Un
Conditioning
A Foray Into the Doctrine of
Unconditional Election
James Patrick Holding
We
now deal with the petal of TULIP which is probably the most controversial of
all, and which sets the ground for the LIP that follows: Unconditional
Election. Actually the unconditional part seems to cause little heartburn,
except among those who regard works as essential to salvation (which is an
illicit view; see here);
it is the "election" part that has sent tempers flaring and tears
streaming, as I can personally attest.
So
then, what of Unconditional Election? It seems to boil down to a dichotomy:
"Does God foreknow because he foreordains or does he foreordain because he
foreknows?" The latter seems to please Arminians;
the former seems to please Calvinists (though I am far from saying this is how
all would frame it who refer to themselves as such). Palmer [Palm.5P, 24f],
often regarded as an extremist in Calvinism, lays the ground with a definition
of foreordination: "...God's sovereign plan, whereby He decides all
that is to happen in the entire universe. Nothing in the world happens by
chance. God is in back of everything. He decides and causes all things to
happen that do happen. He is not sitting on the sidelines wondering and perhaps
fearing what is going to happen next. No, he has foreordained everything 'after
the counsel of his will' (Eph. 1:11): the moving of a finger, the beating of a
heart, the laughter of a girl, the mistake of a typist -- even sin. (See Gen.
45:5-8; Acts 4:27-28...)"
In
principle the sovereignty of God, His ability to do as He pleases, is hardly to
be denied. It would be foolish to suggest that anything happens by chance or
that God may possibly wonder or fear the future. This is the error of neotheism.
Yet Palmer's statement indicates a certain inflexibility in thinking and a
certain interpretive assumption that leads to an absurdity if taken to other
passages. Here is the full text of Ephesians 1:11:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being
predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh
all things after the counsel of his own will...
"All
things" -- including the movement of every finger (which we will use as
the exemplary indication), Palmer would say, is decided and caused by God. We
agree that this is true, though not in the sense Palmer would think. If by his
statement Palmer means that some direct decision of God moves every finger,
that God in eternity decreed, "JP will hit the 'g' key on March 3,
2002, at 6:02 PM," we do not deny that this is possible, but do not
see that it is necessary. Yet does not Ephesians say "all
things"? Yes, but if this is inclusive of literally all things, then what
of these passages?
Matt. 19:26 But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With
men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
All
things are possible for God -- yet as skeptics are fond of pointing out, it is
not possible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18). It is also obviously impossible for
God to wish Himself out of existence, or to make 2 and 2 actually equal 5, or
to make a stone so heavy He cannot lift it. "All things" here clearly
does not include certain things but is expressive of a certain context. One
more example will suffice:
Mark 4:34 But without a parable spake
he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his
disciples.
As
I have noted elsewhere, "All things? Including the living habits of sea
slugs?" The example is facetious, but nevertheless makes a certain point.
"All things" is not a literal expression but has contextual limits;
the phrase expresses completeness within a context.
With
that said, is there a contextual limit in Ephesians 1:11? There is, but it is
not as easy to draw a line around it: the contextual limit is God's purpose,
which no one has a full and detailed accounting of; the Bible gives us general
outlines of God's purpose and will but does not detail all of the specifics of
enactment, which would take up a book that would crack the earth's crust. And
the question then arises: Does God need to decree and cause, actively,
every movement of a finger to accomplish His purpose? And does suggesting that
He does not somehow denigrate Him?
Let
us express the point in other terms. A certain parable runs like this:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the
horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the
battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the
want of a horseshoe nail.
If
God wishes for a kingdom to fall, He may do so by controlling every
battle, every rider, every horse, every molecule. Or He may do so by
controlling a single nail, or by moving a grain of sand, or by diverting
a single cannonball. By any means He chooses, His will and purpose may and will
be accomplished. And even if "all things" in Eph. 1:11 is
universally inclusive, we may add, it does not indicate that God's direct
influence in "all things" is at a "micro" level in which
every conceivable element is personally controlled. God's will may be exercised
over a "thing" like a battle via the mere movement of a single nail
or a single cannonball. (Some have even suggested that this is indicated in
Scripture, in Hos. 6:4 and probably Is. 54:15, where
God says that things have happened, but "not by me.") My question for
Calvinists in this context would be, does it deny the sovereignty of God, His
freedom to do as He pleases, to say that at times He may accomplish what He
pleases through the most minimal of actions, and then allows what follows to
take its natural course, because it likewise suits His purpose and will to do
so? If so, how does this denigrate Him? Palmer, on his extreme end,
would say yes; other Calvinists would perhaps say no, and a couple writing to
me have said as much. But these in turn open the door for further questions.
