Four Ways a Sovereign God Can Relate to a Fallen World
1) God could decide to give no one who is fallen an opportunity for salvation.
-God is loving, but God is just and righteous. His love is an expression of his righteousness. His love is just and holy.
-A just and holy God is not required to love a rebellious creation to the extent of extending mercy to it. He can love fallen man and still punish man.
-If he chooses to save no one, God is perfectly just to do so. God is not obligated to give mercy. By definition mercy can not be obligatory. If you say God owes everyone mercy, you not thinking about mercy anymore. Justice, however, can be obligatory.
2) God could provide an opportunity for everyone to be saved (or an opportunity for some people).
-God is an equal opportunity redeemer
-Everyone has a chance, but there is no guarantee that anyone would be saved
-Not all people hear the Gospel though. Maybe only some have a true opportunity.
-God could conceivably do more to make sure all people hear the Gospel (eg. God doesn’t spell the Gospel out in the clouds)
3) God exercising his power and sovereignty could intrude into the human situation, not only providing an opportunity for salvation, but by working in the hearts of fallen man, and ensure the salvation of everybody.
-God has the power to do this
-Universalism – all will be saved.
4) God exercising his power and sovereignty could intrude into the human situation, not only providing an opportunity for salvation, but by working in the hearts of fallen man, and ensure the salvation for some.
-God has the power to do this
-God doesn’t owe people mercy
-God will have mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy
———————————————————————————————————–
- # 1 is NOT BIBLICAL because the Bible says there is salvation
- # 3 is NOT BIBLICAL because the Bible says many will go to Hell
2 Groups of People in the World:
|
SAVED |
UNSAVED |
|
Gets Mercy |
Gets Justice |
-Nobody gets injustice from God-
- #4 is most BIBLICAL
The Divine Sovereignty/Human Responsibility Debate
The following debate on the topic of Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility was between James White (representing the reformed calvinistic position) and George Bryson (representing the non-calvinist position).
James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix , Arizona . He is a professor, having taught Greek, Systematic Theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics. He is also a critical consultant for the Lockman Foundation’s New American Standard Bible. He has authored or contributed to more than twenty books, including The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Potter’s Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.
Dr. White is an accomplished debater, having engaged in more than fifty moderated, public debates with leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormonism. He also runs a blog and a bi-weekly webcast called “The Dividing Line”. He is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, has been married to Kelli for more than twenty-two years, and has two children, Joshua and Summer.
George Bryson is a pastor of a Calvary Chapel church and has authored books including: The Dark Side of Calvinism, and The Five Points of Calvinism: Weighed and Found Wanting.
The DVD of this debate can be rented from http://www.puritanpicks.com/browse/view.php?cat=0&item=167 or purchased from http://store.nicenecouncil.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=9
Some video clips of the debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKlW9o1rnI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKciLp1B3K0
James R. White vs. George Bryson
Soli Deo Gloria
by James R. White
Soli Deo Gloria—“to God alone be the glory.” This was one of the “solas” of the Reformation. Like sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide, this credo of the Reformation has fallen on hard times. Today many who benefit from the work of the Reformers stand firmly against what the Reformers believed about the sovereignty and glory of God as they pertain to salvation and the spiritual deadness of sinful man. While the Reformers openly proclaimed a God-glorifying monergism (the belief that God’s grace alone is able to raise dead, rebellious sinners to spiritual life without their cooperation), many now take the position of the Reformers’ opponents by preaching synergism, the concept that God’s grace is incapable of accomplishing salvation without the assistance and cooperation of man.
As a Reformed Baptist, I firmly believe in God’s absolute sovereignty over all things,1 man’s slavery to sin (including our inability to please God, as well as our spiritual deadness in sin),2 and the inevitable result of these truths, which is the unconditional electing grace of God. In light of God’s timeless sovereignty over all creation and man’s corruption in sin, God’s election of a people unto salvation must result, as Scripture says, in election finding its basis not in the creature but in the merciful purpose of God alone. I am very thankful for this opportunity to briefly explain, and defend, this vital truth.
I will divide this point-counterpoint discussion into two sections. This first part will address the “God-ward” aspect of this crucial subject. The second part will discuss issues that relate to man’s deadness in sin, the nature of faith, and its relationship to regeneration.
UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION DEFINED
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith3 states:
God’s decree is not based upon His foreknowledge that, under certain conditions, certain happenings will take place, but is independent of all such foreknowledge.
By His decree, and for the manifestation of His glory, God has predestinated (or foreordained) certain men and angels to eternal life through Jesus Christ, thus revealing His grace. Others, whom He has left to perish in their sins, show the terror of His justice.
The angels and men who are the subjects of God’s predestination are clearly and irreversibly designated, and their number is unalterably fixed.
Before the world was made, God’s eternal, immutable purpose, which originated in the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, moved Him to choose (or to elect), in Christ, certain of mankind to everlasting glory. Out of His mere free grace and love He predestined these chosen ones to life, although there was nothing in them to cause Him to choose them.
Not only has God appointed the elect to glory in accordance with the eternal and free purpose of His will, but He has also foreordained the means by which His purpose will be effected. Since His elect are children of Adam and therefore among those ruined by Adam’s fall into sin, He willed that they should be redeemed by Christ, and effectually called to faith in Christ. Further-more, by the working of His Spirit in due season they are justified, adopted, sanctified, and “kept by His power through faith unto salvation.” None but the elect partake of any of these great benefits.
A BIBLICAL DEFENSE
The art and science of biblical interpretation firmly establish unconditional election and the correlative truth of monergism. The Reformed position’s strength is exegesis — the interpretation of the text in light of its grammar, syntax, and context. The doctrine is proved by (1) the direct statements of Scripture; (2) the teaching of the Bible concerning the incapacity of man to do anything that is pleasing to God without God’s first freeing the sinner from the bonds of death; and (3) the teaching of those passages that combine these two truths into an undeniable whole.
Unconditional election is a truth stated directly in Scripture. Paul said, God “chose4 us in Him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to [or, “on the basis of”] the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:4–6, NASB, emphasis added).
First, the divine acts of choosing and predestining are placed in the time-frame of eternity itself. This election to salvation (not merely to an opportunity to believe, but to the fullness of salvation, as seen in the use of such terms as “holy,” “blameless,” “sonship,” etc.) occurs prior to any human action. Second, this is a personal action: the direct object of “chose” and “predestined” is a personal pronoun, “us.” Individual persons, not classes or groups, are chosen to holiness and adoption. Third, God’s will, not man’s, determines His act of saving a sinner. Never is any other basis of this divine choice presented in Scripture. The phrase “according to” or “on the basis of” ushers us directly into the only biblical answer to the question: “Why one and not another?” The answer given is that it is based on the “kind intention of His will.” The Greek term used by Paul refers to a choice that is to someone’s benefit. It is God’s gracious choice, based on His own will, that brings salvation to any person at any time. This fact further proves that this is to the praise of His glorious grace. If anything human were mixed in, this could not be said.
The same truths come out in Paul’s tremendous “Golden Chain of Redemption” in Romans 8:29–30, where we are presented with an unbreakable chain of divine actions: God foreknows5 a certain people (identified later as “God’s elect”). All those whom He foreknows He predestines; everyone He predestines He calls; everyone He calls He justifies; and everyone He justifies He glorifies. Every action is divine; every action is certain—so certain, in fact, that the past tense is used to emphasize this certainty. We again see the unconditional aspect of God’s work of salvation: nowhere can the chain be broken, and never is a link of human sufficiency inserted. Everyone who is predestined is glorified. All who are glorified were chosen by God in eternity past. Paul’s teaching is clear and compelling.
So universal is this belief in the sovereignty of God in election that Luke made mention of it in Acts 13:48. There we read: “Upon hearing this, the Gentiles rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed6 to eternal life believed.” The belief of the Gentiles was the result of, surely not the cause of, the appointment to eternal life by God Himself. Our faith is the result of God’s election, not the other way around. This is so much a part of NT thinking that, without a moment’s hesitation, Paul said, “It is by His doing you are in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:30). It is not by our doing, or by a combination of our actions and God’s grace, but by His doing that we are in Christ Jesus, so that we can boast only in Him (1 Cor. 1:31).
Some are surprised that one of the strongest affirmations of this divine truth is found in Jesus’ words in John 6:37–45. Here, in explaining the unbelief of the Jews, Jesus taught unconditional election in the most monergistic tones possible. We will look at His testimony to man’s inability (6:45, 65) in our next installment. For now, His teaching in these words is our focus: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out.” Again no room for human autonomy is allowed: the action of the giving of the Father to the Son7 precedes and therefore determines the identity and number of those who come to Him. The Father lovingly gives an elect people to the Son (John 17:9). As a result, infallibly, invariably, without possibility of failure (John 6:38–39, 44, 65) every single one of those so given will come to the Son.
How can such a statement be made if salvation is a matter of a synergistic cooperation of God’s grace that tries to save while man’s will allows it to succeed? Verses 38–39 tell us that it is the Father’s will for the Son that the Son lose none of those who have been (past tense, completed action) given to Him. We know Christ cannot fail to do the will of the Father; hence, the Son must be able to save, perfectly, every single one of those given to Him by the Father. This is consistent only with unconditional election and monergism, not with conditional election and synergism.
We see that the Scriptures are replete with testimony to the sovereignty of God and the freedom of His electing grace. His choice cannot be determined on the basis of human actions. Christians should safeguard and proclaim God’s freedom, not human autonomy. Only when we understand this vital truth do we understand how our entire salvation is to the “praise of His glorious grace.” When we truly understand this, we will proclaim the gospel to all without fear, knowing that God will not fail to bring salvation to His chosen — all to His own praise, honor, and glory.
notes
Soli Deo Gloria
1. Job 14:5; Ps. 135:6; Prov. 16:9; Dan. 4:34–35; Isa. 45:5–7; 46:9–10; Eph. 1:11; Acts 4:27–28. Bible citations are from the New American Standard Bible.
2. John 8:34; Rom. 8:7–8; Eph. 2:1–3.
3. www.prbc.org/Confession.htm
4. The direct object of the verb “to choose” is not a class, but “us,” and is clearly personal in that it is unto adoption and forgiveness, which persons, not classes, experience.
5. This term does not mean “to know actions before they take place” when God is the one “foreknowing.” When God is the subject, in the New Testament, the object is invariably persons not actions (Rom. 8:29; 11:2; 1 Pet. 1:20). In light of the Old Testament meaning of “to know,” the word in this passage means to choose to enter into loving and intimate relationship with someone beforehand. See my discussion in The Potter’s Freedom (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2000), 198–200.
6. A common attempt to avoid the force of this phrase is to say the middle voice should be used. This ignores the fact that the paraphrastic construction used here is to be translated as a pluperfect. See The Potter’s Freedom, 187–89.
7. Using the present tense here, but the perfect tense in verse 39.
Is Faith Really a Condition of Salvation?
By George Bryson
By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.1
— John Calvin
God elects a specific people unto Himself without reference to anything they do. This means the basis of God’s choice of the elect is solely within Himself. His grace, His mercy, His will. It is not man’s actions, works, or even foreseen faith, that “draws” God’s choice. God’s election is unconditional and final.2 — James White
James White, my counterpart in this debate, embraces the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional election, sometimes referred to as the second point of Calvinism. I do not. Because the election to which unconditional election refers is election unto salvation, I will “cut to the theological chase” and answer the more practical (and I believe the more biblical) question: Does God require that a lost person believe in Jesus Christ as a condition of salvation? The reason is simple. With all due respect to many devout Christian believers, I not only reject the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election, but also I believe it to be nothing more than a theological invention of Calvinism based on the unscriptural Calvinistically defined doctrine of sovereignty and predestination. This does not mean that I do not believe God is sovereign or that He has not predestined all that was, is, or will be. I do (see Ps. 115:3; Eph. 1:11). I believe also, however, that Scripture teaches that God sovereignly ordained that faith in Christ be a real condition for salvation and not (as Calvinists teach) a mere consequence of election (see Acts 16:31).
How would you answer the following two questions? Is God sovereign? Are everyone and everything (acts, words, thoughts, intentions, motives, events, etc.) predestined according to God’s Sovereign will?
GOD REALLY IS SOVEREIGN
If you say yes to the first question (as I do), you must also (logically) say yes to the second question, as I know my Calvinist friends would agree. To be more specific, I would say if God is truly sovereign, then everyone and everything must be predestined according to God’s sovereign will. I believe when something predestined (which is everything comes to pass, it is simply the outworking of sovereignty (or sovereign control) from all eternity to all eternity. I believe if something could come to pass that God did not predestine, then that something would happen, by definition, independently of God. If something could or did happen independently of God, then God would not be sovereign or be in sovereign control of everything that happens.
