I heard a great explaination of Calvinism today that I thought I’d oversimplify. It was taken from Greg Koukle’s July 7 Stand to Reason Podcast.*
Someone asked him if he was a five point Calvinist. First off, there is no other kind of Calvinist(I’m sure I’m missing something here. I’m not a vigilant student of the issue so you’ll have to take his word for it). If you understand fully what the five points of Calvinism are, J. I. Packer summarizes by saying it is the God saves sinners. Secondly, he wanted to clarify exactly what is and what IS NOT a Calvinist.
Calvinism is not to be confused with determinism. He states that many people believe that the alternatives are simple, if you believe in pre-destination, you cannot believe in free-will since all our decisions have been made for us in advance. There is more to it and to make his point, he asks two very simple questions;
1) Have you ever willfully chosen to sin when you could have chosen not to sin? Yes, both human experience and the Bible tell us this.
2) Is it possible to chose to never sin? No. If you have doubts about this, read Romans 7.
So, in the first sense, we exercise our free-will to sin (although this is not true in every circumstance), but in the second sense, it was inevitable that we WOULD sin. And it is our sin that separates us from God.
The whole world has chosen to sin when they could have done otherwise, so God sent Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sins and extends that free-will choice to all of us. But not everyone will choose to accept his free gift and this is where election/pre-destination comes into play. God knows who will and who will not choose him and therefore extends this grace to those who will accept it.
I’ll insert my own thoughts here. Regarding this whole issue, I’ve preferred to stand on the sidelines during said debates. Since I don’t have the answer key to who is and is not ‘elect,’ I assume EVERYONE is ‘elect’ and if they are not to the point of salvation, I try to influence their free will toward the choice of salvation.
Thoughts? Don’t be shy in making comments.
Grace and Peace.
*Anyone unfamiliar with Stand to Reason, it is a fantanstic apologetic ministry. They teach a great method of discussing faith and philosophy without beating people over the head with the bible (most times, I find that beating people with anything is counterproductive…most times)
July 17, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Whose blog is this? Yours or Greg Koule’s?
Seriously though, good stuff, heartily agree.
Maybe we have choice, maybe we have the illusion of choice – if the illusion is convincing enough, what’s the difference?
July 17, 2008 at 7:09 pm
What difference would it make if it’s an illusion of choice given we can’t see into the future? If I make a decision, God already knows what it will be. If I could see into the future, I might alter my decisions, but God still would have known it, or even cause it to happen. So, I know that I have been chosen by God, etc, but I still live and make decisions because I have free-will.
July 19, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Christopher you are too funny! I love this topic. As you sit on the side lines I do have a question of my own…Isn’t the elect those in Christ that have already accepted Him as their savior, not those who haven’t or have yet…And I must say I love the fact of free will being our choice. As for us choosing our paths God lets them play out for us not that He should find out what we will do, but so that WE may find out what WE did and learn from it…Yeah I am not a theologine (and I can’t spell either).
August 26, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Actually, you don’t need to know ahead of time who will accept you to give grace, you just need a person’s current heart, so I don’t see the tie-in.
Personally, I don’t believe in double-predestination. It basically puts us in the position of Oedipus and the Greek Tragedies where no matter how much we try to honor and love our parents we end up murdering and defiling them because we have no choice. Fate has decided so just do as the Stoics or Islam asserts and follow your fate because resistance will only bring you more sorrow.
The only way, double-predestination makes sense to me is if it gives us the free will to choose God, so that God can choose us with his Grace. I’m not a universalist, but if double-predestination were true, then George Mac Donald (who asserted that Hell only exists to correct our flaws) would be the only way I could see free will and double-predestination working out non-Stoicly. God’s will is stronger than ours, so if we don’t “mature” on earth, we have an infinite amount of time to realize that God’s way is the right way and ultimately choosing him.
Or am I still misunderstanding Calvin and it’s relation to the Oedipus Tragedy? I’d love to get this worked out because I’m going to and volunteering in a Presbyterian church that I love and this is the one issue is a major thorn in my side.
August 27, 2008 at 4:48 am
The tie-in with knowing (or judging) who may or may not be ‘elect’ can effect how I (or other Christians) may choose to serve someone or a group of people. Christians in the past have made the mistake of making the judgement that someone is not ‘elect’ and writing them off as a lost cause. May I never make that judgement since I am not God and continue to serve as though every person who is not saved yet, may be moved closer to salvation because of my testimony/service/walk with God.
Comparing Oedepious to God’s soveriegn is good comparison but only to a point. Since the fall, every human is destined to rebel again God. Just like Oedepious, there is nothing we can do to stop this. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. But God, in his loving grace, gave his son to take the place of our destination, (is this the ‘double pre-destination’ you are referring to? I am unfamiliar with it).
Maybe a further oversimplification may explain God’s sovereignty in this respect, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” God offers living water to everyone(there is a verse here somewhere-forgive me for not having the time to find it), but he ultimately knows who will drink and who will refuse.
We see in scripture that there are 2 realms of God’s will; his moral will and his sovereign will. Our responsibility is to live according to his moral will, knowing that we cannot change his sovereign will but having faith that he knows better than we do. It’s clear in scripture that we do not have another lifetime to choose to receive grace. Our job is not to judge who is and is not saved (seeing God’s soverign will), but know that ultimately he knows, and we don’t; he is all seeing and we are limited in our view.
Not sure if I’m talking in circles (I’m on 4 hours sleep because of our newborn). As I stated in my blog, I don’t pay a lot of attention to this theological argument too much because I want to keep the main thing the main thing; Christ died to save sinners. I understand that you want to be in agreement with your churches theology before serving however, 1 Corinthians 12-14 makes it abundantly clear that first and foremost, the unity of the Church is paramount and, unless your church is teaching something other than the basic tennants of the Christian faith (this NOT being one of them) you should do what you can to serve the bride of Christ. I myself am not in 100% agreement with my church’s doctrine, but they keep Christ at the center of everything they do and I serve with passion because I am part of the Bride. I wouldn’t want to tell the Bridegroom (Christ) that I couldn’t serve his bride (the church) because of their theology.
I don’t want to belittle your struggle. More than anything I want to advocate for putting theological issues like this in their proper place, making sure that the unity of the church and the spreading of the Gospel remains at the forefront.
Thanks for your comment.
August 30, 2008 at 2:36 am
Thanks for your answers.
Of course, God is sovereign…he runs the show and can do whatever he wants. And this won’t stop me volunteering or staying with my church.
My problem with double-predestination can be restated as this:
1) God is involved in birth, so he could arrange it so Cain was not born but Able was. If he knew ahead of time, Cain and all those that would deny God’s grace would need not have been born.
2) God knew Satan would fall, so he could have chosen not to create him in the first place.
3) God knew Adam would fall, so he could have made Adam differently.
3a) If he could not because the fall was necessary, then we’re lead to the “Fortunate Fall” for Christ’s redemptiom.
3b) If the fall was unavoidable, since Adam had free will and saw God and thus had the possibility of sin, how do we know we won’t fall in Heaven when we are with God?
Given the above, either you have to adopt some very non-Calvinistic doctrines are accept that God is the author of evil.
Neither mesh with the Bible.
The problem disappears, if you allow God some voluntary ignorance, for the same reason that a parent may voluntarily not read the diary of his/her child when
he/she is at school….you can’t claim to have trust in a child without actually demonstrating it,
It’s not as if this is without precedent. To become mortal and save us, Jesus fully “emptied himself”, so why couldn’t he partially empty himself a bit at creation to allow himself to truly have non manipulative a relationship with us?