Biblically
there is support for such a principle by example:
1 Kings 19:11-12 And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the
mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong
wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the
LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was
not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in
the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
This
passage has been used by some Skeptics to deny omnipresence, but it clearly
does not do this; yet it also establishes a principle that God need not work
through the most spectacular and obvious method to men. Indeed, to suggest that
He must or always does could in some sense be taken as establishing limits to
His actions (though I do not think anyone actually argues this).
Some
Calvinist commentators point to various passages of specific events such as the
selling of Joseph into slavery (Gen. 45-50), the crucifixion of Christ (Acts
2:23), and the military actions of the Assyrians (Is. 10). And they are not
wrong to do so. Yet one cannot falsely generalize from these particulars and assume
that God chooses to exercise His right of sovereignty in the same way
for things like the moving of a finger. Perhaps He does, but perhaps He does
not; perhaps He does at some times, but not at others. Yet to suggest such a
thing hardly removes any sovereignty from God, for a simple reason that I have
yet to see dealt with by a Calvinist commentator (though I may see it in the
future): The decision to do nothing is itself a sovereign decision. If
this is not so, why do we blame people for not taking action when we
think they should? And even then God's influence is far from removed in any
sense. "For in him we live, and move, and have our being..." (Acts
17:28, a quote from a pagan poet which Paul uses in apparent agreement on this
point). "And he is before all things, and by him all things consist"
(Col. 1:17, the obvious context constraint being, that Christ is not before
God!). These passages indicate a continual, sustaining relationship
between God and His creation. If He released that sustenance, the creation
would cease to exist. Therefore even when God decides to let matters run a
certain course, His sovereignty is still being exercised. (R. C. Sproul
comes very close to this, stating, "everything that happens must at least
happen by God's permission." [Emphasis added; Spr.CG,
26]
Palmer
[Palm.5P, 85] "defends" his Calvinist view by saying that the
Calvinist "realizes that what he advocates is ridiculous" when he
says, for example, that God foreordained Judas' sin, yet Judas is still to
blame. "...[T]he Calvinist freely admits that his position is illogical,
ridiculous, nonsensical, and foolish." But Palmer has given up too quickly
here. God's sovereign choice of controlling action over Judas' particular
sin in betraying Jesus does not logically require that he make a sovereign
choice of equal exercise of control over the rest of Judas' life. God is still
ultimately responsible in a very important way, that does not absolve us of
responsibility and free choice: As Creator, as what Aristotle would call the
Prime Mover, God chose in all sovereignty to create this world when He could
have created another, different world, or even none at all. In choosing this
world over others, He also chose all that would happen in it (see more below).
Yet this does not erase our free choices: As I have noted in response to
skeptics recently, that God knows you will do X does not imply that you must
do X, only that you will do X. God in choosing the world where you would
do X makes Him the ultimate sovereign -- without absolving you of
responsibility for your choice to do X.
The
forces and factors that went into creating Judas (as our example) are beyond
our ability to list, for we cannot know them. What made Judas suitable for
God's purposes and will? Did God need to directly control every aspect of
Judas' life, ranging all the way back to his ancestry? Maybe, but perhaps not.
A single experience may have been enough to make Judas what he was in the
unique sense required to fulfill God's purpose with reference to Christ. Palmer
appeals to the experience of Job before God, and he is right to do so: We do
not have God's knowledge to understand what is good or what is not, and to know
His purposes. Yet we may theoretically suppose that had God chosen some other
to take Judas' role, Judas himself would have stood no less condemned at the
end of time on other grounds. In fact, that is quite likely, so one could
hardly say that any judgment on Judas for what he did is unfair. (Especially
since the penalty is the same regardless: eternal punishment! It is not as
though Judas will pay any larger penalty because of this particular sin
-- is anyone willing to argue he had no sins other than this one, and thus did
not already deserve what came to him?)
Allow
a facetious comparison I have made before. God chose Abraham, for Abraham
fulfilled God's purpose precisely, but clearly a second person would have
fulfilled God's purpose less precisely, and this is why they were not chosen
and Abraham was. Now let me expand this point by a larger example. One of my
favorite fiction genres is that of alternate history, as by Harry Turtledove. A
recent book by this author proposed to show what would have happened had George
III of
The
injection of primary causality in this venue is not new. Norman Geisler injects the same concept, in a somewhat different
way and reaching somewhat different conclusions, when he speaks in Chosen
But Free of God "knowingly determining and determinately knowing"
and essentially concludes that the question, "Does God foreknow because he
foreordains or does he foreordain because he foreknows?" is a misplaced
question. To speak of God doing A "because" of B implies a chain of
causality that would be impossible for a being who transcends time. White [57]
in reply quotes an observation of Feinberg "that God foreordains all
things simultaneously does not mean that there is no logical order in what he
foreordains." Feinberg is not really grasping Geisler's
point here: That God is aware of linear order does not thereby entail that God thinks
or acts in a linear order; indeed such would again be impossible for a
timeless being, since a linear or logical order requires the passage of time to
exist and be enacted. Geisler's solution -- that God
acts based both on His sovereign will and his foreknowledge simultaneously (and
I would add, acts with reference to each as He desires to accomplish His
purposes) -- fits the requirements of logic and is contradicted by no exegete I
know of (though I am still looking) except by generalizing falsely from
particulars.
