Problems with Calvinism by Colin Nunn
Greg Dutcher, a Calvinist, authored a book “Killing Calvinism”, dealing with some problems within the Calvinist movement. I acknowledge that Dutcher seeks to be aware of some of the unacceptable attitudes of Calvin-followers, and offers advice that he believes might mitigate wrong behaviour resulting from those attitudes. However I find that he, like most Calvinists also has a mind-set that detracts from a true understanding of God, and is quite ready to inflict his mistaken beliefs upon the unaware. In this book he wrote that he was swayed toward Calvinism by a friend who asked him “Does anyone deserve to be in Heaven?” ”Of course not” he replied. The friend’s next question that became a “stone” in the author’s shoe as he described it; was “Then why are you so bent out of shape if some people get grace and everyone else gets what they deserve?” The friend said “Nobody’s getting shafted.”
I’m concerned by the failure of
Calvinists and those under Calvinist influences to see past this kind of
leading question and their willing submission to the influence of peers,
Church, Pastors, teachers etc., without looking further and deeper into the
scriptural implications and morality of the subject. To be swayed by a
question like this is to vitiate scripture and place it secondary to man’s reason.
It’s hard not to believe that the influence of peers, and Church has more to do
with the decision Dutcher made than does scripture. Apart from the fact
that the questions and statement impugn the honour and reputation of the God
that made these people and the God they truly desire to honour, they’re sadly, blind
to the true spiritual situation and man’s relationship with God.
After this experience, Dutcher’s
“switch to Calvinism” as he called it took place when only half-way through the
first chapter of R.C. Sproul’s book “Chosen by God”. He quotes Sproul: “Reluctantly,
I sighed and surrendered, but with my head, not my heart. OK, I believe
this stuff, but I don’t have to like it” he said. Duther accepted the
doctrine based upon this human reasoning. So Calvin-followers such as
Sproul go on (unwittingly I like to think) undermining the faith of new
converts to Christianity and causing dishonour to the God that ought to be
honoured by them.
I
have to ask why is it that pre-Calvinist Christians such as Sproul and Dutcher,
until they surrendered to Calvinistic influence, reacted negatively to this
particular doctrine – that of limited atonement? Why is it that they reacted to
the unfairness of what the Calvinists claim about God’s absolute rejection of
some and complete acceptance of others merely on His arbitrary decision, giving
those He rejects no opportunity to repent to salvation? Remember
that these pre-Calvinists were Christians at that time and therefore were
possibly developing tender consciences under God’s influence. Many who
later fall for the reformed doctrine are at first uncomfortable with the idea
that God only chooses to save some; and that He calls those chosen people only,
influences them to repent and ensures that they and they only persevere to full
salvation. The struggling believers, hearing this dogma, pressured to go along
with their friends, or pastors or church expectations, find themselves having
to harden their hearts and minds and accept a horrifying proposition.
This
proposition is one in which those who are not chosen, are rejected and will
suffer in Hell forever because they were born sinful, inheriting the blame as
it were for the failing of their fore-father Adam, and these same lost souls can
do nothing but choose to sin because of the sin-nature they inherit from that
unfortunate ancestor. Does God not care about the unsaved? It seems
not if these followers of Calvin are correct.
It would seem though that even the hardest of heart of any of these new
believers, (at least until they fall into the Calvinist trap) will cry out for
the salvation of all men, or at least that they are genuinely offered
salvation. Are these people more caring than God, or more aware of the injustice
of the situation than God is? The upshot of the struggle is that in order
to accept the doctrine, they seem to harden their hearts as it were and become very
willing to leave the non-elect to their fate. They tend to say “God must
be right in whatever He decides. So long
as I’m alright, let the rest be lost for eternity. It’s God’s prerogative”.
There is a temptation to rest on the Calvinistic election/perseverance teachings,
and put honesty and truth aside for the sake of comfort.
The
idea that every person born into Adam’s race is sinful, and therefore deserves
to be tormented in Hell forever, somehow doesn’t fit in with the general theme
of scripture – at least in the way that Calvinists would believe, nor does it
fit with what new believers are led to understand when they are first
introduced to the Gospel. In fact, Reformed people often tend to avoid
the subject of pre-selection until the person is a convinced believer in Jesus,
and then begin to apply the pressure to conform to their particular dogma.
Yes,
men are all born with a sin-nature, and their works are repugnant to God.
Yes, they all have chosen to sin, because that sin-nature, one they had no say
in choosing, causes them to conform to itself. All of this is true
according to scripture. But I think the error is in the Calvinist presumption
that God cannot remain sovereign while at the same time calling and allowing
men to choose or reject salvation. Calvinists limit God by denying this
possibility.
One
danger with Calvinism is that in order to fit in with the prevailing doctrine
of the peer-group, or the local congregation to which we belong, and because of
the pressure applied by the preaching of Calvinism as being the true and only Gospel,
we are strongly tempted, coerced and persuaded to conform. The pressure can
come from Church, friends, or pastor. By yielding and conforming, and also
by pressuring others to do so, we ignore very serious and severe scriptural and
spiritual facts. These facts reveal God
to be greater, wiser, and more equitable than the followers of Calvin would
have it. (Dutcher regards Calvinism as the Gospel and the Gospel as
taught by the Apostle Paul as Calvinism, which is disturbing).
The
possibility is, and my experience with most Calvinists is that there is a
tendency to look to their reformed doctrine to see what the Bible says about
any matter rather than the other way round. This seems evident when they
are challenged in their beliefs – they seem to close their minds to awkward
questions, mould scripture to fit their doctrine and draw attention away from
those subjects that are uncomfortable for them by using what I believe to be inappropriate
questions or statements.