To surrender sovereignty is logically impossible. If an eternal God could ever not be absolutely sovereign, it would mean He never was absolutely sovereign. That would mean we are not talking about the God of the Bible. It would be like saying God surrendered His absolute holiness (even if just fro a moment). If an eternal God is absolutely holy, holiness must be an eternal constant. . A corollary to my view of divine sovereignty is that God has ordained everything. From all eternity He ordained everything that was, is or will be. I believe (in accordance with what I am convinced is taught in Scripture) God’s sovereignty is absolute and predestination is all encompassing (Dan. 4:34–35).
SALVATION IS SOLELY THE ACT OF GOD
I believe God can and does save a lost human being and only God can and does accomplish anything that can rightly be considered a work of salvation. I believe the saving work (i.e., redemption, atonement, forgiveness, etc.; Eph. 1:7; 1 John 2:2) accomplished through the cross of Christ was all and only a work of God. I believe only God can and does savingly regenerate or give new and eternal life to the spiritually dead (John 1:13). I believe only God can and does savingly justify the ungodly Rom. 8:33). The reverse of this is that I do not believe man can or does accomplish anything of a saving nature. He does not, cannot, and need not pay any of the price of redemption. Christ paid it all on the cross (John 19:30). Man cannot, does not, and need not forgive himself of his sins (Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:2). He cannot, does not, and need not regenerate or justify himself. Salvation is, therefore, all from God and not in any way from man. Nevertheless, Calvinists refer to the view I have just articulated by the theological pejorative, synergism.
MAN (NOT GOD) MUST REALLY BELIEVE TO BE SAVED
Why? Because I also believe, in accordance with what I am convinced is taught in Scripture, that God requires that a lost human being believe in Jesus Christ as a condition of salvation (John 3:14–18; 6:33–40; 20:24–31). I believe:
- Only those who put their trust in Jesus Christ can enjoy the saving benefits available because of the work of God.
- All who put their trust in Jesus Christ become recipients of the saving benefits of the work of Jesus Christ (Rom. 1:16–17).
From the human side of the salvation issue, I believe it is faith alone in Christ that results in the salvation of the lost (Eph. 2:8–9). In effect, Calvinists have confused the biblical truth that God requires a lost person to believe in Jesus Christ (as a condition of salvation) in order for him or her to be saved by God with the unbiblical error that a person can or does make a contribution to his or her salvation and thereby becomes a cosavior with God. It would seem that to avoid the latter error, Calvinists have needlessly denied the former truth. Just because the candidate for salvation has some presalvation responsibility (i.e., to believe in Jesus Christ), does not make him or her even partially a Savior. Most mainstream Calvinists would agree with me that in some sense:
- All people should believe in Christ and become saved (John 10:39, see also John Calvin’s Commentary on John 3:16).
Calvinists disagree with me that:
- All people are enabled (i.e., enlightened, drawn) to believe in Christ.
Calvinists agree with me that:
- All who are enabled to believe (and, in fact, do believe) are not enabled to believe because they should believe in Him but because the Holy Spirit enables them to do so (John 1:9; 6:44; 12:32).
Calvinists disagree with me that:
- A person who is enabled to believe in Jesus Christ in not thereby made a believer; that is, a person must also choose to come to Christ in faith after he or she is enabled to do so (Matt. 22:3; John 5:35–40).
- A person becomes a believer only by choosing to do so, though he or she can only choose to do so because God enables him or her to believe (John 6:44; 12:32; Acts 16:31).
- Faith in Christ is only possible because of what God does, but it is not inevitable because of what God does. God’s enabling work is not designed to make us believe but to make it possible for us to believe (2 Cor. 5:18–21).
In stark theological contrast:
- Calvinists believe some of the people who ought to believe in Jesus Christ are unable to believe in Jesus Christ and will never be enabled to believe in Jesus Christ (see Calvin’s commentaries on John 3:16).
- Calvinists believe only some people (a transitional class they call the elect) are enabled to believe in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (see Calvin’s Commentaries on John 3:16).
- Calvinists believe these same people that are enabled to believe are, at the same time, unable not to believe in Jesus Christ.
- Calvinists believe that the Holy Spirit, when He regenerates human beings, also makes these people believers or makes these people believe.
MONERGISM OF THE CALVINIST KIND
The type of monergism that Calvinists embrace, in effect:
- Makes God both the object of faith and the subject of faith.
- Makes God both the giver of the gift of new and eternal life and the one who accepts that gift on behalf of the recipient.
Calvinists say if you receive (preregeneration) the gift of eternal life, you are thereby the giver or cogiver of that gift. The logic of this escapes me. Nevertheless, as Calvinists see it, there can be only one will involved in the saving of a human being. If you make a choice to be saved (i.e., you must believe as a condition of salvation), then you are, according to Calvinism, helping to regenerate yourself, paying part of the price of redemption, and son on. What makes a theological conviction or commitment monergistic, however, is not about how many wills are involved in the saving of a person but how many saviors actually save the person. If man (along with God) was able to (or did) accomplish something of a saving, redemptive, or atoning nature, that would constitute synergism.
RECEIVING IS NOT GIVING
Suppose a man works extremely hard to earn enough money to buy his mother a home. Having earned enough money, suppose he takes that money and actually buys a home for his mother. He does all the work to earn the money and pays the entire price of the home. All the mother must do to have and enjoy that home is accept it from her son. Would that acceptance make his mother a coworker of the son or a cobuyer of the home? I do not think so; yet, this is what Calvinists say about those of us who believe we must accept the gift of God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done for us.
While Calvinists give theological lip service to the place and importance of faith, Calvinists do not see faith as a condition of salvation, but instead they reduce it to a mere consequence of election, irresistible grace, and regeneration; that is, if you are among a transitional class of people called the elect, you will believe and cannot do otherwise, because you irresistibly will be drawn to God and regenerated, at which time you will be made a believer. If a person is not among that class, it is just too bad for that person. Is this really the message and meaning of John 3:16?
notes
Is Faith Really a Condition of Salvation?
1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, iii, xxi, sec. 5, 206.
2. James R. White, The Potter’s Freedom, (Amityville, NY: Calvary Press, 2000), 39.
James White’s Rebuttal
In seeking to understand George Bryson’s position, I confess experiencing great confusion as to how his view is consistent with itself. He asserts that God is sovereign over all things and that God has decreed all that comes to pass. If this is so, as I surely agree, then it follows that the specific number and the identity of the elect is a part of that decree; yet, there does not seem to be a fixed number of elect people in Bryson’s position.
Next, there seems to be a problem in the use of the term regeneration. If regeneration is the giving of spiritual life to one who is spiritually dead, how does it follow that Bryson can place the exercise of saving faith prior to regeneration so that God simply enables belief but does not grant faith? Are we to believe God enables all people to believe in this fashion, but only some act upon the enablement, thus resulting in only those people being born again?
We will see in part two that this is contrary to the biblical teaching of John 6:44, Romans 8:7–8, and so on. Furthermore, how then does God know the number of the elect before time itself, as we noted in Ephesians 1? Is this mere passive “foreknowledge” or a part of the decree? If a part of the decree, why decree the enabling of those not chosen? Why would this take place? We are not told.
Bryson’s presentation of what “Calvinists” believe is particularly troubling. A number of statements are made that are simply incorrect. For example, he says Calvinistic monergism “makes God both the object of faith and the subject of faith.” This is untrue. God does not believe in place of the elect person. The gift of faith is an ability tied directly to the new nature. A person who has received a heart of flesh and has gone from being a God-hater to a God-lover in the miracle of regenerating grace naturally looks to Christ and believes in Him. God is not believing through that person. The Scriptures say love and hope are gifts of God’s Spirit as well, but no one would say God is doing the loving or hoping in our place. Furthermore, he asserts that Calvinism “makes God both the giver of the gift of new and eternal life and the one who accepts that gift on behalf of the recipient.” This is also untrue. God does not accept the gift in the place of the elect.
Both of these assertions are in error because they do not take seriously a major aspect of biblical theology: the spiritual deadness of man in sin. Regeneration is resurrection to spiritual life: the necessity (and wonder!) of God’s saving His elect people perfectly is realized when we consider the desperation and the plight of man in sin. Faith must be a gift because of the radical depravity of man and his spiritual deadness in sin. Bryson misses this point, for he says, “Calvinists say that if you receive (preregeneration) the gift of eternal life, you are thereby the giver or cogiver of that gift. The logic of this escapes me. Nevertheless, as Calvinists see it, there can be only one will involved in the saving of a man.” The issue, instead, is man’s inability to believe (John 6:44, 65; etc.) and his need for regeneration in order to please God (Rom. 8:7–8). The fact that man is radically corrupt, together with God’s eternal decree of election so plainly witnessed in Scripture, is powerful evidence of the biblical support for the Reformed position.
Bryson wrote, “What makes a theological conviction or commitment monergistic, however, is not about how many wills are involved in the saving of a man, but how many saviors actually save a man.” In reality, monergism, by its very definition, speaks to whether it is a sovereign act wholly of God or whether it is a matter of cooperation between God and man. It is a redefinition of the historical use of the word (let alone its basic meaning) to say it refers to how many “saviors” there are; but the question should be pressed: Can the one Savior save dead rebel sinners without asking for their assistance? Is it Bryson’s position that Jesus had to ask Lazarus’s permission prior to raising him from the dead? Was there a “condition” Lazarus had to fulfill before new life could be granted to him?
Is not a Savior, by definition, free to save by the sole exercise of his own power (i.e., monergistically)? Bryson’s position is difficult to understand, for while saying God alone saves, he then adds, “All men are enabled (i.e., enlightened, drawn) to believe in Jesus Christ.” No reference is given, and as we will see in the next presentation, Jesus’ teaching on what it means to be “drawn by the Father” does not allow us to make a universal application, unless we wish to promote the idea of universalism itself (i.e., that all people will be saved). Jesus taught that the ones the Father draws to the Son are the very ones the Father gave to the Son for salvation (John 6:37–39) — the elect, and all who are drawn are likewise raised to eternal life (John 6:44). If all people are drawn, then all will be raised up, which is not Bryson’s position. The evidence for the unconditional election of men and women unto salvation throughout Scripture leaves us with no doubt as to its teaching.
George Bryson’s Rebuttal
In the 950 words allowed for rebuttal, it is impossible to address every issue raised by James White in his essay affirming the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election that effectively denies (or at least undermines) the biblical truth that salvation is through faith. I will therefore restrict my comments to the implications of what White says about monergism, synergism, and the golden chain of salvation.
THE MONERGISM OF CALVINISM
If White is right in his first definition of monergism, then I am a monergist, and White should concede as much; for I believe God’s grace alone can and does “raise dead, rebellious sinners to spiritual life without the need of the cooperation of man.” If that is all White means by monergism, however, then he is not a Calvinist; for the monergism of Calvinism does not merely say God’s grace alone is able to raise the spiritually dead or that God does not need the cooperation of man to regenerate a human being. I cannot imagine that any thinking evangelical would blatantly deny the ability and self-sufficiency of God and His grace.
The question is not about what God is able to do. He could turn the moon to cheese if He decreed. Nor is it about what God needs. He needs nothing. He is, has always been, and will always be sufficient in Himself. The question is: What has God required, if anything, of a human being, relative to his or her salvation? Fortunately, Paul and Silas give an unambiguous answer to the question: “What must I do to be saved?” They say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:30–31). If we are to take what White says in his essay seriously, we could easily conclude that he believes God can’t raise the spiritually dead to life through faith or on the condition of faith in Christ. This is probably because he really does not mean to say what he says. At least I hope not.
SYNERGISM
White also defines “the concept of synergism, [as] the idea that God’s grace, without the assistance and cooperation of man, is incapable of accomplishing salvation.”
If White’s definition of synergism is correct, then I cannot be a synergist, for I believe God is certainly able to save with or without man’s cooperation or with or without man’s believing in Christ. The question is not or should not be: Can God accomplish salvation with or without man’s believing in Christ? The question is: How does He accomplish salvation? The answer is that He has chosen, in accordance with His own sovereign will, to save by grace through faith. To say, however, that God cannot save without cooperation (i.e., believe in Christ as the condition of salvation) is no less insulting to the omnipotence of God than it is insulting to the sovereignty of God when we say He must save without faith (i.e., cooperation). Moreover, He not only can save through faith, but He also declares that He does save through faith in Christ. Faith in Christ is the sole, sufficient, and necessary condition of salvation.
Commenting on the apostle Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:8–10, Calvin said:
The salvation of the Ephesians was entirely the work, the free work, of God but they had obtained this grace by faith. On one side, we must look at God; and on the other, at men. God declares that He owes us nothing; so that salvation is not a reward or recompense, but mere grace. Now it may be asked how men receive the salvation offered to them by the hand of God? I reply by faith. Hence he concludes that there is nothing of our own, if on the part of God, it is grace alone, and if we bring nothing but faith, which strips of all praise, it follows that salvation is not of us.1
If faith is the means to receive the gift of eternal life and salvation, it should not be confused with that gift, as it is in Calvinism.
