In a recent debate about religion I heard a man declare something along the lines of: “Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. Jesus is the Word made flesh. The Bible is the Word made text. At times there appears to be tension. For example the constant conflation of the ultimate revelation of God in Christ and God’s textual revelations in the Old Testament inevitable raises the Old Testament to a level of ultimacy of which it cannot deliver.” Unfortunately he was cut off and wasn’t able to continue his thoughts further. However these short lines struck me as thought provoking… if not contentious. It has given me much to think on and I hope to blog about the subject more down the road. For starters I think we need to distinguish between the Bible’s descriptive accounts of God’s interactions with humanity and God’s prescriptive commands to us in regards to our relation to each other. Moreover I’m grateful Jesus, as the ultimate revelation of God, has been given to the world to both criticize and condemn how the Bible, particularly the O.T., has been misused by many to oppress and persecute many people–in the name of God.
The following post highlights a section of dialogue I have had with a friend recently here in Cambodia. At the age of 45 he struggles with re-opening his heart to God because of a “Christian” father and past upbringing that was far removed from a Kingdom ideal. He has trouble seeing Christ outside this prior paradigm. He also has doubts about Scriptures trustworthiness due to unresolved questions. Perhaps you can relate. Here is my fallible attempt to share some advice to him:
“Hi my friend. Your father may not appreciate me saying it… but from the little you have shared of your father, I don’t think your father is a very stellar example of a life that fully radiates and reflects Christ. But then again no one is. I’m not trying to judge your father or say you should become judgmental and resentful of him… but I guess I would suggest you liberate yourself from constantly returning to him (or your childhood under his tutelage) as being the principal, determinative frame of reference by which you evaluate Christ, the Bible or the church. Sometimes I too have allowed deficient expressions of Christianity and imperfect, faulty experiences with other Christians to become a forged cast that encapsulates my perspective on a given matter.
Sometimes we need to appreciate the fact that we can never completely put God in an earthly, man-made cast. For such attempts will inevitably fail to fully capture him and reflect him honestly and completely. The only perfect cast that has ever been given to man, and which reflects God’s nature without corruption or contamination, has been Christ. Christ stated, “I and the Father are one…When you see me you see the Father”(Jn. 10:30, 14:7).
Our correspondence has also shown me that you are very hung up with the Old Testament. You stated that a great deal of it is irrelevant to our modern world, and in some cases seems to be in stark contrast to the ethics of the New Testament. Keep in mind that Christ would agree with much of your sentiment. In reference to the Mosaic Law Christ was often heard saying, “You have heard it said, but I tell you now…” Christ understood that much of the Old Testament covenant was imperfect and needed to pass away now that he had come.
In that sense Jesus is perfect theology. He is full revelation. But that doesn’t mean that the N.T. account of him doesn’t leave us with questions and that all mysteries of the universe have been resolved. Rather it means from what we know of Christ– his life, death and resurrection– we can trust him.
There is an internal debate in the Church as to whether or not the scripture’s self-description as being “inspired” has to mean it is “inerrant” or without error. Of course even “inerrantists” admit our manuscripts today have errors of spelling, grammar, etc due to scribal mistakes– and that only the original autographs are without error. But since we don’t have those original autographs (wise of God because the desperate would no doubt seek to worship them!) in our possession the internal argument is a non-essential to true faith and relationship with God.
Inerrancy is an interesting discusion to be sure but nonetheless of no salvific value. I would let all of that speculation go for the time being and simply seek with all your heart to get to know Jesus Christ alone…without distractions over matters of secondary importance.
In his life, death and resurrection I find every reason to give Jesus not only my admiration but my allegiance. That latter word is of great import. For many today look at Jesus’ life and death and say, “Wow–what a guy! He died for those he loved and even his enemies. I really can admire a guy like Jesus.”
However admiration is not enough because the proverbial “period” does not stop at his death. He rose from the dead and defeated its power! We are amiss if we simply view the resurrection as a footnote to Christ’s life as if its purpose was to give the grand narrative a happy ending. The resurrection alone validated all his claims to sonship, divinity, kingship, creator, judge and future-coming reign. Even the apostle Paul said, “If Christ be not resurrected, our faith is futile… we are to be the most pitied (1 Cor. 15:14-17).”