It
would be mistaken to suggest that Calvinists generally don’t have a knowledge
of scripture. Most do. For those with scriptural knowledge, and a
perspective that must be defended, the enticement to manipulate scripture, can
be powerful. This is evident in the many sects that operate on the verge of
Christianity. The “defence of the faith”
even from the Reformed point of view, can lead to claims of near-inerrancy. Calvin himself coordinated scripture to fit
into what he thought to be a logical set of doctrines. He succeeded in connecting and bringing
together the general reformist sympathies and producing what was acclaimed by
many of the reformers to be an accurate and more importantly, a logical
creed. But in order to accomplish this,
he found it necessary to come to conclusions that suggested a ruthlessness in
God. As a consequence of being faced with
the requirement to make his doctrines fit together in what he believed was a
logical way, Calvin could only solve the conflict between sin, death, salvation
and God’s will by the extreme interpretation of certain hard-to-explain Bible
passages.
Calvin-followers
Idolators?
Sadly,
many Calvinist young men, though they don’t recognise it, seem set on placing
Calvin's words above those of others; even Jesus. Their whole lives are
Calvinist. They live and breathe Calvin - when they speak, teach, and
preach they live, speak, teach and preach Calvin - especially his doctrine of
predestination. Just recently, a young man from a reformed doctrine centred
theological college, preached at my Church. The very first thing he spoke of
was the fact that few are chosen and what a privilege it is to be one of the
elect. He quoted figures of around 3.5% of the population being Protestant
and not all of them saved. He indicated that it is a wonderful thing that
God has chosen the elect out of the world of sinners, purely arbitrarily.
He dismissed the 96.5% that will burn in Hell forever. His attitude
seemed to be that what is important is that we should rejoice at being the
chosen. Then he began to defend his fellow Calvinists; telling us that
they are committed to preaching the gospel - this to disprove many accusations
to the contrary. Instead of preaching about Jesus, he was keen on the
defence of the faith - the Calvinist faith.
Is
God unfair?
Many
non-Calvinists argue that for a righteous and loving God to create men, in the
state of sin knowingly, (He is our all-knowing all-powerful Creator even though
we are sinners), and then to condemn them for the sinful state and for the sins
committed under the influence and control of that sinful nature, is unfair. They would also claim that for God to condemn
those people for the fact they continue in acting out the sinful nature they
were born with as a consequence of God’s will is also unfair. They would
also understand that if Calvinists are correct, those unsaved have no
possibility of turning to God or repenting from that sin because God will not
save them. He has pre-determined that
these people are to be treated as vessels fit for destruction, though they had
no say in the whole transaction. This
too is unfair from the non-Calvinist point of view.
R.
C. Sproul has said in answer to that claim; “Who says that God has to be
fair?” With this one question he asks all to re-evaluate their
understanding of God's character. He and those that follow Calvin are
quite at ease with the anomaly that a God of love creates us knowingly in a
state that causes us to sin, and then blames us for the resulting sin.
That’s quite fair of God according to them because His fairness is obviously
different to, and in fact if Calvin was correct, inferior to or lesser than the
fairness which He requires of us. Don’t our hearts quail at the thought
of this unfairness (as Dutcher’s and Sproul’s did pre-Calvinism)? Isn’t
there a much higher requirement of God in the minds and hearts of the average
believer and non-believer? Isn’t there often a strong resistance in the hearts
of even those that would eventually accept this Calvinistic doctrine, until
they finally fall for the bait-and-switch trap; (ask the wrong questions, then
offer the wrong solutions;)? They draw
attention to the hopelessness of the situation, offer the questionable TULIP
doctrine as the solution to the perceived quandary and the new believers
unwittingly comply and fit in with the peer group. Is this doctrine morally
and scripturally correct? Is it not perhaps possible that they may be
wrong? Is not God’s love, sovereignty and solution greater than man’s doctrines
would have it?
The
basic reason given in the Old Testament for God’s condemnation of Israel is that
of refusing to listen to, trust, and obey Him, and rarely is there even the mention
of inbred sin. How can they obey God while they have sinful natures?
According to Calvin, men can only believe, turn to God, and obey, if God’s
Spirit draws them, converts them, and keeps them through to glorification,
(which teaching is only partly correct). Yet to the honest reader, God is
angry at sinners in the O. T. scriptures for their disobedience and their
refusal to trust Him, not for their sin-nature, but for choices they
made. According to Reformist doctrine, these people could do nothing else
but obey their natures – they couldn’t help but disobey. This is especially true of those whom God had
declared through prophecy would fail.
Does this Calvin myth not show Him to be inconsistent if it were correct?
It’s worse than expecting a pet dog to live and speak and act like a man and punishing
him for failing. God is not inconsistent - unless you are a convinced
Calvinist.
A
Calvinist Pastor admitted recently that the Old Testament reveals that God
doesn’t lay the blame for the father’s sins upon their sons because He is not
unjust. The inference was that He would
be unjust to do so. Rather, those that listen to God and obey Him will be
accepted by Him. (The soul who sins
shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the
father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous
shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself,
Ezek 18:20 – note words like ‘the righteous’ and ‘the wicked’. Thus this Calvinist pastor showed that he
agreed with the need for God to be fair when it suited the teaching situation,
yet he has not acknowledged the same principle in relation to the most basic of
problems – those of original sin and pre-election.
If
we take a truthful look at Calvinist teaching, we’ll see that according to that
doctrine, God’s love is limited - limited such that it applies to only some of
mankind, though those Calvinists are unwilling usually to concede this in such
a straight-forward, honest, open way. They preach a false call to all of
mankind, but an effective call to those that are chosen. They believe that He
only chooses to save a handful from among the desperately sinful hordes of wicked
mankind. Then they profess that
His unlimited love is demonstrated by saving to the uttermost those that He
does decide to save.
See
Romans 2:5-11 But
because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up
wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment
will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they
have done. 7 To those who by
persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give
eternal life. 8 But for those who are
self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and
anger. 9 There will be trouble and
distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the
Gentile; 10 but glory, honour and peace
for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favouritism.