A GOLDEN CHAIN OF SALVATION WITHOUT FAITH?
If faith is not mentioned in Romans 8:29–30, does that mean that it is not a factor in the salvation to which these links belong? If faith is not a factor, it means that the foreknown are not believers. Does God know, in the Calvinist sense of knowing, nonbelievers? It would also mean that those predestined to conformity to Christ are not believers. Does God predestine believers or nonbelievers to conformity to Christ? It would mean that the justified are justified without faith. Can a person be justified and not a believer? It would mean that the glorified are not believers. Will nonbelievers be glorified, or is glorification reserved for the believer? Actually, the message of Romans 8:28–30 and beyond is that “all’s well that ends well” for the believer.
In their zeal to protect the truth of salvation by grace, Calvinists unnecessarily deny the truth of salvation by grace through faith. In effect, they have replaced sola fide (faith as the sole condition) with nola fide (i.e., faith as a mere consequence).
Nevertheless, Jesus said that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone believing in Him should not perish but have everlasting life….The one believing in Him is not condemned, but the one not believing is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:16, 18; emphases added).
notes
George Bryson’s Rebuttal
1. John Calvin, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries. D.W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 144.
“Doomed from the Womb”?
Calvinist vs. Biblical Views of Election, Regeneration, and Faith
by George Bryson
In James White’s first essay in which he explained and defended the second point of Calvinism (i.e., unconditional election), he said he would “discuss the issues relating to man’s deadness in sin, the nature of faith, and its relationship to regeneration” in his second essay.
“MAN’S DEADNESS IN SIN”
According to the doctrine of unconditional election and other matters related to the Calvinist doctrine of salvation, many, if not most, preregenerate men not only are spiritually dead but must also remain so for all eternity with no remedy for their spiritual deadness. God never has, nor ever will have, any redemptive interest in them. That is why they say Christ did not die for much, if not most, of the world. Calvin believed God “arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death.”1
According to Calvinism, those who will be doomed for all eternity were really doomed from all eternity. The damnation of the nonelect is just as much God’s doing as is the salvation of the elect in the Calvinist scheme of things. Calvin wrote: “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.”2
Calvin speaks of the logical contradiction of affirming an unconditional election to salvation without also admitting an unconditional election to damnation: “Many professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated….This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation….Those therefore whom God passes by He reprobates, and that for no other cause than he is pleased to exclude them….”3 Alister McGrath explains that “for Calvin, logical rigor demands that God actively chooses to redeem or to damn. God cannot be thought of as doing something by default. He is active and sovereign in His actions. Therefore God actively wills the salvation of those who will be saved and the damnation of those who will not be saved.”4
“THE NATURE OF FAITH”
What about the Calvinist doctrine of sola fide (faith alone in Christ alone)? In Calvinism, faith is not a factor in the salvation of the saved and unbelief is not a factor in the damnation of the damned. Calvin makes these doctrinal assertions without explanation why some are saved and others are damned except that this is what God wants. Calvin reasoned, “If we cannot assign any reason for [God] bestowing mercy on his people, but just that it so pleases him, neither can we have any reason for his reprobating others but his will. When God is said to visit in mercy or harden whom he will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond his will.”5 We see, therefore, that no matter how important a Calvinist may say faith in Christ is, Calvinism has reduced it to nothing more than a theological mantra, which makes no real difference.
When the theological fog lifts, it becomes clear that Calvinism affirms that from all eternity to all eternity you belong to an eternally condemned group called “the reprobate” or to an eternally saved group called “the elect.” Whatever caste or class of people you begin in, you will always be in. There is no escape from condemnation for the reprobate as there can be no one ultimately lost who was elected from all eternity to be saved for all eternity.
Calvinists nevertheless say they accept the must-believe passages relative to salvation. For example, a Calvinist would not consciously or deliberately contradict the Apostle Paul and his ministry companion, Silas, when they answered the Philippian jailor’s question, “What must I do to be saved?” Without hesitation they answered him, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved…” (Acts. 16:31). On the other hand, Calvinists insist that election is unconditional and that election is directed to salvation. Nevertheless, an election that is to salvation cannot be unconditional if the salvation to which one is elected is conditioned on faith. It would appear that there is (in their minds) a disconnect between election and the salvation to which one is elected; but this can be only in their minds.
Allow me to explain: If I were to ask you for some red, you would be justified by responding some red what? Red, of course, could be descriptive of many things (apples, cars, tomatoes etc.), but it always has to be descriptive of something. So it is with election. You cannot simply be elect. You must be elect to something. Since it is to salvation that the Calvinist says a person is elected, whatever is required for election is required for salvation. If a person is required to believe to be saved, therefore, the election to that salvation cannot be unconditional.
The Calvinist then says, if you do not believe in an unconditional election to salvation, you must believe in a conditional election to salvation. Such a view assumes (and I believe wrongly) that there is an election to salvation, unconditional or conditional. There is an election in salvation because there is an election in Christ. There is, however, no biblical basis for an election to salvation, at least nothing even remotely related to the Calvinist doctrine of salvation. The whole notion is simply foreign to Scripture. According to Scripture, salvation is graciously provided (i.e., the cross of Christ, 1 John 2:2) and graciously offered (the gospel of Christ, Eph. 1:13) to all without distinction. Also, according to Scripture, salvation, which is graciously provided and graciously offered, is graciously applied to those (and only those) who believe in Christ (John 3:16–17; Rom. 1:16). Faith is therefore the sole, sufficient, and necessary condition for salvation.
In Calvinism, the news, which is unconditionally good for some, is unconditionally bad for others. How it could be considered a gospel proclamation to the nonelect is difficult for me to imagine. Nevertheless, like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe all men, except our Lord Jesus Christ, are born spiritually dead. Like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I do not believe they are born partially dead; rather they are entirely dead. Like Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe Scripture teaches that the only remedy for spiritual deadness is a spiritual resurrection. Along with Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe regeneration or spiritual birth is a spiritual resurrection. Unless and until a spiritually dead person is born of the Spirit, he or she remains spiritually dead. Once again, however, Calvinism teaches that not even God has a remedy for the plight of many, if not most, of the people who have lived or will populate this planet. As R. C. Sproul, a contemporary champion of Calvinism, admits, it is “the non-elect that are the problem. If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them. For them it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born. That may indeed be the case.”6
“Not all that loving” is an attempt to sugar-coat a very bitter pill that the Calvinist is asking people to swallow. Calvin evidently saw no need to help this awful “truth” go down easier. He simply said:
I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God?…The decree, I admit, is dread-ful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before He made him, and foreknew, because He had so ordained by His decree….God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at His own pleasure arranged it.7
THE RELATIONSHIP OF FAITH TO REGENERATION
Unlike Mr. White and all Calvinists, I believe the spiritual life offered in a proclamation of the gospel to all spiritually dead people is available to, and provided for, all people on the condition of faith alone in Christ alone (John 3:16–17). Although Mr. White (and most Calvinists) give lip service to the biblical truth that the offer of eternal life is a bona fide, valid (i.e., sincere, meaningful, and legitimate) offer requiring nothing more than faith in Christ on the part of the receiver, the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and other related Calvinist doctrines say otherwise. The Apostle John said the signs (miracles) performed by Jesus were recorded “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you may have life in His name” (John 20:31, NASB). John also tells us that “as many as received [Jesus], to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name: who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13, NASB).
The Calvinist seems to fear that if he allows faith to be first (i.e., before regeneration), then he is making faith foremost. Just because a man must believe in Christ to be born again, however, does not suggest that there is regenerating power in a man’s faith, not even in a man’s faith in Christ. Only God can and does regenerate the spiritually dead, but He does so only (and always) for those who first put their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The choice is between John Calvin and the Apostle John. What is true of regeneration in particular is true of salvation in general; thus, Paul could say, “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation to every one who believes” (Rom. 1:16).
Faith in Christ is not incidental, as Calvinists claim; it is essential, as Scripture everywhere affirms. Believing is not a consequence of an unconditional election as Calvinism insists, but is rather the sole, sufficient, and necessary condition for receiving the salvation so freely offered to all without distinction as Scripture so clearly teaches. A person is not made a believer in regeneration as Calvinism contends, but a believer is made a child of God by regeneration as Scripture says.
Notes
“Doomed from the Womb”? Calvinist vs. Biblical Views of Election, Regeneration, and Faith
1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993 reprint), 206.
2. Ibid., 231.
3. Ibid.
4. Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 125.
5. Calvin, 224.
6. R. C. Sproul, Chosen by God (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1986), 51.
7. Calvin, 232.
“Universal Redemption” Poem by Charles Wesley
Universal Redemption
[1] Hear, holy, holy, holy, Lord,
Father of all mankind,
Spirit of love, eternal word,
In mystick union join’d.
[2] Hear, and inspire my stammering tongue,
Exalt my abject thought,
Speak from my mouth a sacred song,
Who spak’st the world from nought.
[3] Thy darling attribute I praise
Which all alike may prove,
The glory of thy boundless grace,
Thy universal love.
[4] Mercy I sing, transporting sound,
The joy of earth and heaven!
Mercy by every sinner found,
Who takes what God hath given.
[5] Mercy for all, thy hands have made,
Immense, and unconfin’d,
Throughout thy every work display’d,
Embracing all mankind.
[6] Thine eye survey’d the fallen race
When sunk, in sin they lay,
Their misery call’d for all thy grace,
But justice stopp’d the way.
[7] Mercy the fatal bar remov’d,
Thy only Son it gave,—
To save a world so dearly lov’d,
A sinful world to save.
[8] For every man he tasted death,
He suffered once for all,
He calls as many souls as breathe,
And all may2 hear the call.
[9] A power to chuse, a will to obey,
Freely his grace restores;
We all may find the living way,
And call the Saviour ours.
[10] Whom his eternal mind foreknew,
That they the power would use,
Ascribe to God the glory due,
And not his grace refuse;
[11] Them, only them, his will decreed,
Them did he chuse alone,
Ordain’d in Jesu’s steps to tread,
And to be like his Son.
[12] Them, the elect, consenting few,
Who yield to proffered love,
Justify’d here he forms anew,
And glorifies above.
[13] For as in Adam all have dy’d,
So all in Christ may live,
May (for the world is justify’d)
His righteousness receive.
[14] Whoe’er to God for pardon fly,
In Christ may be forgiven,
He speaks to all, “Why will ye die,
And not accept my heaven!”
[15] No! In the death of him that dies,
(God by his life hath sworn)
He is not pleas’d; but ever cries,
Turn, O ye sinners, turn.
[16] He would that all his truths should own,
His gospel all embrace,
Be justify’d by faith alone,
And freely sav’d by grace.
[17] And shall I, Lord, confine thy love,
As not to others free?
And may not every sinner prove,
The grace that found out me?
[18] Doubtless thro’ one eternal now
Thou ever art the same,
The universal Saviour thou,
And Jesus is thy name.
[19] Ho! Every one that thirsteth come!
Chuse life; obey the word;
Open your hearts to make him room,
And banquet with your Lord.
[20] When God invites, shall man repel?
Shall man th’ exception make?
“Come, freely come, WHOEVER WILL,
And living water take!”
[21] Thou bid’st; and would’st thou bid us chuse,
When purpos’d not to save?
Command us all a power to use,
Thy mercy never gave?
[22] Thou can’st not mock the sons of men,
Invite us to draw nigh,
Offer thy grace to all, and then,
Thy grace to most deny!
[23] Horror to think that God is hate!
Fury in God can dwell,
God could an helpless world create,
To thrust them into hell!
[24] Doom them an endless death to die,
From which they could not flee,
No Lord! Thine inmost bowels cry,
Against the dire decree!
[25] Believe who will that human pain,
Pleasing to God can prove:
Let Molock feast him with the slain,
Our God, we know, is love.
[26] Lord, if indeed, without a bound,
Infinite love thou art,
The HORRIBLE DECREE confound,
Enlarge thy people’s heart!
[27] Ah! Who is as thy servants blind,
So to misjudge their God!
Scatter the darkness of their mind,
And shed thy love abroad.
[28] Give them conceptions worthy thee,
Give them in Jesu’s face,
Thy merciful design to see,
Thy all-redeeming grace.
[29] Stir up thy strength, and help us, Lord,
The preachers multiply,
Send forth thy light, and give the word,
And let the shadows fly.
[30] Oh! If thy Spirit send forth me,
The meanest of the throng,
I’ll sing thy grace divinely free,
And teach mankind the song.