I have come to believe that the resurrection demands nothing less than our allegiance. Admiration is not enough. If Christ only died but did not rise from the dead, maybe admiration alone would be an appropriate response. His visage and memory would simply be added to the long corridor of great men who lived supreme lives of virtue but in the end could not defeat the power of death.
But such is not the case with Christ. A historical “jersey” in the Hall of Fame simply won’t do. Only a throne will do. Admiration alone simply won’t suffice. The resurrection demands our allegiance. Yet God gives us free-will. Allegiance is difficult for us to freely give because it involves surrender on so many levels…and whether we know it or not our greatest allegiance is to ourselves. Yet that must be the first to go. It is why Jesus said, “If any man wants to follow after me he must first deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me (Mt. 16:24).”
I find this to be a challenge every week for myself… but a challenge that is supremely worth it because of Who is asking me for it. God bless you.”
In discussions with brothers and sisters from the neo-Reformed, Calvinist camp one item of conversation that always seems to come up is their insistance that God must divinely determine every choice humans make because only in such a paradigm is God’s sovereignty elevated to its highest level of true power and glory.
But this simply isn’t true when one fleshes this thought out further. In a neo-Reformed, Calvinist world God has simply created creatures who are essentially “pre-programmed” through an exhaustive, divine determinism to think, desire, do and choose in accordance with God’s predestined directives. In this sense humans are akin to automatons that are not free to move or act in a manner outside the boundaries established by their prior programming. Thus all human actions are merely the effects in-time of God’s prior directives in eternity past.
It’s really not that different than a software engineer preprogramming the set movements of robotic arms on an auto assembly line. Nor is it much different than a stage director scripting his actors and then watching everything play out on cue. Does this paradigm reflect God’s power, glory and wisdom to a greater extent than a world infused with genuine indeterminacy and free-will? It is hard to see how. In fact the reverse is true.
It takes a greater God, a wiser God, and a more powerful God to sovereignly manage a world of free agents than a world of pre-programmed automatons. In a world of opposition, spiritual war, rebellion and genuine indeterminacy, God’s sovereignty and power is glorified to a greater degree through overcoming all opposition and establishing his Kingdom and reign in spite of it. Far from diminishing God’s sovereign power, a world of genuine free agency raises the stature and glory of God’s power and sovereignty!
It must be understood that God did not universally predetermine every evil event just so he could have a grand story and stage to conveniently script himself into as redeemer. Not at all! God is principally a redeemer because at every turn he seeks to overcome evil and rebellion to establish righteousness and justice.
The divine result of overcoming a world of evil that God did not intend or desire– is glory. Yet it is an altogether different matter entirely to suggest that God universally predetermined all evil so as to have a platform to manifest his glory. Indeed such a view is the anti-thesis of divine glory, righteousness and holiness.
I long for the day that neo-Reformed Calvinists shed this twisted belief like dead snake skin. It is such a libel against the character of our God.
A simple deductive argument against Calvinism’s doctrine of universal, divine determinism occurred to me today:
(1) If Calvinism is true, then all human choices and beliefs are divinely determined and thus not free.
(2) I can freely choose to believe premise 1 or not.
(3) Therefore, Calvinism is not true.
The only rejoinder a Calvinist can offer is to admit that all our beliefs are divinely determined including our belief or disbelief in Calvinism. Therefore we are not free to believe in Calvinism or deny it. However if that be the case then Calvinists must also concede that it is absurd and meaningless for them to expend energy to write a plethora of books seeking to persuade persons to believe in Calvinism. But of course in a world where everything is divinely determined the absurdity of writing books under the pretense and illusion of bolstering belief in Calvinism would likewise be determined! And if God preordained Arminianism just as equally as he preordained Calvinism, then from whence does a Calvinist muster up the motivation to challenge what God has ordained?
