Opponents are Calvinism work hard to popularize the image of Calvinists as a bunch of meanies. Thankfully, anti-Calvinists are distinguished by their irenic discourse. To take one recent example:
If Calvinism, especially in its supralapsarian form—which argues that God foreordained the eternal fates of humans not yet created in a world not yet created, never mind fallen—is true, then most of us are lost, and not just because, in the words of Dirty Harry, we don’t feel particularly lucky, but because we are asked to love a monster. A deity who out Hitler’s Hitler in a blood-thirsty self-preening is too repellant to contemplate, never mind adore. Especially one whose obsession with his own glory reduces every person to nothing more than an adornment. If this is true, let’s please stop talking about the sanctity of human life. In this horrific scheme, there is nothing more expendable than a human being. “I need more glory—throw another baby on the barby!” (Whether non-elect infants go to hell has been a long-fought controversy within the Reformed world, admittedly, but there’s nothing it its confessions or theology that seriously argues against it.)
http://firstthings.com/blogs/evangel/2010/04/either-youre-in-or-youre-out/
I don't see this post as denigrating Calvinists, but instead expressing horror at the ethical implications of the Calvinist view of God. Of course, that might lead to questioning the moral character of people who embrace this view of God and find it spiritually and ethically inspiring, but but I don't see that here.
ReplyDelete"..which argues that God foreordained the eternal fates of humans"
ReplyDeleteThe Lord God, and His Son, foreordained the eternal Son of God, who is Self-existent, and Self-sufficient, to become the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world.
That is so far beyond mean that mean has no meaning.
I feel that when a preacher is too human-centered he misses out on the great and amazing grace and love of the Savior and the Father.
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"I don't see this post as denigrating Calvinists, but instead expressing horror at the ethical implications of the Calvinist view of God. Of course, that might lead to questioning the moral character of people who embrace this view of God and find it spiritually and ethically inspiring, but but I don't see that here."
Opponents of Calvinism frequently complain about the "tone" of apologetic discourse, as well as the way in which Reformed bloggers characterize alternate positions.
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"I don't see this post as denigrating Calvinists, but instead expressing horror at the ethical implications of the Calvinist view of God."
I'm not bothered by the denigration of Calvinists. I'm merely making a point about moral consistency.
However, since you raise that other issue, I think your distinction wears pretty thin pretty quick, don't you? It's like saying, "You're not Hitler...you just work for Hitler."
Well, okay, but if a teenager has posters of the Führer plastering the walls of in his bedroom, then that says something about the teenager, does it not?
If we call somebody a Nazi, that says as much about the person as the position. About his values and character (if the charge is true).
Of course, it's possible for an individual to be better or worse than his creed. But what we believe frequently reveals something about ourselves.
As if we haven't seen screeds like this before?
ReplyDeleteThis reads like the sort of shrill anti-Calvinist rant I've seen all my life. The author needs to also mention Servetus, banning Christmas, and witch trials.
At any rate, this guy makes the typical equation of Calvinism with predestination, then proceeds to get vent out of shape. FT would never allow such venting about Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Judaism.
Get used to it. Maybe 90% off all criticism of Calvinism is some version "it makes God a monster."
Well I don't have the background knowledge to get into this theological debate but I am freaked out by the idea that I could be a baptized, believing Christian (as I am today) and still go to hell because I only thought that I was saved.
ReplyDeleteJD, that's exactly the thought that horrified me when I was in an Arminian church.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Doctrines of Grace taught me was this: if that thought horrifies me so, then I certainly *must* me among the elect.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI noticed your comment on the original post "Where do you come up with these percentages? Do you think that’s an honest and accurate depiction of Reformed theology?"
I don't think the posts purpose was to mean there is exactly 95% that won't be saved, but rather affirming the truth in scripture that most won't be saved.
Matt 7:13,14 (ESV)
"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.
DAN N SAID:
ReplyDelete"I don't think the posts purpose was to mean there is exactly 95% that won't be saved, but rather affirming the truth in scripture that most won't be saved."
I've been over that ground with Billy Birch.
Steve, do you think it's possible that most won't go to hell?
ReplyDelete"Whether non-elect infants go to hell has been a long-fought controversy within the Reformed world, admittedly, but there's nothing it its confessions or theology that seriously argues against it."
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, it's hard to argue against a tautologous truth. :)
Does the author think perhaps that some non-elect infants go to heaven?
JD Walters said...
ReplyDelete"Well I don't have the background knowledge to get into this theological debate but I am freaked out by the idea that I could be a baptized, believing Christian (as I am today) and still go to hell because I only thought that I was saved."
Well, I don't know quite what you mean by that.
i) Most theological traditions allow for the possibility (and actuality) of apostates. Men who were professing believers at one time, but lost their faith.
ii) Most theological traditions allow for the possibility (and actuality) of heretics. Men who imagine that they have saving faith, even though they may subscribe to damnable beliefs.
iii) Keep in mind that in Calvinism, the reprobate don't have the same spiritual experience as the elect.
By contrast, in Arminianism (to take one paradigmatic example), true believers can lose their salvation. Heretics, apostates, and persevering believers may all have the very same experience of God's saving grace.
Dan N said...
ReplyDelete"Steve, do you think it's possible that most won't go to hell?"
I think it's quite possible that Mt 7:13-14 is subject to misinterpretation. I covered that in my response to Birch.
Steve, do you have a link to your discussion with Billy?
ReplyDeleteAlso I'm not sure that the quote from the original post was meant to be a "depiction of Reformed theology".
