The Dark Knight

Recently I saw Leighton Flowers interview Andy Stanley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWdoPMDD-pc

There's nothing significant about what they said. These are hackneyed objections to Calvinism. What makes it significant is who said it. Andy pastors one of the two largest megachurches in the USA, so he's very influential. Not just in terms of those who attends, but as a televangelist reaching a TV audience around the world. 

Watching Andy is like watching (or reading) Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins on Christianity. Willful ignorance combined with overweening condescension. Andy is so patronizing about Calvinism, yet by his repeated admission, he's very uninformed. If you keep saying you don't know or can't imagine how Calvinists answer these questions, that's because you're not asking them. It's just like village atheists who don't bother to read evangelical philosophers and Bible scholars, then act as if they have unanswerable objections to Christianity. 

If Andy and Flowers are going to raise philosophical objections to Calvinism, the logical course of action is to read or interview Reformed philosophers. If they are going to raise exegetical objections to Calvinism, the logical course of action is to read or interview Reformed Bible scholars. 

Andy is a quintessential bigot. He constantly makes prejudicial statements about Calvinism without making a good faith effort to acquaint himself with the most competent representatives of Calvinism. He constantly stereotypes Calvinists even though, by his own admission, he rarely moves in those circles. He keeps asking Flowers for confirmation, as if Flowers is an expert witness on Calvinism. 

In this post I'm going to quote or paraphrase their statements, then respond:

Andy

Peter and John were illiterate. Not talking about the dynamic we find in the NT. 

i) That's an Ehrman style trope. For some correctives:

https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/literacies-in-the-roman-world/

https://baptist21.com/blog-posts/2018/triumph-christianitys-reading-practices-faulty-assumptions-swept-biblical-scholarship/

ii) Moreover, even if we grant for discussion purposes that Peter and John were illiterate, it hardly follows that Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, and the author of Hebrews were illiterate. 

Andy

Hypercalvinism

What does Andy mean by "hypercalvinism"? Does he think the canons of Dort, WCF, and LBCF are hypercalvinistic? Does he think Calvin, Owen, Turretin, Cunningham, Bavinck, Berkhof, Warfield, Helm, Packer, Nicole (to name a few) are hypercalvinists? 

Andy

Arrogant, judgmental. When they come out of Calvinism, when they come out of that bubble.

In the nature of the case, people who deconvert take a dim view of their former faith. That's why they deconvert. That's true for deconversion in general. And it doesn't occur to Andy that he's judgmental about Calvinists and Calvinism. And it's arrogant of him to be so opinionated about something he hasn't made a serious effort to understand. 

Flowers

You feel like you figured something out. My spiritual leaders didn't get this. They didn't understand predestination, they didn't understand Rom 9. 

It doesn't occur to Flowers that he's exactly the same way. His lack of critical self-awareness is striking

Flowers

Feeling special because you were picked arbitrarily out of a crowd of sinners.

i) From an infra standpoint, election presupposes the fall. From a supra standpoint, the fall presupposes election.

ii) Flowers fails to explain how election is arbitrary. Election doesn't take merit into account because sinners can't merit divine favor. It doesn't take faith into account because faith is the result of election. 

But this doesn't mean God can't have other reasons for whom he elects and reprobates. The course of world history depends on who is saved or damned. Change that, and it changes world history. 

Andy

You hope God has chosen you. Mormonesque, atheistic. Hypercalvinism is a bit like atheism with eternity thrown in. Everything is determined. How there's that much difference. Difficult worldview to live out. 

i) Andy never explains how Calvinism is Mormonesque. Is Mormonism deterministic? 

ii) There's quite a difference between naturalistic determinism and predestination. Naturalistic determinism is blind. By contrast, predestination reflects wisdom. The future is planned by a supremely intelligent agent. 

iii) Is Andy gay or straight? Can Andy flip a switch and be sexually attracted to teenage boys? Or is he hardwired to find women sexually attractive? Is it atheistic that his sexual orientation is determined? 

iv) Suppose I take a multiple-choice math quiz. It gives two answers, but I don't know which one is the right one. I could toss a coin or I could use a calculator. Both methods provide determinate outcomes. The coin only has two sides. Although there are many variables (e.g. how many times it flips on the way down, whether it bounces when it hits the ground), the outcome is determinate, but random. By contrast, the calculator is programmed to give the same answer to the same question every time. Indeed, to give the right answer every time. Although both methods are determinate, they're hardly equivalent ways to solve a math problem.  