God doesn’t show favouritism – all are
treated alike with equal fairness and justice by God. Note that God’s anger is because of an
unrepentant heart, self-seeking, rejection of truth, and following evil. Note also that there will be trouble and
distress for those that do evil, and that there will be glory, honour and peace
for those that do good. This seems to be
the general teaching of scripture to those that look honestly at the overall
picture. This and
many other passages of scripture, tend to be interpreted according to the need
to fit the doctrine, rather than to seek to understand what Paul was actually
telling the readers of that day. The Calvinist
is enticed from grasping the overall picture and focus of the Bible in order to
fit it within the ‘logical’ framework of the reformed doctrine. The end result is a gross misrepresentation
of God’s justice, love and mercy, and a dishonouring of God.
2
Peter 3:15-17 tells us the following: v15 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also
wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way
in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some
things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable
people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own
destruction. 17
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that
you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. That secure position refers to not only our
assurance of salvation, but our understanding of scripture. Our understanding can be shunted aside into
dead-end sidings and off the main line of truth by wresting the scriptures to
our own satisfaction, and possibly destruction, for wrong but unseen
motives. Faith can mistakenly be centred
upon doctrine rather than the Word of God.
The
hard to understand passages of Holy Scripture, such those that speak about a
pre-selection and God’s ‘hating’ of Esau, etc., can be understood differently
to what Calvin believed them to mean. It’s important that they fit into the
overall leanings of the Holy Word which tends very plainly to the fact that
men’s wills and the choices they are allowed to make are what decide their
fates. Should we wrongly adjust the
whole of our understanding of God – His nature, justice, love, mercy and what
the rest of scripture tells us clearly of Him?
Should we rethink our understanding of such vital subjects in order to
fit in with what a few inscrutable passages seem to say on the surface? This requires us to overlook or change our whole
understanding of the Bible and our appreciation of God’s nature and His
attitude and His treatment of mankind in order to conform to a handful of
passages that may be understood otherwise.
Calvin
followers in accordance with their revered (and sometimes it seems worshipped)
leader Calvin, refuse to consider or even think about the fact that there are those
that have had no chance to repent or be saved and who must suffer eternal fires
for a choice that was made for them, both by Adam and by God. This awkward
quandary is usually avoided by making astounding statements such as that by
R.C. Sproul that God doesn’t have to be fair. I have listened to Sproul and
noted that he centres his lectures only on those issues he wishes to emphasise
while avoiding the hard questions and problems that arise, using red-herring
type questions and statements to draw attention from the more important or
relevant matters with which he fails to deal.
God
doesn’t have to be fair? If He is consistent then He is fair. Does
He not expect us to be fair? Our fairness is a reflection of the light of
Christ in us, and of the life of God in us. Not only is God fair but He
is trustworthy as well. When He says God is not willing that any man
should perish but that all should come to repentance, is He genuine? Of
course He is. Why then, if the Calvinists are correct, does He not bring all to
repentance, unless it’s because they have some say in it? One Calvinist said “II
Peter 3:9 cannot mean that God is earnestly wishing or striving to save all
individual men. For if it were His will that every individual of mankind should
be saved, then not one soul could be lost. "For who hath resisted his
will?" (Rom. 9:19).”
Could
it not be that He actually truly allows men to make choices, and that those
actual choices, (man’s limited understanding aside), do not interfere with His
overall will? Is He so limited as to be unable to do so? Is He
limited to the logic of man’s theology? When He says Come unto me all
you who… does He really mean “well – not really all of you – only
those that I choose to care about”? What about the many verses such as Luke 13:34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How
often would I have gathered your children
together as a hen gathers her brood under her
wings, and you would not!. Of course
they could not if the Calvin heresy is true – they could not because God
had pre-determined their reaction and destiny, and therefore Jesus wasn’t
stating the full truth but was insincere. But in fact He said “you would
not” indicating the will. How many passages are there in scripture in
which God makes this same kind of appeal to men to repent and turn to Him but
their choices prevent it?
The
sovereignty of God
The
Calvinist would claim that if men are making decisions as to salvation or
belief, then God is not sovereign. They
would argue that because God predestines men such as Jacob for salvation and
rejects people such as Esau before either was even created, it proves that they
were fore-chosen to either die as sinners or be saved through the Cross by
faith. But fore-knowledge is not the same as fore-choosing and election does
not rule out choice. Fore-knowledge
means that He foreknew who would or would not choose correctly – those whose
hearts would open to truth and those whose hearts would close to Him. God
is outside of time – He created time. He is in the ever-present now and
looks at time in a way that our tiny minds cannot grasp. How can man
think God must be limited in some way because of their “logic”? There is
only one thing that God cannot do – and that is to sin. It’s not in His
nature to sin. This doesn’t limit God, but is part of His perfection.
The
worldly-wise man would state “God can’t make a round square” and think that he
is absolutely correct in this statement, thereby limiting God. But God
created maths and squares and circles and all of the principles that are
operating in this universe. He is not limited in any way by His creation,
and is not subject to the principles He created, and I have no reason to doubt
that He can easily make a round square in some incredible way that our tiny imaginations
and understanding can't grasp. So too God can see all of our future
from the point of view of His now, and is not limited by time in any way. Thus He accepts those that obey Him in faith,
calling them the ‘elect’ as He says “Well done good and faithful servants”.
Remember that Abram believed God and his obedience was what demonstrated his
belief. Did God take over Abraham’s
will? Was Abraham a robot? Why did God choose him – because he was
simply unable to express his own will?
Or was it because he responded to God’s promises and acted on that faith
– an act of will?
