The John 3:16 conference has fanned into flame the embers of an old controversy that is always smoldering to one degree or another. I’ll venture a few comments of my own:
1. I’ve already stated my own position a long time ago, so I won’t repeat myself here.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2004/04/what-does-god-want.html
2. The term “hyper-Calvinist” is frequently used by pseudo-Calvinists as a rhetorical ploy to put real Calvinists on the defensive. But “hyper-Calvinism” is a word with a historic definition. You’re not at liberty to unilaterally redefine words to suit your agenda.
3. Apropos (2), to my knowledge, none of the Reformed Confessions (e.g. Westminster Confession, Three Forms of Unity) teaches the well-meant offer.
They may teach the free offer of the gospel, they don’t make God’s love for reprobate or desire to save them a precondition of the offer.
That being the case, you can’t retroactively argue that someone who rejects a theological innovation like the well-meant offer is not a true Calvinist. That involves a very anachronistic definition of Calvinism.
4. Early in the 20C, the CRC and the OPC took influential positions in favor of the well-meant offer. Fine. Individual denominations are free to draw the theological parameters however they please for members of their own communion. But they only speak for their own denomination.
5. One of the stock objections to the traditional position is a logical objection. Proponents of the well-mean offer insist that unless God loves the reprobate and wants to save them, that the offer of the Gospel is insincere.
But there are two basic problems with this objection:
i) The logical objection is illogical. The only thing that makes an offer genuine is if it’s true. The offer of the gospel is a conditional offer. If you do what it says (repent and believe), you will get what God promised.
The intention of the party who makes the offer is irrelevant to the bona fides of the offer—as long as the offer is true.
ii) The position of the critics is logically inconsistent. But you don’t have the right to raise logical objections to the opposing position unless your own position is logically consistent.
Here is the problem: let us grant, for the sake of argument, the presupposition of the well-meant offer, viz. the offer is insincere unless God loves the reprobate and wants to save them.
Given that presupposition, what would be the consistent position?
If:
>Limited desire is incompatible with the sincerity of the offer,
Then:
>>Limited atonement is incompatible with the sincerity of the offer,
And:
>>>Limited election is incompatible with the sincerity of the offer,
And:
>>>>Limited salvation is incompatible with the sincerity of the offer.
Logically speaking, the only position consistent with the presupposition of the well-meant is universalism.
iii) There is, of course, one logical alternative: reject the presupposition.
6. I can’t help noticing an implicit parallel between Arminians and proponents of the well-meant offer:
i) Proponents of the well-meant offer say the offer is insincere unless God loves the reprobate and wants to save them.
ii) Arminians say divine warnings about the danger of apostasy are insincere unless true believers can truly lose their salvation.
If we agree with the presupposition of the well-meant offer, then it seems to me that the Arminians are right. If we accept the well-meant offer, then we should reject the perseverance of the saints.
But proponents of the well-meant offer pose as Calvinists.
7. On a final note, I find it odd when some Christians think it’s absolutely essential that God suffer from frustrated desires. They act as though we’re in mortal peril of losing some fundamental feature of Christian theism unless we insist on the fact that God is schizophrenic.
On the face of it: the danger lies in the opposite direction. It’s far more threatening to Christian theism to insist that God is schizophrenic.
Why doesn’t God save everyone?
i) Either God is able to save everyone, but unwilling—in which case God is not omnibenevolent,
ii) Or else, God is willing to save everyone, but unable—in which case God is not omnipotent.
Those are the only logical alternatives: there is no third.
I'll add a bit here myself:
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to make the well-meant offer necessary, then you're making the well-meant offer a warrant to believe. The well-meant offer, as construed and explained by Mr. Byrne and others is generally indexed to the atonement in some way, shape, or form. So, they are either implicitly or explicitly, using the atonement as a warrant to believe. Unless you can tell a sinner Jesus "died for you," then the offer is not "well meant," or, alternatively, if you can't say, "God loves you (redemptively)," the offer is not well meant.
As I've elsewhere discussed, this is no different than using election as a warrant to believe, when you really get down to it. That's hyper-Calvinism. Ergo, the ones making this argument are the ones using hyper-Calvinist logic, not others.
