Inerrantists who ignore Scripture: who killed biblical synergism?

May 13th, 2010 | 18 Comments

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.

One of his friends concurred, asking rhetorically, “Where in the whole Bible does [God] give man authority over Him?”

That brought me into it.

I responded that, while I might quibble with the specific formulation of this question, the whole concept of prayer changing things, Moses changing God’s mind about killing the whole mass of the children of Israel, Abraham bartering with God over Sodom, etc. clearly portrays God as allowing people to decisively influence His actions. Why is it spitting in His face to entertain the belief that this same economy prevails even in the area of salvation? Even though I dislike it being framed in terms of “authority”, it is no less true that delegating authority is not ceding authority, but a mark of authority.

Someone else responded to my comment succinctly: “So, for God, the future changes?”

Without wanting to get into Open Theism, I responded that the fatal problem is in saying that because God has apparently (as Scripture presents it) chosen to respond to human action that He is therefore being forcibly enslaved to our own will and whim. These sorts of conclusions are based off of overreaching desires to systematize that disregard much of Scripture’s testimony.

The chief “faults” of non-Calvinists are that they don’t take their logical systems too seriously when applying them to God’s sovereignty and man’s will, and that they take the depictions of God as He interacts with man throughout Scripture too seriously.

Non-Calvinists see no need for fancy footwork to explain away the fact that the biblical authors are clearly trying to portray God as “repenting” of certain actions based upon some factor, such as pre-Flood mankind’s sinful behavior or Moses’ prayer. They see no reason to deny that “Ye have not because Ye ask not” means anything other than “God’s giving is actually contingent upon your asking.” They have encountered no logical rationale necessitating the conclusion that soteriologically related petitions such as “Choose life!” and “Repent!” were imperatives merely chosen to sound exactly like they demand human response, when all the while they were simply code phrases for “Just hang tight while I enact my plan to redeem and damn whomever I already decided I was going to.”

Yes, the Bible says that it is God who called and predestined; it says that some are, whensoever He wills, just plain SOL. If, as I doubt, it does indeed logically and necessarily follow from those propositions that our actions cannot influence God decisively, then you’re stuck with Scripture contradicting itself — which I’m fine with, by the way, but most Calvinists aren’t! We shouldn’t rely so heavily on our logic and our ability to systematize away the tensions in Scripture that, when we consequently run roughshod over clear depictions like I mentioned above, we end up excommunicating those who aren’t willing to do so despite their honest confession of God as sovereign. That is my main beef with the majority of Calvinists I have encountered.

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May 13th, 2010

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  • atimetorend

    Funny:
    “then you’re stuck with Scripture contradicting itself — which I’m fine with, by the way, but most Calvinists aren’t!“

    and right on:
    “…then you’re stuck with Scripture contradicting itself — which I’m fine with, by the way, but most Calvinists aren’t! “

    Nice post, I wish I could have read stuff like this when I was at a strictly Calvinist church. I wish they had taught their calvinism as their theology rather than as the only theology. Yuck.

  • travisjacobs

    Steve I read a lot of this whole conversation and I got to say. It just exhausts me with Christianity.

    • http://undeception.com/ Steve

      I know what you mean. The thing is, it’s a wonderful and harmless exercise
      to try to wrap our minds around how God works, how to interpret Scripture,
      etc. It interests me in much the same way as the issues surrounding the
      placement of neanderthalensis or erectus within the Homo phylogeny. It’s all
      quite contentious, but you don’t see anthropologists denying that their
      opponents are scientists.

      I don’t think that Reformed

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    I know what you mean. The thing is, it's a wonderful and harmless exercise
    to try to wrap our minds around how God works, how to interpret Scripture,
    etc. It interests me in much the same way as the issues surrounding the
    placement of neanderthalensis or erectus within the Homo phylogeny. It's all
    quite contentious, but you don't see anthropologists denying that their
    opponents are scientists.

    I don't think that Reformed people all just woke up one day and thought, “I think I'll condemn a Christian's belief to hell today. I know: I'll become a Calvinist and condemn Arminians!” If they remain true to their belief system, there is probably good enough reason to think that non-Calvinists are blaspheming God. I just don't think that their system pays adequate attention to the whole counsel of Scripture. And unless it does, they shouldn't be under the impression that they stand on a firm enough foundation to call others heretics.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    I know what you mean. The thing is, it's a wonderful and harmless exercise
    to try to wrap our minds around how God works, how to interpret Scripture,
    etc. It interests me in much the same way as the issues surrounding the
    placement of neanderthalensis or erectus within the Homo phylogeny. It's all
    quite contentious, but you don't see anthropologists denying that their
    opponents are scientists.