It looked more like possible reasons for "why calvinism has proven so durable". From my experience, most reformed folk would agree that most aren't saved, so it is a valid reason for why Calvinism has proven durable.
a) Donald Hagner has written one of the standard commentaries on Matthew. Here is what Hagner has to say:
ReplyDelete“’There are few who find it,’ is primarily descriptive of the situation confronted by Jesus and his disciples during his ministry (so too, 22:14). Although the ‘few’ is clearly hyperbolic, it remains true that the majority of the people (polloi, v13) do not receive Jesus’ message (cf. 11:20-24; 12:41-42)…It is not the point of the passage to speculate over the number who are saved or lost,” Matthew 1-13, 179-180.
Notice that Hagner regards the scope of the passage as delimited by the immediate historical setting. The 1C Jewish Palestinian setting, during the public ministry of Christ. Not about Jews in general, much less gentiles in general. Not about all times and places.
Of course, we’re at liberty to take issue with Hagner’s interpretation. But it’s sufficient to show that Birch’s facile prooftexting is far from being and open-and-shut case.
b) In addition, if you consult standard commentaries on the Matthean, they will also note a Synoptic parallel in Lk 13:23. Indeed, they will sometimes interpret the two passages in concert.
So what about that Synoptic parallel? C. F. Evans has written one of major commentaries on Luke. Here is what he has to say: “For Luke this is no longer such a problem for in Acts, while entry into the kingdom is difficult (14:22), and Israel as a nation is excluded, a great number will belong to the true Israel of the patriarchs (cf. the discussion of the same issue in Rom 9:11),” Saint Luke, 555.
Notice that according to Evans, the Lukan passage needs to be considered in relation to the redemptive sweep of Acts.
Cont.
ReplyDeletec) In addition, Joel Green has written another major commentary on Luke. Keep in mind that Joel Greek is a NT prof. at Asbury seminary, that infamous hotbed of supralapsarian Calvinism. Here is what he has to say:
“On the one hand, Jesus’ answer may seem ambiguous; after all, his first image, the narrow door (v24), gives way to the door slammed shut (v25), and, in the end, he acts as though there are infinite doors allowing entry to just about anyone v29)! His answer may seem ambiguous in another sense, too, insofar as it appears to avoid the question about how few people might be saved only to focus on the many who will be lost (v24),” The Gospel of Luke, 528.
“On the other, Jesus’ answer is quite intelligible when read against the horizons of the eschatological banquet scene in Isa 25:6-9, whose images and vocabulary are mirrored in the Lukan scene. Isaiah had described the end as a lavish banquet, a feast fit for royalty, yet prepared for all peoples; on that day it will be said by all the nations, including Gentiles, ‘Let us be glad and rejoice in our salvation’ (v9, LXX)…Taking into account this trajectory of interpretation, the query, ‘Are only a few people being saved?’ may well be understood with reference to who among the Jews are to be regarded as the saved remnant. Jesus’ response signals a profound departure from the thought of many of his contemporaries at the same time that it recalls the vision of Isaiah. Heredity, ancestral lineage as a Jew, does not figure into his reply; moreover, just as the kingdom parables of vv18-21 had foreseen, so here his image of the kingdom banquet is marked by its explicit embrace of the Gentile world,” ibid. 528-29.
“Here, that saving dominion appears on a grand scale…is projected into the future, and is represented as a great feast. The last emphasis, envisioning the eschaton as an appropriation and celebration of divine blessing in the form of a feast, is well rooted in the literature of the OT and Second Temple Judaism. Most resonate in its reverberations, though, is the Isaianic vision, with its capacity to embrace both the notion of the eschatological banquet and the universal embrace of God’s salvation (esp. Is 25:6-8). Luke’s earlier emphasis on salvation to the Gentiles (2:30-32; cf. 12:18-21) appears again on the horizon, with the four winds representing the four corners of the earth, including the scattered remnant of faithful Israel wherever they may be found and, with them, the faithful of the world (Isa 11:11-16; 43:5-6; 60),” ibid. 532.
“As will become clear, those embraced in the kingdom feat will include even those Jews thought by many to be excluded from the family of God–cf. 14:21-23,” 532n61.
So Green takes a very expansive view of salvation in Luke-which forms the Synoptic parallel to the passage cited by Birch.
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/10/are-there-few-that-be-saved.html
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteFYI, Orthodj is not Eastern Orthodox. He is an Anglican, recently so, within the last year or two. He is in ACNA, not TEc.
Steve writes: "Keep in mind that in Calvinism, the reprobate don't have the same spiritual experience as the elect."
ReplyDeleteHow does one compare two subjective experiences?
Isn't that like saying "I see the color red as a different hue than you do"?
How would I gain that knowledge (other than a brain transplant)?
Of course, there's such a thing as Reformed Anglicans, like Packer. Does he think Packer is a heretic?
ReplyDeleteRob Zechman said...
ReplyDelete"How does one compare two subjective experiences?"
How is that relevant to the issue at hand?
Steve Hayes:
ReplyDeleteYou should consider compiling a book of these kind of back-and-forth expose's of libertarian free-will. I for one would buy it. It would serve as a very helpful one stop place for those wanting to see what the deal is in the debate.
TUAD's right--orthodj has identified himself (when challenged) in previous posts as Anglican. Evidently he is unaware of the strong Reformed influence on the 16th-century formation of the Anglican church and the decidedly Reformed flavor of the Thirty-Nine Articles. I suspect, when pushed, he'd reveal himself as more of a Laudian.
ReplyDelete