That said, I have it on good authority, namely an unpublished comment at TF's blog that was aimed directly at me by none other than Mr. Byrne himself, that states, in essence that to say that we should preach universally simply because (a) God commands it and (b) because we don't know who the elect are is insufficient. No, we have to believe in and issue the summons as a "well-meant offer." Indeed, if I recall correctly, that comment also included a statement that essentially said that to reject the theology of the "well-meant offer," was an attack on the character of God, namely the concept of God's (universal) love. So, the issue here, at least as it comes across to me is an ethical - not an exegetical - argument.
"i) Either God is able to save everyone, but unwilling—in which case God is not omnibenevolent,
ReplyDeleteii) Or else, God is willing to save everyone, but unable—in which case God is not omnipotent.
Those are the only logical alternatives: there is no third."
That's only if you reject the notion that salvation can be accepted or rejected by the person in question. IOW: the invitation to Heaven may always be open, but some might find it intolerable. The doors to Hell might be locked from the inside.
This is perfectly compatible with an omnibenevolent and omnipotent Creator.
"That's only if you reject the notion that salvation can be accepted or rejected by the person in question."
ReplyDeleteNo, that fits into (ii). "God is unable" to save S because salvation "depends on the free will of S."
And, your comment rests upon the unargued assumption that sinners *can* indeed "save themselves" by reaching out and grabbing God's hand. That the sinner is "able" to come to Jesus, but, of course, "No one is able to come to Jesus unless the Father draws him."
For those of you in the know, I'm looking for a good commentary on 2 Peter that would take this blog's point of view with regards to 2:1 and 3:9. I'm building up a base set of commentaries after which I can add those of other points of view.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically, do you know if Gene L. Green takes this position?
Bauckham's old commentary is good on 3:9. However, he's issuing a revised edition of his old commentary next year, so you might want to wait a few months.
ReplyDeleteI've often quoted Bauckham's comments on 3:9.
Green, in his recent commentary, offers a similar interpretation, but he's not quite as specific as Bauckham, so his interpretation is not as useful.
I haven't read a really satisfactory discussion of 2:1, but I myself have discussed it on more than one occasion.
The basic problem is that theologians who believe in unlimited atonement anachronistically construe Peter's usage as if he were using the technical terminology of systematic theology. His usage is not that specialized. It's not synonymous with, say, penal substitution.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteWhat would be your opinion of Van Tils position that the free offer is conditioned by a time function?
Thanks Steve!
ReplyDeleteGSNIEDER SAID:
ReplyDelete"What would be your opinion of Van Tils position that the free offer is conditioned by a time function?"
That's true in the sense that the free offer has an expiration date: If you don't accept the offer in this life, it's too late to accept it in the next.
However, I simply mean that the free offer is conditional in the sense of: "if you believe in Jesus and repent of your sins, you will be saved."
Now, if everyone who complies with the terms of the offer gets what is promised, then the offer is a genuine, bona fide offer.
Whether or not God wants everyone to comply with the offer is not what makes it a genuine offer.
Indeed, many people live and die without ever hearing the gospel. The offer wasn't offered to them. So it was never intended for everyone.
People have a duty to believe the gospel (if they've heard it). But their duty isn't dependent on whether God loves them.
The position of the critics is logically inconsistent. But you don’t have the right to raise logical objections to the opposing position unless your own position is logically consistent
ReplyDeleteI'm just curious if this rule applies in general or only in specific contexts. For instance, James White often points out that Islamic apologists are inconsistently using liberal scholarship against the NT. Basically the same argument destroys the credibility of the Quran as well, and so he points this out during the debate.
I have heard some objections to Dr. White's approach, i.e. it shouldn't matter what position the Islamic person takes to the debate. If the debate is on the NT then you shouldn't bring up the bearing on the Quran of the position in question.
Anyway that was just an example, but hopefully that makes sense.
"i) Either God is able to save everyone, but unwilling—in which case God is not omnibenevolent,
ReplyDeleteii) Or else, God is willing to save everyone, but unable—in which case God is not omnipotent.
Those are the only logical alternatives: there is no third."
Is there not? Do we not agree that God cannot do that which is logically possible? In other words, he cannot make a rock so big he cannot move it.
Could this not be a case such as this? Could you not say that God cannot make a person with free will and guarantee that they accept salvation? This would not be a limitation upon his omnipotence because you are asking what may be logically impossible - granting someone free will but not allowing them choice. I'm just wondering . . .
I think Molinism tried to reconcile those two by asserting that God knows all possible worlds, and instantiated the one in which the elect freely chose Him.
