Calvinism at the burial service

When Koop came to speak at the college where I taught theology in the 1990s I was excited to hear him in person. I had a vague hope of perhaps meeting him, but that dimmed when I saw the crowds that showed up to hear him. The auditorium was packed to the rafters. He lived up to his reputation as a spell binding public speaker. However, he didn’t talk about any of the expected subjects—respect for life, AIDS, homosexuality, smoking, etc. His subject was “God Killed My Son.”

Koop spoke that day for almost an hour about God’s sovereignty and his son’s death. (He also wrote a book about it that was published around the same time.) According to Koop, God arranged his son’s tragic death in a mountain climbing accident so that it was immediate and painless (according to the coroner). Most of his talk was about God’s sovereignty over all things: meticulous providence. His son was his case study.

According to Koop, whose pastor James Montgomery Boice was one of the most vocal advocates of high Calvinism among American evangelicals and one of my seminary professors, every event is foreordained and governed by God. That, he said, is the only thing that gave him comfort when his son died—that it was no accident. It was foreordained and rendered certain by God for a divine and good purpose. As I listened, I wanted to stand and ask him (and would have asked him had there been a Q & A session afterwards) whether he would get the same comfort out of thinking God killed his son if his son’s death had not been immediate and painless. He made such a huge issue of that. After all, many sons’ (and daughters’) deaths are not immediate and painless.

A few years later I stood in a hallway in a children’s wing of a hospital and heard a small child, probably no more than two or three, screaming in agony in a room down the hall. There was no question about the source of the screaming—it could only be extreme pain. It went on and on the whole time I was visiting my daughter’s friend with her. I wanted to stop my ears from hearing it.

If Koop was right, that, too, was from God. If asked, would he tell the parents of that screaming child that her pain was foreordained and rendered certain by God for a good purpose?

I can’t say for sure that Koop’s son’s death wasn’t foreordained by God. Perhaps it was. Without a special revelation, I doubt we can know for sure. But I am confident that God did not foreordain and render certain that tiny girls’ pains. With Baptist theologian E. Frank Tupper (A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God) I believe God is not a “do anything, anytime, anywhere kind of God.”

In my opinion, the proper response to that little girl’s pain (other than medical intervention which I’m sure was being tried) was prayer, not explanation.

A few years after hearing Koop (whom I respected and admired even as I disagreed with him) I had the unique privilege of spending a fairly long time one-on-one with (then) retired Fuller Seminary ethics professor Lewis Smedes. (I was serving as his chauffeur from a large airport to the small city where I teach. He was coming to give our seminary’s annual endowed lecture series.) Smedes was not as famous as Koop, but he was known and still is remembered as one of the leading Christian ethicists. He was also a member of a Reformed church. (He was an ordained minister of the Christian Reformed Church.)

Smedes and I talked about Koop’s theology. He told me that when his son died, he stood beside the open grave into which he had just been lowered and swore that he would never tell another person that God took their child. He wrote an article about God’s sovereignty that broke decisively with meticulous providence. I explained open theism to Smedes and he expressed strong sympathy with that view and said he would probably have to write an explanation to his synod about his theology as it deviated from what he believed when he was ordained. Smedes and I exchanged e-mails about open theism and his last one to me stated that he embraced that view (without embracing the label). He died soon after that.

One thing I find interesting is how some Christians (and no doubt others) find comfort in believing God kills people, including children, while others are repulsed by the idea. Equally devout, equally God-fearing, Jesus-loving, Bible-believing people like Koop and Smedes not only hold different beliefs but react so radically differently “from the gut,” so to speak, to childrens’ deaths. And, of course, they interpret Scripture differently. Which comes first, I wonder? The experience or the hermeneutic? Or are they ever really separate?

One thing I look forward to finding out is how many of the “young, restless, Reformed” generation will hold onto their strong belief in God’s absolute, meticulous sovereignty as they mature and experience life—including tragedies in their personal lives. I predict many of them will, like Smedes, change their beliefs.