My
conclusion such as can be drawn from this limited commentary is that I perceive
a certain unwarranted extreme in what some Calvinist writers offer in this
context. James White sums up in one of many ways by saying, "One is not a
Potter who has no role in determining the shape, function, and destiny of the
pots." [Whit.PF, 71] I would say, "One is
not a Potter who does not have the determinative role in deciding the
shape, function, and destiny of the pots," and freeing the pots to
whatever extent to become, of their free choice, of a certain shape or function
that suits the Potter's will and purpose, is itself a sovereign decision that,
as far as I can see, robs the Potter of no glory whatsoever, especially since
the pots would owe whatever freedom they do have to the Potter's free
and sovereign decision to release them. The analogy breaks down inevitably,
since pots do not make decisions (and there was no metaphor available for Paul
that would express the point, since there exists no other
creation-Creator relationship in which free choices can be found). Yet I can
see no reason why such a view robs God of sovereignty -- if this is indeed what
anyone would argue. And still as yet, no Calvinist who believes this has
written me to explain how this is so.
And God answered Job out of the
whirlwind: "Job, you don't know SQUAT."
Now
let's expand on the points above by way of illustration. To create our
illustration, we will begin by hypothesizing three worlds. For the
entertainment of all my fellow Star Trek fans, we will name these worlds
Vulcan, Tellar, and Andor.
Our
illustrations here will necessarily be highly simplified. Obviously God's
choice as Prime Mover is far from limited to three possible worlds. But since
it is not possible to lay out, much less show in this space, all possible
options, we will have to be limited in our presentation. Let's now consider
these three worlds from certain perspectives. Our assumption is that all three
worlds, like ours, will be populated by beings with free will:
|
Issue |
Vulcan |
Tellar |
Andor |
|
Population Over History |
245 billion |
178 billion |
345 billion |
|
Number Saved |
32 billion |
117 billion |
118 billion |
Well,
so much for the benefits of logic! (Inside joke for Star Trek fans.) Now
all of you readers would easily suggest that Tellar is
the world to make out of these three. Simple enough? So it seems, but let's now
work out some of the processes involved in getting those 117 billion to their
destination. (The reader will note that we have not hypothesized a world where all
are saved. It would be our assertion that no such world is logically possible,
but that is an issue for another context.)
The
doctrine of total depravity would suggest that all 178 billion of those Tellarites over their history can make no choice for God
without God's help. But let's back up for a bit and discuss the matter of God's
level of exercise of sovereignty. We'll need to hypothesize, for convenience,
two "turning point" events in the history of Tellar.
Then we'll hypothesize three levels of God's exercise of sovereignty. (In other
words, 30% may mean just pulling a nail out of a few horseshoes; 55% may mean
somehow directing riders; 85% may mean pulling a castle wall down, and so on.)
Obviously this is highly simplified as the number of events and the number of
levels of direct involvement by God are potentially infinite in scope. But it
will serve as an illustration.
|
|
Event 1 |
Event 2 |
|
Involvement Level: 30% |
|
|
|
Involvement Level: 55% |
|
|
|
Involvement Level: 85% |
|
|
God's
level of exercised sovereignty would clearly have a profound effect on the
results of each event. We will express the effects in terms of number of
persons saved. Start with event 1:
|
|
Event 1 |
Event 2 |
|
Involvement Level: 30% |
45,000 |
|
|
Involvement Level: 55% |
75,000 |
|
|
Involvement Level: 85% |
38,000 |
|
"Hey!
How could being involved more mean less people will be saved?" Ask
a Skeptic -- the one who sees God as an unwelcome intruder in their lives. Some
persons may react different when confronted subtly rather than directly. This
is why, as the song goes today, He is God and you are not. But hang on a moment, because there is another issue.
Event 1 may or may not be tied in to Event 2. If it is, then what happens? Then
God's sovereign choice in Event 1 may affect what happens in Event 2. So now
let's make two more tables suggesting what might happen depending on which
route God takes:
|
|
Event 1 |
Event 2 |
|
Involvement Level: 30% |
45,000 |
62,000 |
|
Involvement Level: 55% |
|
82,000 |
|
Involvement Level: 85% |
|
13,000 |
|
|
Event 1 |
Event 2 |
|
Involvement Level: 30% |
|
5,000 |
|
Involvement Level: 55% |
75,000 |
8,000 |
|
Involvement Level: 85% |
|
1,000 |
If
you picked 55% involvement level for event 1, you just fouled up -- far fewer
people were saved. And that's once again why you aren't in charge of things!