We
do need to remember though, that God is honourable and His nature will cause
Him to do good, and be loving and fair. After all – “God is love” – not
“Partially Love”. God is not limited to the doctrines of men – those creeds
that would make Him a lesser God than He really is. Fortunately He is
immeasurably higher and wiser and greater than anything our weak and limited imagination
and wisdom can even begin to imagine or grasp and He, not man’s theology, calls
the shots. I’m sure that those that follow Calvin will be surprised when
God calls us home, and we finally begin to see clearly what God is like.
Each and every one of us will finally apprehend that God’s great love, mercy
and grace is even greater than we or Calvin ever envisaged and that we never
ever came close to knowing Him as He really is and we never were able to grasp
more than a smidgen of His greatness nor of His love and compassion. At that time we will also better understand
about the lost, and why they were lost.
We shouldn’t try to encompass God’s whys and wherefores with our limited
sinful, foolish earthly minds, nor restrict those matters to the logic of our
doctrines. Instead we desperately need
to humbly recognise our acute limitations.
That
man who challenged Dutcher (mentioned at the beginning of this letter), seems
to be rather callous in his statement: “nobody gets shafted”. It’s easy
for any person who gives it a moment’s honest consideration, to conclude that
everyone that is not offered the possibility of salvation is certainly getting
shafted – that is if Dutcher’s friend is correct in his beliefs. It means
that millions of people are born with sinful natures not by their own choice,
but by the choice and will of God and by the sin-choice of Adam their
fore-father. Only a handful (by comparison), of those millions of people
have the possibility of being saved from the terrifying Hell that God has proclaimed
for them - not one of the non-elect is given a choice in the matter in any way,
shape or form. It’s hard not to believe that they are being ‘shafted’ if
reformists are correct. His presumption is wrong – that a man that is
created sinful deserves to fry in Hell forever in fearful torment without hope
of salvation. God also believes this would be wrong and offers choices to
men.
There
is no difficulty believing that God is able to remain sovereign while at the
same time giving men choices. Even a normal human household can
demonstrate this truth to some degree. Parents control their children,
allow them choices, and yet retain authority over them. In fact children become mature by the
experiences of life, and the choices they make. Some of these children end up coming to a
dreadful end because of wrong choices. For children to become mature they must
face the making of choices and either grow and prosper or become poorer by
their choices. So too men must become mature through choices allotted to
them by God. I don’t see any difficulty in believing that God can allow a man
to choose this day whom he will serve and God still be in control. In
fact God Gives people choices like this over and over again in the Bible, but
followers of Calvin seem to be blinded to, or reject the fact in order to
remain loyal to their Calvinist commitment.
God’s
ability to retain authority while letting His creatures make choices, reveals
Him as far greater than the Calvinist obviously can imagine (limited as he is
by this doctrine). Calvin restricts God to not being able to allow true
choices while still retaining His sovereignty. What a limited God the
TULIP teachers preach. God is not allowed to be what they say He can’t
be. God has to be as Calvin says He is, therefore His love is limited to
only a few people. To admit that His saving love encompasses. or is
offered to all mankind, is to endanger the teaching and destroy the logic.
To claim that God’s power and will would be thwarted by those that choose to accept
or refuse Him, and that thereby God would somehow be a lesser or weaker God is
to lack understanding of the true unlimited greatness of God.
Why
is it so hard to imagine that God can draw us and bring us to the knowledge of
the need for something far greater than our earthly life, our experiences and
abilities can provide for us, and with that drawing toward Him and that wakened
awareness given by His spirit, He can make us sensitive to our great need for
His salvation through Jesus Christ alone? Why can He not allow us when
awakened, to choose to turn to Him in the desperate need that He has
revealed? Why is it so hard to grasp that by choosing to turn to Him in
our awakened desperation and embracing His salvation, we don’t save ourselves
as the Calvinist would claim, but are saved by the very love and mercy of
God? A man that calls for help and is saved from a dangerous rip by a
surf-lifesaver would not claim he saved himself. Neither would the sinner
who is saved by God’s grace, stand before God, proudly beat his chest and make
such an obviously silly claim. Somehow God is able in spite of the
limitations of the Calvinist’s thinking, to save through the giving of a choice
to men while warning them of the dire consequences of rejecting that salvation.
Why
do Calvinists seek to decrease the power of God by subscribing to and insisting
upon the restrictions decreed by their doctrine? His overwhelming word to all mankind is
the call to repent. God is able to be sovereign and still allow a free-will
choice in this respect. Is He insincere? Does He call us to repent
when most are not able to? Does He laugh up His sleeve at us, knowing
that we are helpless and unable? This
doctrine dishonours God, limits His power and His love, and seeks to make His
word untrustworthy.
Choices
in the Heavenlies:
Did
Satan choose to sin, or was he created sinful? Could he and his cohorts have
chosen not to rebel against God or was there no choice for them? It seems
that God’s sovereignty is not endangered by His heavenly, spiritual creatures
making choices to either follow and obey, or not to follow and obey God, out of
what is clearly their own volition. Those that serve God, would be in
violation of God’s sovereignty according to the Calvinist position. If the
God-fearing angels made choices to obey God, then they must be saving
themselves, being at least in possession of their own holiness and therefore
are personally outside of the conforming influence and the sovereignty of
God. God gives choices to principalities and powers, by which they
themselves decide their own fates, making choices either to serve and obey Him
or to turn away from and disobey Him. Man was made a little lower than the
angels and surely man too is able to make choices once made aware of, or at
least warned of his need. Where is the threat to God’s sovereignty in
this? Had Adam obeyed, would he have saved himself, and was his obedience
for a time, proof of personal holiness and worthiness, or was God’s gracious
love and acceptance what truly would have been his holiness and his salvation?
Why, if God’s sovereignty is challenged by His creatures making correct
or incorrect choices, is He not somehow a lesser God if the sinning angels
defied Him and the loyal angels chose to obey Him, and would He not be a lesser
God if Adam had obeyed Him and sustained his own holiness, (according to the
logic of Calvin)? To claim or believe
that God made the angels such that they could only obey Him would require that
He also must have made the sinning angels such that they could only sin. This is a doctrinal step in a totally
dangerous and wrong direction.
