning.
Then you say:
“So Daniel, again I just don’t think you have thought through this issue enough”
Oh, I’ve thought through it way too much. I’ve spent 50 years battling the Calvinist view.
And you write
“– you have taken far too much of a simplistic approach to a much more complex issue.”
I don’t think so. Part of the problem is we are limited by a small dialog box. If we had time to sit down and write position papers, etc. like I used to have my American literature students do, then we could go into more detail. Note: By the way you may be surprised to know that I almost always argued both sides of any philosophical argument, even the Calvinist view. I suppose you probably can’t imagine me defending the Calvinist Michael Wigglesworth’s poem “The Day of Doom,” but I did.
Then you say,”And you have assumed that the arguments of a few are dominate with the whole. ”
On the contrary, I only gave you a couple of leading Calvinists because they’ve come up here as great leaders.
I wanted to show that these “dead men made alive by the God of Calvinism” actually supported and justified evil after they were regenerated. They even used Calvinism’s view of God to justify slavery:-(
There are many other historical leaders I could point out. For instance, I just finished a very good biography of Calvinist Stonewall Jackson (He was a Presbyterian who owned slaves and defended slavery .) ETC.
But, by the way, I’m not surprised that some Calvinists opposed slavery and many supported slavery. God got through to the ones who opposed it:-)
And then you say what’s not true:
“You have failed to examine the evidence I just noted, actually asking for more before you have had a time to search through what was provided.”
The first thing I did after reading your statement that most Calvinists opposed slavery was look up the Presbyterian Assembly and later P. actions. It would appear that most P. supported the institution of slavery, though some strongly opposed it.
It seems based on all my reading over the years that the vast majority of leading Baptists supported slavery. Why else would they separate in about 1845 from the northerners. As I recall it had to do with whether a missionary could own a slave.
This is getting long,
so I will stop and post.
And continue later.
Thanks for the dialog,
Daniel
Daniel, next you can hear how sweet and compassionate the Puritans were who wiped out Indian tribes and burned ‘witches” who were also “Calvinistic”
There is a long history of oppression and violence in the Calvinist tradition. And God decreed it, of course. Ever read Cotton Mather’s statement concerning their right to wipe out the Native Americans?
I have not read eventhe slightest hint of love or compassion from you words, Lydia. What are you again, a Traditionalist?
“I have not read eventhe slightest hint of love or compassion from you words, Lydia. What are you again, a Traditionalist?”
I have more compassion for Servetus than you did with your Nuremburg defense for Calvin. (wink)
touché
Gotta love a tough-skinned woman.
Then tell me who is responsible for the death of Jesus. Was God responsible or the Jews?
I love how you Traditionalist argue against God’s word just to prove your unbiblical freewill doctrine. The texts by Peter in Acts, showing that it was God’s purpose in plan for the death of Jesus could no be more clear. As if Isaiah: “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief.” 53:10
But you rale against the Word of God in order to protect your precious false doctrine: freewill. Very sad.
Answer the question and save your pity. Who was responsible. Is God responsible or did the Jews choose to kill Jesus?
The answer isn’t either/or – it’s both. God declares both Himself and the Jews responsible for Christ’s death.
Isaiah 53 says:
v.4: Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
v.10: Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Yet, God also holds those who killed Jesus responsible – thus the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
But then, let us also not forget that God holds all of us responsible for the death of Christ, for it was our sin that placed Him on the Cross.
The non elect can’t be responsible for His death. He didn’t die for their sins The all you refer to must mean the elect. Apart from an act of volition the Jews are not responsible for killing Jesus. So in the very act that redeems all the elect God allows man a choice to participate in it i e the crucifixion of Jesus. He left it up to the Jews to do it. If it was not an act of volition then God is responsible of the very act of crucifying Jesus. It is amazing to think one would argue man’s free will is seen in the Jews crucifying Jesus, the very moment of redemption, and against free will when it comes to receiving said resumption.
Dean,
First, you are applying poor logic here (though I don’t have time to go into it now), secondly, you fail to understand the complexities of limited atonement and the work of common grace Jesus does on the Cross, and third you confuse “free will” with “free agency” (which is to say you confuse “libertarian free will” – which is clearly the way the term “free will is being use here” – with “compatibilistic free will,” aka “free agency”). See this article for more – http://bit.ly/P5wlxS – (with one caveat – I wouldn’t call free will advocates “heretics,” like the author here does).
God has created us, so it is reasonable to suppose that there will be a natural correlation between our beliefs and the rest of the created order around us. And he has created us so that we naturally possess a set of irresistible beliefs largely to our benefit [i.e. the belief that tornadic activity is dangerous, so I will naturally take shelter instead of trying to hug one].
Given this reality, Paul’s argument in Romans 1 [esp. v. 20] seems to imply that our innate human capacity to believe in God has been suppressed by sin, so much so that if it weren’t we would believe in God with the same kind of spontaneity that we believe in the external world around us. We are created to acquire beliefs about the external world naturally [under the right circumstances], and we cannot live without affirming them because they are irresistible.
So why would “irresistible” grace be any different than Adam/Eve’s original “irresitible” belief in God, or our “irresistible belief” in the external world?
Hello Cathy,
You say that our innate ability to believe in God has been suppressed by sin. I don’t think that is what Romans 1 is saying. It says about these folks, whoever they are, that God himself reveals truth to them both externally and internally. They **then** suppress the truth in unrighteousness, which then in turn leads to certain actions on their part including worshipping the creature rather than the creator. The innate ability to believe in God was there first, and God revealed Himself to them first (i.e. they had to know and understand the truth God revealed to them first before they then chose to suppress it unrighteously). Sin did not eliminate their ability to know and understand the truth: rather, their sin was in what they did with the truth that God revealed to them. Paul presupposes they understood what God had revealed to them and their guilt was in what they did with the truth they both knew and understood. It is because of Romans 1 that I do not believe there are any real atheists. Instead in their heart of hearts they know the truth, they know that God exists. But then they spend their lives intentionally suppressing this truth that they know. That is one of the reasons why atheists are some of the most defensive and hostile people you will meet: because they know things that are true but then intentionally suppress what they know. But as Francis Schaeffer put it, for their own good you have to “take the roof off” so that they can again focus upon the truth that they already know and are suppressing.
Robert
Robert,
I did say that “our innate ability to believe in God has been suppressed by sin,” but I did not mean what you thought I meant. I can affirm everything you said, which you said quite well.
What I meant by my statement was that Paul appears to be making this argument because he wants to establish that no one is able to claim ignorance in regard to a knowledge of God [Jew/Gentile are culpable because they both "clearly see" God in and through his creation], 2) and because of this rebellion God has given them over to the lusts of their heart [which is to say that they now revel in their own distortions of reality].
Because this is the case, there are cultural conditions that run counter to the way God has created them. The expectations of a pagan culture are such that it is acceptable to deny God and his lordship. This is one factor that inhibits and suppresses our “innate ability” to believe in God.
If it weren’t for Satan, sin, and self, we would irresistibly believe in God, because it would be the most natural thing to do.
From my experience, most critiques of Calvinism focus on soteriology, i.e., the TULIP scheme. Said critique is then carried out by examining Calvinist proof texts for their soteriology and offering counter-proof texts for another soteriology (more times than not Arminian). But this is unsatisfying for a number of reasons. The main reason I think this approach fails is because it reduces Calvinism to its soteriology. But Reformed theology is much more full-orbed than that; it encompasses an entire worldview and salvation is but a part of it.
Calvinists believe certain things about God, the world he has created, and the beings that inhabit it that in turn affect what they believe about how God has gone about his task of redeeming a chosen people. This isn’t to say that Catholics or Arminians or Orthodox don’t have presuppositions about the same things that affect what they believe about salvation as well; but it is to say that in order for a critique of Calvinism to be successful, it’s going to have to engage Calvinism as a worldview, and not simply an acronym about salvation.