Moreover it is simply a failure to connect the dots for Calvinists to argue back that God’s determination of all things doesn’t thereby expunge or nullify a Calvinist’s responsibility to be a faithful Calvinist because (as they might say to their Calvinist ranks) “You might be God’s chosen, divinely ordained means to achieve God’s determined ends!” (i.e. X number of people becoming Calvinists…)
But of course a Calvinist can choose to do nothing, can he not? And the mere fact that he or she does nothing is all the evidence one needs that their “doing nothing” was itself also determined. What other conclusion can be drawn except to assume they were simply determinatively willed by God to be a loafing, lazy Calvinist? Indeed the mere fact that anything occurs at all in this world is all the evidence one needs to conclude that it was divinely determined to be–and not something else (which logically entails this anti-Calvinist rant). Alas for Calvinism to insist that nothing occurs that God did not first divinely determine to occur is to commit intellectual hara kiri.
To embrace the underpinning logic of Calvinism is to destroy all rationality and consign one’s mind to a Mad Hatter’s world of dizzying vertigo. As the preeminent, Christian philosopher William Lane Craig astutely observes:
“There are many problems with the neo-Reformed view…Universal causal determinism cannot be rationally affirmed. There is a sort of dizzying, self-defeating character to determinism. For if one comes to believe that determinism is true, one has to believe that the reason he has come to believe it is simply that he was determined to do so. One has not in fact been able to weigh the arguments pro and con and freely make up one’s mind on that basis. The difference between the person who weighs the arguments for determinism and rejects them and the person who weighs them and accepts them is wholly that one was determined by causal factors outside himself to believe and the other not to believe. When you come to realize that your decision to believe in determinism was itself determined and that even your present realization of that fact right now is likewise determined, a sort of vertigo sets in, for everything that you think, even this very thought itself, is outside your control. Determinism could be true; but it is very hard to see how it could ever be rationally affirmed, since its affirmation undermines the rationality of its affirmation.
You can 4 more arguments Craig makes against Calvinism here:
This morning I read one of the most honest appraisals of marriage that I have ever come across. Even though I am not married I filed it away for future consideration because it is my hope to one day meet a woman who inspires me to serve them and invite them into every sphere of my life. The gist of the article is the author laying out 3 poignent truths he wished he knew before he got married. He relays how much of his single life was dominated by a wish to “remain undisturbed” and how marriage is the greatest of all disruptions.
He highlights that he entered into marriage with suitcases packed with misconceptions, false expectations and distortions about marriage. One of those distortions was the general idea that marriage was primarily about making one’s self more happy. However he dismantles that notion and explains that marriage is not principally about personal happiness but rather progressive wholeness. In other words marriage brings to the surface areas of self-focus that must be abandoned for the sake of two becoming one. Yet as this is done happiness usually arises as a biproduct–as well as productivity and health in other areas of one’s life.
The above link highlights a lot of my general feelings towards the current tension between the Church and her message to gay folks. Although not explicitly elaborated on, Boyd does believe that engaging in homosexual behavior (and thus gay marriage) misses the mark of God’s ideal– which is the truest definition of “harmatia” (translated “sin” in the N.T.)
Boyd puts forward some very thought-provoking comments that are worth serious reflection and consideration. Sadly I feel very few Christians will ever bother thinking through them because for many homosexuality is a “dealbreaker” in their minds, and thus contenting themselves with merely “judging gays” from afar is so much easier and less strenuous on the heart than being an ambassador of God’s reconciliation.
Watching this video prompted a few thoughts in my own mind and I share them here. My heart does break for my home country in many ways because I know her moral decline (i.e. greed, over consumption, apathy towards poor, promiscuity, gay marriage) and economic miscalculations and wastefulness will continue to contribute to her eventual undoing. But then again my ultimate hope is not in America but in a “Kingdom that cannot be shaken.” Sometimes I think American Christians merge these two domains together and blur their important distinctions.