We are speaking about the greatest power,
mind, love and wisdom in existence – the only real totally independent
self-sustaining power, the power that is entirely other. How can any man,
or for that matter any angel, challenge the incredibly unimaginably awesome
Creator by whom he was brought into existence? He may assume he might do
so, but God’s final judgement will reveal to him his utter foolishness and the
impossibility of his sacrilegious desires. There will be no threat to the
Almighty. How will any man or being stand before the Almighty Creator God
and proudly claim, “I am independent of you – I saved myself”? The scene
itself will allow no such arrogance by men. The whole of scripture and
common sense must clearly show that when men come before the awesome Might, holiness
and splendour of God, they will fall on their faces, understand just how horribly
sinful, tiny and insignificant they are, and unless they have sought the
cleansing of salvation through Jesus the Son, will grovel at His feet. Men will
take nothing from His sovereignty in spite of being allowed choices. How
can any man ever displace or dislodge the Almighty or share in His glory in any
way, shape or form, considering who God is and what we are, and why would this
great Almighty God be in any way bothered by such silliness? The kings of the earth set themselves, and
the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying “Let us burst their bonds apart and
cast away their cords from us”. He who sits in the heavens
laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Who can challenge God, or claim
any worth before God?
The
Heathen
The
many heathen that have through the centuries and even today, missed out on
hearing the Gospel, are sometimes postulated as proof that only some will be
offered salvation through Jesus Christ. If all are offered a choice, then
all of the heathen, not just a few, must need also to hear the Gospel through
missionaries etc. But because they haven’t all heard the Gospel, they
have no hope according to the Calvinist, and can’t make choices – therefore are
lost forever. This is in accordance with the doctrine of limited
atonement. Is God’s atonement really limited in this way though? The Jews
of the Old Testament never really heard the Gospel, or understood it, yet they
were saved through the blood of Christ in and through faith in the Messiah to
come, not knowing what or how that salvation would actually occur. Had
they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Genesis
4:26 tells us that men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Were they not saved, or could they not have
been saved? Then and in other times
there have been many that have desired to know God, and those that did have
that desire, were saved by faith in the Son of God Who influenced them through
His Spirit centuries before He walked on the earth. They didn’t have
perfect knowledge, and hadn’t heard the gospel as such, but they had hearts
that thirsted for truth and were ready to embrace what limited truth God
revealed to them. God Himself will not be limited by our understanding
nor by our assertions about God’s intentions toward those heathen that might
not hear the Gospel clearly or fully.
It
is possible that though the heathen don’t hear the Bible from the mouths of
missionaries, they, isolated and alone in a Spirit evoked desire for truth, and
with a keen sense of a need for more understanding may be saved by the grace of
God through the death of Jesus, even though they haven’t heard the Gospel as
such. God, if He so wishes it, is capable of knowing the hearts of men,
and saving those that would respond to the Gospel if given the
opportunity. Our place is to do what we can to spread the Gospel because
that is what He has revealed to us and desires us to do, not to second-guess
Him or seek to arrogantly hold Him to our theology. Any people that we do not see come under conviction
by the Spirit through our influence can be left to the mercy of God in His
wisdom and will. Nevertheless, the
heathen do have a witness to God’s existence and power:
Romans chapter 1:18-24 (GW)
says: God's anger
is revealed from heaven against every ungodly and immoral thing people do as
they try to suppress the truth by their immoral living What can be known
about God is clear to them because he has made it clear to them. From the
creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly observed in what he made. As a result, people have no
excuse. They knew God but did not praise and thank him for being God. Instead,
their thoughts were pointless, and their misguided minds were plunged into
darkness. While claiming to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the
glory of the immortal God for statues that looked like mortal humans, birds, animals,
and snakes. For this reason God allowed their lusts to control them.
This passage indicates clearly that in general, mankind
have a natural knowledge of the existence of God, having the witness of
creation, but refuse to acknowledge Him because men love their sin and want to
be their own gods and as a result they enter into all kinds of idolatry. This is not a sin they cannot help – a sin
that results from inability to choose, but rather indicates a willing choice to
follow their own way and ignore God, belief in Whom makes them
uncomfortable. If this were not so, Why
is God angry with them? We’re told that
God made and makes His existence clear to
them. That they knew (know) God, that they
exchanged the glory of the immortal God for idols etc.
This tells us at least that God’s existence is
known to all men, but that those that refuse to believe in or follow, or seek
Him refuse to do so, & close their minds to Him willingly. It was for this
reason that God allowed their lusts to control them – not because they were
born with a sinful nature that could not choose. Men loved darkness rather than light because
their deeds were evil and they loved their sin. When men have choice, most tend
to choose to live in untruth and live a lie and their spiritual eyes as it were,
are closed. God is not to blame for
this, and it has nothing to do with God hating them, as the Calvinist would
believe in relation to persons such as Esau.
Other
Believers
God’s
Kingdom was never limited to only the Jews in the Old Testament. There
were people who believed in the Almighty God apart from such men as Noah and
Abram. Generations before God called Abram, men began to call upon the
name of the Lord. Both Abel and Cain
offered sacrifices, one accepted and one rejected. Why was Cain’s offering rejected and what was
God’s desire for him? The Lord looked with favor on Abel and
his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with
favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right,
will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching
at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” Was God’s appeal to Cain insincere or was He truly concerned and disappointed
because of what He saw in Cain’s heart?
God was dealing with men even at that early date, desired their
salvation and offered them choices.
Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him: Enoch was a man that was saved not
through hearing the Gospel (so far as we know), but his trust in God and his life’s
walk in obedience to that trust saved him so that he never even had to face the
trauma of physical death. Job and his compatriots were men who lived (probably)
around the time of Abraham but were not in Abraham’s line. They had a real, palpable
faith in God. Is there any indication in scripture that Job knew the
Gospel? No – and yet Calvin’s believers would surely see him as a man of
God. Lot was not of the lineage of Abraham, and not under the Abrahamic
covenant of faith, nor was he awaiting the coming of the Messiah, but he was
acceptable to God. Abraham offered a tithe to Melchizedek, a man that had
no connection with the Jewish nation yet was a priest of the Most High God.
The
wise men of Christmas day were God-followers but it seems separated from the
Jewish nation and looking for a salvation that even the Jews
misunderstood. These men were led by
God’s Spirit to the place where the infant Christ lay and this witness by these
non-Jewish men, was a testimony to the Christ Himself. There is little,
if any evidence that they knew the substance of the Gospel apart from the
coming of a Messiah or special person. God’s favour was upon Jacob, through the
nation of Israel, but it was not limited to that nation, to which some Old
Testament scriptures would attest. How were those Old Testament men
saved? Was it not through the Christ on the cross? Were those men
saved through Jesus because they believed the light they had at that
time? I think so. As scripture says there is no other name by which we
might be saved but Christ's. All those
that are accepted by God come to Him through faith and that salvation is
accomplished through Jesus Christ the Son no matter how limited their
knowledge. If knowledge is necessary
then how can a child or person of limited intellect be saved?
But
the Calvinist insists upon wrenching out of Biblical context, those verses
which seem to indicate that God chose before creation, certain specific people
upon whom to lavish His favour with no input from those people; people such as
Jacob whom God loved while He supposedly hated Esau with what can be perceived
as a malevolent hate. Why God would hate such a poor creature who didn’t even
know his own heart, nor could help it even if he did, is hard to imagine even
for the most hopeless of us. In fact He blessed Esau for his father’s
sake, and there was evidence that Esau’s heart had later softened toward both
God and his brother. Yes God created
imperfect pots for dishonourable use according to scripture. But what does this
really mean?
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I have compassion
(Romans 9:15.) God has the power to dispense mercy, or to not dispense mercy to
and upon whomsoever He decides. If He decides to pour out His mercy upon
a particular person at His own discretion, or pour out His anger upon that
person, then He has the right to do it by virtue of being all-powerful, and
being the Creator of that person. Yes – He is powerful enough and has the
capacity to destroy any person He creates, but is this why He really creates
humans – to destroy them so that His power will be seen and His holiness will
be proven? Is this truly His reason for the creation of multi-millions of
sinners – so that the majority will be a testimony to His holiness, justice,
power and revenge, while a few will be a testimony to His love and mercy? Does
God need this testimony? Do we
need this testimony in order to grasp His unsurpassable greatness? Would not limiting His love and salvation to
a very few merely limit the effect of His testimony to the rest of creation? Is
God not God without this terrible suffering to prove Him holy, righteous and
just? There is always a reason for God’s acceptance or rejection that
issues from consequences resulting from each person’s choices.
God’s
righteous anger
The
whole tenor of scripture teaches that God’s anger is righteous, which means
among other things ‘just’ and ‘fair’ and that His anger is directed at men who
sin against His will – who choose to disobey His word and directions and
commands. Why is the good, compassionate, gentle, loving God so angry at men
over something they cannot help? Why does He hate them because they
choose to sin even though He knows they can’t do anything else but sin, or, as
some would state it, because they inherited Adam’s sin-nature, and why does He
call upon them angrily to obey Him knowing that they cannot do so, (if Calvin
was correct)? Why does God continue to berate them for their sin, knowing
that by His choice, they were born in sin and can’t do right anyway? Why
does He live out this charade of reprimanding men for sin, all the while
knowing that He has already condemned those that He doesn’t care about and will
save and really care about only a few? Why is there anger over man’s sin
anyway? Dogs will be dogs as they were created to be, and sinful men will be
sinful men as they were created to be.
There
is a reason for God’s anger against mankind, and that reason is spelled out in
so many Old and New Testament passages that call upon men to hear Him, believe
Him, trust Him and repent from their sins, turning their lives toward Him and
over to Him. Men are disobedient by
choice, and men reject God by choice, but men repent by choice and receive
Jesus Christ by choice as well (albeit only after God makes them aware of Him
and their need of Him). This is the reason why God’s anger remains upon
those that continue to reject His call to follow, trust and obey Him, and why
God delights in those that become His by faith in His mercy. A human
parent is pleased with a child that implicitly trusts and obeys him/her, and
it’s in the child’s interest to do so because in this obedience and trust is
rest, provision, love and protection. Thus both child and parent are
blessed by this faith the child exercises. God even more so, loves us to
trust Him, and we more so have an even great need to trust in our only hope for
salvation through Jesus. For only in Him
there is forgiveness, rest, provision, love and protection for mankind.
God
will have mercy on those who, though unworthy, choose to believe Him, trust in
Him and seek to obey Him - and His mercy hinges on that faith and obedience. In spite of Calvinist’s claim to the contrary,
those that believe in Him do choose to obey Him. His mercy is toward those
whose hearts accept and desire truth and holiness though hindered by inherited
sinful nature. God knows and recognises the hard-hearted man who,
hardened by sin, (such as Pharaoh), whole-heartedly rejects truth and the God
of truth and that man is rejected by God as a vessel fit for dishonour and unfit
for holy use. God will consequently
harden those who first harden themselves. Any even partially sane
man would have finally given in to the demands of God after the plagues God
inflicted upon Egypt. Pharaoh's advisors begged him to, but God Kept Pharaoh's
heart hard according to Pharaoh’s first choices. (Pharaoh at first
hardened his own heart according to the voice – (parsing) of the words
translated in scripture). God also acknowledges those whose hearts are willing
to hear Him, recognise truth, turn from sin and seek to obey and to gainvictory
over the sin-nature in God’s strength and power through faith in His
promises. Those who choose to follow Him are vessels fit for holy use,
and are saved not by their faith or their choices, but by the death of Jesus on
the cross. They are those that are foreknown, loved and elect for holy purposes.