ReplyDeleteI could be a little off in my understanding of it though, I haven't read much Plantinga or Craig on the topic.
"Could this not be a case such as this? Could you not say that God cannot make a person with free will and guarantee that they accept salvation? This would not be a limitation upon his omnipotence because you are asking what may be logically impossible - granting someone free will but not allowing them choice. I'm just wondering . . ."
ReplyDeleteThe Bible tells us that God determines the free actions of men, so yu'd need to square your a priori philosophical speculation with what the Bible teaches.
Secondly, you just undercut a sinless heaven. How can God guarantee that we'll be sinless in heaven if we have libertarian free will? You have to admit that it is at least possible one could sin.
You can resort to the "perfected nature" argument, but this is (a) questionable, and (b) doesn't answer how those who have died in the womb and go to heaven can fit into the "perfected nature" category.
"The Bible tells us that God determines the free actions of men"
ReplyDeleteThrough a positive or negative influential use of His sovereignty?
One can say that God can "override" the choices of free men by rendering the circumstances of the evil they want to do unlikely itor even impossible. A terrorist can plan on blowing up a building, but their plans might be thwarted if they come down with a virulent strain of MR bacteria. God's negative action (allowing the natural evil of a virus to take hold which He did not create or devise) thwarted the plans of someone but did not interfere with their will.
This is completely different than saying He turned them into a puppet and made them "nice" all of a sudden.
I don't believe any passage supports the latter. Rather, the passages seem open-ended and can be interpreted in various ways in terms of how the existence of sovereignty and free will can be reconciled.
James said...
ReplyDelete"The Bible tells us that God determines the free actions of men"
Through a positive or negative influential use of His sovereignty?
Both.
Helm says, "For X willingly to permit action A is at least for this: for A to be the action of someone other than X; for X to foreknow the occurrence of A and to have been able to prevent A; and for A not to be against X's overall plan" (Helm, Four Views, pp.176-178).
On this view then, God does not causally determine everything in the sense that he is the efficient cause of everything. But nothing that happens is something that God was unwilling to happen. So God positively governs all acts that occur and negatively governs all evil acts by knowingly willingly permitting them.
"One can say that God can "override" the choices of free men by rendering the circumstances of the evil they want to do unlikely itor even impossible."
But the Bible goes beyond this. For example:
Isaiah 10:5-15
5 "Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
6 I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
7 But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations.
8 'Are not my commanders all kings?' he says.
9 'Has not Calno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
and Samaria like Damascus?
10 As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria-
11 shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?' "
12 When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, "I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. 13 For he says:
" 'By the strength of my hand I have done this,
and by my wisdom, because I have understanding.
I removed the boundaries of nations,
I plundered their treasures;
like a mighty one I subdued their kings.
14 As one reaches into a nest,
so my hand reached for the wealth of the nations;
as men gather abandoned eggs,
so I gathered all the countries;
not one flapped a wing,
or opened its mouth to chirp.' "
15 Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it,
or the saw boast against him who uses it?
As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up,
or a club brandish him who is not wood!
Isaiah 14:24-27
24 The LORD Almighty has sworn,
"Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will stand.
25 I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders."
26 This is the plan determined for the whole world;
this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
27 For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
And still speaking of Assyria:
Isaiah 37:26
26 "Have you not heard?
Long ago I ordained it.
In days of old I planned it;
now I have brought it to pass,
that you have turned fortified cities
into piles of stone.
Here we have Jehovah clearly causing the Assyrian king to "to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets." So is this an instance of WCP? Have we shown God to be immoral?
Another example can be found in Job. When Job heard that the Chaldeans had stolen his camels and killed his servants, Job said: The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." The Chaldeans took and the Lord took. The Bible obviously ascribes different causal models to each.
One last example will do for the time being. Take Jesus' death. The Bible makes it clear that Jesus death was planned from before the creation. It was also known that he would be sinless. Thus to kill an innocent man is murder. Now, suppose God had not caused what would take place. He left it up to chance. How would Jesus pay for the sins of his people if no one instantiated the necessary requirment of murdering him? Would we read in the Bible about him going up to people and pleading for them to murder him? Perhaps he would commit a capital crime so that he could complete his task of getting mur... uh, er, not anymore. Perhaps he would kill himself? Of course all of this is absurd. So, God made sure, determined, planned, brought it about, caused, whatever floats your boat, that Jesus would be murdered. Thus, God caused other people to do a wrong act. Let's look at the biblical witness:
Acts 2:22-23
22"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.