Hello Casey,
Seems to me that there are not several competing and contrasting Christian world views. Instead, there is one shared by various Christians. Christians across differing theological traditions believe in an external world, a God who exists in three persons, etc. A Hindu, Atheist and Pantheist have different world views than a Christian does. And yet a Catholic and a Protestant may share the same world view and argue in a unified way against the world view of the aforementioned non-believing world views. E.G. I have books by both Catholics and Protestants arguing against the world view of naturalism espoused by the New Atheists. And in these books the authors seem to be operating from the same world view. Because Christians seem to share the same world view, the arguments against calvinism focus more specifically on differing soteriologies. And you are correct that Reformed theology is broader than merely discussions of TULIP. But since many modern calvinists frame their theology by means of TULIP, discussions of soteriology tend to focus upon differing view points concerning the elements of TULIP rather than the broader aspects of Reformed Theology.
Robert
SBC Today,
Respectfully, when might we expect the post of Ralph Green’s critique of The Gospel Project?
This is a worthwhile listen on just how it is that we become Christians:
http://theoldadam.com/2012/01/25/preaching-this-sermon-would-probably-get-you-thrown-out-of-saddleback-church-calvary-chapel-or-willowcreek/
It’s only about 20 min. long. Give it 6 min. before he really gets into the meat of it.
It’s ok if you don’t agree with it, but you will have a much better idea (when it’s through) of why it is that we believe as we do about this matter.
Thanks.
D.R. Randle
You ask,
“Do Daniel, let me get this straight, ok? You are not a Calvinist because you read where a few other Calvinists have used their theology to promote false and unBiblical conclusions?”
No, that is only a side point, because of my background in American history and Church history. I was an American literature (and history) teacher for many years.
My main opposition to Calvinism is because it is totally contrary to the Good News I listened to, became convicted, and accepted Jesus as my Savior.
I am against all forms of theological determinism.
In brief:
#1 My first encounter with Calvinism (age 17): Calvinist Youth Leader spoke to me personally trying to convince me that God would have Christians sometimes commit immoral actions, including me! (Needless to say I was shocked and rejected Calvinism.)
#2 My second encounter with Calvinism: A famous Calvinist Bible teacher led a Bible study on Philippians and said that God plans every rape and murder.
Whew! By the way I’ve read Calvinists who claim my miss-type on the last sentence was planned by God.
The funniest one was the famous Calvinist who wrote a book which in the opening pages said that no reader would be able to stop reading unless it was God’s will. (I can’t remember the author’s name right now.)
#3 Because of thay horrible experience I spend the next almost 40 years reading most of the modern Calvinistic books and articles on the subject of salvation (including Boetner, Pink, Sproul, White, Piper, etc. and some old classics of the past).
The more I read, the more horrified I became. This theology was nothing like the Good News I read in my Bible, nothing like my being saved, nothing like my time as a Baptist youth pastor, nothing like–etc.
The God of Calvinism isn’t the God who saved me so many years ago.
Nor is Calvinism (TULIP) Good News in any way, shape, nor form.
I must admit even though I have dialogged with and informally debated with Calvinists for many years, I truly don’t understand how any one could possibly believe in such a despairing view and concept of God. It defames the character of God.
I do agree with Wesley (though I am not, of course, a Methodist) when he wrote that he would rather be an “Atheist” than believe in the Calvinistic concept of God related to salvation.
Yes, I am a complete Atheist when it comes to Calvinism’s view of God.
Lastly, I don’t follow your statement here: “Almost as many, if not more Calvinists, in America at the time of the Civil War, fought against slavery ”
As I already mentioned, I would be interested in the names of the leaders of Calvinism who not only stated that slavery was inherently evil, worked against it but also took up arms and fought against slavery. I mean this sincerely.
I realize that many Southerner Christians (and Northerners, though they tended to be more hypocritcal) in general opposed slavery. For example, Robert E. Lee opposed slavery, but yet he continued to own slaves! Etc.
And you write,
“and saw it as an evil that God was actively ending through the means of prayer, war, and Biblically-faithful preachers.”
But why did the God of Calvinism start slavery in the U.S. with the Puritans and others in the first place?
And lastly you say
“In fact, some like Samuel Cox, congressman in 1863, blamed New England Puritanism for the abolitionism that led to the Civil War.”
I don’t follow. “Puritanism” was for the most part Calvinistic. My professor of American Intellectual History earned his PhD on Calvinism, on Jonathan Edwards.
(You can imagine the long theological discussions we had on that subject:-)
Most important of all however, is that (like me) he encountered the God of John 3:16 via Billy Graham and was saved!!
(Baptist Billy Graham preaches a message that God wills for every human to be saved, and that even if only one person had sinned God would have sent Jesus for that one lonely sinner!)
And that my friend is the Good News.
And this is only partially why I am totally against the theology of Calvinism. There are many other reasons related to history as well…such as Oliver Cromwell, John Calvin himself, etc.
Thanks for the dialog,
Daniel
Daniel,
I am confused as to why you partially answered me both here and above. I didn’t see this, but don’t have time to respond. Please read my comment above with the assumption that I didn’t read this one before responding. Then, if you would, let us keep the conversation up there until we run out of space – for convenience sake. Finally (and you can respond to this here), I noticed you talked alot here about how you heard Calvinists say this thing or that thing and then read the Calvinist theologians (and then you were shocked at what you saw was the Good News of the Bible), but I didn’t see any place where you said you were actually convinced of your position by reading the Bible. What I am recognizing is that when confronted by shocking statements like what those above said to you, we by nature gravitate toward the god of our mind rather than the God of the Bible. As I have preached through the Old Testament lately I have realized just how overwhelmingly sovereign God is there – how we cannot get around this picture and that God does not in any way desire for someone to defend His wrath against the Canaanites or His predestination of their demise. You know, the God of the Bible isn’t a big, puffy cloud of love. He is the Sovereign Lord who rules and reigns and can do with His creation as He wishes. When we consider that all of this isn’t for us anyway – it’s for His glory, then to me it is clear that it is our perceptions of God that need to change, not our defenses of His clear doctrines.
Daniel, sorry if that is harsh, but as a pastor I see that over and over again – people wanting to create this god whose ultimate attribute is love, when in reality His love is always in equal measure with His wrath, His justice, and His Holiness. One trait does not dominate and to say that the Gospel points to a god who doesn’t predestine and is holy in all His free choices is to say that one aspect of who God actually is rises above the others. Now, I realize you probably would object to that (and vehemently), so I will be willing to engage you on any passage in the Bible to prove that point.
D.R. Randle,
Amen! You hit the nail on the head.
D.R. Randall,
I separated my posts because they were long and because I was also checking on background information after the first post.
Sorry for the confusion (It was foreordained;-) Just kidding.
You write: “but I didn’t see any place where you said you were actually convinced of your position by reading the Bible.”
I thought I made that clear. Growing up in a Baptist church, hearing the Good News when young(as proclaimed by Billy Graham, etc.), then when a teen reading my Bible a lot, hearing untold sermons with lots of biblical text!–my dad was a Baptist pastor. Then I became for a short time a Baptist youth pastor, etc.
In all that time, I was convinced of God as One who loves everyone one, including me.
From reading the Bible I NEVER got the idea that God foreordains most humans to eternal damnation.
Then you say, “we by nature gravitate toward the god of our mind rather than the God of the Bible.”
No, I first received the Good News of the God of the Bible. I came under conviction, repented, and accepted Jesus as my Savior. This didn’t come from any “god of my mind.”
It was only later when I was 17 I heard the horrible news of the God of Calvinism who doesn’t love to save all people.
Then you add, “overwhelmingly sovereign God is..”
I’ve never questioned God’s sovereignty (in the sense that God is almighty).