1600 years ago Augustine, the great church bishop, wrote about the barbarian overthrow of the city of Rome which was precipitated by a moral and spiritual corruption that made her fat and lazy and ultimately vulnerable to barbarian Visigoths in 410 AD/CE. He ended up writing a book on Rome’s fall called “The City of God” where part of his aim was to console those who were in deep grief and confusion over the fall of their beloved Rome, a city thought by many to be an “eternal city.” Augustine reminded his readers that there are two “cities” that call out for our allegiance, one earthly and one heavenly, and that the heavenly city is to be our ultimate concern and pursuit. Ironically Augustine sometimes blurred these two realms himself (through an un-holy church-state union) but nonetheless his point stands.
I can’t help but wonder if American Christians today are seeking to preserve the “earthly city” of America and curtail her moral decline at all costs– including putting the Kingdom of God in second place.
I will explain that further, but first a quote. I believe it was the Irish statesmen Edmund Burke who famously stated, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” I have often heard Christians leverage this quote against other Christians who would dare question the intensity of which the Evangelical establishment is opposing gay marriage.
I think Burke’s quote is very appropriate for issues of social justice like slavery, sex-trafficking and child prostitution when the innocent lives of others and their free-will is being stripped from them in the bondage of oppression. Such social evils aren’t simply moral sins that run contrary to Godly morality–they are acts of injustice towards the lives of defenseless persons. Not all sins fit this category. For example we know that pre-marital sex runs afoul of God’s moral prohibitions, as does adultery, greed, gluttony and apathy towards the poor. But we don’t seek to go around passing laws prohibiting teenagers or adults from having sex outside God’s established covenant of marriage. Nor do we pass laws against hoarding, greed or overeating.
Similarly, I question whether or not Burke’s quote is as fitting and appropriate as some Christians think who feel their Christian faith compels them to legislatively combat and campaign against the “evil of homosexuality” and its acceptance in the world.
Homosexual behavior and gay “marriage” is more akin to the sin of marital affairs, pre-marital sex and unwarrantable divorce than societal evils like slavery and human trafficking. That is not to say they are morally neutral or even neutral in their societal affects and implications. Indeed anything that misses the mark of God’s ideal (i.e. sin) is going to have devastating affects down the road for any society.
The fact is God warns us that our worldly society is always going to be in contrast to the Kingdom–which is why we aren’t called to “Christianize” city states or nations. Rather we are called as ambassadors of another world to display the love, beauty and justice of another society, another kingdom– God’s Kingdom– to our secular world. The principle means we do this is through a message of reconciliation–not by accusing people, condemning them and holding their sins against them as “dealbreaker” sins.
As Boyd reminds us, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 that as ambassadors of the Kingdom, stationed here in a foreign land, our job is to be “ministers of reconciliation.” Moreover Paul specifically defines that as “not holding people’s sins against them.” In other words it is the opposite of accusing people in such a way that we deny them God’s grace!
With that said, from a Kingdom perspective, what is the greater “evil” that will triumph when “good men do nothing?” Is it people increasing their free exercise of sin in a worldy society? Or is it people feeling they are enemy #1 of the Church– the same church whose commission is to bring a message of grace and reconciliation to such people? Would not the greatest of evils be that Christians are too busy legislating, campaigning and judging to display God’s heart of reconciliation, redemption, forgiveness and transformation to those who most need it?
We don’t want to water down the journey of holiness and transformation God wants sinners to walk through, whether they are gay, materialistic, gluttonous, murderers, sleeping with their girlfriend or struggling with porn. But sinners need to first grasp that God’s grace accepts them dirty and sin-stained as they are.
In other words we don’t go around telling people, “You need to get your “shit” together before you step into our Church.
I think gays are the only ones we mark out in this way. Now on balance we don’t put them in Church leadership positions, and we are called to explain to them that being part of God’s family involves a progressive denial of an old life and a desire to walk in obedience. But for all of us this is a journey…a process…and God’s grace finds us in different places throughout our lives. Could it be that God would say the greatest tragedy and the greatest evil is that “good men” (i.e. His ambassadors of reconcilation) are doing nothing to display God’s grace to those who most need it?
Now it’s necessary that I posit a small caveat here–lest I be misunderstood. I am not saying “love and grace without cost–without repentance.”
God does accept us the way we are–that is true. But he has very real and very motivated plans to change us! The journey of the Christian life is about partnering with God in that change.