Acts 4:27-29
27Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. 28They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.
"This is completely different than saying He turned them into a puppet and made them "nice" all of a sudden."
Of course this is argument gains its force by using emotive language and question begging epithets.
Steve Said,
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn’t God save everyone?
i) Either God is able to save everyone, but unwilling—in which case God is not omnibenevolent,
ii) Or else, God is willing to save everyone, but unable—in which case God is not omnipotent.
Those are the only logical alternatives: there is no third.
Absolutely no other logical alternatives?
What about (Calvinist) R. L. Dabney's view (http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/dabney/mercy.htm) whereby God has a genuine "desire" (of sorts) for the salvation of the non-elect, but because of higher and more noble ends decrees the non-election of the reprobate. Similar to John Piper's view of there being two wills in God (http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Articles/ByDate/1995/1580_Are_There_Two_Wills_in_God/).
When it comes to the Well-Meant offer, I can take it or leave it as a Calvinist. But, is there really no *logical* tertium quid whatsoever? Steve, I'm sure you've encountered these types of arguments before. I assume therefore that you must find them unconvincing. Otherwise you would not have been so dogmatic about there being *no* other options (not even one). Have you posted a blog where you've gone into why you reject these Dabneyian-like type positions? If so, can you give us a link?
DAVID SAID:
ReplyDelete“I'm just curious if this rule applies in general or only in specific contexts. For instance, James White often points out that Islamic apologists are inconsistently using liberal scholarship against the NT. Basically the same argument destroys the credibility of the Quran as well, and so he points this out during the debate.__I have heard some objections to Dr. White's approach, i.e. it shouldn't matter what position the Islamic person takes to the debate. If the debate is on the NT then you shouldn't bring up the bearing on the Quran of the position in question.__Anyway that was just an example, but hopefully that makes sense.”
i) There’s nothing wrong with pointing out that your opponent has a double standard. That’s a legitimate argumentative move.
ii) Your opponent is still at liberty to criticize your position on its own ground, even if his position suffers from the same (alleged) difficulty.
But as I’ve argued, a genuine offer need only be true. The intent of the party who makes the offer is irrelevant.
Therefore, the attempt by proponents of the well-meant offer to criticize the opposing position on its own grounds fails.
iii) Moreover, their own position is inconsistent by the same standard they apply to the opposing position. If the proponents of the well-meant offer were content to argue their position on a purely exegetical basis, and admit that their alternative is apparently incoherent, that would at least be a consistent line of argument. It might seem to be contradictory, but it would still be warranted by their scriptural standard.
However, they have chosen to attack the opposing position on logical grounds. They claim the offer of the gospel is not a genuine offer unless God sincerely wills or desires the salvation of the reprobate.
In that event, they forfeit the right to invoke paradox in order to shield their own position from rational scrutiny. They cut off that escape route by the standard they chose to use in attacking the opposing position.
DAVID SAID:
ReplyDelete“I think Molinism tried to reconcile those two by asserting that God knows all possible worlds, and instantiated the one in which the elect freely chose Him.”
i) No. In Molinism, there’s a possible world in which Judas (to take one example) freely chose to believe in Christ. But God didn’t instantiate that world. Instead, it actualized the world in which Judas betrays Christ and goes to hell.
ii) Molinism is also unable to explain how God could know what free agents (in the libertarian sense) would do.
Grifman said...
ReplyDelete“Do we not agree that God cannot do that which is logically possible? In other words, he cannot make a rock so big he cannot move it. __Could this not be a case such as this? Could you not say that God cannot make a person with free will and guarantee that they accept salvation? This would not be a limitation upon his omnipotence because you are asking what may be logically impossible - granting someone free will but not allowing them choice. I'm just wondering . . .”
i) Remember that proponents of the well-meant offer (as they define it) claim to be Calvinists. Indeed, some of they claim to be the true Calvinists, in contrast to the “hyper-Calvinists.”
So they’re in no position to invoke libertarian freewill.
ii) What you’ve done is, at best, to create a conditional impossibility. If God creates agents with libertarian freewill, then that would limit his power to save them.
But that’s not an intrinsic, logical impossibility. That only follows from your libertarian postulate, which is not a logical necessity.
iii) Moreover, it’s hard to formulate a coherent model of libertarian freewill. Therefore, it suffers from its own conundra.