Our
illustration here is profoundly simple, because as noted, the multiplicity of
events and factors is far beyond our comprehension. Only God can keep it all
together and truly know what the best route is that will result in the
fulfillment of His purpose. It is little wonder that the answer to Job from the
whirlwind was essentially, "As if you know." (Skeptics who
demand a better explanation need to take a chill pill: They don't have the time
or the knowledge to get a complete rundown of the multiplicity, and it is
hardly as though the sovereign Creator owes any of us ignorant bumpkins an
explanation.)
A
reader has added some helpful observations gleaned from William Lane Craig's
material on God's Middle Knowledge. Craig maintains that God's omniscience
means that He knows everything, not just each and every actuality but all the
potentialities as well. Within this He knows not only who will reject Him under
any and all circumstances, but who will accept Him and precisely what
circumstances will be required to affect their decision. In His providence (a
part of His omnipotence) He therefore places those individuals who will accept
Him into the requisite circumstances. Those who would reject Him in
any-and-every circumstance are either placed "out in the sticks" (God
knowing that they would never respond to Him, so why "waste the
effort" and/or have them "in the way" as it were) or are placed
as sort of "necessary fillers". Madelyn Murray O'Hare comes to mind
as a good example of one on the "necessary filler" assignment. As far
as anyone on this side knows she never did (nor ever would have) accepted God's
salvation. But she had a son whom God knew would respond to His call if he just
grew up in the unique circumstance of having Madelyn for his mother. He now preaches
the Gospel and has helped birth many into the kingdom.
With
these things in mind we now take a preliminary look at the keystone passage for
unconditional election -- Romans 9:6-26. Paul is answering the question, as
Palmer puts it, "How can the Israelites, who had all the blessings of God
in the past, be spiritually lost?" [32] Did God's promises fail? No, says
Paul (9:6), first of all the point is missed: the true
9:10-13 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had
conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to
election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
The
typical skeptical question in the preliminary is, "Isn't this unfair to
Esau?" Not so fast. Consider this theoretical yet simplified scenario:
|
|
Jacob Chosen |
Esau |
|
Maximum Number Saved |
178 billion |
155 billion |
So,
Job, what would you do? I thought so. But skeptics, I expect the same complaint
from you, and Paul has anticipated it as well:
9:14-18 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness
with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith
unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might
show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the
earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Is
there unrighteousness with God? Hardly. "Why not choose me?" -- Esau.
At the very least it may be said in reply, "Because look what happens if
you do!" Now obviously we are using mere number of saved here as an
exemplary hypothesis -- the multiplicity of possibilities and events is much,
much more involved, to a degree that blows Job out of the water and into the
orbit of Pluto and beyond. Only God can manage the multiplicity! That's why
Paul's final answer is the same as it was to Job: "Nay but, O man, who art
thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing
formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?" In other
words, what do you know?
But
we have not covered every aspect as yet. The crux of election is Romans 9:16 --
So then it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.
It
is our contention that Romans 9 may be better understood in terms of the rubric
of primary causality. But we anticipate the objection that we would be thereby
reading into the text a concept not found therein. Our answer is that we would
not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by
Paul -- because such an "explanation expectation" would be the
product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one,
like Paul's. (We will also need to take a closer look at the meaning of
"mercy" below.)
The
thinking of the ancient Hebrew is not, as ours, concerned with precision. As
Marvin Wilson points out in Our Father Abraham, "The nature of
Hebrew [the language] is to paint verbal pictures with broad strokes of the
brush. The Hebrew authors of Scripture were not so much interested in the fine
details and harmonious pattern of what is painted as they were in the picture
as a whole. Theirs was primarily a description of what the eye sees rather than
what the mind speculates."
In
terms of theology, this means that God's existence is never argued, but
assumed; "God is not understood philosophically, but functionally."
God is thought of in terms of what He does.
Second,
Jewish thinking, unlike our own, involved the use of what
The
paradoxical nature of Ecclesiastes -- a book filled with statements regarded as
being in tension (for example, on one hand mulling over the despair of life,
then shortly thereafter encouraging the enjoyment of life) -- has been
variously identified as being because Ecclesiastes is either a dialogue of a
man debating with himself, "torn between what he cannot help seeing and
what he still cannot help believing," [Kidner,
Wisdom of Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, 91], or else as the author's
"challenge to the man of the world to think his own position through to
its bitter end, with a view to seeking something less futile." I prefer
the second interpretation, but in either case, the compositional principle is
the same, and derives from the ancient Near Eastern methodology, which we might
loosely compare to a Hegelian case of combining thesis and antithesis, to
arrive at a synthesis; or else for sports fanatics to a game of tennis in which
the ball is batted back and forth between opposing points to arrive at a consensus.
In
this regard Ecclesiastes is related to other ANE literature with the same, or
similar, content and methodology. Works like A Dialogue About Human Misery
and Pessimistic Dialogue Between Master and Servant (on which, Murphy
comments, the "dexterity the slave displays in affirming both the positive
and negative aspects of a situation is reminiscent of [Ecclesiastes'] own
style" -- Murphy commentary on Eccl, xliii] from Babylon; The Man Who
Was Tired of Life from Egypt; and the book of Job from the OT, are all
examples of this genre in which problems were discussed and resolved via
dialogue. The modern Western mind has little patience with this sort of logical
construction, and it is no surprise to see that critics have no appreciation
for the implied intent of such literature: "Work out the problem
yourselves," vs. "Give me an answer in a can, to go."
Hebrew
"block logic" operated on similar principles. "...[C]oncepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of
thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously
rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the
human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. This way of
thinking created a propensity for paradox, antimony, or apparent contradiction,
as one block stood in tension -- and often illogical relation -- to the other.
Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic."
Examples of this in practice are the alternate hardening of Pharaoh's heart by
God, or by Pharaoh himself; and the reference to loving Jacob while hating Esau
-- both of which, significantly, are referred to often by Calvinist writers.
What
this boils down to is that Paul presents us with a paradox in Romans 9, one
which he, as a Hebrew, saw no need to explain. "..[T]he Hebrew mind
could handle this dynamic tension of the language of paradox" and saw no
need to unravel it as we do. And that means that we are not obliged to simply
accept Romans 9 at "face value" as it were, because it is a problem
offered with a solution that we are left to think out for ourselves. There will
be nothing illicit about inserting concepts like primary causality, otherwise
unknown in the text.
The
rabbis after the NT explicated the paradox a bit further. They did not
conclude, however -- as is the inclination in the Calvinist camp -- that
"a totally unalterable future lay ahead, for such a view contradicted
God's omnipotence and mercy." They also argued that "unless God's
proposed destiny for man is subject to alteration, prayer to God to institute
such alteration" is nonsensical. Of course the rabbis were not inspired in
their teachings. Yet their views cannot be simply discarded with a grain of
salt, as they are much closer to the vein than either Calvin or Arminius, by
over a millennium and by an ocean of thought.
The time has come now to break down into some brass tacks,
and it starts with a look at the Calvinist's bubba club, Romans 9, and we now
supplement it with observations from our essay on mercy as it was
understood in that time, as well as some observations from a helpful reader.
(On 2/23/05 we expanded this section here.
As
noted above, Paul's purpose is to answer the question, "Why aren't more of
Yet
this has not been suggested, as yet, by any Calvinist commentary that I have
seen on Romans 9. Rather it seems that there is a stumbling block to this
interpretation involving 9:16 -- "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy." The conclusion
reached from this is that, as White puts it, "There was nothing in
the twins that determined the choice." [208, emphasis added] That is why
Paul makes it clear that the matter was decided before the twins were born;
thus the source of election is solely in God.
I
am not sure whether White would disagree with what follows, but as the matter
is stated by both he and Piper ("not merely prior to their good or evil
deeds, but...also completely independently of them") there seems to be a
certain dissonance with a later portion of Romans 9. Paul goes on to
analogically compare men to vessels made by the Potter. Doesn't this indicate
that vessels are made for certain purposes? (Of course it does.) And
does this not suggest that to fulfill their purpose the vessels are made
a certain way, and that there is something about them which fulfills the
purpose? The point I see missed here is that the indication is not so much
"completely independent" of what was in the twins, as what was in
them that God as the Potter (and Prime Mover) created in them to enact His
sovereign will. And it is not as though Esau could "compete" for
Jacob's place, or as though Jacob could boast because God made him more
in line with the purpose He had established. We cannot boast of being a better
runner if our legs are equipped with booster rockets. (We could boast,
actually, but to do so would be profoundly silly!)
Consider
this now as well with reference to Pilch and Malina's observation that in an ancient context,
"mercy" is better rendered as "gratitude" or
"steadfast love" -- as in, "the debt of interpersonal
obligations for unrepayable favors received."
Mercy is not involved with feelings of compassion, as today, but the
"paying of one's debt of interpersonal obligation by forgiving a trivial
debt." To say, "Lord, have mercy!" (Matt. 20:31) means,
"Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us!" Far from
being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned
favor from our patron (God) whose client we are.
Let
it be remembered that this is not said snobbishly as though God
"owes" us something naturally. By comparison God made a compact with
Abraham and willingly underwent the ritual of contract (passing between the
halved animals) which essentially indicated that if He broke His contract with
Abraham, He would be divided in half like the animals! God in His love was
willing to send His Son, and is also willing to place Himself under contractual
obligation to us, to start a relationship of "ongoing reciprocity,"
in which "those toward whom one has such a debt are equally obliged to
maintain the relationship by further favors..." The proper social
definition of "mercy" brings an interesting twist to, for example,
the great Calvinist keystone in Romans 9: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy." Understood as
the NT writers wrote it, this means: "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that pays His debt of personal obligation to us as our patron."
This
leads as well to a comment made by a reader. The Calvinist seizes on verses 16
and 18 for the point that God's showing of mercy to specific persons in a
manner wholly independent of the person's attributes or conduct. But then what
of Romans 9:32, which explains that biological
The
Calvinist strongly stresses the not in this passage, and the argument
seems to be that this eliminates personal characteristics (even God-given
ones?!) as a basis for God's election. But then what is the basis for election?
Some, like Palmer (who is content to believe six impossible things before
breakfast, and be proud of it) wave the white flag and say that a
"searching human mind" finds no answer. Other commentators offer
little more than, "That's just the way it is." I think they have
given up too quickly and offer these points for consideration.
First: Consider again our example of the
three worlds. There is no possible world in which all are saved. God as Prime
Mover, He who in sovereign freedom chose one world over all the others
possible, in this manner thereby in essence decrees as well who the
elect and non-elect will be, without in any way removing our ability to
freely choose. Remember that just because God knows we will do X does
not mean that we must do X, as if by force.
Second: The dwelling upon of
"not" in 9:16 fails to do justice to another particular of Hebrew
thought. For reference let me bring up a point from another essay on an unrelated
subject:
Jeremiah 7:22 For in the day that I brought your ancestors
out of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt
offerings and sacrifices...
By
[this Skeptic]'s line of thinking, Jeremiah 7:22 "stands in flagrant
contradiction of what the last four books of the Pentateuch say" with their
many commands of offerings and sacrifices. Presumably we are to think that
Jeremiah represents some "anti-cultus"
faction that denies the Mosaic heritage -- some would say, that he is speaking
against a recent forgery of Deuteronomy "discovered" in the
The
simple answer to this notes that this is rather the use of hyperbole to effect
a point. The purpose of this phrase is to show the relative importance of
sacrifices, etc. in terms of inward attitudes...
...Jeremiah
(as well as other Biblical writers - cf. Amos 5:21-5, Micah 6:1-8, Is. 1:10-17)
here employs a type of idiom designed to grab the attention of his hearers and
cause his message to be noticed and remembered...in our verse (22), a
rhetorical negation is used to bring attention to the fact that internal
posture is more important than external ritual. By expressing the matter in
terms of a negation, the hearer/reader is first shocked, then realizes from the
admonitions following what the actual point is: As it is expressed in 1 Samuel
15:22 --
Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as
much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and
to heed is better than the fat of rams.
This
sort of outrageous, rhetorical teaching technique was quite common to Semitic
and ANE culture...Bright [Brig. Jer, 57] speaks for
the overwhelming majority of commentators (conservatives, moderates, and
liberals alike) when he writes of Jer. 7:22--
It is unlikely, however, that it is to be taken either as a
categorical rejection of the sacrificial system as such, or as a statement that
there was no sacrifice in the wilderness.
The
point, he continues, is rather that "God's essential demands did not
concern ritual matters, but the keeping of the Covenant stipulations." For
this view, see also Alle.Jer, 64-5; Clem.Jer, 46-7; Huey.JerLam, 109;
Thomp.Jer, 287-8.
The
negation idiom emerges from the Hebrew word lo, which transliterates as
"not." On this matter, the principal study has been done by Whitney [Whit.Jer 7:22, 152], who describes the usage of lo
in Jer. 7:22 as "a form hyperbolic verbal irony
intended to intensify the contrast between what is present in the mind of the
audience and what ought to be present." Whitney shows this idiomatic usage
of lo elsewhere in the OT: Gen. 45:7-8, Ex. 16:8, 1 Sam. 8:7, 1 Sam. 20:14-15,
Job 2:10, Jer. 16:14-15, Ezek. 16:47 and Hos. 6:6. His conclusion agrees with that of Feinberg
[Fein. CommJer, 75]:
...The negative in Hebrew often supplies the lack of the
comparative - i.e., without excluding the thing denied, the statement implies
only the prior importance of the things set in contrast to it.
Likewise,
Laymon [Laym. IntB, 380]:
Hebrew idiom allows the denial of one thing in order to
assert another, and the intention here is not wholly to deny but only to
relegate to second place.
We
therefore conclude with these scholars that Jer. 7:22
is in no way at odds with the Pentateuch. [X]'s case for disharmony is based
upon his inability and/or refusal to grasp the passage in its socio-linguistic
context, and it therefore fails to hold up under scrutiny.
And
thus we now pose the Calvinists another question: Is there any reason why the
"not" in Romans 9:16 (as well as in a similar passage, John 1:12-13)
should not be read in the same sense as the "not" in Jer. 7:22 -- as a negation idiom, not excluding the thing
denied, but rather, stressing the prior importance of God's sovereignty in
contrast? Given the Hebraic background, I think the burden is upon those who
would read "not" absolutely rather than otherwise.
In
all of this nothing is denied in terms of God's absolute freedom to do as He
pleases. It is a well-taken point that God owes none of us salvation and offers
it only because He is merciful and compassionate. [Spr.CG,
33; though not in the way Sproul supposes!] But return now to the matter of our
theoretical world. It is not logically possible, again, to create a world of
free will in which all will be saved. God as Prime Mover, in decreeing a
certain world to be, in effect determines as well the elect and non-elect of
that world in a way that does not place in man's hand any "final say"
about personal destiny (for God's choice to create and sustain this
world, as well as offer grace, make Him the ultimate "final sayer" on every matter), yet also does not absolve a
man of responsibility for free choice. Now if such non-elect are inevitable, it
falls into place that these inevitable "vessels of destruction" --
like Pharaoh -- will certainly be used by God for His own purposes, to decree
His glory, to "make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of
mercy" and thus be an avenue for God to proclaim his glory and
righteousness (as Piper sees the point of this passage; Pip.JG,
78: "By punishing Israel [God] magnified his glory by showing that idolatry
is a dreadful evil worthy of destruction." [92]).
And now the time has come to tie the loose ends together,
and tie this matter in with total depravity, which we previously reckoned to be a
clear Biblical teaching. There is a school of thought (associated with
Arminianism, but not exclusive to it) that believes in what is termed prevenient grace. In essence, it argues that
the spiritually dead sinner is given a "shot" of grace which lifts them
to the point that they are able to choose Christ and be saved.
Calvinist
response to this concept finds, as it does in the previous context of the
Potter, an offense to the glory of God. White [178] offers a representative
judgment: "If salvation is in any way synergistic in its ultimate
accomplishment...then God's glorious grace must share glory with the
'free will decisions' of men!" (Emphasis in original.) Now by no means
would we fault White for wishing to glorify God in every aspect. Yet as above, we
ask the question of how such synergy actually in any sense allows men to
"share" the glory of God. Note our comparison above to the person
with rocket boosters on their legs. If they win a race, can they
"glory" in being the fastest runner? Well, yes, they "can"
if they wish to look exceptionally foolish! They may claim glory, but to
do so is invalid. Ephesians 2:9 states that salvation is "...not of works,
lest any man should boast." This hardly can mean that some foolish person
could not make an invalid boast in this context! (At the same time, I
find it curious that Sproul can see sanctification as synergistic [158] and yet
not see this as taking glory from God!)
Sproul
[Spr.CG, 33] notes that "if grace is obligated
it no longer becomes grace. The very essence of grace is that it is
undeserved." In that light I am waiting for an explanation of how receiving
grace somehow equates with "deserving" it. (Indeed, as shown in the
item on irresistible grace,
the ancient understanding of "grace", and "faith," would
not even see this as an issue.) And a point I have yet to see explained as well
is how making a decision qualifies as a "work." The Jews were
forbidden to work on the Sabbath; did this prohibit them from thinking
or making a decision? Is there any evidence that the Greek word behind
"works" (ergon) ever refers to a
thought or a decision? It is my earnest wish that an enterprising Calvinist
will step to the plate and answer this question, for it seems to me that this
is a flawed premise upon which the Calvinistic case rests.
A
secondary objection centers upon verses like 2 Timothy 1:9, which reads:
"Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to
our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in
Christ Jesus before the world began..." Several passages like this one are
said to teach a specific grace towards the elect that was not intended for the
non-elect. Practically speaking this relates to the next petal in TULIP, limited atonement (which we
actually end up agreeing with, in essence!); but even for the present context
it seems fallacious to generalize from this particular. That the grace was
given to us in eternity does not thereby exclude it having been
theoretically available to others -- the text does not say this at all; it is
concerned with us, not them. The fate of and regard for "them"
is not at all stated and we cannot merely assume it. But more on this when we
get to irresistible grace.
Sproul
raises a third objection [70ff]. Some see prevenient
grace as taught here:
John 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father which
hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.
In
response Sproul notes that the same Greek word is used in James 2:6 of the rich
"dragging" the poor into court, and in Acts 16:19 of Paul and Silas
being "dragged" before the authorities. The implication: The persons
involved cannot help themselves. This is closer to irresistible grace (used
only upon the elect) than prevenient grace.
I
respect Sproul as a teacher immensely, yet it is clear he has not worked in a
prison. 
Even the poor, even Paul and
Silas, though "compelled" had options to get out of the situation.