But I totally and completely reject the “sovereignty” concept of Calvinism which posits God foreordains most humans to be lost.
That (Calvinism’s version of sovereignty as defined by TULIP, etc.) is contrary to the general flow of the Bible, especially the New Testament.
If I had been introduced to the God of Calvinism who wills for us to be foreordained to be damned forever, who foreordains all evil for his “glory and pleasure,”
I would never have become a Christian.
That I know for sure.
And lastly you say: “You know, the God of the Bible isn’t a big, puffy cloud of love.”
I’ve never thought such a view of God.
My view of God is Jesus’s view of God, the Divine Sovereign who is like a father does in Christ loves all of us so much that in Christ he went to the cross and suffered for uss.
I’ve lived in the Middle East, been to the general spots where all this took place.
God’s love is very real to me.
And you say, “When we consider that all of this isn’t for us anyway – it’s for His glory, ”
No its not. God is love–love is giving. God sent Jesus because he loved us.
Do you know any father who has his children to bring himself glory?!!
How gross on human terms, even worse attributed to God.
And you say, “as a pastor I see that over and over again – people wanting to create this god whose ultimate attribute is love,”
Neither my dad who was a Baptist pastor for many years, and me who was a Baptist youth pastor for short time ever saw this.
So our experience is very different.
We saw God in the Good News of John 3:16 and many other passages. No one had to create a “God whose ultimate attribute of love.”
He’s everywhere and in the NT.
I have no interest in the Calvinistic conception of God.
As you can see, I find it abhorrent.
It has nothing…nothing to do with God who saved me, who loves all of us.
I would have been burnt at the stake by the Geneva Reformers.
Thanks for the dialog,
Daniel
Daniel writes: “And you say, “When we consider that all of this isn’t for us anyway – it’s for His glory, ”
No its not. God is love–love is giving. God sent Jesus because he loved us.”
God is also wrath, Daniel. God is also holy, Daniel. God is also jealous, Daniel. Consider all of His attributes equally. And glory IS at the heart of His plan for man. In fact, according to every angel in Heaven, Jesus died to receive glory (one of the purposes of His death) Revelation 5:11-12. Not everything is as man-centered as you make it out to be.
It’s not about God receiving glory, Daniel?? Please deal with these texts:
The passion of God for His own glory:
For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:9-11)
God chose His people for His glory:
He chose us in his before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will unto the praise of the glory of his grace. (Ephesians 1:4-6; cf. vv. 12, 14)
God created us for His glory:
Bring my songs from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory. (Isaiah 43:6-7)
God called Israel for His glory:
You are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified. (Isaiah 49:3)
I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house o Judah cling to me, says the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. (Jeremiah 13:11)
God rescued Israel from Egypt for His glory:
Our fathers when they were in Egypt did not consider thy wonderful works…but rebelled against the Most High at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his name’s sake that he might make known his mighty power. (Psalm 106:7-8)
God raised Pharaoh up to show His own power and glorify His own name:
For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for this very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” (Romans 9:17)
God defeated Pharaoh at the Red Seat to show His glory:
And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host; and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord….And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen. (Exodus 14:4; cf. vv. 17, 18)
God spared Israel in the wilderness for the glory of His name:
I acted for the sake of my name, that I should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. (Ezekiel 20:14)
God gave Israel victory in Canaan for the glory of His name::
What other nation on earth is like Thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be His people, making Himself a name, and doing for them great and terrible things, by driving out before His people a nation and its gods? (2 Samuel 7:23)
God did not cast away His people for the glory of His name:
Fear not, you have done all this evil, yet do not turn aside form following the Lord….For the Lord will not cast away his people for his great name’s sake. (1 Samuel 12:20-22)
God saved Jerusalem from attack for the glory of His name:
For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David. (2 Kings 19:34; cf. 20:6)
God restored Israel from exile for the glory of His name:
Thus says the Lord God, It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name….And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name….and the nations will know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 36:22-23, 32.)
Jesus sought the glory of His Father in all He did:
He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. (John 7:18)
Jesus told us to do good works so that God gets glory:
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:16; cf. 1 Peter 2:12)
Jesus warned that not seeking God’s glory makes faith impossible:
How can you believe who seek glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? (John 5:44)
Jesus said that He answers prayer so that God would be glorified:
Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it that the Father may be glorified in the Son. (John 14:13)
Jesus endured His final hours of suffering for God’s glory:
“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Thy name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27, 28)
Father, the hour has come; glorify thy Son that the Son my glorify thee. (John 17:1; 13:31-32)
God gave His Son to vindicate the glory of His righteousness:
God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood … to demonstrate God’s righteousness…. It was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous. (Romans 3:25-26)
God forgives our sins for His own sake:
I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43:25)
Jesus receives us into His fellowship for the glory of God:
Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Rom 15:7)
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Son of God:
He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:14)
God instructs us to do everything for His glory:
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31; cf. 6:20)
God tells us to serve in a way that will glorify Him:
Whoever renders service [let him do it] as one who renders it by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belongs glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:11)
Jesus will fill us with fruits of righteousness for God’s glory:
It is my prayer … that you be filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:11)
All are under judgment for dishonoring God’s glory:
They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images. (Romans 1:23)
For all have fallen short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)
Herod is struck dead because he did not give glory to God:
Immediately an angel of the Lord smote him because he did not give glory to God. (Acts 12:23)
Jesus is coming again for the glory of God:
Those who do not obey the gospel will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on the day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at in all who have believed. (2 Thessalonians 1:9-10)
Jesus’ ultimate aim for us is that we see and enjoy His glory:
Father, I desire that they also, whom thou hast given me, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory, which thou has given me in Thy love for me before the foundation of the world. (John 17:24)
Even in wrath God’s aim is to make known the wealth of His glory:
Desiring to show his wrath and make known his power, he endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory. (Romans 9:22-23)
God’s plan is to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory:
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (Habakkuk 2:14)
Everything that happens will redound to God’s glory:
From him, to him and through him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:36)
In the New Jerusalem the glory of God replaces the sun:
And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the lamb. (Revelation 21:23)
Joseph,
I didn’t say I didn’t believe in the “glory of God.”
You’ve given a fine list showing the “glory” of God.
What I have said is that the Good News isn’t about God’s glory. The Good News is about God’s love.
And I said that God doesn’t foreordain evil or the predestined damnation of most human beings” for his glory.”
Such a thought blasphemes the character of God.
Such a Calvinist God who “plans every rape and murder” and who foreordained most humans to be damned for his glory,
ISN”T
the God who saved me.
God’s ultimate nature is love–and that only adds to his glory.
Jesus emphasized how God serves. Jesus washed his disciples’ feet!
Daniel
Daniel,
Please see my reply to your post just below this comment and please respond to my proposal by clicking “reply” underneath that comment (which was posted on August 18, 2012 at 9:54pm). Thanks.
R.L. Randall,
You say,
“You have attempted to push your evidence over mine as if the words of one or two men are stronger and more dominate than that of an entire denomination at that time. These are all mistakes that any historian should not make. This are the sorts of things that lead to believing myths over actual history.”
On the contrary, I can give you thousands of examples.
Why are you making false claims about me.
We strongly disagree about who God is. We believe in different Gods.
But don’t attack my integrity or my academic ability.
Thank you,
Daniel
Daniel,
I don’t have time to address everything you are writing in several different locations. It’s a bit too scattered for me. Can we possibly keep all of this in one thread?
Regardless, I wanted to ask this – “Where are these thousands of examples” that you gave me?
So far, you have mentioned J.L. Dagg, 2 contemporary Calvinists you read about (though you didn’t say you actually read their writings, nor did you give their names or any references to them), Hodge (which you said you “recalled” having supported slavery), and then George Whitfield. Finally, you mentioned the Presbyterian Church of the Confederate States of America’s statement in favor of slavery. So by my count that’s at most 6 examples. Now if you count the PCCSA as thousands, then you might have it, but I don’t know that you could do such a thing with only a handful or so of actual ruling elders issuing such a statement.
Now, here is what you haven’t proven by ANY example – your initial point, which was that Calvinism’s view of God’s sovereignty leads to the promotion of slavery (or your point below, which is that Calvinism by holding to the full Sovereignty of God would, by its nature, support evil institutions more readily than Arminianism – again see Arminians and abortion for a clear argument against that notion). And so far, you have not shown any uniquely Calvinistic arguments in favor of slavery by anyone you’ve named or any that you haven’t (such that you have posted this particular argument to be read – all you’ve done is suggest that such an argument is made and then name-drop Calvin or Sproul or Pink, or etc.). And what I’ve actually read of any of those you have mentioned in the last couple of days has been a mix of the same arguments used by Arminians – curse of Ham, slavery laws in the Bible, and slavery in the NT seemingly approved by Paul and Peter.
Now, having said that, I want to point out that you’ve jumped all over the place with this post and that post, but after reading all of them, we are still no further along in the discussion – you claim that the very nature of Calvinistic belief leads to the support of evil institutions more readily. Yet, again you have posited the view, but not backed it up with one shred of evidence from a single quoted source. You’ve told us your credentials, your background and upbringing, your testimony, and even what books you are reading, but you have yet to quote a single Calvinist who makes the claim that because God is sovereign we should accept a practice that we know to be evil (or who has claimed that an evil practice is moral because God has sovereignly decreed that it be).
So then, my question is this: Can we try to pare down the discussion to two main issues so that we can actually see the evidence when it is presented and adequately deal with it in an organized fashion? If so, here is my proposal for such a discussion.
1) We present evidence in favor or against the premise that “Calvinism, by its belief in the total sovereignty of God over every action of man and beast and element of nature, will naturally tend to accept more readily institutions or actions which are actually evil.”
2) I want to hit on something that Joseph brought up to you that I see as a crux in this debate over Calvinism, which is the premise that “God’s chief and highest purpose in all that He does is first and foremost the display of His glory and that all other motivations and purposes are secondary, tertiary, and beyond to this chief end.”
Would you be willing for us to open 2 new dialogue box at the end of the comment sections and title each by the premises above and discuss each of these individually until such point in which we run out of room and need to start a new dialogue thread below the bottom one? If you don’t want to discuss these things, I understand, but please propose some alternative where we can get a little organization and stay on topic in our discussion. The complete chaos that has occurred so far is really not helping us to discuss one issue at a time. And I think both of us are having a hard time keeping up.
So if you are in favor of this, then answer as a reply to this particular post, then let’s end the rest of the discussions going on and take up those 2 premises below. What say you Daniel?
I’ve got a question from your earlier post where you said lots of Calvinists opposed slavery and quoted a P. Assembly.
Would you then disagree with this statement:
D.R. Randle,
Here’s more:
“It is difficult, if not impossible, to harmonize the position taken in this report, unanimously adopted by the Assembly, with the action of the Old School General Assembly of 1845 which resolved by a vote of 168 to 13 that the existence of domestic slavery, under the circumstances in which it is found in the southern portion of the country is no bar to Christian communion and that the petitions that ask the Assembly to make the holding of slaves in itself a matter of discipline, do virtually require this judicatory to dissolve itself (Minutes, 1845, p.18).”
Would you disagree with this?
Daniel
Daniel,
You are going to have to give more context than that and at least a reference so I can read the entire document. Let’s not play “gotcha” here. Let’s deal with the issue from a broad perspective, not snippet vs. snippet. Post a link so I can read the entirety of the document (or at least enough of it to get a sense of the context) and I will try to read it and get back to you.
D.R.Randle,
Actually I did post such info:-) as the website so you could check it out, early this afternoon.
But SBCToday didn’t post my long post.That’s why you didn’t get it much earlier.
I don’t know if there were problems because I posted it with websites, etc. or what. So then several hours later
I reposted these short posts of some of the long post they failed to post.
I also wrote of Stonewall Jackson, Michael Wigglesworth, etc.
Read up on the 1800′s of the Calvinists, not the moderate ones but the TULIP Calvinists.
This is dialog is, probably also, fruitless. I definitely am an Atheist to the God you believe in and the other Calvinists on this website.
Your God is totally different from God who saved me so many years ago.
I’ve got to get back to my regular work.
I pray God will deliver all of the Calvinists from their false distorted conception of Him.
In the love of God,
Daniel
A Traditionalist witch hunt, in the love of God.
“A Traditionalist witch hunt, in the love of God.”
\
Actually Joseph, The Calvinist Puritans had REAL witch hunts and put them to death. That is from YOUR doctrinal tradition
You can’t blame Calvinism for what a few goofballs any more than I can blame Billy Graham for the posts on SBCtoday.
BTW: Ever considered that this whole nation was under the power of the Evil One back then? All the American Indians unwittingly worshipped the devil. This whole land was Satan’s domain. And then Calvinist settlers come along with the light of the Gospel. Wouldn’t you think that Satan did everything in his power to disallow the Gospel from spreading? I would bet that some of those witches really were possessed by demons (I’m sure many of them were innocent as well). But I bet they saw some truly demonic stuff, and that mixed with their flesh (even Calvinists are still in this body of death) made some of the Puritans overreact. The death penalty was common throughout Europe. It makes sense that the death penalty would continue here for demonic activity. They overreacted, but I bet there was all kinds of demonic things going on too because Satan did not want to let his Kingdom in the Americas fall to the truth of the Gospel.
“This whole land was Satan’s domain. And then Calvinist settlers come along with the light of the Gospel. ”
The “light of the Gospel” results in wiping them out if they refuse to give over the land they are on? It was not a few goofballs. it was the leaders and in that oppressive church/state system they brought with them, the leaders were “rulers”.
“They overreacted, but I bet there was all kinds of demonic things going on too because Satan did not want to let his Kingdom in the Americas fall to the truth of the Gospel.”
Mass murdering not only men but women and children just to get land is not demonic in your world? Again, go read Cotton Mather’s own words on this subject.
Joseph, You are typical of the Calvinist excuses for all the evil perpetuated in the name of God throughout the history of that tradition. Your thinking is one reason why some of us know it is an oppressive system from its foundation. It is a short walk from excusing that behavior to justifying it in the Name of Christ to perpetuating it if you had the power and it was legal. You have already used the Nuremburg excuse for Calvin. Did it ever occur to you that REAL Christians would have put their own lives on the line to bring the Gospel to the Natives? Given up everything for the cause of Christ. Is that not what the New Covenant teaches?
I often say how grateful I am it is not the 16th century right now.
D.R. Randle,
For some reason this didn’t go through earlier:
(I wish I had all the books I’ve read on the Civil War and Christianity here now, but instead I have to rely on the Internet. Sorry)
You wrote: “you should see that association does not equal causation. Calvinists might have continued the slavery of the past and some even used theological arguments to do so, but to say that Calvinism’s conclusions could lead to slavery is to say something that is dubious at best.”
I tried to explicitly explain that I wasn’t saying that Calvinism leads to slavery. (But maybe I stated that in a different post.)
I don’t think C. led to slavery. My point was that when Calvinists posit that God foreordains everything, they then often end up supporting evil institutions and evil actions in history. (I could give you about 5,000 pages worth of examples if you wish, probably more.) And don’t forget, Calvinist God’s “unlimted election” is also what led Calvinist South Africans to support Apartheid!
Whatever theology we hold does affect our ethical lives. It does not necessarily “cause” our actions, but in most cases does justify them if we defend them.
Then you say, “It just seems you are taking one or two theologians (who no doubt are major influences – but not representative of the larger groups like the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church at that time) and extrapolating from that that the theology inherent in Calvinism leads to such a defense of slavery.”
No, those were just two examples which came up because Calvinists have been holding forth on how great of theologians they are.
I can give you many more examples.
But why go to the Presbyt.? This is a Baptist website. Read a little in Baptist history. The vast majority of Baptists did
support slavery in the 1800?s.
I don’t think their Calvinism forced them to support slavery, but I do think they used/or believed their Calvinism justified their support of the institution of slavery.
Then you add: “But you have failed to consider how many Calvinists in that era actually saw the opposite of that being true.”
Actually, I am aware of Calvinists who opposed slavery, though my understanding is that a fair number of them did so because they were influenced by non-Calvinists. Case in point: Wilberforce as I recall was influenced by nonCalvinists. My understanding is that the Presbyterian Lyman Beecher who became opposed to slavery was influenced
by Charles Finney and other Arminians. In fact his church accused him of heresy.
And there is history such as this:
“James Henry Thornwell, a prominent South Carolina Presbyterian clergyman, the purpose of which was to justify the church’s secession from the parent church. A political moderate and opponent of the church’s participation in secular affairs such as the slavery issue prior to 1860, Thornwell became a champion of the Confederacy and one of the strongest advocates of slavery in the South. The part of the Address dealing with the slavery question is reprinted here.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States has been enabled by the Divine Grace to pursue, for the most part, an eminently conservative, because a thoroughly scriptural, policy in relation to this delicate question. It has planted itself upon the word of God and utterly refused to make slaveholding a sin or nonslaveholding a term of communion
“The 1861 letter from the PCCSA addressed to “’all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the
earth,; they give a defense of the morality of slavery.”
…addressed to “all the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the
earth,” they give a defense of the morality of slavery.”
You next say,
“And it seems you assume that such sins (which may be just as bad as slavery) wouldn’t also be justified by Arminians.”
Ah, but there is the difference.(Let’s not even deal with the fact that John Wesley and other non-Calvinists all the way back to the Mennonites opposed slavery).
Let’s just deal with the fact that thousands of Arminians did support and own slaves.
BUT
here is the key difference: they did so because they themselves of their own libertarian free will chose to sin!
In contrast, all the Calvinists I’ve read and dialogged with believe the original “source/order” of slavery was because God foreordained that humans would own slaves.
That’s two very different animals as I’ve been trying to explain.
I won’t go the abortion discussion route since I am convinced abortion is murder. and as I’ve stated when Christians of all sorts support abortion, they are sinning.
Then you say:
“So Daniel, again I just don’t think you have thought through this issue enough”
Oh, I’ve thought through it way too much. I’ve spent 50 years battling the Calvinist view.
And you write
“– you have taken far too much of a simplistic approach to a much more complex issue.”
I don’t think so. Part of the problem is we are limited by a small dialog box. If we had time to sit down and write position papers, etc. like I used to have my American literature students do, then we could go into more detail. Note: By the wa
Daniel: Have we not as a denomination both Calvinists and non-Calvinists apologized for our slave past? It was also non-Calvinists, “Traditionalists” who participated in segregation in the United States. So I would suggest not to throw stones. It was a non-Calvinist church involved in the latest scandal of not allowing a black couple to get married in the church. And it was in the year 2012. This year. So throwing stones is something I would not recommend. Also it’s the doctrine I am interested in. That is what I believe is taught in scripture. I am against racism now as are many non-Calvinist and Calvinist. So move on Daniel. Move on.
Actually, Some of our founders, which so many, like Mohler, are now insisting we get back to their pure doctrine, never repented of their pro slavery views. Can you point to any sources where, say, Boyce repents publicly of his pro slavery stance and helping the confederate army?
So why would we want to go back to those sorts of doctrinal roots?
Lydia: In 1995 the SBC issued a formal apology. We renounced slavery and segregation. That would include both Calvinists and non-Calvinists apologized. That should be the end of it.
Non-Calvinists took part both in condoning slavery, owning slaves and in supporting segregation in the 60′s as did some Calvinists so those here cannot claim those who hold to your beliefs did not have racist views either Lydia. Also ask these who you are now speaking for on this post and Peter, their view of women in ministry. That may well be the next projected aim of venom. It just won’t end here just as did not end six years ago nor at the CR. It will be something else and you will eventually be the target.
Lydia,
Why would Boyce or Carroll, or anybody else repent of helping the Confederate army?
“Why would Boyce or Carroll, or anybody else repent of helping the Confederate army?”
In Broadus’ bio of Boyce he relates that Boyce was against succession until he found out it could mean an end to slavery. Then he completely changed his mind and was fervent for the confederate cause. He wanted to help the Confederate Army so the institution of slavery could be saved.
Now, I am not sure how this works with other people but we have many who think Boyce was brilliant and want the SBC to go back to those roots of doctrinal beliefs. Not sure how you seperate that out. I have a challenge with that since he owned the same Bible I do and he thinks it makes a case for believers to own other humans in slavery and claim it is ordained of God. I know others think that, too, even today such as Piper’s and the Gospel Coalition’s new BFF, The Patriarch Doug Wilson of CREC, they are now promoting.
I suppose I am a bit confused why we would want to go back to such roots that produced that thinking. I would rather go further back than even Calvin all the way to Christ and stop elevating man so much. For folks who say they are totally for the Sovereignty of God and we are not, they sure do spend a lot of time promoting and quoting mere men who believed and practiced some very bad things.
Lydia,
Thanks for your response.
“Non-Calvinists took part both in condoning slavery, owning slaves and in supporting segregation in the 60?s as did some Calvinists so those here cannot claim those who hold to your beliefs did not have racist views either Lydia.”
Debbie, Where have you seen me suggest we should go back to those roots of doctrinal beliefs that supported such things?
You keep missing the point.
Yeah Lydia I guess I am missing your point, cause well….I don’t get it.
If there is something taught in scripture as I read it and I see it as I do the five points of Grace aka Calvinism, I believe it. It’s that simple. And I do see it all over scripture. I see it despite the sin of the men who proclaimed it.
“Yeah Lydia I guess I am missing your point, cause well….I don’t get it.”
Why would anyone want to “go back” to such doctrinal roots that produced that sort of thinking and behavior and justified it by twisting scripture? The SBC, thankfully, moved past that.
The call to go back to those sinful roots is astonishing to me.
Lydia: The doctrine did not produce that type of thinking. Sin produced that type of thinking. Calvinism had nothing to do with it anymore than those who were Baptist and non-Calvinists yet were slave holders or racist got those ideas from their theology.
I would ask why I would want to believe as you do when it means excluding those not agreed with and fighting all the time. Is it from your doctrine?
But…an apology was made in 1995. I saw Calvinists and non-Calvinists vote for our current SBC President. So I just think your point is completely null and void.
“Lydia: The doctrine did not produce that type of thinking. Sin produced that type of thinking. ”
Which is a good reason not to be a Calvinist. It does not change hearts? No new creatures in Christ? We can burn folks, wipe out entire tribes? One can practice the heinous sins such as Calvin and the Puritans and claim not only to be saved but to be leaders others should obey?
Debbie,
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough on what my central points were. My point wasn’t about Calvinists being racist and pro-slavery, but non-Calvinists not.
My point was that non-Calvinists know they have libertarian choice to respond to God’s love or to reject God’s way.
In contrast, in Calvinism, we are born incapable of responding to God, T.
Most of us already were foreordained by God to eternal damnation, U.
God sent Jesus to die efficiently for only a limited number of humans. L.
God doesn’t relate to us in a loving relationship but (according to Calvinists) state that a human must first be regenerated against his will, and then he may repent and accept Jesus, I.
ETC.