[31] Grace will I sing, thro’ Jesu’s name,
On all mankind bestow’d;
The everlasting truth proclaim,
And seal that truth with blood.
[32] Come then, thou all-embracing love,
Our frozen bosom warm;
Dilating fire within us move,
With truth and meekness arm.
[33] Let us triumphantly ride on,
And more than conquerors prove,
With meekness bear th’ opposers down,3
And bind with cords of love.
[34] Shine in our hearts Father of light,
Jesu thy beams impart,
Spirit of truth our minds unite,
And make4 us one in heart.
[35] Then, only then our eyes shall see
Thy promis’d kingdom come;
And every heart by grace set free,
Shall make the Saviour room.
[36] Thee every tongue shall then confess,
And every knee shall bow,
Come quickly, Lord, we wait thy grace,
We long to meet thee now.
The Problem of Evil
The text below was edited from a transcript of a message called “Why Does Evil Dominate the World?” and from “The Origin of Evil” by John MacArthur. www.gty.org
The Problem of Evil
I think in order to appropriately address the issue of the existence of evil, we must set aside all human considerations and focus on the nature of God and His righteous standard. Divine justice is where the discussion must begin. John MacArthur defines divine justice as an essential attribute of God whereby He infinitely, perfectly, and independently does exactly what He wants to do and when He wants to do it. Because He is the standard of justice, by very definition, whatever He does is inherently just.
God does not do something because it is good and right, but rather, the thing is good and right because God wills it and works it. By nature God is just and righteous and therefore whatever He does is just and right because of His nature. We as fallen humans cannot impose our own ideas onto our understanding of God’s working. So, the fundamental issue we must start at is to go to the scriptures to see how God Himself, in His perfect righteousness, decides to act. His actions will always be righteous and true.
Some would say that it can’t be true that God has both a full knowledge of evil and the full power to prevent it and still let it come into existence because that means He ordained it. However, if God had the full knowledge of it and the full power to deal with it and it exists, then He ordained it. Either He didn’t have the knowledge (not omniscient), or He didn’t have the power (not omnipotent), so you have to reinvent God.
There are some people who are just short answer folks. You say, “Where did evil come from?” And they’ll say, “Oh it came from Adam and Eve.” Really? How did it get introduced to Adam and Eve? “Well, oh yeah, that’s right, it came from the snake.” Well how did the snake get to a place where he could be embodied by Satan and how did Satan get to be Satan in which he was tempting people to do evil? “Oh well, he came from…oh, he came from heaven, didn’t he?”
So where did evil originate? Evil originated where? In heaven? Yes, evil originated in heaven in an angelic rebellion right under the nose of God. You think that was a shock? Then you don’t have a God who is absolutely omniscient. You think God couldn’t stop it once it got going? Couldn’t put an end to it right on the spot? Then you have a God who is not all powerful. No matter how you deal with it, if you sustain the biblical doctrine of God, God becomes ultimately responsible for the existence of evil.
Now when you boil all this down, there are a number of categories in which theodicies can be created. The first category is metaphysical. That is to say evil is inevitable. It is a corollary of good. It is necessary. It’s Yin Yang. It’s a necessary opposite of one thing that exists by the very metaphysics of its existence, the opposite can exist as well. It is not that God created evil. It is not that God ordained evil. It is that evil is because good is. It is simply a negation. It is simply a privation. It is the absence of the opposite of. If you have an infinity, you have a finitude. If you have a good, you have an evil.
There’s some truth in that to some limited degree metaphysically. There is also the more theological approach to that metaphysical idea and it is this, that because God created humanity good, the potential for evil existed within that creation and man exercising his will chose the evil. So it didn’t really come from God, it came from man. It didn’t really come from God, it came from Lucifer who made the same choice in heaven. That was strongly the argument of Augustine and Aquinas in ancient times. And there is truth in that. There is the holiness of God and there is the sinfulness of the creature. But it leaves too much to metaphysical inevitability and it asks the question, since good exists and evil must then exist, is that perpetually true? And when we get to heaven and the new heaven and the new earth because that is eternal and perfect good, will we always be staring down the barrel of potential evil again because it’s a metaphysical necessity?
There’s a second kind of theodicy. Let’s drop the metaphysical approach to theodicy and let’s introduce the autonomous theodicy, or theodicies. A number of people come into this category to develop their theodicies. This is the category that suggests the cause of evil is the abuse of free will. And again we’re back to our Arminian friends. This is the abuse of free will. And this basically says the highest good to God is free will. Free will trumps everything on God’s scale, even evil. God could have prevented evil, but He wanted free will to exist and when He allowed free will to exist, therefore evil exists because those free and autonomous creatures choose evil. And because free will was more important as a reality than eliminating evil, evil exists. Evil exists because God exalts free will. Free will trumps evil on God’s value scale so that God had to allow for the possibility of evil in order to preserve the more highly prized autonomy that protects Him from injustice. Again, the bottom line is you can’t make God responsible for anything, so the greatest good in the creation is free will; angels have a free will, at least initially; humans have a free will, they make choices, and that’s the greater good, that’s the higher value to God even if it means sin and evil exist. Humans must have the self determined freedom to act. If God acts as a primary cause for people’s choices, they would not be free. If God decided they would be coerced and compelled and that would violate their will and we should have a completely free will. That’s the highest good. This gets God off the hook again; at least it appears to on a shallow level. But again, it requires reinventing a God, who values your will over His own. This is inventing a God who values everybody’s will over His own and that’s not the God we read about in the Scripture.
If God knew people would choose sin and hell, why did He go ahead and create them anyway? Why did He design free will? He could decide what the noblest of all virtues was, why make it free will if it’s going to end up like this and you’re going to have to go to Plan B just to recover from the exercise of these myriad of free wills?
So you can see that an autonomous theodicy as a category has to deny the direct involvement of God as He is revealed to be in the Old Testament. Does He not know what people are going to do? Or is giving them the freedom to do it more important than the presence of evil? If God has both knowledge and power, then He had to give men the free will to start with and He knew exactly what they would do with it and He went ahead and gave it to them and therefore in the end He had to ordain evil. It doesn’t solve any problem except to diminish the glory of God.
To design a God with limited knowledge, to design a God with limited power, to design a God who is more concerned about the will of every single human being than His own will is to design a God that is not the biblical God. If God is not in total control of evil, if He has not ordained it, and if He does not have it under complete control at every millisecond of history, then this universe is out of control at the most crucial point. If God is not in control of this completely, then how and when will He get the knowledge and the power to get it under control? Would you rather have a God trying to get control of evil, or a God completely in control of it? Take your choice. But the God of the Bible is complete control of evil for His own purposes. It is really heresy to say that the world is full of evil apart from a predetermined plan and purpose by God that is far above the willy-nilly choices of people.
So what do we know up to now? Evil exists. God exists. God wills evil to exist. He did not create it. He could not create it. But He did not prevent it. He ordained it. He willed it. He willed it because He had a purpose for it. This is critical.
Let me put it to you simply: God is not responsible for evil. His creatures are. God is not responsible for evil. His creatures are. Everything that God created was “very Good”, everything. This is affirmed throughout the scripture. In Habakkuk 1:13, it says God’s “eyes are too pure to approve evil” and that He “can not look on wickedness with favor”. 1 Corinthians 14:33 says “God is not a God of confusion”. Confusion is a product of sin. 1 John 1:5 says “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”. James 1:13 says “God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone”. 1 John 2:16 explains that “all that is in the world,” all evil categorically, “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world”. Psalm 5:4 says that He is “not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You.” In fact, on a positive note, Isaiah 6, the antiphonal cry of the angels was that God was “Holy, holy, holy.” We see a glimpse of that, of course, when Jesus came into the world; God in human flesh. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. God is not evil. God does not do evil. He cannot be tempted to do evil. He never tempts anybody else to do evil. God is not responsible for evil.
The source of evil, the source of sin, is outside God. When God created angels and God created humans, he gave them intelligence. He gave them reason, and he gave them choice. And there is a sequence. I put those words in that order for a purpose. Intelligence gave them the ability to understand things. Reason gave them the ability to process that understanding toward behavior. And choice gave them the freedom to determine that behavior. Intelligence, reason, and choice. Bottom line: With what they knew, and with the ability they had to process that information, they would be brought to a choice. And whether angels or men, they would have the choice either to obey God or not to obey God.
Listen to this: To disobey God was to initiate evil. Evil is not the presence of something. Evil is the absence of righteousness. You can’t create evil, because evil doesn’t exist as a created entity. It doesn’t exist as a created reality. Evil is a negative. Evil is the absence of perfection. It’s the absence of holiness. It’s the absence of goodness. It’s the absence of righteousness. Evil became a reality only when creatures chose to disobey. Evil came into existence initially then in the fall of angels; and then next, in the fall of Adam and Eve. Just put it this way in your mind. Evil is not a created thing. Evil is not a substance. Evil is not an entity. Evil is not a being. Evil is not a force. Evil is not some floating spirit. Evil is a lack of moral perfection. God created absolute perfection. Wherever a lack of that exists, sin exists. And that cannot exist in the nature of God or in anything that God makes. Evil comes into existence when God’s creatures fall short of the standard of moral perfection.
Now, let me take it a step further. God did not create evil. He did not author evil. He did not make evil. But listen carefully, very important: God did decree to use evil as a part of his eternal plan. He will not be culpable for it. He did not bring it into existence. That would be impossible because God is good, all good and only good. Therefore, whatever comes out of Him is all good and only good. God can, therefore, produce only good. And what is evil but the absence of that good, which is a choice made by the reasonings based upon the information revealed to his creatures? But, God was not caught off guard. In fact, God decreed that evil would be part of his plan. He is not the creator of evil, and He is not the cause of evil. He did not bring evil into existence in a cosmic sense, and He did not and does not bring evil into existence in a personal sense. He is not the cause of sin, nor is He the cause of sins in the lives of people. But He does use it for His purposes. And that’s why in Isaiah 45:7 says that God creates “calamity”. Some older translations say He “creates evil”. That is a really poor translation, and not true. God does create “calamity”. And if you read the context of Isaiah 45:7, it is clear that judgment is the issue. God does not create evil, but God does bring judgment on evil, creating therefore the calamity by which evil is judged. Now, listen carefully: Scripture written by God always assigns the guilt and responsibility for all sin to creatures; never to God. Never to God. That’s all we know. I’ve taken you as deep as I can go. There’s nowhere else to go. That’s all we know. Beyond that, we operate in faith. We do know some things. We know God is holy, right? We know he is too pure to look on iniquity; can’t tolerate evil. We know He “tempts no man,” neither is tempted by any man. We know he is “Holy, holy, holy,” all the things we went through. “No evil dwells in Him.” “He is all light and no darkness.” We know that. We believe that. God is not the author of confusion. He is not the source of sin. We know that. We believe that. Sin comes into existence when the standard of moral perfection is not met, and that is an act based upon intellect, reason and choice made by his creatures.
If God had a purpose for evil, if God wills evil to exist, what is the purpose for evil?
Some great theologians and biblical scholars from the seventeen hundreds put together The Westminster Confession. In it, it says “God, from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second-hand causes taken away, but rather established.”
Sinfulness proceeds only from the creature and not from God who being most holy and righteous neither can be the author and approver of sin. But then the Westminster Confession says all that God decrees and all that God providentially brings to pass is all to the praise of His glory.
They got it right. The reason for God ordaining evil is for the praise of His glory.
So when the question comes up: Why would God allow sin? We can only speculate. There’s no specific statement. But I think you can make a fairly reasonable speculation beyond which I cannot go and it is this: What did sin coming into the world bring about? I would say it brought about three things. These are the three reasons why I believe God allowed evil.
Number one, it brought about the salvation of sinners, right? God had to allow sin. God had to decree sin in the plan, though never the author of it, in order that he might save sinners. Well, why did God want to save sinners? To put on display attributes that otherwise never would have been manifest. How is God going to show grace if there aren’t any sinners? How is God going to show mercy if there aren’t any sinners? That was a part of God’s nature that God wanted to display for His own glory throughout all eternity. So God provided a means in which he could demonstrate grace and demonstrate mercy. He also wanted to show love; love that is so far-reaching that it can reach even his own enemies who hate him. How’s He going to show that if he doesn’t have any enemies? So God allows evil in order that He might demonstrate grace and mercy and forgiveness and salvation.
Secondly, He allows evil in order that He might display his wrath; in order that he might put his wrath on display, his anger on display, his judgment on display. How would God ever reveal that part of His true and eternal nature if there were not an opportunity to judge sinners? And so all you can do is look at redemptive history, and you see the salvation of sinners and the damnation of sinners, and that is what goes on. And you ultimately see a place prepared for those who were damned and a place prepared for those who were saved. And you must conclude then that the eternal purpose of God was to save some and judge some in order that he might demonstrate both his grace and his wrath.
