Doing business with the devil

I’m going to comment on some statements that Roger Olson makes in response to Paul Helm in Perspectives on the Doctrine of God.

I believe that Helm should simply bite the bullet, so to speak, and admit that his allegedly unreconstructed Calvinist doctrine of God makes God arbitrary and the author of sin and evil (57).

Typically, Olson doesn’t bother to define the offending phrase: “author of sin.”  For instance, the canons of Dordt say “And this is the decision of reprobation, which does not at all make God the author of sin (a blasphemous thought!) but rather its fearful, irreproachable, just judge and avenger” (Article 15).

Now Arminians think it’s illogical for Calvinists to deny that God is the author of sin. But you’d have to know what Dordt and other early Reformed sources meant by that phrase (in Latin) to know what they were denying. You can’t just substitute your own made-up definition, then accuse Reformed theologians of incoherence.

It is revealing that Arminians consistently overlook something that obvious. This has become a mindless tradition in Arminian polemics, where they unthinkingly repeat each other.

At least from an Arminian perspective, it also makes it difficult to distinguish between God and the devil. God wants some to go to hell, and the devil wants everyone to go to hell (57; cf. 162).

So this is Olson’s reason for saying the Calvinist God is Satanic. That’s what they share in common. They both want people to go to hell. They just differ on the percentages.

Yet this accusation reveals more about Arminianism than Calvinism. When you stop to think about it (which, apparently, Arminians never bother to do), it’s a very odd, subversive accusation.

What’s the purpose of hell? In orthodox theology, hell is where the wicked receive their just deserts.

So does it make sense to say the devil wants everyone to go to hell? What’s that supposed to mean? Does that mean the devil thinks everyone ought to be punished for their sins? But that would mean the devil admits that he himself deserves to be punished for his sins. Yet it seems unlikely that the devil regards hell as just punishment for his sins. Does the devil even believe in retributive punishment?

In what sense is it Satanic to want the wicked to be punished for their sins? From God’s viewpoint, damnation is just. And justice is good.

Ironically, Olson is tacitly assuming the devil’s outlook. I imagine the devil views himself as the wronged party in this transaction. That he got a raw deal. Isn’t that what we’d expect, given his twisted perspective?

So Olson’s allegation boomerangs. It’s his own perspective that has as sulfuric aroma.

And there is no conceivable reason why God destines some to life and others to death…Surely the only option left is divine arbitrariness because, based on Helm’s account, it cannot have anything to do with any decisions or choices persons make that are not rendered certain by God’s all-determining decree and power (57).

That’s a fallacious inference. Of course, to inquire about God’s possible motivation is speculative, but inasmuch as Olson’s objection is equally speculative, we can respond to him on his own level.

Something can be arbitrary in one sense, but not in another. On the one hand we might say grace and mercy are arbitrary inasmuch as the favored parties don't deserve it. And for that reason the benefactor (e.g. God) can rightly give or withhold. 

On the other hand, there can be divine reasons apart from merit which God might have for electing one and reprobating another. Due to historical causation, if God elects Esau and reprobates Jacob (to take one example of many), that will generate a very different timeline with very different consequences down the line. 

God can have reason for preferring one possible timeline over another. Hence, God may elect one individual but reprobate another, not because he necessarily prefers one individual over the other, but because he prefers the outcome.

Furthermore, if God saved the elect unconditionally, why does he not save everyone? Wouldn’t a good and loving God do that? (58).

i) Well, according to Scripture, one mark of divine goodness is to punish the wicked. Once again, isn’t Olson tacitly assuming the devil’s viewpoint when he treats justice as the antithesis of goodness?

ii) As to what a good and loving God would do, we could redirect the question at Arminians. Would a good and loving God allow a girl to become a child prostitute in Bangkok?

No doubt Olson will take refuge in freewill, but what about the freedom of the child prostitute? It’s not as if she freely chose to be a commodity in child sex trafficking.

[Helm’s] God specializes in domination, control and self-glorification… (58).

The notion that God does things for his own glory can be misleading unless we differentiate right and wrong ways of formulating that notion:

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2006/05/jealousy.html

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2010/03/for-zions-sake.html

…even though the eternal infliction of unimaginable torment on persons who were selected for hell before they were born or did anything good or bad (58).

i) I see no reason to equate retributive punishment with “torment,” much less “unimaginable” torment. Damnation can be punitive without amounting to torment.

Olson’s depiction is probably a throwback to the lurid sermons he heard as a kid. Something he never outgrew.

ii) Olson’s objection has less to do with reprobation than original sin. Yet classical Arminianism affirms original sin. So is he attacking Calvinism, or classical Arminianism?

That they supposedly “deserve it” does nothing to get God off the hook given that his God saved unconditionally (58).

Why does Olson put “deserve it” in scare quotes? And why the adjective “supposedly”? Does he think eternal punishment is a miscarriage of justice? Once more, he seems to be assuming the devil’s view of divine justice as cosmic injustice.

Clearly, he could save everyone. He chooses not to. Why? (58).

When Calvinists say God could save everyone, what they have in mind is that, all things being equal, God could save everyone. However, not all possibilities are logically compossible–even for an omnipotent God.

God may have more than one aim in world history. And taking one aim to a logical extreme may conflict with another aim. For instance, one way to forcibly illustrate the utter gratuity of grace is to save some, but not all. One way of showing that everyone deserves to go to hell is to consign at least some sinners to hell.

In fact, Olson himself is a good example of somebody who just doesn’t get it. Somebody who has yet to learn that lesson.

God’s character is at stake (58).

i) To begin with, God is the best custodian of his own reputation. We dishonor God when we presume to defend God’s honor by inventing our own notion of what’s honorable or dishonorable, then measuring God by that yardstick.

ii) Olson himself constantly maligns the character of God. And it isn’t just Reformed theism. Olson has the same problem with Yahweh. He doesn’t believe Yahweh ordered the judicial execution of the Canaanites. His attitude in that respect doesn’t seem to be materially different from Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens.