A few more comments on this:
Shortly after this I reassessed my belief in Calvinism and let it corrode under the sweet promises of Scripture: that eternal life is given to all those who believe in the Son of God—Jesus Christ.
i) Come again? Calvinism affirms that eternal life is given to all those who believe in Christ.
ii) Perhaps he means that according to Calvinism, some people who initially believe in Christ subsequently lose their faith. But, if so, the same holds true for freewill theism (Molinism, Arminianism, open theism).
After intense study of all these matters I came to doubt many of the core beliefs of the faith. I did not express my doubts to many people, though I often confessed to others that I was struggling with a terrifying fear of death and did not know I was saved.
On the face of it, his logic is backwards. If, say, you came to doubt many of the core beliefs of the faith, it would them make sense to doubt your salvation. For at that point you doubt the very framework of sin, salvation, and a Savior. If, say, you came to doubt the veracity of the Gospels, then it would make sense to doubt your own salvation inasmuch as you now doubted the larger story in which that's embedded. If you doubt Christian soteriology, you will naturally doubt your own salvation. What is there to be saved from?
But why would doubting his salvation cause him to doubt the Christian faith? How does the loss of assurance in his salvation lead to doubting the historicity of the Gospels, the Resurrection, &c.?
It seemed to me that the only way I could know I was saved was by knowing the status of my eternal election. Was I chosen by God for salvation or was I eternally damned before I had done anything good or bad? To be sure, the Calvinist theologian in me had responses to this question, yet none of them sufficed…my Calvinistic theology presented my needs for assurance with an epistemological problem: in order to have assurance I needed to know the status of my election, something that by definition is secret and cannot be known.
This objection was articulated in an article by William Lane Craig entitled “Lest Anyone Should Fall”: A Middle Knowledge Perspective on Perseverance and Apostolic Warnings where he essentially argues that the “means of salvation view” is actually more coherent in a “middle knowledge” perspective. Middle knowledge is the view of God’s knowledge that contains what his creatures would freely do in any given circumstances (or “possible world”) before he creates the world. This contrasts with the Calvinist perspective in that it allows for libertarian free will, which is a view of freedom that is incompatible with causal determinism.
That's like grounding the assurance of salvation in Monadology. There's absolutely no evidence that Molinism is true. There's no empirical evidence, revelatory evidence, or philosophical evidence.
It's like saying: Planet earth is dying. We need to colonize another planet to survive. An astronomer has postulated a Class M planet in a particular solar system in the Milky Way. We only have the technological wherewithal to make one trip. So let's go there.
Mind you, there's no empirical evidence that a Class M planet exists in that location. But given the size of the Milky Way, it's possible that the astronomer's postulate is true. We might get very lucky.
For someone who claims to have been a former Calvinist he sure doesn't seem to have a very firm grasp of the subject matter.
ReplyDeleteOh well, it's better to have those guys on the outside lobbing objections than on the inside sowing confusion. God is gracious.
"Come again? Calvinism affirms that eternal life is given to all those who believe in Christ."
ReplyDeletePerhaps he is referring to the confusion that Calvinism caused in his mind between true belief in Christ and spurious belief in Christ. For example, “[W]hatever ‘evidence’ we muster in favor of making our election sure could very well be spurious.” He evidently doesn't have that problem now.
"Perhaps he means that according to Calvinism, some people who initially believe in Christ subsequently lose their faith."
I doubt it. He stated in his piece that he thinks that Calvinism teaches that those who lose their "faith" never had true faith to begin with. For example, “[T]his means that they did not ‘fall away;’ rather, they never were truly saved.”
Except for antinomians, freewill theism also makes allowance for churchgoers who delude themselves into thinking they are saved when they are not.
DeleteWesleyan Arminian NT schoalr Ben Witherington says apostates never had saving faith in the first place:
Delete"This is an excellent question, and it is quite impossible to answer on the basis of what little you have said about this person. But consider these two possibilities: 1) the first go around the person was not in fact a Christian, did not love the Lord with all their heart etc. They were in a state much like the demons described in the Gospels-- who knew very well who Jesus was and did not dispute it, but this truth had not transformed their lives and behavior, as evidence by this person going AWOL. Mental assent to the Gospel is not the same as being saved. The issue is had they trusted and adhered to, and been transformed by and lived on the basis of that truth? 2) The very fact that this person now has a heart for God, and the other things you mentioned, is evidence that they did not commit apostasy in the first place which is a soul destroying act."
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2008/02/christian-apostasy-and-hebrews-6.html?showComment=1203077760000#c7582433999683856630
Likewise, John Wesley said:
Whatever other passages of Scripture may condemn you, it is certain, you are not condemned either by the sixth or the tenth of the Hebrews. For both those passages speak wholly and solely of apostates from the faith which you never had. Therefore, it was not possible that you should lose it, for you could not lose what you had not. Therefore whatever judgments are denounced in these scriptures, they are not denounced against you. You are not the persons here described, against whom only they are denounced.
Now, which of you has thus fallen away? Which of you has thus ―crucified the Son of God afresh? Not one: Nor has one of you thus ―put him to an open shame. If you had thus formally renounced that ―only sacrifice for sin there had no other sacrifice remained; so that you must have perished without mercy. But this is not your case. Not one of you has thus renounced that sacrifice, by which the Son of God made a full and perfect satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. Bad as you are, you shudder at the thought: therefore that sacrifice still remains for you. Come then, cast away your needless fears! ―Come boldly to the throne of grace. The way is still open. You shall again ―obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. "A Call to Backsliders."
“Except for antinomians, freewill theism also makes allowance for churchgoers who delude themselves into thinking they are saved when they are not.”
ReplyDeleteI got the impression that even antinomians make allowance for churchgoers who delude themselves. See, for example.
Good points regarding the Witherington and Wesley texts you cite.
Antinomians think that so long as you make a one-time decision for Christ, you can die an impenitent unbeliever but still be saved.
DeleteDoes the doctrine of perseverance of the saints allow for the possibility of a regenerate, justified person becoming impenitent and unbelieving (apostate) for a period of time, so long as it is not until his last breath?
Delete