And then I’d like to throw a third thought in there. I believe that God allowed sin in order that he might forever destroy it. As long as His creatures have any measure of freedom, as long as his creatures have intelligence; that is, they can know and reason; that is, they can process that knowledge toward behavior and choice; that is, they can choose what to do. As long as they have that capacity, there is a potential for them to fall short of the standard, right? To make the wrong choice. So there is choice, and the potential of a wrong choice is there. A measure of freedom is given to the creatures by which they can choose to honor God, by which they can choose to dishonor Him. As long as that is there, then the reality, the potential reality of evil exists when the wrong choice is made. I believe that once the wrong choice is made, then God goes into action. And one, He can demonstrate his grace in salvation; two, He can demonstrate his wrath in judgment; and three, He can then finally destroy evil. It’s almost as if God wanted evil to come to the surface so that he could excise it. That’s what’s going to happen when the whole of redemptive history is complete; when all the saved are saved, and all the lost are cast into the lake of fire, then death and hell are thrown into the lake of fire. What does that mean? No more death, no more hell, no more judgment. Why? Because there won’t be any more sin. And when you go into heaven, there’s nothing there that smacks of a sinful world, right? There’s no more sorrow, no more sadness, no more sin, no more dying, no more death.
So I think God decreed evil within his plan, without creating it, for those three reasons: To save sinners, to judge sinners, and to once and for all and forever destroy evil. It was always potentiated. As long as it was possible, it would need to come to the surface so God could excise it.
Summing it up, there is no external cause of sin, outside the creature. There’s no force floating out there that God created. It is the absence of perfection. There is no deterministic cause and effect; that is to say, some fatalism. It’s just choice. Within God’s decree, he allowed for that choice, knew those choices would be made the way they were made, planned that into the decree in order to display both his grace, his wrath, and to put a final and eternal end to sin. But always: The one who chose evil was the source of it. In the case of Lucifer, he was the source of evil initially in the angelic realm. And he got a third of the other angels to get along with him and join. The same happened with Adam and Eve, only it had a different effect. With angels, they all sinned their own sin, and nobody’s sin passed to anybody else, because they don’t procreate. But in the case of Adam and Eve, when Adam and Eve made the wrong choice, all humanity went with them, because we all come out of the loins of Adam and Eve. So the source of evil is outside of God. The source of evil is the creature.
Let me ask you a simple question to help you answer the bigger question. Is God more glorious because of sin existing or less glorious? Throughout all the eons of eternity will God receive more glory from His creatures because sin existed.
All that really matters is the eternal glory of God!
Rom 3:5-6 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.) 6 May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?
Would you understand the righteousness of God if you didn’t understand unrighteousness?
Rom 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Our being sinners allows God to put His great love on open display at the cross.
Rom 9:22-23 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.
God had to “endure with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction” so He could display His wrath and full eternal power. God also willed to make known, to display, His mercy to the “vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory”.
Prior to sin, God was not worshipped fully for His righteousness against the backdrop of unrighteousness. He couldn’t demonstrate His great love until he showed it against enemy, rebel sinners.
Rom 9:17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.”
Isa 45:7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.
In Job 38, 39, 40, and 42 God shows Job that His ways are too wonderful for him to understand, that he is insignificant and that he cannot find fault with the Almighty.
Job 38:1-7 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 2 “Who is this that darkens counsel By words without knowledge? 3 “Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me! 4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, 5 Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? 6 “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, 7 When the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy? ….
Job 39:1-2 “Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer? 2 “Can you count the months they fulfill, Or do you know the time they give birth? ….
Job 40:1-4 Then the LORD said to Job, 2 “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.” 3 Then Job answered the LORD and said, 4 “Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You? I lay my hand on my mouth.
Job 42:1-6 Then Job answered the LORD and said, 2 “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. 3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.” 4 ‘Hear, now, and I will speak; I will ask You, and You instruct me.’ 5 “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes.”
Tough talk from God and Job buckles and says “God, I have no right to question You, You are God and You have every right to put Your glory on full display.” And evil makes that happen. We will spend forever and ever in the presence of God extolling Him in ways that never would be possible had He not allowed and ordained (without ever creating or being the source of it) the evil that temporarily dominates the creation. And in His perfect timing, it will all be over and He will destroy this entire universe in a holocaust described by Peter as the elements melting with fervent heat and the creation of a new heaven and a new earth in which only eternal righteousness exists, but we will forever worship with an understanding of the full display of His glory.
May we thank God for the insight that comes to us from His Word. He’s told us why. It’s not left to mystery. I’m God, I do what I do for My own glory. How wonderful is it that He has chosen us to be part of that eternal assembly who will give Him glory and who will sing praise to the Lamb who was slain. May we be in awe of God, that He has chosen us to be a part of that redeemed community who will understand forever the glory that came and was fully displayed because of sin. What a privilege.
Eleven Reasons to Reject Libertarian Free Will
A critique of “Why I am not a Calvinist” by Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell
by John W. Hendryx
In a recent essay I explained that in order to begin moving out of the present state of chaos in the church that we need to subvert many of the false narratives borrowed from the world that have taken hold of us. The intent of this essay is to dismantle one of these core inconsistent narratives in light of Holy Scripture and replace it with a consistent and biblical one. I will propose that one of the most dominant reasons for the current downgrade in the Church is the presuppositional lens through which Scripture is read called “libertarian freedom”. To begin to understand the full extent of the crisis we must begin here. As we define and then closely explore the problems with libertarian free will we will not only expose its outright errors but perhaps even more importantly, its inconsistencies which may have previously gone unnoticed by some. This will help us all think more clearly and replace the unbiblical with the biblical. So without further ado, let’s define the issues.
Who are the Libertarians?
The libertarians include Socinians, Molinists, Arminians, Open Theists and a growing number of Evangelicals.
What is Libertarian Free Will?
Freedom as understood in the libertarian sense means that a person is fully able to perform some other action in place of the one that is actually done, and this is not predetermined by any prior circumstances, our desires or even our affections. In other words, our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature. All free will theists hold that libertarian freedom is essential for moral responsibility, for if our choice is determined or caused by anything, including our own desires, they reason, it cannot properly be called our decision or free choice. Libertarian freedom is, in fact, the freedom to act contrary to our nature, wants and greatest desires. Responsibility, in their view, always means that we could have done otherwise. This is what libertarians themselves confess as you will see in the following 3-part definition from Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell in their popular book Why I am not a Calvinist:
(1) “The essence of this view is that a free action is one that does not have a sufficient condition or cause prior to its occurrence…the common experience of deliberation assumes that our choices are undetermined.”
(2) “…It seems intuitively and immediately evident that many of our actions are up to us in the sense that when faced with a decision, both (or more) options are within our power to choose…Libertarians argue that our immediate sense of power to choose between alternative courses of action is more certain and trustworthy than any theory that denies we have power.
(3) “Libertarians take very seriously the widespread judgment that we are morally responsible for our actions and that moral responsibility requires freedom” That is, a person cannot be held morally responsible for an act unless he or she was free to perform that act and free to refrain from it. This is basic moral intuition.”
Finally, in a very revealing admission, Wall and Dongell end their definition of libertarian freedom by asserting that to prove the validity of libertarian free will “…Arminians rely on contested philosophical judgments at this point.” By their own admission, then they RELY on philosophy, not Scripture as an ultimate basis for their conjecture. Walls and Dongell contest that Calvinists no less must also rely on philosophy to demonstrate the truthfulness of their positions. However, this is a notion which I will decisively refute later in the discussion by showing the Scriptural basis for the position that there is always, of necessity, a reason for the choices we make, especially moral choices (compatiblism).
Libertarians, therefore, when asked what caused the person to choose one action over another, will answer that a free act is when no causal, antecedent, laws of nature, desires or other factors are sufficient to incline the will decisively to chose one option or another. Clark Pinnock, a well-known defender of this position, asserted that only the kind of freedom, which has the ability to choose the contrary, is genuine freedom. He says, “It views a free action as one in which a person is free to perform an action or refrain from performing it and is not completely determined in the matter by prior forces—nature, nurture or even God. Libertarian freedom recognizes the power of contrary choice. One acts freely in a situation if, and only if, one could have done otherwise.” (Most Moved Mover pg. 127) In other words, within libertarianism, we could acceptably choose to receive Christ apart from a desire to receive Him.
Now lets look at the opposing position called compatibilism.
What is Compatibilism?
Compatibilism is the belief that God’s predetermination is “compatible” with voluntary choice. In light of Scripture, human choices are believed to be exercised voluntarily but the desires and circumstances that bring about these choices about occur through divine determinism (see Acts 2:23 & 4:27-28). Our choices are also determined by our greatest inclinations. Compatibilism affirms that we make choices for a reason, that the will is not independent of the person and we will always choose what we want (Deut 30:16,17,19; Matt 17:12; James 1:14). It means God has granted us the ability to act freely (that is, voluntarily without coercion), but not independent from God nor free from our desires, but to act according to our desires and nature. In other words, voluntary choice (to chose to act as we please) is compatible with determinism. The Scripture itself testifies that
“…no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. (Luke 6:42-45)
Figtrees, of necessity, grow figs, not thorns. According to Jesus, then, nature produces a necessary result or fruit at the exclusion of something else. One cannot produce a result that is contrary to nature. While libertarians uphold the philosophy that “choice without sufficient cause” is what makes one responsible, the compatibilist, on the other hand, looks to Scripture which testifies that it is because our choices have motives and desires that moral responsibility is actually established. Responsibility requires that our acts, of necessity, be intentional, as I will further demonstrate later in the essay.
So now for the reasons why libertarian free will falls short of revelation.
11 Problems with Libertarian Free Will
(1) According to libertarians, the power of contrary choice means that it is always within the ability of the human will to believe or reject the gospel. But if we have the natural capacity to believe or reject the gospel freely (in the libertarian sense) why is there the need for the Holy Spirit in salvation at all, especially when the gospel is preached? If you ask a libertarian whether he could come to faith in Christ apart from any work of the Spirit, like all Christians, they must answer ‘no’. In other words, even to a libertarian, it is not “within the [natural moral] ability of the human will to believe or reject the gospel.” There is still the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit, who is the sine qua non of the affections being set free from sin’s bondage. Therefore, they are forced to admit that the possibility of the natural will exercising faith would be inconsistent with basic Christianity, since we all know that the natural man is hostile to God and will not willingly submit to the humbling terms of the gospel. We all agree then, that left to himself, man has no libertarian free will to choose any redemptive good, since his affections are entirely in bondage to sin (until Christ sets him free) and cannot choose otherwise. So it ends up that libertarians must believe that, in his natural state (which is most of the time), man’s will is only free in the compatibilist sense, since, apart from the Spirit, he can only choose according to the desires (love of darkness) of his fallen nature. Unless, of course, they can offer another explanation of why one cannot believe apart from the Holy Spirit.
Furthermore, Christians all affirm that one must first hear the gospel in order to believe since general revelation is not enough to engender saving faith (Romans 10:13-15). But if it is always within the libertarian ability of the human will to believe, as they claim, then again, what purpose is there for the Holy Spirit while hearing? Doesn’t this reveal that they actually do believe we normally exercise choice according to the corruption of nature? [We must note, as an aside, that the Epistle to the Romans testifies that even those who have not heard the gospel know enough from general revelation to condemn them because “what is known about God is evident within them” and they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom 1:18-20).] By all accounts, then, no true Christian believes that a person has libertarian free will to believe the gospel apart to any work of the Holy Spirit.
But, having deduced that libertarian free will must still be true, libertarians believe they resolve this problem by inventing a logical scheme (nowhere found in the gospels) where God grants something to all who hear the gospel called prevenient grace, which temporarily removes the sin nature by allegedly placing sinners in a pre-fall-like state where they have libertarian freedom to either chose or reject Christ, a choice undetermined by any desires or nature. Thus, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to the libertarian, is never sufficient in itself. To grace we must add the choice of the unregenerate will. While we heartily agree with libertarians in the necessity of preaching for salvation so that the Holy Spirit can germinate the “seed” of the gospel, yet to dogmatize the belief that once having heard that one is wandering the earth in a semi-regenerate state with a libertarian free will is wild extra-biblical speculation at best. For a biblical example that pronounces the differences among us, consider when Paul was preaching the gospel to Lydia and “the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul” (Acts 16:14). A libertarian would argue this passage placed Lydia in a pre-fall-like state where she had libertarian freedom to believe or reject Jesus. But the passage plainly says that God opened her heart to respond, not so that she would hopefully respond. There is not one instance in Scripture when such language is used (where God acts to change the heart) when people actually refused (see 2 Chronicles 30:11-12; John 6:37; 65). Rather, when God calls a person or opens a heart to respond, the matter is always settled biblically. They will respond positively. Galatians 1:15 asserts that Paul was set apart and called by grace before birth. Can such a call be thwarted? Jesus call to Paul on the Damascus road was certain, not merely a possibility. When a person hears a preacher call for their repentance they can certainly resist that call because they have an uncircumcised heart. But if God gives an inner call no one resists (Acts 2:39; 1 Corinthians 1:23-24; Rom 8:30) but rather, gladly assents to the gospel. The biblical evidence for certainty in calling, then, is clearly on the side of the compatibilist in all cases where the Bible reveals God’s intent.
