Archives for “calvinism”
“Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
So begins the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Here’s George MacDonald:
“For my part, I wish the spiritual engineers who constructed it had, after laying the grandest foundation-stone that truth could afford them, glorified God by going no further.”
- Doubt is a hammer I know, two “quote of the day” posts in a row. But this one, which I found in a biography of George MacDonald I bought and read as a teenager,...
- Election and Adoption Part 2: Gracious Sovereignty I had to cut the last post short, somewhat abruptly as you might have noticed. But presenting bite-size chunks is better for blogging anyway (not that you would know it...
Michael Patton, a man I respect immensely, has just reminded his readers that, “The palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity.”
This is a principle based in logic, of course. As a case in point (which was probably also his post’s inspiration), he brings up many Christians’ emphasis on the love of God disproportionate to their acknowledgment of the wrath of God. He defends the Reformed view of God’s nature and character by his playfully caricatured example of an objection:
“God’s love? Oh yes, give me two helpings of that. God’s wrath? Pass. I don’t have enough room and it does not sound good. God’s grace will be great, but I will have to skip the atonement—too bloody and odd. Predestination? Sovereign election? No way!”
In the end, he admits that, “For the most part, I find Christianity very palatable. Grace, love, righteousness, our future hope, the restoration of all things, etc. are all doctrines that I would gladly take from a smörgåsbord. But,” and this is his main point,
Related posts:- Disputing Calvinism: vessels of temporary, conditional wrath? I wanted to share this excellent article that answers, mostly via Scripture, many if not most of the arguments of Calvinism. In an admirable show of the author’s critical thinking, while...
- Is full preterism a new doctrine? (revised) Who said this? But the things which took place afterwards, did our Saviour, from his foreknowledge as THE WORD or GOD, foretell should come to pass, by means of those...
- I love “Historical Jesus” podcasts A fascinating discussion from two conservative evangelical scholars on the subject of the historical Jesus took place on last weekend’s episode of Unbelievable. Adam Bradford, defending his book The Jesus...
I wanted to share this excellent article that answers, mostly via Scripture, many if not most of the arguments of Calvinism. In an admirable show of the author’s critical thinking, while he certainly rejects the Calvinist doctrine of election and predestination, he still refuses to embrace what he considers to be overwrought and unconvincing alternatives such as a corporate election, pleading ultimate ignorance:
Election is true, but is shrouded in deep mystery. It is one of the secret things that belong to the Lord our God (Deut. 29:29). Calvinists and Arminians both err when they make precise statements about the nature of election. God has not told us whether or not there are conditions attached to it and we should not venture into it with such bold assertions.
Now, while I’m fully in favor of admitting ignorance and not pretending certainty where none exists, I think that some of the mystery surrounding election and predestination is due more to misleading, uninformed readings of the NT than to an innate, intractable ambiguity there. In another display of reasonable thinking, the article’s author remarks, “Perhaps further theological works by thoughtful Christians will reveal a more satisfactory resting place for our convictions.” I happen to think that the understanding of election I’ve come to is fully credible and consistent with a fair treatment of the texts of Scripture, so I’d like to offer the following as a supplement to his otherwise extensive critique of Calvinism.
Related posts:- God’s love vs. God’s wrath; or, when a doctrine’s unpalatability suggests its reexamination Michael Patton, a man I respect immensely, has just reminded his readers that, “The palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity.” This is a principle based in logic,...
- Election and Adoption Part 2: Gracious Sovereignty I had to cut the last post short, somewhat abruptly as you might have noticed. But presenting bite-size chunks is better for blogging anyway (not that you would know it...
- The jealousy of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles Something jumped out at me several days ago when I was reading Acts 13: it reminded me of Romans 11. And well it should. After all, Acts was written by...
One of Calvinists’ staple arguments in favor of monergism is the inference that positing God as relying, in some sense, upon our decision to participate in salvation is actually a demotion of God, a heinous and (usually) heretical inversion of man’s sovereignty over that of God’s. On Facebook today, a Calvinist posted the following statement:
It is no less blasphemous to proclaim Allah to be god than to proclaim the one true God to be a slave of your own will and whim.
I’m pretty sure he meant to state it in reverse order: it was an attack on non-Calvinists rather than Muslims. I think his point was that those who “proclaim the one true God to be a slave…” are no better than Muslims.
Related posts:- The authority of Scripture This is the sixth of a series of posts on inspiration, inerrancy, and hermeneutics. Preliminary Remarks The purpose of these next few posts is to examine my perspective of the...
- Baptism: taking Scripture and tradition seriously Polycarp at The Church of Jesus Christ and I seem to be travelling the same paths lately (does this indicate that I’m finally a part of the Church of Jesus...
- Human interpretations of Scripture and nature This is long for a “quote of the day,” but it’s so well stated that I couldn’t resist. It’s from an article by Kenton Sparks, author of God’s Word in...
(Many thanks to Richard Beck of Experimental Theology for reminding me of an old friend.)
George MacDonald was a theologian, pastor, and author who lived in Scotland in the nineteenth century. He was raised in a strongly Calvinist environment but instinctively rejected what he considered a harsh view of God in his own tradition, the Church of Scotland. The following is an excerpt of an “unspoken sermon” that is based off of a couple fundamental motifs running through MacDonald’s writings, that of the cherished child and also of the special close relationship between father and child, both of which were markedly countercultural at the time but which he saw modeled in his own relationship with his father.
Related posts:How terribly, then, have the theologians misrepresented God in the measures of the low and showy, not the lofty and simple humanities! Nearly all of them represent him as a great King on a grand throne, thinking how grand he is, and making it the business of his being and the end of his universe to keep up his glory, wielding the bolts of a Jupiter against them that take his name in vain. They would not allow this, but follow out what they say, and it comes much to this. Brothers, have you found our king ? There he is, kissing little children and saying they are like God. There he is at table with the head of a fisherman lying on his bosom, and somewhat heavy at heart that even he, the beloved disciple, cannot yet understand him well. The simplest peasant who loves his children and his sheep were—no, not a truer, for the other is false, but—a true type of our God beside that monstrosity of a monarch.
- God’s love vs. God’s wrath; or, when a doctrine’s unpalatability suggests its reexamination Michael Patton, a man I respect immensely, has just reminded his readers that, “The palatability of a doctrine does not determine its veracity.” This is a principle based in logic,...
I think Paul gives us a somewhat unexpected answer in 2 Corinthians.
I’ll return to the subject of this post after a (possibly irrelevant) discursus here. This morning in Sunday School we went over a passage in the last chapter of 2 Corinthians. Throughout the epistle, Paul makes repeated references to the fact that some of the Corinthians are challenging his authority as apostle. Although some of his critics apparently been questioning his courage and boldness to resolve problems (10.1), here near the end of the letter he warns that when he comes, they’ll see that he can be severe in person.
Something struck me as I looked at chapter 13 verses 2 through 5, displayed in PowerPoint on the screen this morning. It occurred to me that there was a slightly disjointed thought between verses 2 and 3. Read those verses as I saw them this morning (in the NIV):
Related posts:- History and faith A commenter on the previous post raised an interesting point that leads me into something I’ve been wanting to explore here. He wrote: I don’t see why it would be logically...
- The Bible and the need for proof In his latest post, Mike mentions a Facebook conversation with someone puzzled by his rejection of inerrancy; I was involved with the conversation as well. As Mike described, this individual...
- An (ancient) introduction to “faith in Christ” vs. “Christ’s faith” Originally inspired by this recent post by Doug Chaplin, I exhumed a paper I wrote in third year Greek while an undergrad (I estimate this to be c. 2000-2001). As...
Here’s an excerpt from the first part of a review of a book I’ve been interested in since I first heard about it. It’s from the New Perspective school of thinking, and at 1218 pages it promises to be an important work on the subject. The book is entitled, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul, written by Douglas A. Campbell. The review itself, written by Dr. Richard Beck, is quite readable and easy to follow, although certainly lengthy enough.