Andy

How do you raise your kids that way. Do you allow your child to pray a prayer of repentance and salvation and then you just hope it took? When they abandon their faith, do you think no problem because they prayed that prayer? Do parents shrug and say they weren't one of the elect? Good thing I have three other kids. 

How is that supposed to compare with freewill theism? Some children of freewill theists abandon their faith. Don't freewill theists parents hope the prayer took?

Is Andy alluding to decisional evangelism? The sinner's prayer? Does he think apostates are saved? 

Don't parents find some consolation in having other kids who didn't commit apostasy? 

Flowers 

Piper, if God did not elect one of my children I must trust him. One of my babies is loved by me more than God.

What if Bonnie loves Clyde more than God loves Clyde. Does that mean God isn't good–or that Bonnie lacks judgment in her choice of boyfriends? 

Flowers

Young male white dominated movement.

Yes, Calvinism appeals to men. Men in general take a greater interest in philosophy, theology, math, science. There are stereotypical psychological differences between men and women. William Lane Craig talks about that difference?

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/the-feminization-of-christianity/

Is Flowers so inattentive that he he never noticed these stereotypical differences? 

Andy

I bet male Calvinists embrace that but not the mothers. The maternal instinct have very hard time reconciling the reality of being a mom with that theology.

But the maternal instinct is morally indiscriminate. So why should that be the standard of comparison. If I don't feel the same way about Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Pablo Escobar as their mothers, am I morally defective? 

Andy

If there's a theology on the surface that's in any way offensive to females…

Like complementarianism?  

Flowers 

If Calvinism is true, God has ordained more women to accept Calvinism than men. 

So what?

Andy 

God has selected more men than women and selects primarily the children of believers as opposed.

i) If more men than women are Calvinists, that doesn't mean more men than women are saved.

ii) Even in freewill theism, the children of Christians are far more likely to be Christian than the children of non-Christians. How is it fair to be the child of non-Christian parents? 

Flowers 

9/11 happened according to God's purposes and will. He brought it to pass for his glory.

I don't know what Flowers thinks it means to say God does things for his own glory. 

i) In Calvinism, humans are totally dependent on God. Everything comes from God so everything is traceable back to God. He's ultimately responsible for whatever happens. 

ii) That doesn't mean God does anything for his own sake. The elect are the beneficiaries. 

Flowers

If you besmirch that thing, if you say that was a horrible bad thing, then you've just called God's plan horrible and bad. You just besmirched what you think God did for his own self-glorification. There must be a cognitive disconnect. Don't you see how this doesn't logically play out, for you to be able to critique something that you believe God brought to pass for his own self-glorification. 

i) On a stylistic note, Flowers constantly says "for his own self-glorification". But that's redundant. If it's for his "own" glory, then it's for himself, and vice versa. The fact that Flowers uses that redundant formula is an indication that he isn't thinking about what he's saying. 

ii) "Self-glorification" is misleading. God doesn't do things for himself. He has nothing to gain.

iii) Leighton's inference is deeply confused. For instance, the Joker does horrible bad things in The Dark Knight. Does that mean you just called Nolan's movie horrible and bad? Did you just besmirch what you think Christopher Nolan did by making one of the characters a villain? 

But Nolan wants the audience to think the Joker is evil. Nolan wants the audience to think the Joker does horrible bad things. You're supposed to be critical of the Joker's actions. That doesn't mean your criticizing the movie or the director. 

iv) It's child's play to create a parallel objection to freewill theism. If God allows evil for a morally sufficient reason, but you say what happened is a horrible bad thing, then you just called God's permission horrible and bad. You just impugned God's rationale for allowing evil. There must be a cognitive disconnect. Don't you see how this doesn't logically play out, for you to be able to critique something that you believe God allowed for a morally sufficient reason? 

Andy

He planned it.

And Nolan planned it. 

Andy

They toss it into the bucket of mystery. If God causes or is behind or sovereignly institutes all evil, it blurs the distinction between good and evil because anything that glorifies or reflects well on God has to be good, so when evil reflects well on God, then evil becomes good. I don't know how to live with that dichotomy. 