Remember, not even libertatians believe we naturally have libertarian freedom. If we did then we could theoretically believe the gospel apart from the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. Yet I have not yet found one libertarian willing to admit this, for to do so would fall into the heresy of Pelagianism. No, the libertarian must acknowledge that, prior to grace, man’s “freedom” is compatibilistic. In the end, Scripture defines freedom, not as libertarians do, but as the freedom from the bondage to sin, since we are slaves of sin until the Son sets us free (John 8; Rom 6). Biblical freedom is the freedom to do what is pleasing to God (John 8:34-36; Rom 6:15-23; 2 Cor 3:17) and this freedom from sin is granted in the redemptive work of Christ. Yet the Scripture nowhere says anything about the freedom to choose either contrary or apart from our desires. We either desire and love Christ or we despise him, and if we choose Him, this is the result of sovereign grace giving us a heart of flesh, not a result of nature itself (John 1:13; Rom 9:16). The real difference between the two views, then, is not really the nature of the will for we all can agree that apart from the Holy Spirit, the will acts according to the affections of its fallen nature in a compatibilist sense. The real difference rather is the nature of God’s grace in salvation (what it does for us). This brings us to the next criticism…
(2) Extra-Biblical Intuition: Without providing any biblical evidence whatsoever for the basis of libertarian freedom Walls and Dongell instead make their strongest assertions about why they believe this theory in statements such as “We believe it is … obviously true that responsibility requires libertarian freedom,” and it is their “judgment” that “the common sense view of freedom is libertarian freedom.” Also “…it seems intuitively and immediately evident that many of our actions are up to us.” Right away we see there is an open admission here that the libertarian free will position derives its assumptions solely from a philosophical precommitment of what they call intuitive common knowledge. This means that one of the most the foundational doctrines which hermeneutically controls the way they read the entire Scripture is based purely in speculation and logical deduction with statements like “it seems” rather than from any biblical exegesis. If this were a smaller matter we might be able to overlook it but since this is the controlling factor in how we relate to God in all of Scripture it is a cause for no small alarm. This is baffling since libertarians make bold claims to believe in sola scriptura. You would think that if it were important to God that He would mention it at least once. A system based purely on extra-biblical assumptions makes their case really quite hard to prove. Failure to demonstrate a biblical basis for this belief means that libertarianism should be abandoned, that is, unless they are willing to continue foregoing the authority of the Scriptures in order to uphold their philosophy.
(3) Causeless Choice: Libertarians, of course, like to claim that we also base our compatiblism in philosophical assumptions but this assertion simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. There are an endless number of Scriptures that affirm that our choice to believe or reject the gospel is done so of necessity because of our innermost affections and inclinations. For example, in John 3:19 it says that those who reject the gospel do so because the love darkness and hate the light. A libertarian, on the other hand, to be consistent, must assert that one rejected Christ, not necessarily because he hated him, or on the other hand did not chose Him because he had affection for Him, but rather only because he chose to, which is contrary to everything we know of Scripture. We all know that the will ultimately chooses from the desires and affections of the person. Quoting the Old Testment prophet Isaiah, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for the error of choosing without intent by saying, “THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” This reveals that it is impossible to honor Jesus with a faith that does not also honor Him from the heart. This is not very different from the kind of faith libertarians are describing. Later to another group of those who refused to believe, Jesus shows us what the cause of our choices are when he replied,
“I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin…If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does…You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” (John 8:34-47)
Jesus continually points to reasons or motives as the determining factor for believing and rejecting the gospel: they are “determined to kill me”, “their heart is far from me”, they “want to carry out their father’s desire” and they reject me because they “do not belong to God.” Libertarian causeless choice is, therefore, an idea foreign to Scripture and basically goes against all sound logic. If our choice to receive Christ is causeless, not arising of necessity from our affections or desire when we see God’s beauty and excellence, then it is made, as it were, out of thin air, for no other reason but that we chose, as if the person wills to choose something he doesn’t want. To give you a real life example of libertarian causeless choice, read the following excerpt from a recent conversation I had with a libertarian where I asked a simple question about why we believe the gospel. I asked,
“If the gospel is preached to two persons and they both receive equal (prevenient) grace, why is it that one man ultimately believes the gospel and not the other? What makes the two people to differ? Was it Jesus Christ that makes them to differ or something else? If both had the same prevenient grace it wasn’t Jesus that made the to differ, so obviously one had a natural advantage over the other.
He answered in classic libertarian fashion, “One heard and understood, one did not. One believed and one did not. That’s the nature of free will. Our decisions are not DETERMINED by forces outside of our will. And that’s why one man accepts and another rejects Christ.”
Lets take a closer look at his answer. He said that ‘one understood and one did not’ … but where did such understanding come from to begin with? Was this understanding itself derived from nature or from grace? In the libertarian scheme did God grant this understanding so that one believed? We are forced to conclude that He did not, for if He did this for everyone, then both persons would have the same understanding. So we must conclude that, to the libertarian, such spiritual understanding is entirely self-generated, apart from any work of God’s grace in us. Whatever differences there were between the two men, these differences were not derived from grace. Ultimately, it is a reliance on some innate ability in one man, which the other did not have. So we must ask, then, according to libertarianism, was it chance that generated this difference in natural wisdom between the two? Was it random? Or was one man naturally just smarter or wiser than the other? The only two alternatives left to us here are either that one person just happened to understand (‘just because’) by chance, or that one was already better equipped than the other (in his natural self) to respond positively to the gospel command. Neither of these possibilities is aligned with the teaching or intent of the gospel, which is by grace through and through.
Now, in his second answer to why one believed and not the other, He answered, “one believed and the other did not” But I did not ask him what he did, because we all know what he did already from my question, but I asked ‘why’ he believed. Our libertarian friend didn’t really answer the question as I asked it, but he did answer it according to his libertarian philosophy, since he believes that it was not his desires (or anything else) that caused him to choose one way or the other. The will itself is sovereign, in the libertarian view, and has an ability of its own which can ultimately choose apart from any gracious affections of the heart. To a libertarian, he can choose Christ even if he does not desire Him. While the affections may influence the choice, in their view, still the will can chose what it doesn’t want ultimately, which, of course, destroys the unity of the person.
But the answer faces the same difficult question as the first — did one just happen to believe? My gospel says that only the humble, who recognize that they have no hope in themselves, will embrace Christ and, in like manner, the proud will despise and reject Him. Either sin and virtue, of necessity, precede our choice when Christ is put before us. It is the grace of God that makes us humble, not innate ability or chance. But the libertarian is unwilling to say it was only by God’s grace in Christ because he then would admit to God’s sovereign choice. Nor will he provide an answer that reveals a moral virtue in one person (humility) that the other (who was proud), did not naturally have. This would expose his belief in salvation by merit. But these two answers are the only possible conclusions. So if there is not of necessity any moral reasonor motive that ultimately compels one to believe or not then how could God blame someone for rejecting Him? To believe the gospel is a moral choice, from the heart. If not then God could not call the rejection of the gospel a sin. If our affections do not cause us to believe then belief and unbelief is ultimately non-affectional, not from the heart and rejection could not be considered a sin. But if faith is a moral choice then how did one person get a more moral disposition than the other? One remained proud and the other humble? Was this by nature or by grace? If by grace then why don’t all men have it? If by nature then some people are more virtuous than others apart from grace. This dilemma is really fatal to libertarian free will and none of them have been able to answer these basic questions. The answer ‘just because’ is ludicrous.
(4) The Belief in Libertarian Free Will Destroys Moral Responsibility – Walls and Dongell make a strong case that our judicial system is based on the commonsense view of libertarian freedom since the lawyers often defend the degree of guilt of clients based on whether they were coerced, their upbringing, emotional state and the like. These kind of conditions indeed often make people less culpable if their inability made them so they could not have done otherwise. If criminals could have made different choices than they did, i.e. if they were coerced into making a bad choice, then we all agree they would not be as legally responsible for their crime. While it is true that coercion often plays a role in the legal degree of punishment, but this only scratches the surface of the matter. Consider the opposite that if criminals just chose to commit a crime but had no intent or motives for it at all then the lawyer would be forced to plead insanity for his client before the court. If the choice to commit a crime were not based and caused ultimately on a reason, desire or motive then he would have to be absolved from guilt because he would not be responsible for it. If one chose to murder someone simply because he chose to it would be a sign of sickness not responsibility. Libertarian free will, therefore, destroys responsibility. Moral responsibility exists, not in spite of, but because our choices have reasons, motives, intent. Only the determinist, therefore, upholds moral responsibility. Can we be held responsible for doing something we do not want to do?
Furthermore, inability usually does not diminish culpability in a moral decision. If a human were asked to fly and they could not due to their physical limitations, we could not justly blame them for their inability, but if someone were to borrow $100 million and squander it in a week of wild living in Vegas, his inability to repay would not alleviate his responsibility. Therefore, what we ought to do morally does not always imply that we can, and yet we remain culpable. God commands that we perfectly obey the Ten Commandments. Our inability to do so morally does not take away our moral guilt because our inability is moral and intentional. We wanted to disobey and our desire was rebellion. In fact, Paul clearly shows that the intent of the divine legislation is to reveal sin, not to show that we have the moral ability to keep it (Rom. 3:20). In other words, it reveals that we are impotent to obey the law, stripping up of all hope from ourselves, so we can only throw ourselves on God’s mercy. We inherited Adam’s guilt and freely choose to continue in rebellion. Adam has federally represented all of us, and we agree with his choice every time we sin, so our inability to repay the debt to God does not alleviate us of responsibility. Can anyone claim we are not guilty of a crime by saying “sorry judge, Adam made me do it.” No, we ourselves are guilty when we choose to commit a crime.
(5) Scripture Incompatible with Libertarian Free Will There is simply no passage in Scripture where our wills are seen to be independent of God’s plan and our desires (libertarian freedom). The position is genuinely a philosophical construct. A failure to demonstrate a biblical basis for this belief again means that libertarian should be abandoned. In fact the Scripture shows just the opposite. God clearly says that it was He who foreordained the crucifixion but he also holds those who did it responsible (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). Judas’ betrayal was said to be according to Scripture (Acts 1:16; John 17:12), but God does not hold him any less responsible for it.
(6) Libertarian Freedom Would Make God Himself Not Responsible for His Choices. God always makes choices according to His holy nature. All members of the Trinity have acted in sinless perfection. God cannot even desire an unholy act, nor can He lie, for He would no longer be God if He did. In fact His choices are so wrapped up in His nature and essence that He could not do otherwise. But God’s freedom is the real freedom defined by the Bible — a freedom from sin, not a freedom to do otherwise. God is free in the compatibilist sense in that He always acts according to His nature, never against it. God does not have ‘freedom’ to do what is contrary to His nature, so He is not free in the libertarian sense (in fact no one is). In a similar way, we all strive toward and look forward to the day when we will no longer be bound by sin. Our resurrection bodies will be free from all sin and death. This means there will be no libertarian freedom on the new earth because we will be compelled to choose good because that is what we will want by nature. Libertarians often call anyone’s life where we cannot chose otherwise either robotic or one where we cannot be held responsible for our choices. If true then this would have to apply to God and our future glory as well. Is God a robot because He cannot choose to be unholy?
(7) If all our choices are free from our own desire and free from the plan of God then they are based on chance. This means that God could be taken by surprise. A chance event is defined as one that does not have a sufficient cause that would make it utterly unpredictable, even to God. But we all know that chance is utterly inconsistent with God’s sovereignty, providence and foreknowledge of future events. This creates another fatal flaw in the philosophy of libertarian freedom.
(8) The Libertarian makes his philosophy of the will central to his interpretation while compatibilists make the covenant grace of God in Christ central. It is my contention that the libertarian error is not unlike the error of the ancients who believed that the Sun revolved around the earth. One’s starting point is always important because it reveals what is important to someone. To make libertarian free will the philosophical glasses through which one looks at the whole of Scripture (when the Text says nothing about such a belief) is a radical departure from honest biblical interpretation, by any standard. But the bias is so ingrained, it appears, that libertarian free will is simply accepted by many because they say it is ‘obvious’. But our preference or feeling is not the basis of how we determine Scriptural truth, especially in such critical matters.. When we see the covenant in Christ as central, as the Scripture does, then we can ask, does God will the salvation of all people with a weak-willed, ineffectual love, or does God love his chosen ones with a resolute will that gets the job accomplished? God’s love for his people is intensive. His will never let them perish, just as a good parent would not let his child be hit by a car, even if he has to stop him against his will, so to speak. But instead of force, God changes the heart of stone to a heart of flesh that the child will himself desire to obey. The libertarian would have us believe that the child should have the ‘right to choose’ on his own whether to be hit by the car or not. But to leave a child to himself among danger is inviting certain death. Which is more loving I ask? God saves us because of what Christ does for us, not because some of us were more humble or smarter than others and thus drew on our natural resources and unregenerate affections to choose.