Secondly, Calvinists claim in their theology that God foreordained all this evil (some Calvinists claim “for his pleasure and glory”:-(. John Calvin wrote:
“I admit that by the will of God all the sons of Adam fell into that state of wretchedness in which they are now involved; and this is just what I said at the first, that we must always return to the mere pleasure of the divine will, the cause of which is hidden in himself.” Chapter 23, 4 Institutes of C. R. John Calvin
They claim, like Calvin, that God foreordained most humans to to be eternally damned!
One Baptist Calvinist even claims this: “Another says, ‘I want to know about the rest of the people. May I go out and tell them—Jesus Christ died for every one of you? May I say—there is righteousness for every one of you, there is life for every one of you?’
No; you may not.”
What? Like so many Calvinists, this famous Calvinist is denying the Good News. Calvinists believe that Jesus only efficiently died for “some” humans, a limited atonement.
What?! That is a denial of John 3:16 and the whole New Testament!
I am glad we non-Calvinists can talk to every person in the whole world and tell the the
GOOD NEWS: Jesus loves everyone of you and wills for everyone of you to be saved.
Turn from you sin, and God will save you.
As he did me 55 years ago. Praise the God of all glory–who glories in loving us.
I am glad I was saved by God who wills for every single human being to be saved.
And that, Debbie is the Good News.
“The wonder of it all that God loves everyone!”
Daniel
Daniel,
Please see my post above about the proposal for continuing discussion between us. Then post a reply under that particular comment. Thanks.
Again, recognizing our “apology” a century later, I ask why we would want to go back to those “roots” of “correct doctrine” as Mohler and others think is so important to do.
The Five-Solas originate with Calvin and the Reformation, and yet every Bible believing Christian, including every Baptist Traditionalist hold to those Five solas:
Scripture alone
Christ alone
Grace alone
Faith alone
To God alone be all the glory
And we can all say with one voice thanks John Calvin for bringing the church back to these biblical truths.
Joseph, All depends on your “definition” of each. Calvin was a tyrant and oppressor of people. So, was his behavior driven by his doctrine or not? Did his theological brilliance not come to know that sacraments are not a means of grace? If not, what is the point of thinking he was so brilliant?
Lydia: It was not driven by his doctrine but his flesh because he tired to correct things himself using fleshly and political methods.
Is your anger driven by your theology or the flesh? That is a question each of us should be asking.
that should be tried, not tired.
I agree Joseph. If not for the Reformation, the printed Bible you hold in your hands would have taken a lot longer to be in your hands if it would be there at all.
If not for the influence of Reformed doctrine, we would probably have had a better bible, tainted as the early versions (Geneva and KJV for instance, with their Reformed annotations likely to be taken as “truth” by the unawares) were then by that doctrine and which influences us up to today.
Not all was good in the Reformation. Idolizing it would be a mistake.
Holdon,
The origin of the Geneva Bible is the Reformation itself. It follows the heart of Martin Luther, who translated the Latin Bible into everyday German so that the common people could read and understand the Bible. It follows the legacy of William Tyndale who translated the Bible into English, under persecution. His desire was also that the common people could read and understand the Scriptures. Spea
king to a Dublin cleric, Tyndale proclaimed, “If God spare my life, ere many years pass, I will cause a boy that draggeth the plow shall know more of the Scriptures than thou dost.”1 Tyndale was eventually burned at the stake. And his heart’s desire that the average person could read the Scriptures was not fully realized. Several translations based on Tyndale’s New Testament did make it into English churches, but they were pulpit Bibles for clergy. The common people themselves still had no Bible.
The origin of the Geneva Bible flows out of similar persecution that Tyndale endured: “During the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558) the Reformation was suppressed. Two hundred eighty-eight persons were burned, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. These persecutions drove exiles from Britain to Europe. The most capable scholars among them came to Geneva, Switzerland.”2 Mary Tudor, or “Blood Mary” as she is aptly called, immediately set out to establish Catholicism in Great Britain. She was determined to end the Reformation spreading in her domain. The time of her reign became known as the Marian Exile because besides the executions, hundreds of English scholars were driven from their families and homes to Europe. Many of these settled in Calvin’s Geneva, which was a Republic safe haven. Among these Protestant divines were Miles Coverdale, John Foxe, Thomas Sampson, and William Whittingham among others.3 The exile was not a waste of time. Many of them saw it as an opportunity to prepare, to study and to train for their eventual return because their hope was that the Reformation would grow again in England and bear fruit.4 William Whittingham, the brother-in-law of John Calvin, with the assistance of others, immediately set out to translate the Bible into English. The prolific number of scholars in Geneva at that time was astounding. Geneva became the place of scholarship in the Bible’s original languages. “Geneva was a “center for biblical textual scholarship which resulted in new editions of the Greek and Hebrew texts”.5
This was especially crucial for the Hebrew Scriptures. Until that time several books of the Old Testament had never been translated directly from the Hebrew or Aramaic into the English language. “Now the existing version of the prophetical books and the poetical and wisdom literature of the Old Testament was carefully brought into line with the Hebrew text, and even with the Hebrew idiom.”6 Therefore, one of the great contributions of the Geneva Bible to Christians was the giving of a faithful translation of the whole Bible directly from the original languages.
What also set the Geneva Bible apart from all others before it were its chapter and verse divisions, making this Bible easier to study and much more accessible to the people. In fact, the Geneva Bible was the first English Bible to be read by the common people. “It is hard for us in our day to realize that the Bible has only been available to the common Christian in his own language for 400 years. Before the printing of Luther’s German Bible in 1534 and the Geneva Bible in English, laymen, regardless of nationality, for 1500 years had never had a Bible of their own.”7
The Geneva Bible had immediate appeal, and that is because it was designed to make understanding the Scriptures easier. Throughout the Geneva Bible there were footnotes giving both cross-references and commentary to help the reader understand the text better. That the common person would understand the text was the chief concern of the translators, as they indicate in the introduction of the Geneva Bible. They explain that it had been translated from the Hebrew and Greek, conferred by the best translators and “with most profitable annotations upon all the hard places”.8 It was these annotations of the hard place that opened the Scriptures up to the common man. So we see that the same hope that Luther had of giving the Scriptures to the common man and the same hope that Tyndale had of giving the Scriptures to the common man was the aim of the translators of the Geneva Bible. They wanted the common people to have the Scriptures and understand the Scriptures. And that is what happened!
However, these same annotations that opened up the Scriptures are what eventually led to King James despising the Geneva Bible’s popularity. He felt that some of the translation notes were “seditious” and he sought for a new translation. In certain places the notes taught that it was right to reject a king’s edict. “The implication of the annotations is very lucid: the king must be disobeyed if he violates the will of God and commands us to do likewise.”9 Such supposed sedition could be seen in the notes such as in the case of Exodus 1:19, where the midwives refused to obey Pharaoh’s command to kill the Hebrew male babies. The Geneva notes indicated that it was right that the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh. For this reason and others King James disliked the Geneva Bible most of all and sought to replace it. Thus, even the beloved King James Bible owes its existence, in part at least, to the Geneva Bible.
The Geneva Bible in large part brought the English speaking world out of the Middle Ages of ignorance and darkness into the Knowledge and light of God’s Word. This affects us personally, too: “American colonists were reared on the Geneva Bible.”10 The Bible that the Pilgrims brought to the shores of America was the Bible of Geneva. Our Christian heritage in this country has as its foundation the Geneva Bible. We owe that translation and its translators a tremendous debt of gratitude. “In short, it was chiefly owing to the dissemination of copies of the Geneva version of 1560 that a sturdy and articulate Protestantism was created in Britain, a Protestantism which made a permanent impact upon Anglo-American culture.”11
I thank God that He blessed the English world, including my own nation, with the translation of the Geneva Bible. Of course, it was not inspired like the original manuscripts. Nevertheless, Your Word inspired the whole English speaking world!
————
1 Marshall Foster, Introduction to the 1599 Geneva Bible [document on-line]; available from http://www. genevabible.com/?introduction.php#banner2.