They could have bitten and scratched their "draggers" or gouged their
eyes out. They could have run or fought. Of course that may well have cost them
their lives, but then that matches just as well with the sinner fighting off prevenient grace. You do so at the cost of your eternal
life.
Finally, there is a broad objection against prevenient grace that Sproul offers [124-5]. "Why did
you say yes to prevenient grace while [others] said
no? Was it because you were more righteous than they were? If so, then indeed
you have something in which to boast." Why, it is asked, do some cooperate
with prevenient grace while others do not?
Oddly
enough the answer seems to lie in a discussion we recently had with a Skeptic
on similar matters. The broader question, also asked by Sproul, is what it is
that motivates our choices. Like our Skeptic, Sproul made the point that all of
our actions are motivated by reasons and that we merely choose our strongest
inclination of the moment. How this is determined to be absolutely and
universally true is not clear, since it is hardly possible to put our
inclinations in test tubes and see that this is so. Our thesis is that at the
root of the reaction to prevenient grace there lies
not a matter of being more or less righteous but, from the context of human
experience and knowledge, a "wildcard" that permits us to make the
choice. Is this reason to boast? Hardly. God equips us with this wildcard, an
ability He also has; we would be fools to boast of it, or of accepting His
grace.
Our
conclusion, such as can be reached prior to any possible answer to questions
offered above, is that the U in TULIP is not grounded as much in Scripture as
it is in Western philosophical assumptions and thoughtforms
being applied to Scripture. The same may also be said, though, for the Arminian alternative. As such our finding is that neither
side in this debate is completely right.
Update: To my surprise there is a name for
this view I have proposed, and it is one advocated by various Christian
philosophers like Plantinga and Craig, in various
forms: it is called libertarianism. Well, you never know when you'll
cross paths with some things. :-) At any rate, we have recently read through
John Frame's No Other God, a critique of open theism, and in the process
of critiquing that view Frame also drops a few lines against libertarianism.
We'd like to look at these here.
- Frame appeals several times to
Biblical data about "God's sovereign control over human
decisions." We have addressed this above:
Calvinist commentators point to various passages of specific
events such as the selling of Joseph into slavery (Gen. 45-50), the crucifixion
of Christ (Acts 2:23), and the military actions of the Assyrians (Is. 10). And
they are not wrong to do so. Yet one cannot falsely generalize from these
particulars and assume that God chooses to exercise His right of sovereignty in
the same way for things like the moving of a finger. Perhaps He does, but
perhaps He does not; perhaps He does at some times, but not at others. Yet to
suggest such a thing hardly removes any sovereignty from God, for a simple
reason that I have yet to see dealt with by a Calvinist commentator (though I
may see it in the future): The decision to do nothing is itself a sovereign
decision.
- It is objected, several
different ways, that Scripture "does not explicitly teach the
existence of libertarian freedom." Well, it doesn't
"explicitly" teach ex nihilo creation, the Trinity, or
other doctrines we hold true either; these are things we deduce from the
text and from background material, assembling the pieces like a puzzle. As
Frame does not even deal with any of the relevant background material (for
example, reading Romans 9 in terms of Hebrew block logic) this is rather a
strange objection. Frame also does not consider at all the possibility of
God as the source of human responsibility in terms of primary causality.
- Frame notes that
"Scripture teaches that in heaven...we will not be free to sin. So
the highest state of human existence will be a state without libertarian
freedom." Frame offers no cite for this, and I cannot find such a
cite offhand, but is it not considerable that the combination of the
Spirit's influence with our past experience will be the factors that keep
us from sin in Heaven?
- Frame objects that libertarian
freedom is never referred to in civil courts and "never assumed to be
a condition of moral responsibility." I wonder what courtrooms he has
been in! This principle is indeed the foundation of all civil judgment;
otherwise why are the mentally ill excused from guilt? Frame is
misdirected when he says that to show a bank robber is guilty, it would
have to be shown that his "decision to rob a bank had no cause."
Here is an error of excess: Sproul made the point that all of our actions
are motivated by reasons and that we merely choose our strongest
inclination of the moment. We do not say ALL our actions are so motivated,
but it is clear that a great number of them are. In most cases following
such inclinations is of no moment: what shirt we choose to wear, for
example, because the consequences of such an action are seldom of great
importance. By this paradigm we can make a libertarian choice to follow
our strongest inclination, or ignore it. Frame simply misses this
distinction.
Though
Frame lays out 17 separate arguments against libertarianism, they are
essentially summed up in major details by the above. Perhaps he could offer
more, but it is clear that his responses do not deal sufficiently with the
arguments for libertarianism or with the Biblical background data.
Sources
Palm.5P -- Palmer, Edwin. The Five Points of Calvinism.
Pip.JG -- Piper, John. The Justification of
God.
Spr.CG -- Sproul, R. C. Chosen by God.
Whit.PF -- White, James. The Potter's Freedom.
as of 9-2005