Related posts:According to Campbell, Justification Theory was the big mistake. When you read Paul through the lens of Justification Theory you get a wildly distorted Paul. And the debates within Pauline scholarship are created by this distorted Paul. This warped, funhouse mirror image of Paul. And if Justification Theory is wrong and alien to Paul then clarity might be achieved if we could read Paul through the spectacles he was wearing. To see Paul as he saw himself, not as we see him through the prism of Justification Theory. So Campbell’s project is twofold. First, show us the flaws of Justification Theory with a particular focus on how Justification Theory is implicated in the debates within Pauline scholarship. And, second, show us an alternative reading of Paul, one that approximates, as best we can, how Paul understood his own theology.
- An (ancient) introduction to “faith in Christ” vs. “Christ’s faith” Originally inspired by this recent post by Doug Chaplin, I exhumed a paper I wrote in third year Greek while an undergrad (I estimate this to be c. 2000-2001). As...
- Christian responsibility according to St. Paul .!. A funny thing happened on my way through Paul’s epistles. I read through all of Paul’s letters over the last couple days, trying to take note of the commonalities...
- More on what NT faith is about Under the typical Protestant understanding of “faith” as “not doubting something that one believes without proof”, I as a young Protestant could never fathom why God would be so tickled...
William Dembski, a father of the Intelligent Design movement, has recently become comfortable calling himself an old earth creationist who, as a good Baptist, accepts the historicity of Adam and Eve. This comes as no surprise really, but it’s interesting to see how his gears turn as he systematically lays all his cards on the table for why he’s personally invested in pursuing a critique of common descent.
Discussing his book The End of Christianity with the host of the UK radio show Unbelieveable and an atheist guest, Dembski describes how he thinks that the chief difficulty for old earth as opposed to young earth creationism is the exceptionally long time for evil having existed prior to the event that was supposed to have caused it: the Fall of Man.
Related posts:- Theodicy and evolution Cliff Martin continues his interesting discussion of the apparently conflicting ideas of the loving Christian God and the God who ordained the sometimes brutal processes needed for evolution. I see...
- Lamoureux: links and labels Mike Beidler over at The Creation of an Evolutionist has a post up with a link to an overall excellent interview with the brilliant Denis Lamoureux, author of Evolutionary Creation,...
- My position on the origins question Josh recently commented on another thread, “I want to hear your explanation of the origin of life on earth. I have heard the positions you are against. So how did...
As I stated in Part 2, I reject the notion that foreknowledge is prescriptive. I hold to the conviction that there is an interplay between man’s choice and God’s choice. One cannot rationally hold a robot responsible for the destruction it wreaks if it merely follows the software intentionally programmed to make it destructive. Yet the Bible throughout calls people and nations into account for their own choices and decisions.
In Romans 9, Paul gives two examples of “vessels of destruction”, Esau and Pharaoh. Reformed theologians will often argue that these vessels only have the appearance of choosing wicked behavior: in actuality, they (like everyone else) have no free will to choose; my position is that they had the actual ability to choose, and if God were left out of the equation, their nature and character was bent so that they could only hardly have chosen any other way than they did This may seem a trifling distinction in practice, since if God creates people in full knowledge of what good or evil they will do, if He chooses the “hardware” with which they make their decisions, it’s hard not to see that God is passively determining the path of certain people one way or another. However, do not forget that He is said to not be willing that any should perish (2 Pe 3.10), that He takes no delight in the death of the wicked (Ez 18.32), and that “God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Ti 2.4). Taking these passages into consideration implies that, as a rule, He supplies mankind with “hardware” that could go either way, and only occasionally has He stacked the deck one way or another, as it were. I explained in Part 2 why Pharaoh, for instance, was chosen to be a vessel of destruction; Paul is very clear that vessels of and honor and destruction were chosen only for the purpose of fulfilling “His purpose in election” (Ro 9.11). What is this purpose?
Read more…
- Election and Adoption Part 1: Romans 7 and 8 As long as I can remember, I have struggled hard against the Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of election. Recently I have been observing and interacting with a number of...
- Election and Adoption Part 2: Gracious Sovereignty I had to cut the last post short, somewhat abruptly as you might have noticed. But presenting bite-size chunks is better for blogging anyway (not that you would know it...