It’s one thing to believe God can bring good out of innocent pain and suffering and something else to believe God planned it and rendered it certain. The former is a good God; the latter is hardly distinguishable from the devil.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/02/remembering-c-everett-koop-and-lewis-smedes/

Several problems:

i) It could well be that the zeal of some converts to Calvinism will dampen with the passage of time. Of course, the phenomenon of converts losing their initial enthusiasm as the freshness of their discovery wears off is hardly unique to Calvinism. The zeal of many converts to many theological traditions cools as time goes on.

ii) Koop wasn’t a zealous young convert when he attributed his son’s death to predestination. BTW, James Boice died of liver cancer at 61.

iii) It’s striking that Olson was an evangelist for open theism in his correspondence with Smedes.

iv) Olson mentions a young child in physical agony. Of course, Koop was a pioneering pediatric surgeon, so it’s not as if Olson has a monopoly on compassion for the plight of suffering children. Koop made that his life’s work.

v) Olson evidently thinks it is evil for a child to suffer excruciating pain. If so, we’d classify that as natural evil in distinction to moral evil. So what prevents the Arminian God from sedating the child? God isn’t violating the freewill of the pain receptors.

vi) Perhaps Olson would say natural evil is rooted in moral evil. That natural evil is the result of the fall.

Actually, I wonder if Olson believes in a historical fall, or the historicity of Adam and Eve.

But let’s assume he does. Even if (ex hypothesi) the child’s agony has its remote source of origin in Adam’s sin, why does that inhibit the Arminian God from sedating the child? God isn’t violating Adam’s freewill by sedating a child born centuries later. And God isn’t violating the child’s freewill by relieving its pain. Even if we can trace the child’s agony back through a causal chain or historical sequence to Adam’s sin, how is that relevant to what should be done now to comfort the child?

Does Olson think the child deserves to be in pain? Does Olson think the child is guilty in Adam? Apparently not. After all, Olson views the child’s agony as something deplorable, so deplorable that God would be diabolical if he were responsible for the child’s agony.

But if the child did nothing deserving of pain, why would the Arminian God hesitate to sedate the child? The child’s pain isn’t punitive. So even if this is a natural evil that’s rooted in the moral evil of Adam’s sin, why would the Arminian God allow the child to suffer like that?

For that matter, don’t Arminians think original sin is unjust unless original sin is offset by universal sufficient grace?

vii) Doesn’t the Arminian God ensure the child’s agony by refusing to anesthetize the child? Olson seems to think the only way to render an event certain is to directly or positively cause it. But that’s obviously false.

Suppose I see an egg rolling across a counter. Unless I stop the egg or catch the egg, it will roll off the edge of the counter and fall on the floor. By not intervening, I ensure that the egg will fall to the floor. Likewise, the child’s agony is rendered certain by God doing nothing to stop the pain.

viii) In what sense did the Arminian God not plan the child’s pain? The child’s pain was a foreseeable and avoidable consequence of God making the world. So that’s hardly an unplanned event.

ix) If the parents asked, what would be wrong with saying the child’s agony was happening for a good reason? How is that answer supposed to be worse that saying God allows your child to be in agony for no good reason?

x) Sure, prayer might be better in that situation than a theological explanation, but Olson is the one who has the parents asking for an explanation. Olson can’t turn around and condemn the Calvinist for giving the parents an explanation when that’s how he framed the hypothetical in the first place.

xi) Does Olson think God never kills people? Aren’t there many biblical examples of God killing people? As is so often the case, Olson seems to repudiate the God of the Bible:

27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died (1 Cor 11:27-30).

But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, 2 and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” 5 When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it. 6 The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

7 After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.” 9 But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” 10 Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things (Acts 5:1-11).

20 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and they came to him with one accord, and having persuaded Blastus, the king's chamberlain, they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king's country for food. 21 On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. 22 And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” 23 Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last (Acts 12:20-23).

29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 30 And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where someone was not dead (12:29-30).

32 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”

35 And that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 36 (2 Kgs 19:32-36).

41 But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the Lord.” 42 And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of meeting. And behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the Lord appeared. 43 And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, 44 and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 45 “Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment.” And they fell on their faces. 46 And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, and put fire on it from off the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the Lord; the plague has begun.” 47 So Aaron took it as Moses said and ran into the midst of the assembly. And behold, the plague had already begun among the people. And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people. 48 And he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped. 49 Now those who died in the plague were 14,700, besides those who died in the affair of Korah (Num 16:41-49).