One of the weird problems with correcting Arminianism and, to be crude about it, convincing Christians that Calvinism is true, is that they are easily vulnerable to other errors. I can’t prevent all such problems in one post, but I want to try to point the way forward.
For Further Reading
Before I write anything else, let me suggest for those who want a more philosophical/theological argument that they read R. L. Dabney’s “On God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy,” hosted by Phil Johnson’s website (for which I am grateful). Yes, I know Dabney believed some pretty ugly things on some issues. But when you read him arguing that God loves all mankind, you are getting as far away from those problems as possible. Indeed, you can appreciate the irony as you read.
Fallacy: Future Interprets Present
One major Calvinist fallacy is to decide that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment. If God will condemn them then, he condemns them now If God will welcome them then, he welcomes them now.
But does the Bible teach that God’s relationship and/or attitude toward an unrepentant sinner is the same as after that sinner repents and believes? Yes God intends from eternity to regenerate and pardon that person, and intends to pass over some others. But what is intended, by definition, cannot already be true—or else it would not be intended.
So the Apostle Paul writes:
We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:2-5, ESV)
So, when someone is presently experiencing blessing even though he is continuing in unbelief and sin, is God:
- Increasing his guilt and condemnation at the Last Day when he will be judged for his ongoing sins?
- Offering him love and patience to give him the opportunity to repent?
Paul has no problem affirming both together. And, indeed, they are not possible apart from another. On the Last Day, God is not going to say to the reprobate, “I always knew you were bad and would turn out worse, so I’ve always hated you and everything I’ve done for you I’ve done so I could punish you for it.”
That’s not Calvinism; that’s Satanism.
No, God is going to say, “I gave you immense blessing, purchased by nothing less than the blood of my own son, and you spit on my efforts.”
God Loves; Man Hates
Or consider Isaiah 5.1-7. Reformed and Calvinist theologian, Rich Lusk writes:
At the heart of passage, God asks an amazing, deeply mysterious question: “What more could I have done to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (5:4). In other words, God has done everything on his side, but the vineyard – Israel – still has not borne good fruit. Thus, judgment must fall.
A non-covenantal Calvinist can think of a way to answer God’s question. God asks, “What more could I have done?” And the theologian has an answer: “Well, Lord, you could have exercised irresistible grace — you know, the ‘I’ in the TULIP – and that would have changed things. You have regenerated Israel – performed a secret and sovereign work of grace in their hearts, infallibly producing faith, obedience, and perseverance.”
To be sure, at some level that theological answer is correct. God could have done more. God is sovereign in salvation; his grace can and does operate irresistibly; and God can and does work in people in such a way that they inevitably believe, obey, and endure to the end. God could have prevented Israel’s apostasy; he could have granted them perseverance.
But it is noteworthy that this is not the “logic” of Isaiah 5. Isaiah indicates that God has given grace to the Israelites. Indeed, as the vineyard owner, he’s done everything needed to produce a good crop. The vineyard is well-loved (5:1). It is fruitful, so the soil must be rich in nutrients (5:1). All the rocks and stones have been removed from the soil, so the ground is broken in (5:2). The vine itself was choice; there was nothing wrong with what God planted (5:2). God was so sure of the vine’s eventual fruitfulness that he already put a tower and a winepress right there by the vineyard so the grapes could be pressed out into wine in due season (5:2).
It might help here if we remember that eternal damnation is not only described as God’s wrath, but as God’s jealousy. God’s love is not contrary to eternal punishment, but the Bible indicates that it is a reason for it:
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; [or Hell]
It’s flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the LORD (Song of Solomon 8.6).
Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood,
But who can stand before jealousy? (Proverbs 27.4)
These aren’t just extraneous passages. The reflect the central warning of the Second Commandment:
You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands [of generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6, ESV).
And it is reiterated by Moses to the next generation of Israelites:
Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24, ESV)
Because jealousy is experience by human beings who cannot make a spouse be faithful, it seems counter-intuitive to ascribe such feelings to God. But we are not in a better position to guess about the psychology of being God; He has to reveal his feelings to us.
We Don’t Know God Better Than What He Tells Us
Perhaps this is a second common Calvinist fallacy, deducing God’s feelings on the basis of what we imagine we would feel if we had omni- properties like God does. God tells us those are illegitimate guesses and that we, in our finititude, are actually more like what He really is, though infinite, than what we would guess about omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence.
To return to the original fallacy I named, to infer that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment, it actually proves too much. Basically, since Calvinists know that all human beings are sinners, they figure that no one has a right to complain about how God treats them. But the logic of the position is not limited to sinful creatures. It applies to all creation, including unfallen angels and human beings. Are we really going to say that Adam and Eve were not loved by God when they were created? Or that, if they were loved, it was only because God planned to redeem them after they sinned?
A Creation Conversation
Imagine Adam and Eve, before they fell, having a theological conversation:
Eve: Adam, your face….
Adam: Huh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.
Eve: Lost in thought?
Adam: That’s a good metaphor.
Eve: Thank you. I wish I had one to describe your face.
Adam: Can’t you make a comparison?
Eve: Do you remember that pond we found and how still it was until you threw that rock into it?
Adam: Yes. It rippled out.
Eve: Right. At one moment it was still, but then it was disturbed.
Adam: “Disturbed.” That is an excellent word to use. Not only for my face but for my thoughts.
Eve: So what are your thoughts?
Adam: I am thinking of everything we have received from God. Each other. The trees. The animals. Everything.
Eve: But isn’t that wonderful?
Adam: Well, yes, but I’m thinking of it all in the light of the warning about that tree I told you about.
Eve: Well, the terms of that warning aren’t so wonderful, but we have everything else.
Adam: Yes, I know. But the warning presupposes the possibility that we might eat the forbidden fruit.
Eve: True.
Adam: And God, for a certainty, knows whether we will eat it or not.
Eve: OK, I’m with you so far.
Adam: So how can we take all these “good” things at face vaule as signs of God’s love and generosity?
Eve: Adam, I’m not following now.
Adam: Well, if we were to disobey, wouldn’t the seriousness of our offense be all the greater because of how good God has been to us?
Eve: Yes, which is why we should heed the warning.
Adam: Right, but if we do disobey, as God would have to know we are going to do, then all these things will have been given to us as means to make our crime more severe.
Eve: Oh.
Adam: So how can we say these things we’ve been given are signs of God’s love and generosity? It all depends on what he plans to do with them, doesn’t it? He may simply be making sure our crime is more serious than it would be otherwise. Even though I have no intention of disobeying, I can’t say I know the future the way God does.
Eve: Adam, I see your point.
Adam: Do you have any answer?
Eve: Only this: you say you don’t know the future like God does.
Adam: Right.
Eve: Wouldn’t it also be true that you don’t know God’s own mind in the way the He knows it?
Adam: But don’t we know God?
Eve: Absolutely. We know Him truly. But we don’t know everything there is to know about Him.
Adam: All right, but how does this help us?
Eve: Because if God tells us that he gives to us out of love and generosity, I think we should take Him at face value without worrying about what the future holds. Despite knowing and planning the future, God must be capable of also, in some real way, being in the moment here with us, giving us good things out of sheer grace without reference to the future.
Adam: Perhaps it is so.
Eve: I think it must be so. After all, if we were to seize the forbidden fruit, God might use it to some great advantage that he has planned all along. But that would make the trespass no less evil and rebellious. Likewise, this garden, and the Tree of Life, and we ourselves are good gifts no matter what is planned. We can take God at his word without worrying about His ultimate decrees. As His creatures, that is exactly what we are supposed to do.
So even though God has plans, it doesn’t mean that, in the here and now, there is any reason to doubt or explain away passages that declare God’s love for the world or God’s love for creation or God’s love for all people.<>как выложить рекламу в интернете
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