Esau
hated?
Let’s
be honest. Very few of those that love to approve the reformed doctrine
would openly state that God hates any man. Yet when confronted with the
need to prove their point they will refer to such verses as those that indicate
God’s rejection of Esau and His selection of Jacob before they even
existed. God hates sin, but does he hate people? To be sure, He
certainly will not accept those that continue in sin into His Heaven. He
hates, as He expects us to do, the very garment spotted with sin. There
is no way that the practising sinner who delights daily in sin can enter and
live in the holy presence of God after this life. God is Holy and
nothing unholy may approach Him.
So
in that sense, God does hate the sinner – but the fact that He warns us about
this sin and calls us to repentance - all of us, if the scriptures are to be
believed, indicates that He doesn’t hate mankind, or any particular man –
rather the Word of God reveals a compassion that cares and desires to see all
men saved. God even had compassion on Cain, an unrepentant murderer who deserved
to die immediately but was under God’s protection. It cannot be said that Cain
had no chance to repent. What God hates is the sin which destroys men, makes
them abhorrent and brings them to Hell. He hates, not the men themselves,
but to see men make choices that will destroy them by turning them into even
more evil and hateful people. In the end, it isn’t that He hates men for the
fact that they are born in sin, nor for the fact that the sin-nature produces
sin in them, but for the fact that they reject the will of God and the
salvation He commands all men to hear, accept and obey - a matter of choice.
Those He fore-knows will receive Christ as Saviour are the elect, those He
fore-knows will reject truth in their lives are the condemned – condemned by
their own choices. So He predestines those He fore-knew would accept His
truth to eternal life and those that would reject His truth to Hell.
It
is sometimes argued that the word “knew” in “foreknew” has a relational or
intimate aspect to it and really means that God ‘knew’ them in an intimate
loving way. Just as Adam “knew” Eve in
an intimate way, (notwithstanding the sexual aspect of it), so God had chosen
to have an intimate love toward all those He foreknew. This knowing or intimacy applies to those
that He foresaw would respond to His love and turn to Him. Those that would reject His love and who
would consequently become even more hopeless and abhorrent, He would reject. These latter are not foreknown in an intimate
way, remembering that the word “foreknew” has both prophetic and intimate
aspects. Those whom He knew through
foreknowledge, would respond to Him, He also loved and loves intimately. Those who would reject Him, He was forced to and
does reject because of His justice.
The
hypocrisy of Calvinism
Some
Calvinists, go to many pains to save souls because God directs us to, not
because they necessarily care about those souls. After all, the God they believe
in has no love for the lost. He will most certainly save those that are marked
for salvation, but has already condemned the rest to Hell for eternity.
The Calvinist lives comfortably with the thought that there are many souls no
more wicked than himself who will be cast into the lake of fire forever, while
he, one of the fortunate ones, will be OK. The thought of the horrifying
end of the lost can be cast off by centring on the joy that God has
thoughtfully provided for him. His attitude might be seen as “I’m OK –
tough about you though.”
The
doubts that Dutcher had at the beginning of his book, I suspect, were doubts
about this very problem – that which is still a problem with those that are
under the influence of Calvin. The pity is that Dutcher fell for the
three-card-trick; that of being asked the wrong questions such as the one
quoted at the beginning of this paper, then being misdirected by the wrong
answers. When our minds are centred on the fact that we are sinners and
deserve judgement, of course the answer to the question “Does anyone deserve to
be in Heaven?” must be ‘no’. This is a red-herring question and one that
is not worthy of the God of the Eternities – the God whose name is ‘Love’.
Better
questions might have been something like these: “Is God love, and doesn’t this
mean that His love is unlimited? If not,
is He really love? If so then why is His
love not for all mankind?” “Was it the Sovereign God’s will that men be created
sinners because of the sin of the one man Adam, and if so, why?” “Is God
just to judge men for the sin-nature they inherited unwittingly and
unknowingly?” “Would a God of infinite love cast these unfortunate people into
the eternal suffering of the lake of fire forever without giving them the
option to be saved from the consequences of the choices of both God and Adam?”
“Is it fair (R. C. Sproul notwithstanding), to save some and not others (who
are sinners not by their own choice, but by God’s sovereign determination)?”
“Doesn’t God require that we ourselves who are His children and are to be
seeking to become like Him, be fair in our relationships with others? - If so,
why are we to be fairer than the God who made us?” “Is it like God to
simply to shower love on only a few?” “Isn’t God’s love limited if He
only chooses to love and save a few though He is just as capable of loving and
saving the lot?” “If God can choose to love those sinners He
fore-ordained to salvation (according to Calvin) then can He not choose to love
all men, unless there is another weightier problem such as that of man’s
refusal to cooperate? “If God’s love is
unlimited, then wouldn’t His love be for all men rather than a handful?” “Isn’t
the God that tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, even more loving than
us and mustn’t He love all of those that He expects us to love?” “Is our
love to be wider and more accepting and more all-encompassing than that of
God?” "Does God suffer pain when losing to Hell people He loves
without doing all He morally can to save them, or is there no such pain in Him?"
and so on.
God
always intended that the Children of Israel were to go into the highways and
byways to bring in the poor, weak, and hopeless of the Gentile nations, and not
just to Israel. He foreknew what Jacob's descendants would do with His calling
and has rejected those people of Israel that have regarded His offer of redemption
as unworthy, while opening His arms to those of the Gentiles whom He fore-knew
would receive His offer. It is always about choice. To pretend that
God pours out anger upon the lost that have no say in any relationship with
Him; who have been born in sin and with a sin-nature; and that He refuses to
have compassion upon them, and to ignore the many scriptures that show clearly
that His anger is rather because they refuse to listen to Him and trust and
obey Him – this can be seen to be dishonest.