2 R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible (Florida: Ligonier Ministries, 2005), iv-v.
3 Gary DeMar, The Geneva Bible: The Forgotten Translation [document on-line]; available from http://www. reformed.org/documents/?index.html?mainframe=http://?www.reformed.org/documents/?geneva/Geneva.html.
4 Alister McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York: Anchor, 2001), 111.
5 Lloyd E. Berry, The Geneva Bible: A Facsimile of the 1560 Edition (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 7.
6 F. F. Bruce, The English Bible: A History of Translation from the earliest English Version to the New English Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970), 86.
7 Marshall Foster, Introduction to the 1599 Geneva Bible [document on-line]; available from http://www. genevabible.com/?introduction.php#banner2.
8 Quoted by Patricia Serak, The Geneva Bible: An Historical Report [document on-line]; available from http://logosresourcepages.org/?History/geneva_bible.htm.
9 Matthew Barrett, The Geneva Bible and Its Influence on the King James Bible [document on-line]; available from http://www.founders.org/?journal/fj86/article2.html.
10 Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible, v.
11 Bruce M. Metzger, “The Geneva Bible of 1560,” Theology Today Journal 17 (1960): 352.
This comes pretty close to what I talked about: idolizing the Geneva edition.
And it explains why we are where we are today: read the Geneva notes (and translation) and you will find almost exactly the Reformed doctrine spelled out. The bad seeds sown among the good is sill bearing their fruit to today.
I call them the “state church” translations. No way were they going to dare not put the “rulers in authority” over the people in those translations or off with their heads!
For those who read history, they know the “political” reasons for the state church translations. Esp the KJV which was meant to authenticate the Protestant King who had a Catholic mama.
holdon: The KJV? Sometimes I wonder if you guys really stick to facts or if you just make things up as you go along.
Debbie,
Keep in mind that the Reformed burned at the stake and drowned Christians who opposed infant baptism!
If we existed in the Reformed cities such as Calvin’s, we Baptists would have been tortured and executed.
So much for thanking Calvin….NO WAY.
Daniel
Hello Don,
I had made the point that while the Jews were not keeping the law perfectly, they were in fact keeping the law and placing their confidence in their efforts at keeping the law to save them.
You then responded with:
“Just to add to what you’re saying. Paul speaking of himself before becoming saved “. . . touching the righteousness which is in the law, BLAMELESS.” Phil. 3:6”
Thanks for sharing that Don, it proves my point **perfectly**.
Joseph then trying to salvage his already refuted argument wrote:
“Robert,
Every read the book of James? Your comments make it seem like you have never cracked the book of James open. Otherwise you would be aware of this text:
“For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10) The fact that the Jews or anyone else did not obey the law perfectly means, according to James, that they were guilty of all of it!”
Note what Joseph says here, he quotes the verse from James that says if you miss the law on one point it is as if you missed them all, were guilty of them all. If this were a test in a class, James is saying that missing one question on the 100 question exam is like missing them all. That suggests the test is a pass or fail (pass if you get 100% of the questions correct, fail and get a 0, whether you answer one or 99 of the questions correct).
Now Joseph suggests that I had never read the book of James and had never seen this point.
And yet what had I explicitly said in my previous post?
“Instead they were putting their confidence in their law keeping!!! James in his book makes the same point saying that the Jews were putting their confidence in their law keeping. They would not have been doing so if they could not keep the law at all. They were partly keeping the law, and yet James says that God does not grade on a curve. It is pass or fail, so James says to those who want to be justified by the law, one miss is like missing them all. So if they wanted to go the law keeping route they had to do so perfectly.”
So in my comments I explicitly bring up James by name.
I said explicitly using the analogy of a class and a test that “God does not grade on a curve.”
I further strengthend this point by saying “It is pass or fail.”
And note especially my next comment which was in fact a direct reference to James 2:10 the very text that Joseph cites: “so James says to those who want to be justified by the law, one miss is like missing them all.”
I made ***the very point*** that Joseph is chiding me about with his quotation of James 2:10.
This suggests that Joseph is so arrogant and argumentative that he does not even read what the rest of us are saying about things. If Joseph is going to argue with what we say and totally ignore what we say, then I suggest that others ignore him as well.
Why waste time responding to someone who really does not care what you say, does not even read what you say, who just wants to argue with you to support his cherished calvinism?
Joseph is just another angry and arrogant calvinist who just wants to argue for his calvinism.
He really does not care about what is true, or what we say, he only cares about something supposedly being true if in his mind it supports his calvinism.
Robert
Robert,
Thanks. Job is another to add to the list.
“There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was PERFECT and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” Job 1:1
Hello Steve,
You wrote:
“That we think we are capable of making some choice that will determine our salvation, is a sign of how lost we really are.”
If that is supposed to be an example of what non-calvinists or Traditionalists believe, it is a misrepresentation. Neither I nor many other non-calvinist church leaders that I know believe that our simple choice to trust the Lord alone for our salvation is what actually saves us. After having experienced the work of the Spirit before conversion, having Him reveal Christ to us, reveal our sinful condition, etc. etc. etc. And then begging God to save us from our sin. Our choice to trust, our begging faith, is not what saves us. It is God’s actions alone that save us.
“But when you are taught a doctrine of “free-will” it is awfully hard to overcome. “
I believe you are mistaken about this. It is not that the non-calvinist was taught (i.e. indoctrinated) so they end up believing in free will (as ordinarily understood, the basic notion that at least sometimes we have and make our own choices). No, it is much deeper than that. From practically our first moment of consciousness we have in fact experienced the having and making of our own choices. This is something that we have experienced for an entire lifetime and experienced this reality daily. So if someone (say a theological determinist, but it could also be an atheist materialist who wants to tell us that our brains necessitate our behaviour, or our genes, or our environment, or our upbringing/parents, or our sin nature, or our character, or whatever necessitating factor the determinist wants to bring forward as his necessitating candidate) comes along and tries to persuade us, or tells us, prooftexting from some bible text, that we do not have free will and never had free will. Most people’s automatic response is that “you’ve got to be kidding. Do you really believe that of these thousands of times I had a choice and then made a choice: that in reality I never ever had any of these choices, this is just absolutely absurd!”
The universal belief that at least sometimes we have and make choices is the default position of the human race. And there are very good reasons for this. Everybody believes that they sometimes have and make their own choices primarily because in fact for a lifetime they have directly experienced situations where they had and then made their own choices.
The only people who deny this belief are those who have been indoctrinated into believing that everything is determined/necessitated by some necessitating factor (again there are many different candidates proposed by various determinists, including our brains make us do it, our genes make us do it, the molecules that make up the universe made us do it, God made us do it, the devil made us do it, etc. etc.).
For Christians who are not determinists not only do we have our own personal experience of having had and made choices for our entire lives. We also observe that the bible presents lots of examples of situations where the people had choices. So we have our own personal experience and also scripture presenting situations involving free will.
If we are non-determinists we also wonder: say that theological determinism is true (i.e. that God has predestined everything, preplanned everything, in which case we may make choices but we never have choices). That would mean that he has predestined the vast majority of the human race to be wrong in their belief that they sometimes have and make choices. God has also predestined for most of his own people to be wrong in their belief that they sometimes have and make choices.
So if someone is a non-calvinist Traditionalist who firmly believes in free will as ordinarily understood and so they argue for free will and against theological determinism: God predestined both their false belief in free will and also that they would argue against determinism which would be true if all was predestined!!! Now why would the God of Truth (the bible repeatedly speaks of God being a truthteller and desiring his own people to know and love and obey what is true) want so many of his own people to believe and defend and argue for a lie? I don’t think theological determinists have thought deeply enough about what their exhaustive determinism entails.