(9) In Why I am Not A Calvinist, Walls and Dongell assert that the purpose of their book is to assess whether there are persons “whom God has not chosen to bless.” Here they intend to create an invidious comparison by painting the Calvinist God as distinct from their own because, to the Calvinist, God chooses not to love all men in the same way. But even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that election is contingent on foreseen faith, then there is nothing in Arminian theology to prevent God from only creating those whom he foreknows would respond to the gospel. Since this obviously is not the case, where does that leave the love of God as defined by the Arminian and set in defamatory contrast to Calvinism? In the end God knows everything (is omniscient) and therefore, even in the libertarian scheme, prior to even creating the universe God knows the choices all persons will make before creating them, so why did He go ahead an create them? Libertarians cannot consistently say that God foreknew which sinners would be lost and then say it is not within God’s will to allow these sinners to be lost. It is obviously within His providence for this person to be lost for he could easily have chosen not to create them if He so desired. In the same way, if God foreknew who would be saved then how could we consistently preach that that God is trying to save every man? God knows whom He can save or who will be saved, so who would claim that He is trying to save more? Among the libertarians, Open Theists, have recognized this internal inconsistency and instead of recognizing that the compatibilist position was right all along they have plunged themselves into deeper darkness by fastening ignorance on God (since they claim God does not know the future).
Furthermore, Walls and Dongell are clinging to an unbiblical assumption that God is somehow obligated to those who are in active rebellion against Him. Our salvation is called merciful because we did not deserve it and so our surprise should not be that there are some that God has not chosen to bless redemptively, but rather, our surprise should be that he was wiling to save any.
(10) Libertarians complain that effectual grace forces people to do something against their will. If the elect will all be saved, they reason, then they must have no real choice in the matter. But compatibilists affirm the belief that we must personally exercise our own faith in order to be justified. God does not do the believing for us. Consider that a healthy infant who was just born must breath on his own. Consciously or unconsciously the baby wills to breath. No one else breathes for him. However, his/her lungs themselves were a gift of God, apart from his willing. Also he uses his own eyes to see, but the eyes themselves were are gift of God. Furthermore, the act of birth itself is not something the baby does by exercising its choice or will. The baby is completely passive in its birth – this is because life itself was the gift of God completely apart from our willing. …And this is clearly the reason why Jesus uses this wonderful analogy of birth when speaking of regeneration (see John 3). The new birth is not spoken of in the imperative as something we should take upon ourselves to do, but something God does for us. We must be born again to see or enter the kingdom of heaven. ‘Spirit gives birth to spirit’. In other words we must first be regenerated if we are to believe and enter the kingdom. We love him only because He first loved us. No one says ‘Jesus is Lord’ apart from the Holy Spirit. To say we can free (redeem) ourselves by utilizing our unregenerate, unspiritual will is to undermine the gospel. It is Christ who renews and quickens the will, the desires and affections. When God mercifully grants new life to a person, a heart of flesh, new spiritual eyes and ears and illumines their mind to understand, God does not violate their will for they gladly utilize these things that God gave them with their own will.
The analogy could likewise be extended to someone like Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead. Lazarus did not try or use self-effort to come back to life. Jesus commanded life to enter him and it was so. Yet Lazarus opened his own eyes and sat up in his own grave. His being resurrected itself was the gift of God, unrelated to what Lazarus personal will was. Similarly, God’s regenerative grace enters into us (the new birth). This is purely an act of God’s mercy to us since He is under obligation to save no one. Libertarians, in making this charge, tend to confuse coercion with necessity. (See my essay on the same).
(11) Libertarianism dismantles the biblical doctrine of salvation by grace alone. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ purchased in our redemption, to the libertarian, is never sufficient in itself. This grace is conditional and only when faith is contributed to the mix is it considered sufficient. Faith is seen as something that arises separately from Christ’s work rather than as a result of it. So to a libertarian, we could not properly thank God for our faith since it is the only thing that is alone self-generated. While all men have grace, so they say, grace is not what makes men to differ from one another. If something other than grace sets apart the elect from the non-elect then it is not grace alone (or Jesus alone) that saves.
—————————————————————
Notes:
To help the reader understand compatibilism here is an analogy that just about anyone can understand. Consider a new mother, her infant and the approach of a madman with a dagger. Like most mothers, this new mother adores her baby so much that she would be willing to sacrifice her own life if it would save her child. But, in this instance, she faces a choice. A madman approaches her and holds out a dagger and orders her to sacrifice her baby. In fear she chooses to flee from him and, of course, refuses to kill her child. But the question, which seems ridiculous because the answer is so obvious, is why doesn’t she plunge the dagger into the child? She has the physical capacity to do so, right? She could easily plunge the knife into the child with her physical ability but she refuses, and in fact in incapable of doing so. Why? It is because her great affection for the child makes it morally impossible for her to carry out such an act under any circumstance. In the same way, we naturally (while unregenerate) refuse to plunge the dagger into the sin which we so love and join ourselves to Christ. Our disposition and affections determine the necessity of our choices.
John Frame once said in regard to the difference between Determinism & Fatalism: Determinism means that all events are rendered unavoidable by the cause, which include our choices. Fatalism says all events will happen, regardless of our choices.
We believe that apart from a supernatural work of the Spirit to change our disposition, to disarm our natural hostility and illumine our hearts and minds to the truth, we would always turn our affections away from Christ toward darkness (John 3:19, 20). We have the physical ability to say a prayer or walk an aisle, but our hearts are filled with hostility toward God and we naturally suppress the truth in unrighteousness as Paul asserts in his epistle to the Romans. Our inability is simply a matter of the affections and we chose accordingly. Some persons, when they see Christ immediately have affection for him and others despise Him. The question we must all ask is, what makes the two to differ? Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ who has disarmed our hostility, forgiven our sins and adopted us into His own family.
Related Articles
A Short Response to the Arminian Doctrine of Prevenient Grace by John Hendryx
Does the Bible Teach “Prevenient Grace” in the Wesleyan/Arminian Sense? by Thomas R. Schreiner
Bible Logic Fallacies of Synergism Libertarian Free Will Theism Hendryx & Smalling
Calvinism vs. Arminianism (Debate) Victor Reppert, Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Dominic Bnonn Tennant
This is massive debate between Calvinism and Arminianism that took place between (mainly) Victor Reppert, Steve Hays, Paul Manata, and Dominic Bnonn Tennant. This post will function as a (almost) one-stop shop for seeing anti-Calvinist arguments, and rebuttals to those arguments.
The Death of Death in the Death of Christ – Edited Intro
(Edited and condensed for brevity)
The doctrine of universal redemption (that Christ died for every man) is unscriptural and destructive of the gospel. This substitute product of the gospel, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. It fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be ‘helpful’ to man – to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction – and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was ‘helpful’, too – more so, indeed, than is the new – but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its center of reference was unambiguously God. The subject of the old gospel was God and his ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him.
The themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for his sheep are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not ‘helpful’; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. This half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth. We appeal to men as if they all had the ability to receive Christ at any time; we speak of his redeeming work as if he had made it possible for us to save ourselves by believing; we speak of God’s love as if it were no more than a general willingness to receive any who will turn and trust; and we depict the Father and the Son, not as sovereignly active in drawing sinners to themselves, but as waiting in quiet impotence ‘at the door of our hearts’ for us to let them in.
Arminianism stemmed from two philosophical principles: first, that divine sovereignty is not compatible with human freedom, nor therefore with human responsibility; second, that ability limits obligation. Arminians drew two deductions: first, that since the Bible regards faith as a free and responsible human act, it cannot be caused by God, but is exercised independently of him; second, that since the Bible regards faith as obligatory on the part of all who hear the gospel, ability to believe must be universal. Hence, they maintained, Scripture must be interpreted as teaching the following positions:
- Man is never so completely corrupted by sin that he cannot savingly believe the gospel when it is put before him, nor
- is he ever so completely controlled by God that he cannot reject it.
- God’s election of those who shall be saved is prompted by his foreseeing that they will of their own accord believe.
- Christ’s death did not ensure the salvation of anyone, for it did not secure the gift of faith to anyone (there is no such gift): what it did was rather to create a possibility of salvation for everyone if they believe.
- It rests with believers to keep themselves in a state of grace by keeping up their faith; those who fail here fall away and are lost. Thus, Arminianism made man’s salvation depend ultimately on man himself, saving faith being viewed throughout as man’s own work and because of his own effort, not God’s in him.
Calvinism represents its counter-affirmations. They stem from a very different principle – the biblical principle that salvation is of the Lord:
- Fallen man in his natural state lacks all power to believe the gospel, just as he lacks all power to believe the law, despite all external inducements that may be extended to him.
- God’s election is a free, sovereign, unconditional choice of sinners, as sinners, to be redeemed by Christ, given faith, and brought to glory.
- The redeeming work of Christ had as its end and goal the salvation of the elect.
- The work of the Holy Spirit in bringing men to faith never fails to achieve its object.
- Believers are kept in faith and grace by the unconquerable power of God till they come to glory.
One proclaims a God who saves; the other speaks of a God who enables man to save himself. One view presents the three great acts of the Holy Trinity for the recovering of lost mankind – election by the Father, redemption by the Son, calling by the Spirit – as directed towards the same persons, and as securing their salvation infallibly. The other view gives each act a different reference (the objects of redemption being all mankind, of calling, all who hear the gospel, and of election, those hearers who respond), and denies that man’s salvation is secured by any of them. One regards faith as part of God’s gift of salvation, the other as man’s own contribution to salvation; one gives all the glory of saving believers to God, the other divides the praise between God, who, so to speak, built the machinery of salvation, and man, who by believing operated it.
Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible – the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace. Calvinism is thus theism (belief in God as the ground of all things), religion (dependence on God as the giver of all things), and evangelicalism (trust in God through Christ for all things), all in their purest and most highly developed form. And Calvinism is a unified philosophy of history which sees the whole diversity of processes and events that take place in God’s world as no more, and no less, than the outworking of his great preordained plan for his creatures and his church. The five points assert no more than God is sovereign in saving the individual, but Calvinism, as such, is concerned with the much broader assertion that he is sovereign everywhere.
God – the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit; three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father’s will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing.
Saves – does everything, first to last, that is involved in bringing man from death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glorifies.
Sinners – men as God finds them, guilty, vile, helpless, powerless, blind, unable to lift a finger to do God’s will or better their spiritual lot.
God saves sinners – and the force of this confession may not be weakened by disrupting the unity of the work of the Trinity, or by dividing the achievement of salvation between God and man and making the decisive part man’s own, or by soft-pedaling the sinner’s inability as to allow him to share the praise of his salvation with his Savior. Sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but that salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory for ever; amen!
Arminians see God’s act of election as a resolve to receive individual persons only in virtue of God’s foreseeing the contingent fact that they will of their own accord believe. There is nothing in the decree of election to ensure that the class of believers will ever have any members; God does not determine to make any man believe. But Calvinists define election as a choice of particular undeserving persons to be saved from sin and brought to glory, and to that end to be redeemed by the death of Christ and given faith by the Spirit’s effectual calling. Where the Arminian says, ‘I owe my election to my faith’, the Calvinist says, ‘I owe my faith to my election.’ Clearly, these two concepts of election are very far apart.
Christ’s work of redemption was defined by the Arminians as the removing of an obstacle (the unsatisfied claims of justice) which stood in the way of God’s offering pardon to sinners, as he desired to do, on condition that they believe. Redemption, according to Arminianism, secured for God a right to make this offer, but did not of itself ensure that anyone would ever accept it; for faith, being a work of man’s own, is not a gift that comes to him from Calvary. Christ’s death created an opportunity for the exercise of saving faith, but that is all it did. Calvinists, however, define redemption as Christ’s substitutionary endurance of the penalty of sin in the place of certain specified sinners, through which God was reconciled to them, their liability to punishment was for ever destroyed, and a title to eternal life was secured for them. In consequence of this, they now have in God’s sight a right to the gift of faith, as the means of entry into the enjoyment of their inheritance. Calvary, in other words, not merely made possible the salvation of those for whom Christ died; it ensured that they would be brought to faith and their salvation made actual. The cross saves. Where the Arminian will only say; ‘I could not have gained my salvation without Calvary’, the Calvinist will say, ‘Christ gained my salvation for me at Calvary.’ The former makes the cross the sine qua non (the foundation) of salvation, the latter sees it as the actual procuring cause of salvation, and traces the source of every spiritual blessing, faith included, back to the great transaction between God and his Son carried through on Calvary’s hill. Clearly, these two concepts of redemption are quite at variance.
