Placebos & cures

Reppert again:

http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2009/09/reply-to-anonymous-on-calvinism-and.html

Before I delve into the specifics, I’d like to cite two examples to illustrate an important distinction.

1.In one example, we have 50 terminal patients. Half of them are given a placebo. The other half are given a drug with a 100% cure rate.

(If we were discussing open theism, that would be analogous to a double-blind trial.)

2.In another example, we have 50 terminal patients. All of them are given a drug with a 50% cure rate.

In the single-blind trial (1), the test-subjects don’t know which patients receive the cure, and which patients receive the placebo. Everyone lacks subjective certitude.

However, it’s certain that the 25 who receive the curative medicine will experience complete recovery while it’s also certain that the 25 who receive the placebo will die.

Those who receive the curative medicine enjoy an objective benefit which is denied the other group.

So even if both groups are in the same boat with respect to what they know about the outcome, they are not in the same boat with respect to the actual outcome.

In the other trial (2), everyone assumes the same potential benefit or loss. Everyone lacks subjective certitude.

Likewise, even though everyone receives the same treatment, the same treatment does not confer the same benefit on every patient. The objective outcome is individually uncertain. It’s a coin toss.

Although in this comparison (1)-(2), the collective outcome is artificially equivalent, the internals are not interchangeable.

(2) is analogous to Arminianism (making allowance for the artificial percentages). I think (1) is only partially analogous to Calvinism, but I use it as a limiting-case to counter Reppert’s objection.

(I deny that true believers are in a situation analogous to a single-blind trial. However, I affirm the objective certainty of the saving grace for the elect.)

Moving along to Reppert:

“What I said was that no one could introspectively know who has real saving faith and who doesn’t, and that it follows from that that no one can be sure whether the promises of God apply to them or not. I also said that this may or may not be a problem for Calvinism, a statement you overlooked completely, so far as I can tell”.

This is a muddle-headed objection. If, on the one hand, Reppert is attacking Calvinism on its own grounds, then Calvinism would deny that the regenerate and the unregenerate have the same subjective experience. The regenerate experience saving grace while the unregenerate do not. Therefore, there’s no equivalency at the subjective level.

If, on the other hand, Reppert is operating from the premise that a born-again Christian can lose his salvation, then it’s true that on the basis of your subjective experience you can’t tell whether or not you will be saved–since apostates and persevering believers have the same subjective experience.

That, however, wouldn’t be a problem internal to Calvinism. Rather, that would be a problem for those theological traditions which maintain that a born-again Christian can lose his salvation.

“What the verse says is that ‘you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.’ But if Calvinism is true, no one can know whether they might not lose their faith and become a reprobate (reflecting, of course, God’s decision before the foundation of the world to withhold saving grace from them), and therefore nobody knows whether the testing of their faith will develop perseverance or not.”

i) Once again, if Reppert’s conclusion is predicated on the assumption that apostates have the same subjective experience as persevering Christians, then he’s deriving a conclusion from a premise which Calvinism rejects.

ii) In addition, Calvinism doesn’t take the position that a believer can become a reprobate. While a (nominal) believer can become an apostate, he cannot become a reprobate.

There is no possible transition from election to reprobation. You’re either one or the other.

“But not every believer successfully resists temptation.”

In context, 1 Cor 10:13 doesn’t refer to sin in general, but to forms of apostasy–such as idolatry.

And I can quote non-Calvinist commentators (e.g. Fitzmyer, Garland) who will substantiate that interpretation.

“To me, it sucks to go through life not being absolutely sure whether Jesus died for me or not.”

Unless you’re a universalist, then even if Christ died for you, that’s no guarantee that you won’t be damned.

“All I need is for some true believer to fall victim to a temptation, and we have our argument for libertarian free will.”

That’s not a logical inference. In Calvinism, if a true believer succumbs to temptation, then God decreed that eventuality.

“Do you really mean to deny that not every true believer resists temptation? That's not in the text, but it is taught in texts too numerous to mention.”

Which is equally consistent with compatibilism and incompatibilism alike.

“So you can't have an elect person fall into apostasy and come back from it?”

If Reppert is raising an objection to Calvinism, then Calvinism distinguishes between backsliders and apostates.