The Dark Knight is a reflection of the director. Does the fact that Nolan's plot includes a villain committing atrocities blur the distinction between good and evil? To the contrary, the Joker is a foil character. He exists by design, but the design is to make evil look bad in contrast to the hero. 

Flowers 

Doesn't sacrifice the mass of humanity (i.e. the reprobate) for the sake of his own self-glorification but instead offers the means by which anyone and everyone can be saved.

i) Calvinism has no official position on whether the majority or minority of humans are saved.

ii) How does freewill theism offer the means by which everyone can be saved if faith in Jesus is a prerequisite for salvation, even though many people live and die outside the pale of the Gospel? 

Flowers

Good is providing for the needs of others. 

When God consigns unbelievers to hell, is he providing for their needs? 

Flowers

Good is unconditional love?

i) How is God's love unconditional if he makes salvation contingent on repentance, faith, and obedience? 

ii) Conversely, isn't unconditional election the apogee of love? 

Flowers

God is self-sacrificially loving towards his enemies. 

In what sense is divine love sacrificial? It doesn't cost him anything personally. He has nothing to lose. Nothing to give up. 

You might say the atonement is sacrificial love, but that's "sacrificial" in a different, technical sense of redemptive death. 

Flowers

That God creates people for damnation. 

i) According to Molinism and classical Arminianism, God knows in advance that he will damn many of the people he creates. So he creates them with that final destination in mind. 

ii) In Calvinism, God doesn't create the reprobate just to damn them, but because they reprobate are agents whose actions further the plot. 

Andy

How does a Calvinist present a sincere invitation. 

A sincere offer is telling someone that if they do something, this is what they can expect in return–and it's true.

Andy

How do you preach through the Gospel of John? You have to qualify everything. You have to make words mean things that the words don't mean. The intellectual dishonesty.

Has Andy ever read commentaries on John by Reformed exegetes like Don Carson and Ramsey Michaels? 

Andy

How does a Calvinist do children's ministry sit in a circle with 8 or 9 children. Does it really matter. I mean I guess we're supposed to do this but at the end of the day their eternal destiny has already been determined. 

Classic confusion between predestination and fatalism. Election doesn't mean God determines their salvation no matter what, but that God determines their salvation by means of regeneration, repentance, faith, sanctification, perseverance, preservation. 

Andy

John Lennox's book. 

Lennox is a wonderful Christian gentlemen and Christian apologist, but he's over his head when it comes to philosophical and exegetical theology. 

Andy

God causes the evil he forbids. 

i) In a sense that's true, but that holds for freewill theism as well as Calvinism. As philosopher David Lewis explains:

 “We think of a cause as something that makes a difference, and the difference it makes must be a difference from what would have happened without it. Had it been absent, its effects — some of them, at least, and usually all — would have been absent as well.”

On that view, the God of freewill theism causes the evil he forbids. He's not the sole cause, but he's not the sole cause in Calvinism, either. 

ii) In Exod 7:1-5, Yahweh, through Moses, commands Pharaoh to release the Israelites. Yet in the same passage, Yahweh says he will prevent Pharaoh from compliance with the command. God's intention is to perform a series of specular miracles to demonstrate his identity as the true God. If Pharaoh gives in too soon, that short-circuits God's goal. So God "hardens" Pharaoh to prevent him from relenting prematurely. 

Flowers

Calvinists have the same vocabulary but a different dictionary. 

If you look up phileo or agapeo in a Greek lexicon, it simply gives you an English synonym. It doesn't tell you what love is. Flowers doesn't know the difference between the meaning of words and the meaning of concepts. 

Flowers

Calvinists disagree on whether God loves everyone. 

So what?

Andy

That whole idea that God is a benevolent God, depends on where you live. For most people, life is not loving. Life has been hell on earth. and hey there's good news, you're gonna live forever, and if you think this has been bad, it's going be worse, but God's gonna receive the glory. It would be better if there were no God. Maybe I'm missing something. You ain't seen nothing' yet. Once you die it's pain and suffering and torment. forever. 

So Andy denies God's benevolence in general providence and eschatological judgment. How's that a knock against Calvinism rather than freewill theism? 

Andy

Most people are reprobate, right? 

Not according to Warfield. 

Andy

You don't have to do apologetics because you just throw out the Gospel and the elect will respond. 

Back to his failure distinguish between predestination and fatalism (see above).