If everything is predestined then the non-calvinist is wrong about free will and ****cannot help it****. It is *****impossible for them to believe in determinism*****, *****because God predestined for them to be non-calvinists who reject determinism****. All the non-calvinist can say is “I can’t help myself, I have to believe in free will, I have to deny and disagree with calvinism, because God has predestined me to believe what I believe, Oh well.”
And of course the determinist who would be correct about free will just got lucky about his belief (God could just as easily predestined for him to have been a non-calvinist).
But what if instead, theological determinism is the error and free will as ordinarily understood really exists. In that case, the non-calvinist **is** living the truth, is espousing the truth, and the theological determinist is wrong. And in that case, the theological determinist is making a wrong choice. He should (and can) choose to reject determinism and believe in free will. So if theological determinists are right, then we non-calvinists cannot help being non-calvinists because that is what God predestined for us to be. In this case we cannot help being wrong and God wants us to be wrong.
On the other hand, if theological determinism is false, then free will as ordinarily understood exists and the determinists are freely choosing to be wrong. They ****can help*** their error, they can choose the truth instead of pursuing and defending their error.
“But Holy Scripture cries out against it.”
The bible does not “cry out against” free will: it repeatedly affirms it. As in the bible verses that Cox brought up in his article here (bible verses I notice the determininsts completely ignored, none of them has actually responded to what Cox presented, instead they have freely chosen to go off towards other tangents).
We also have to remember that the members of the Trinity are behind the bible. That same trinity that inspired the scripture was also involved in conceiving and bringing about the design plan for human persons. God decided that man would be created in His image. God came up with a design plan in which from the beginning, mankind has had the capacity to have and make their own choices. If God designed us with free will, then why is the same God going to contradict Himself in “Holy Scripture” and deny that we have free will? He is not and does not contradict Himself. He does not contradict his own purposes and plans and designs (and one of those designs which is obvious because it was present in the garden and we have all directly experienced it as well is this capacity to sometimes have and make our own choices). God did not design us to be one way when he created mankind and then when speaking in scripture contradict himself regarding his own design!!
Robert
Robert,
Actually, you are inaccurate in saying that no Calvinists (though you do use the term “theological determinists”, which I don’t think is helpful at all because it makes no distinction between hard and soft determinism, aka fatalism and compatiblism) answered Cox’s Scriptural arguments. If you go back up and read the first comment I made, I took on the idea that Jesus’ actions were ultimately guided by His “free will” and the idea that the ultimate cause of the actions of those who crucified Him were by their “free will”. In regard to the former, Jesus’ actions were determined beforehand by Him and the Counsel of the Trinity when they decreed all that would exist and come to pass in the world. So Jesus doesn’t make a “free will” decision in that moment and certainly there is no comparison to those who are in bondage to sin. Now, in regard to those who crucified Jesus, their will was in bondage to sin. Certainly they wanted to do the actions. God did not force them, but they couldn’t have committed those acts unless God set up the conditions and permit them to do so. So the idea of “libertarian free will” isn’t there. Rather, we see compatiblism at work instead.
Hello again Steve,
I need to add something here sort of as a “preventative strike”. Anticipating some objections I need to make clear that an important distinction *****almost always forgotten***** or not sufficiently taken into account, by theological determinists is this one.
There is a distinction between a person’s capacity for having and making their own choices (i.e. what most people mean by free will, which is why I usually refer to it as the ordinary understanding of free will) and their **range of choices.**
An illustration I like to use to make this point clear is to contrast Donald Trump and myself when it comes to our range of choices in regards to purchasing or buying things. Both “the Donald” and I have the innate capacity as human persons to have and make our own choices. So we both have free will in this sense. At the same time we have a very different range of choices when it comes to buying things. Trump can buy million dollar buildings, I cannot. Trump can buy all sorts of material things, that I cannot. Now this does not mean that he has free will and I do not. It means we both have a different range of choices when it comes to buying things. It does not follow since he has choices that I do not, that I do not have free will while he does have free will. All this means is that while we both have free will, we also have differing ranges of choices.
An extremely common error made by theological determinists is the inference that because a particular individual cannot choose to do some particular thing, therefore that individual does not have free will.
But this claim neglects the fact that when it comes to choices individuals have various ranges of choices. An individual’s own range of choices can change from time to time.
Usain Bolt is one of my favorite athletes to watch as he possesses sheer speed. It is within his range of choices to run and to run very fast. But say that Bolt was involved in a car accident in which he broke both of his legs. If we asked then, whether or not Bolt could run and run fast, the answer would be No. Could we infer from his present condition of not being able to run fast at that time, that he had no longer had free will??? True at that time and in that condition he could not run fast. But that does not mean that he also has a range of choices regarding other things (e.g. while sitting in the hospital recuperating he has choices of whom to call by phone, he has choices of what TV program to watch, what books or magazines to read, etc. etc.). So it is true that with regard to having a choice regarding running fast, in that condition he does not have that choice as part of his range of choices. But would we conclude logically that because he cannot run fast at that time that he has no free will? Of course not.
Because most of us while perhaps not knowing or using the term “range of choices”, nevertheless believe that different people have a different range of choices. So your free will is not automatically eliminated if it can be established that at that time you do not have a particular choice, that particular choice, for whatever reason, is not within your range of choices.
And yet theological determinists make this mistake all the time: they infer that because at a particular time a person cannot make a particular choice that that person no longer has free will. That is just like claiming that Bolt no longer has free will because he cannot run fast after having broken both legs! It is true that running fast may not be part of his range of choices at that time, but this does not mean that he does not have and make choices in other areas of his life at that time.
Determinists make this error when speaking of nonbelievers. They will argue from John 6:44 that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws them. And John 6:44 makes a clear and unequivocal statement regarding the range of choices of human beings (while we are sinners, while we have not experienced the preconversion work of the Spirit, we cannot have a faith response to the gospel, like Bolt not being able to run fast due to the two broken legs, we cannot have faith apart from the work of the Spirit). Unfortunately these same determinists will infer from John 6:44 that the nonbeliever no longer has free will as ordinarily understood. But this claim fails to distinguish having the capacity of free will from our range of choices. It is true that John 6:44 speaks about our range of choices (namely apart from the work of the Spirit, apart from the drawing of the Father, none of us can come to faith in Christ). But because that is true of our range of choices, it does not follow that we no longer have free will.
I have seen determinists make all sorts of comical and bizarre statements because they fail to make this distinction. They will speak of the nonbeliever being “dead” and so incapble of doing anything! But that is not right, the nonbelievers talk, they work, they engage in all sorts of activities, and most notably they sin! So this claim that they are incapable of doing anything and do not have free will is just completely out of touch with reality.
If we undertand this distinction between having free will and a person’s range of choices. We can explain all of the relevant evidence. We know that unbelievers have free will, we in fact see them having and making choices all the time. At the same time, we also know from our bibles that apart from the work of the Spirit, they cannot have a faith response to the gospel. So coming to Christ on their own apart from the grace of God is impossible. But while this is impossible for them, if they have not experienced the work of the Spirit. While this is not within their range of choices (apart from the work of the Spirit), it does not follow that they do not have free will.
I wanted to put this distinction out there in order to anticipate some of the potential objections that determinists may raise.
Robert
So Robert, let me ask you this: Based on what you just said, would it not then be legitimate to say that some individuals do not have within their “range of choice” a chance to place their faith in Jesus Christ – that some will go to Hell without ever hearing the name of Jesus Christ?
One more question about this – so if we have free will within the framework of choices that God has given us, and God knows every choice we will make within that framework, how is that free will then libertarian? Certainly one cannot do all that one wants to do – they can only do according to their situation, which God has determined beforehand. And then that’s not taking into account personality, preferences, and nurtured attributes that were developed before the age of 5 which we had almost no control over. It just seems that so much is limited by God already that it’s almost absurd to talk about our free will in the midst of such a small box of possible choices.
Salvation is of the Lord!