I’m
aware that I shouldn’t judge the motives of others, but it’s hard not to
conclude that many of the believers in Calvin are such because of the comfort
that Dutcher speaks often about, the comfort and joy of “knowing” that they
will persevere to the end. I spoke to a Calvinist pastor that said “I
wouldn’t know that I was saved unless I believed in this doctrine” or words to
that effect. Another Pastor similarly said that he struggled with
assurance until he accepted the Calvinist religion. To accept a particular
doctrine for these reasons is untrue to the word of God and perhaps reveals
lack of honesty and courage. Both the Calvinist and the non-Calvinist believer
can just as easily struggle with fearing whether he is elect/saved or has
committed ‘the unpardonable sin’, but the answer to that is not to adopt a
doctrine in order to feel right. To most it’s not comfortable – in fact
to many it’s fearful to be as it were, on the ocean adrift without an
anchor. The religion of Calvin offers what seems to be a safe harbour and
anchor for some who are faint of heart. Only the courageous can confront
the word, seek for truth, and keep seeking, adopting what truth they are led
into, doctrine by doctrine, precept by precept. Only the fearful and
dishonest rush into the safety of the group-think and grab onto the solace that
peer group agreement brings. From this
attitude spring the majority of misguided sects.
In
this document I have tried to state what I see to be substantial teaching errors
in Calvinism and what I believe to be mistakes, wrong practices,
misunderstandings and dangers that result from these errors. I have found that those that espouse the
Calvinist doctrine of Predestination, can tend toward hostility when their
comfortably settled belief is endangered – when their assurance (which is built
around Calvin’s teaching rather than scripture), is assailed or threatened in
any way. This is especially so in the
younger, newly convinced Calvinists. They sometimes tend to shy away from any
thought that we are to live the life of holiness, lest we be seen to be working
for our salvation. Thus they neglect the truth that we must be working out
our salvation and if they’re not careful, over-emphasize the view that
Christians must of necessity struggle against sin perpetually in this
life. One further outworking of this
belief, is that sometimes they fervently and insistently inflict their beliefs
upon all who disagree.
One last item of importance is that the Calvin that is so greatly
revered, tended toward hypocrisy in that in 1553, he condemned at least one man
to death simply because he disagreed with the reformist teachings of his time,
and especially because he (Michael Servetus) dared to pour scorn upon Calvin’s teachings. Calvin’s followers today, camouflage this
unfortunate event by arguing that it was the norm for the day to jail, torture
and put heretics to death, thus totally ignoring the scriptural principles of
love, forgiveness and the true Gospel.
This was in a time in which the Catholic Church was soundly reviled by
the reformists for its persecution, torture and murder of those that it
considered to be heretic. Calvin never
ever afterwards showed any remorse for this and many other unloving deeds
carried out in the name of Reformed Christianity. Yet the scriptures tell us that the murderer
shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.
One wonders how a man that self-righteously puts a man to death for
disagreeing with his doctrines, and never shows regret for such a crime, can be
seen as a good and righteous man as labelled by his followers today.
We’re told by at least one
source: Before the arrest of Servetus and
during the earlier stages of the trial Calvin advocated the death penalty,
basing his argument mainly on the Mosaic law, which was, "He that
blasphemeth the name of Jehovah, he shall surely be put to death," Lev.
24:16 — a law which Calvin considered as binding as the decalogue and
applicable to heresy as well. Yet he left the passing of sentence wholly to the
civil council. He considered Servetus the greatest enemy of the Reformation and
honestly believed it to be the right and duty of the State to punish those who
offended against the Church. He also felt himself providentially called to
purify the Church of all corruptions, and to his dying day he never changed his
views nor regretted his conduct toward Servetus.
Some Calvinists point out that
he later claimed that he had earlier sought to free or at least waive the death
penalty for Servetus. Yet his earlier
letters and writings about this man seem to show that he had a grudge that he
sought to settle should Servetus ever come into his hand. He wrote to Farel in February 1546 the following: "Servetus wrote to me a short time ago, and
sent a huge volume of his dreamings and pompous triflings with his letter. I was to find among them wonderful things, and
such as I had never before seen; and if I wished, he would himself come. But I
am by no means inclined to be responsible for him; and if he come, I will
never allow him, supposing my influence worth anything, to depart alive."
In fact it may be that had anyone
said in Calvin’s day such things as I have said in this paper about the
Calvinist religion, he too would have been guilty of heresy and in danger of
the death sentence.
I want to make the point that though
there are many worthy, sincere followers of Calvin – many that are certainly
born again, and though they have may have a living faith in Jesus Christ, their
attachment to the teachings of a mere man about Christ, and that man an
unrepentant sinner, is unwise to say the least.
The following was written on a “Monument of Expiation”
built in 1903 near Geneva at the site of the burning of Servetus: "Dutiful and grateful followers of
Calvin our great Reformer, yet condemning an error which was that of his age,
and strongly attached to liberty of conscience, according to the true
principles of the Reformation and of the Gospel, we have erected this expiatory
monument. October 27th, 1903."
This was an attempt by some of tender conscience, at least to recognise
the wrong that was done by the Reformists and especially Calvin himself.
All
who follow Calvin must have the courage and honesty to rethink their beliefs in
accordance with scripture, prayerfully examine the scriptures daily and reject
any man’s doctrine that does not agree with Biblical truth. Jesus warns that Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he
is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my
Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.(John
14:21). It’s those that prayerfully immerse
themselves in the Word of God and seek to follow it that truly love Jesus, not
those that follow the words of a mere man.
It’s also to those that examine the word prayerfully, that Jesus
promises He will reveal Himself.
In
Christ,
Colin
Nunn