The Spirit’s gift of internal grace was defined by the Arminians as the bestowal of an understanding of God’s truth. This, they granted – indeed, insisted – does not of itself ensure that anyone will ever make the response of faith. But Calvinists define this gift as not merely an enlightening, but also a regenerating work of God in men, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. Grace proves irresistible just because it destroys the disposition to resist.
The Calvinist contends that the Arminian idea of election, redemption and calling as acts of God which do not save cuts at the very heart of their biblical meaning; that to say in the Arminian sense that God elects believers, and Christ died for all men, and the Spirit quickens those who receive the word, is really to say that in the biblical sense God elects nobody, and Christ died for nobody, and the Spirit quickens nobody.
Calvinism that insists on taking seriously the biblical assertions that God saves, and that he saves those whom he has chosen to save, and that he saves them by grace without works, so that no man may boast, and that Christ is given to them as a perfect Savior, and that their whole salvation flows to them from the cross, and that the work of redeeming them was finished on the cross. It is Calvinism that gives due honor to the cross.
The Calvinist would not say that God’s saving purpose in the death of his Son was a mere ineffectual wish, depending for its fulfillment on man’s willingness to believe, so that for all God could do, Christ might have died and none been saved at all. He insists that the Bible sees the cross as revealing God’s power to save, not his impotence. Christ did not win a hypothetical salvation for hypothetical believers, a mere possibility of salvation for any who might possibly believe, but a real salvation for his own chosen people. Its saving power does not depend on faith being added to it; its saving power is such that faith flows from it. The cross secured the full salvation of all for whom Christ died. Its central confession, that God saves sinners, that Christ redeemed us by his blood is the witness both of the Bible and of the believing heart. The Calvinist is the Christian who confesses before men in his theology just what he believes in his heart before God when he prays. He thinks and speaks at all times of the sovereign grace of God in the way that every Christian does when he pleads for the souls of others, or when he obeys the impulse of worship which rises unbidden within him, prompting him to deny himself all praise and to give all the glory of his salvation to his Savior. Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh. Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says. So that really it is most misleading to call this soteriology ‘Calvinism’ at all, for it is not a peculiarity of John Calvin and the divines of Dort, but a part of the revealed truth of God and the catholic Christian faith. ‘Calvinism’ is one of the ‘odious names’ by which down the centuries prejudice has been raised against it. But the thing itself is just the biblical gospel.
Calvinisim’s purpose is simply to make clear what Scripture actually teaches about the central subject of the gospel – the achievement of the Savior. What is the gospel? All agree that it is a proclamation of Christ as Redeemer, but there is a dispute as to the nature and extent of his redeeming work. Well, what saith the Scripture? What aim and accomplishment does the Bible assign to the work of Christ?
The extent of the atonement – involves the further question of its nature, since if it was offered to save some who will finally perish, then it cannot have been a transaction securing the actual salvation for all for whom it was designed. This, however, is precisely the kind of transaction that the Bible says it was. Scripture speaks of Christ’s redeeming work as effective, which precludes its having been intended for any who perish. If its intended extent had been universal, then either all will he saved (which Scripture denies, and the advocates of the ‘general ransom’ do not affirm), or else the Father and the Son have failed to do what they set out to do; which seems blasphemously injurious to the wisdom, power and perfection of God, as likewise derogatory to the worth and value of the death of Christ.
So far from magnifying the love and grace of God, the claim that Christ died for every man, even those who perish, dishonors both it and him, for it reduces God’s love to an impotent wish and turns the whole economy of ‘saving’ grace, so-called (‘saving’ is really a misnomer on this view), into a monumental divine failure. Also, so far from magnifying the merit and worth of Christ’s death, it cheapens it, for it makes Christ die in vain. Lastly, so far from affording faith additional encouragement, it destroys the scriptural ground of assurance altogether, for it denies that the knowledge that Christ died for me (or did or does anything else for me) is a sufficient ground for inferring my eternal salvation; my salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself.
Thus, this view takes from God’s love and Christ’s redemption the glory that Scripture gives them, and introduces the anti-scriptural principle of self-salvation at the point where the Bible explicitly says ‘not of works, lest any man should boast’.10 You cannot have it both ways: an atonement of universal extent is a depreciated atonement. It has lost its saving power; it leaves us to save ourselves. The doctrine of the general ransom must accordingly be rejected as a grievous mistake. Calvinism, however, is both biblical and God-honoring. It exalts Christ, for it teaches Christians to glory in his cross alone, and to draw their hope and assurance only from the death and intercession of their Savior. It is, in other words, genuinely evangelical.
The new gospel, insofar as it deviates from the old, seems to us a distortion of the biblical message. And we can now see what has gone wrong. Our theological currency has been debased. Our minds have been conditioned to think of the cross as a redemption which does less than redeem, and of Christ as a Savior who does less than save, and of God’s love as a weak affection which cannot keep anyone from hell without help, and of faith as the human help which God needs for this purpose. As a result, we are no longer free either to believe the biblical gospel or to preach it. We cannot believe it, because our thoughts are caught in the toils of synergism. We are haunted by the Arminian idea that if faith and unbelief are to be responsible acts, they must be independent acts; hence we are not free to believe that we are saved entirely by divine grace through a faith which is itself God’s gift and flows to us from Calvary. Instead, we involve ourselves in a bewildering kind of double-think about salvation, telling ourselves one moment that it all depends on God and next moment that it all depends on us. The resultant mental muddle deprives God of much of the glory that we should give him as author and finisher of salvation, and ourselves of much of the comfort we might draw from knowing that God is for us.
And when we come to preach the gospel, our false preconceptions make us say just the opposite of what we intend. We want (rightly) to proclaim Christ as Savior; yet we end up saying that Christ, having made salvation possible, has left us to become our own saviors. We want to magnify the saving grace of God and the saving power of Christ. So we declare that God’s redeeming love expends to everyone, and that Christ has died to save everyone, and we proclaim that the glory of divine mercy is to be measured by these facts. And then, in order to avoid universalism, we have to depreciate all that we were previously extolling, and to explain that, after all, nothing that God and Christ have done can save us unless we add something to it; the decisive factor which actually saves us is our own believing. What we say comes to this – that Christ saves us with our help; and what that means, when one thinks it out, is this – that we save ourselves with Christ’s help. But if we start by affirming that God has a saving love for all, and Christ died a saving death for all, and yet balk at becoming universalists, there is nothing else that we can say. We have not exalted grace and the cross; we have limited the atonement far more drastically than Calvinism does, for whereas Calvinism asserts that Christ’s death, as such, saves all whom it was meant to save, we have denied that Christ’s death, as such, is sufficient to save any of them. We have flattered hard-hearted, unrepentant sinners by assuring them that it is in their power to repent and believe, though God cannot make them do it. Perhaps we have also trivialized faith to make this assurance plausible (‘it’s very simple – just open your heart to the Lord . . .’). Certainly, we have effectively denied God’s sovereignty, and undermined the basic conviction of true religion – that man is always in God’s hands. In truth, we have lost a great deal. And it is, perhaps, no wonder that our preaching begets so little reverence and humility, and our professed converts are so self-confident and so deficient in self-knowledge and in the good works which Scripture regards as the fruit of true repentance.
The old gospel will lead us to bow down before a sovereign Savior who really saves, and to praise him for a redeeming death which made it certain that all for whom he died will come to glory. Christ died to save a certain company of helpless sinners upon whom God had set his free saving love. Christ’s death ensured the calling and keeping – the present and final salvation – of all whose sins he bore. That is what Calvary meant, and means. The cross saved; the cross saves.
According to Scripture, preaching the gospel is entirely a matter of proclaiming to men, as truth from God which all are bound to believe and act on, the following four facts:
- that all men are sinners, and cannot do anything to save themselves;
- that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is a perfect Savior for sinners, even the worst;
- that the Father and the Son have promised that all who know themselves to be sinners and put faith in Christ as Savior shall be received into favor, and none cast out – which promise is a certain infallible truth, grounded upon the superabundant sufficiency of the offering of Christ in itself, for whomsoever it be intended
- that God has made repentance and faith a duty, requiring of every man who hears the gospel a serious full denial of self and a reliance upon Christ in the promise of the gospel, as an all-sufficient Savior, able to deliver and save to the utmost them that come to God by him; ready, able and willing, through the preciousness of his blood and sufficiency of his ransom, to save every soul that shall freely give up themselves unto him for that end.
The old gospel, certainly, has no room for the cheap sentimentalizing which turns God’s free mercy to sinners into a constitutional soft heartedness on his part which we can take for granted; nor will it countenance the degrading presentation of Christ as the baffled Savior, balked in what he hoped to do by human unbelief; nor will it indulge in maudlin appeals to the unconverted to let Christ save them out of pity for his disappointment. The pitiable Savior and the pathetic God of modern pulpits are unknown to the old gospel. The old gospel tells men that they need God, but not that God needs them (a modern falsehood); it does not exhort them to pity Christ, but announces that Christ has pitied them, though pity was the last thing they deserved. It never loses sight of the divine majesty and sovereign power of the Christ whom it proclaims, but rejects flatly all representations of him which would obscure his free omnipotence.
This offer is itself a far more wonderful thing on his principles than it can ever be in the eyes of those who regard love to all sinners as a necessity of God’s nature, and therefore a matter of course. To think that the holy Creator, who never needed man for his happiness and might justly have banished our fallen race forever without mercy, should actually have chosen to redeem some of them! And that his own Son was willing to undergo death to save them!
We saw before that the new gospel, by asserting universal redemption and a universal divine saving purpose, compels itself to cheapen grace and the cross by denying that the Father and the Son are sovereign in salvation; for it assures us that, after God and Christ have done all that they can, or will, it depends finally on each man’s own choice whether God’s purpose to save him is realized or not.
This position compels us to misunderstand the significance of the gracious invitations of Christ in the gospel of which we have been speaking; for we now have to read them, not as expressions of the tender patience of a mighty Sovereign, but as the pathetic pleadings of impotent desire; and so the enthroned Lord is suddenly metamorphosed into a weak, futile figure tapping forlornly at the door of the human heart, which he is powerless to open. This is a shameful dishonor to the Christ of the New Testament. This view in effect denies our dependence on God when it comes to vital decisions, takes us out of his hand, tells us that we are, after all, what sin taught us to think we are – masters of our fate, captain of our souls – and so undermines the very foundation of man’s religious relationship with his Maker. It can hardly be wondered at that the converts of the new gospel are so often both irreverent and irreligious, for such is the natural tendency of this teaching.
The old gospel, however, speaks very differently and has a very different tendency. On the one hand, in expounding man’s need for Christ, it stresses something which the new gospel effectively ignores – that sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart. On the other hand, on declaring Christ’s power to save, it proclaims him as the Author and Chief Agent of conversion, coming by his Spirit as the gospel goes forth to renew men’s hearts and draw them to himself. It announces, not merely that men must come to Christ for salvation, but also that cannot come unless Christ himself draws them. Thus it labors to overthrow self-confidence, to convince sinners that their salvation is altogether out of their hands, and to shut them up to a self-despairing dependence on the glorious grace of a sovereign Savior, not only for their righteousness but for their faith too.
To the question; ‘What must I do to be saved?’, the old gospel replies: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the further question; ‘what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?’, its reply is: it means knowing oneself to be a sinner, and Christ to have died for sinners; abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence, and casting oneself wholly upon him for pardon and peace; and exchanging one’s natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of one’s heart by the Holy Ghost. And to the further question still, ‘How am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting, if I have no natural ability to do these things?’, it answers: look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on his mercy; ask him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write his law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from him. Turn to him and trust him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly; use the means of grace expectantly, looking to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to him; watch, pray, and read and hear God’s word, worship and commune with God’s people, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a changed being, a penitent believer, and the new heart which you desired has been put within you. The emphasis in this advice is on the need to call upon Christ directly, as the very first step.
The preaching of the new gospel is often described as the task of ‘bringing men to Christ’ – as if only men move, while Christ stands still. But the task of preaching the old gospel could more properly be described as bringing Christ to men, for those who preach it know that as they do their work of setting Christ before men’s eyes, the mighty Savior whom they proclaim is busy doing his work through their words, visiting sinners with salvation, awakening them to faith, drawing them in mercy to himself. This is the gospel of the sovereign grace of God in Christ as the Author and Finisher of faith and salvation.
