Saturday, October 11, 2014

500, Part 6: A Calvinist Case for Election

Anytime an American, thoroughly infatuated with the almighty power of his free will, is introduced to the soteriology (salvation doctrine) of John Calvin, he recoils in horror.

Truth be told, when I was a child growing up in the Methodist tradition, I was equally shocked by the idea that God would save only some. All of my teachers loudly denounced Calvinism, and in some cases likened it to the heresy of fatalism.

Let me offer a few ideas that might ameliorate some of the concerns about Calvinism:

1. A basic logical concern: "Love for Humanity"

If I say I love humanity but can't stand individual human beings, what would you think of my proclamation of love?

What does it mean to love humanity except that you love human beings? But how many human beings do we have to love to say that we love humanity? Is it even possible to love the abstract concept of humanity?

When the Bible says that God "loves the world," it can mean a few things: It can mean that God loves all human beings equally and provides equal mercy to all in redemption (Arminianism). It can mean that God loves the race of man by calling to himself from among them a redeemed family (Calvinism). It can mean that He actualizes the world in which He is able to elicit the most free responses of love (Molinism).

Calvinists have traditionally spoken about the general love of God and the redemptive love of God, or the covenant love of God. The simple point here is that if God shows love towards any human beings, it is perfectly consistent to speak of Him as a God who "loves the world." To say that God must love all people equally in order to so "love the world" is an arbitrary imposition. If God says that He loves the world by calling to Himself a multitude of the damned race of man, then it is perfectly reasonable to accept that this is God's manner of loving the world.

2. Arminianism is no less "selective." And neither is any middle ground, such as Molinism.

The opposite of Calvinism on the question of the selectivity of God is not Arminianism, but Universalism. If you don't like Calvin, then don't flee to Wesley; flee to Rob Bell! Or become a Buddhist.

Even if you include nothing other than Biblical history, it is clear that God "loves" some more than others, or qualitatively differently than others, in the sense that He pursues His people Israel, interacts with them, provides for His revelation, and then provides for His redemption in the form of the sacrificial system. The people of Israel are His "son" and His "bride." Do we hear this kind of language spoken of contemporary Babylonians, Sumerians, Caananites or the American Indian?

In fact, the Arminian in my view has a harder burden when it comes to the matter of selectivity, provided he believes that the hearing of the gospel is necessary for salvation. He maintains that God loves everyone and that Jesus dies on the cross for the sins of all humanity, but then does not disseminate this word of salvation to everyone in anything like a manner that reflects this general redemptive love for mankind. Could not God have chosen not just Abraham, but representatives of all tribes, and provided saving revelation to each? Could He not have done miracles in each? If God desires the salvation of all, and the gospel is necessary, then surely He could have provided it.

The solutions to this issue are singularly disappointing. For example, C.S. Lewis suggests that perhaps the ignorant are saved by Christ without knowing it, presumably as children are in Arminian theology. The problem here of course is that if people are secure in their ignorance, or have a rudimentary set of intuitive ideas to accept, then why complicate their happy estate with unnecessary theology?

3. Remember Calvin's high view of depravity.

Some Christians today seem to think that human beings are victimized by the fall of man into sin rather than making their own rather significant contributions. Calvinists do not see us as innocent victims of the fall; we are perpetrators of the fall!

It is important to remember the creator/fallen-creature distinction in this matter, which is a point that is never taken seriously by opponents of Calvinism, be they atheists or Christian critics. They come to this question as though they have the right to put God on the witness stand and interrogate Him for His choices. Remember that in our natural condition we arrogate to ourselves the position of supreme authority, even over God.

This is the state of the matter then: we have people who are no less than haters of God (which all people are in their natural condition) upset about the idea that God would be selective. Wicked human beings with darkened hearts and darkened minds insist that God surely must be smitten with them. People who love God about as much as the Nazi's loved the Jews are upset that God would be selective. These are people who, if they were God, would be no less selective, but they would select according to their own perverse whims. Let these people choose, and heaven would be a place where only a certain race would be admitted, or people of certain theological positions, or funny people, or perhaps only Katy Perry fans. 

The point is that it is within God's purview to offer redemptive mercy at His good pleasure to those in stubborn willful rebellion against Him, and to so love them as to lead them into a capacity to love and value righteousness where in their natural condition they cannot!

In the process, God's supreme mercy for sinful humanity is magnified and so is His supreme and justified anger at sinful humanity. And so the "why" question is meaningfully answered. God does things the way He does them for Himself, and not to prop up the arrogant and wicked race of man! He is demonstrating His love and His redemption and His justice. So then the critic complains that this is arrogant of God, which must indeed be the Mt. Everest of ironies in the universe.

The Calvinist just wants us to remember who we are and to remember who God is. In the words of Newton, "I am a great sinner, but He is a great savior."

4. For Calvinists, God's love is so thorough for his elect that no human incompetency can keep them from Him!

Let's face it, human beings have weak wills. How many people go into rehab and fall back into bad patterns and then go back into rehab again? How many try to stop smoking and can't? How many of us reboot our new years resolutions time and time again? How many of us have besetting sins?

The fact is that we don't seem to have control over our wills; something else seems to be in control. Because of this fact I can't predict when I'm going to be successful at controlling my choices. Perhaps others are just stronger willed than I am, but I confess that I struggle to make the right choices.

And what about the vicissitudes of faith? I confess again that most of the time my faith is like a mustard seed; it is tiny indeed. Like we read in Mark, I often pray, "Lord, help my unbelief!"

If I am saved by my choices to love God, then I fear I am in big trouble! Perhaps I can subjectively assess the quality of my choices today as being in a sufficiently God-ward direction, but what about tomorrow? How will my faith be then? The fact is that I need help to believe! I need help to love God.

After growing up with a different perspective, I struggled with the question of Calvinism for many years, and in 2006 the promise that nothing can snatch me from His hand, not even the weakness of my will and the weakness of my faith, invaded upon my heart. And do you know that when this idea grasped hold of me, I was utterly set free!

As a teacher I was set free from the burden of generating conversions. It was no longer my responsibility, in evangelism, to change the hearts of people. Even my incompetency as a teacher could not threaten the salvation of God's elect. No bad lesson. No weakness of will. No failure in the upbringing of a child. No bad camp speaker. Nothing can keep a person from God if they are His! Now that is a love that is not merely wide, but deep!

I'm puzzled by people who think that God's desperate appeals to their incontinent wills are somehow a greater demonstration of love than His act to seize His own and lead them into a place where they are empowered to receive Him.

As for me, I proclaim Tetelestai! My salvation is finished in Christ!