    I don't think that Reformed people all just woke up one day and thought, “I think I'll condemn a Christian's belief to hell today. I know: I'll become a Calvinist and condemn Arminians!” If they remain true to their belief system, there is probably good enough reason to think that non-Calvinists are blaspheming God. I just don't think that their system pays adequate attention to the whole counsel of Scripture. And unless it does, they shouldn't be under the impression that they stand on a firm enough foundation to call others heretics.

  • http://cliff-martin.blogspot.com Cliff

    Well said, Steve. I've always thought it strange that Calvinists presume they occupy the “logical high ground”.

    I was a T-U-L-I-P Calvinist for a few years while in College, but ultimately found it to be contrary to reason, contrary to multiple Scriptures, but mostly, just plain boring. There is much drama in a human existence that interacts synergistically with God, upon whom the success of God's ventures rests to some degree, who therefore matter to God. All of that drama and significance is stolen away by the bland, static, and oh-so-logical approach of the Calvinist.

  • http://www.knowinginpart.wordpress.com Thomas

    There is a lot of arrogance out there in the Calvinist camp; I should know, living in Calvinist Mecca (Jackson, MS). The facebook statement you quoted is almost–almost–laughable in its arrogance; the authority by which he identifies different levels of blasphemy is staggering. I am not sure whether I am a still Calvinist or not, but at this point, I sort of embrace two seemingly opposite strains (God chooses us and we choose him) and move on.

  • http://www.sonlightblog.com/ Luke Holzmann

    Tensions in the Bible, and let's not forget life, are important issues that we must be able to hold if we want to reach others with the love of Christ. The cut, dried and digested ideas of so many while sometimes helpful to get our minds around difficult things must be kept in balance with the sticky realities God leaves us in.

    In other words: Yes, friends, I think there are reasons people still disagree on these topics [smile].

    ~Luke

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    There is much drama in a human existence that interacts synergistically with God, upon whom the success of God's ventures rests to some degree, who therefore matter to God.

    Brilliantly said. Thanks.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Thanks for your comment.

    Most Calvinists agree that Scripture talks of our choosing God, but they make sure we know the caveat that it is only because God chose us to choose Him. Yet I don't know of any non-Calvinist who believes, or who thinks that any biblical author ever believed, that God is merely a reactor to our whim and will. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Insofar as He reacts to our “whim and will”, it is because it is His prerogative to do so. This is a bit of a red herring, but all's fair in love, war, and heresy hunting, it seems!

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    The cut, dried and digested ideas of so many while sometimes helpful to get our minds around difficult things must be kept in balance with the sticky realities God leaves us in.

    Another brilliant quote generated in response to this post!

    Because forms of both monergistic and synergistic thought are found in Scripture, those who will admit no tension between or lack of clarity within the minds of its authors are forced to iron it out one way or another. Seeking the truth on these issues is admirable and worthwhile, but their professed high regard for Scripture is contradicted by their willingness to contort bits of it to make it mean what they think it should.

  • http://twitter.com/tegregory Eric Gregory

    Amen!

  • http://thecreationofanevolutionist.blogspot.com Mike Beidler

    the whole counsel of Scripture

    The more I read the Bible, the more human its origin appears to be. (Which is not to say that I believe the Bible isn't divinely inspired.) As such, I am having an increasingly difficult time believing that there is such a thing as “the whole counsel of Scripture.”

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Certainly agreed. I am being ironic. I see no reason to believe there is a
    unitary counsel of Scripture at all. We should look at the “whole”
    thing in the terms of its constituent parts. In order to take one passage
    seriously as inerrantists claim to, we should not seek to cram it into the
    cubby hole another passage belongs in; if they end up in the same spot,
    that's fine, too.

  • http://thecreationofanevolutionist.blogspot.com/ Mike Beidler

    the whole counsel of Scripture

    The more I read the Bible, the more human its origin appears to be. (Which is not to say that I believe the Bible isn't divinely inspired.) As such, I am having an increasingly difficult time believing that there is such a thing as “the whole counsel of Scripture.”

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Certainly agreed. I am being ironic. I see no reason to believe there is a
    unitary counsel of Scripture at all. We should look at the “whole”
    thing in the terms of its constituent parts. In order to take one passage
    seriously as inerrantists claim to, we should not seek to cram it into the
    cubby hole another passage belongs in; if they end up in the same spot,
    that's fine, too.

  • duncan

    the Bible in arabic-speaking countries uses “Allah” as the term for “God”. surely no blasphemy in proclaiming that “Allah is God”.

  • http://undeception.com/ Steve

    Good point. As I understand it, Allah no more a proper name than “God” is; we refer to “gods” with the same word as God. Hebrew did the same, even using the same “God” word elohim to refer to human beings.