- The jealousy of the Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles Something jumped out at me several days ago when I was reading Acts 13: it reminded me of Romans 11. And well it should. After all, Acts was written by...
I had to cut the last post short, somewhat abruptly as you might have noticed. But presenting bite-size chunks is better for blogging anyway (not that you would know it from my posts!), so I went ahead and posted it. Here’s a continuation.
What I’m trying to do is present an audience-relevant view on certain passages that have, since Augustine and continuing in the Reformed tradition, been taken out of context and made into what is known as the Calvinist doctrine of election.
On the outset of this one, allow me to cut to the chase for some of you. I do not have a problem believing that God can, and that He in fact has, predestined certain individuals for life and some for destruction. I’m not one who says that God cannot determine someone will for them, or at least provide the circumstances that will tilt someone toward one choice or another. However, is every decision by every human determined by God? This is clearly not so, as a multitude of Scriptures clearly indicate. Here’s something I ran across that presents many of these passages along with some good old fashioned logic.
Many Calvinists aware of these passages feel constrained nonetheless because of certain passages such as Ephesian 1 and Romans 9 that explicitly talk about predestination based on God’s election. The Reformed doctrine of election is the solution to a puzzle with many pieces missing; tragically, many of these pieces are right there in Scripture but result from the misunderstanding of other doctrines. I think the key misplaced piece is eschatology. I am laying a lot of groundwork before expounding my understanding of election. That’s because we can’t view these Calvinist proof-texts in isolation from their original context.
Related posts:- Election and Adoption Part 3: God’s Purpose in Election As I stated in Part 2, I reject the notion that foreknowledge is prescriptive. I hold to the conviction that there is an interplay between man’s choice and God’s choice....
- Election and Adoption Part 1: Romans 7 and 8 As long as I can remember, I have struggled hard against the Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of election. Recently I have been observing and interacting with a number of...
- Disputing Calvinism: vessels of temporary, conditional wrath? I wanted to share this excellent article that answers, mostly via Scripture, many if not most of the arguments of Calvinism. In an admirable show of the author’s critical thinking, while...
As long as I can remember, I have struggled hard against the Calvinist understanding of the doctrine of election. Recently I have been observing and interacting with a number of people of the Reformed persuasion, and I am astounded at the intellects of some of the people wholly sold on a teaching that requires so much nonsense ad hoc philosophy and theology in order to sustain it. In order to make the Calvinist God “sovereign” as they understand that concept, people such as John Piper have to redefine “love” — you know, the love that God says He is and that He requires us to have one for another — to mean its polar opposite: selfishness. All this to prop up an unscriptural understanding of the quite scriptural doctrine of election.
The confusion is magnified because of bad eschatology. This next couple of posts will address eschatology and the doctrine of election at the same time. Sound like fun?
John McPherson, in his article called “A Biblical Perspective on Election”, pulls out one of the most famous proof-texts for the Calvinist take on election, Ephesians 1:4 and 5. Let me supply his annotated version of this passage (vv. 3-12) in context, and I want you to see if you can grasp our point before I spell it out.
“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8 Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; 9 Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: 10 That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: 11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: 12 That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ.”
Did you catch the importance of that last sentence? It defines the “we” and “us” everywhere throughout the passage: Paul was referring to his first-century, firstfruits audience!
Leaving that aside for the time, we are going to talk about Paul’s use of the term “adoption”. What is going on in Ephesians 1?
Related posts:- Election and Adoption Part 3: God’s Purpose in Election As I stated in Part 2, I reject the notion that foreknowledge is prescriptive. I hold to the conviction that there is an interplay between man’s choice and God’s choice....
- Election and Adoption Part 2: Gracious Sovereignty I had to cut the last post short, somewhat abruptly as you might have noticed. But presenting bite-size chunks is better for blogging anyway (not that you would know it...
- The Millennium and the Resurrection of the Dead I am firmly indebted to Don Preston for his presentation on the Millennium at the 2004 Preterist Research Institute Conference for much of the layout and content of the following....