The Bible speaks of this transformational change in numerous ways, such as: “being conformed into the image of Christ”, “putting off the old man and putting on the new man”, “being a new creation”, “being crucified with Christ”, “a good work being brought to completion”, “being born again”,”no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me”, “picking up the whole armor of God” and “putting on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” And Bonhoeffer was right. For Jesus put it this way: “Unless a man denies himself and picks up his cross, he cannot follow me”(Lk. 9:23). For some who confessedly struggle with a deeply ingrained same-sex orientation, their cross to carry may be a daily denial of the passions of thei flesh and what seems natural for them. This cannot be easy. I’m a 36 year virgin whose natural, biological inclination is to want to have have sex with every beautiful woman I see. Yet natural desire does not equal divine sanction. To conflate these two is to be deceived. It’s not easy–but I’m committed to honoring the boundaries God has established around the sanctity of sex.
Sometimes I ask myself, “Why Matt? Your urges are natural and the female enticements are in plentiful supply.” The only answer I have on lonely nights is that my denial of the flesh is ultimately for his namesake and his glory. In the same manner a fellow brother or sister who finds same-sex attraction to be their natural inclination can choose to deny themselves–painful as that may–and do so as unto the Lord–for his glory. I believe one day in the Kingdom to come, God, will extol and exalt many such people and say, “Well done my faithful servant–you chose to partner with my grace and carry a cross of denial few have had the courage and perseverance to carry.” Keeping the eternal Son in view is paramount in all these matters of denial that pull on our affections–just as gazing upon the sun makes the luster of a diamond pale in comparison.
So–all that to say the Christian life is about–transformational change and correction in the inner person. It is not about staying static and unmoved in the manner in which God found us. The scriptures themselves are admittedly “for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16).
With that said, for Christians who feel it is their duty to purge sin out of a secular culture, how do we get around Paul saying in 1 Cor. 5:12, “What business is it of mine to judge those OUTSIDE the Church? Is it not to judge those inside? Those outside the Church God will judge?”
Paul said this to the Corinth church that lived in a city that was known around Asia as being a den of debauchery where homosexuality and a host of other sins and perversions of God’s ideal were practiced everywhere. If the Church at Paul’s day thought their commission was to save the Roman empire from moral decline, rather than be a light set on a hill pointing towards a totally different Kingdom–I’m not really sure Christianity would have gotten past the 1st century.
I would much rather see the Church’s focus be a cultivation of worship, love, grace and holiness such that gay folks who intuitively (though H.S. conviction) know they are living outside God’s ideal, can come inside and find grace and strength…and patience…in the arms and prayers of God’s people as they make their way towards personal redemption–even if their cross to carry is a life-long denial of the passions of the flesh. But is this the reputation the Church has right now? Not at all… and something tells me that is the greatest of evils.
Sometimes events occur which cause you to take a second look, a fresh look at a scripture verse you thought you knew and could learn nothing new about. One of our boys today at school was singled out because of his Christian faith and was subjected to some pretty rough treatment by a Buddhist teacher who has a history of exhibiting great disdain towards any Cambodian who professes Christ.
She holds that Cambodians who believe in Jesus are traitors because they believe in a foreign religion that did not originate in Cambodia–forgetting of course that Buddhism originated in India and was imported into Cambodia. In fact Cambodia’s great monument of national pride, the temple of Ankor Wat, was first built as a Hindu temple and only centuries later was turned into a Buddhist temple.
But I digress. This teacher basically ripped off his Christian necklace, grabbed his hair and scissor cut a big chuck off his head and then made him stand for 2 hours holding his hair in his hand. It was not punishment for any wrong doing– just classic discrimination and persecution.
As a result I had a long talk with the kids tonight about the nature of persecution and they shared with me additional stories and experiences at being singled out and treated differently because of their professed faith in Jesus. The fact remains though that persecution is so mild here in Cambodia in comparison to places like Burma, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Nonetheless the flesh has a reflexive reaction of anger, defensiveness and revenge against any perceived discrimination–no matter how sleight. This particular boy was dealing such feelings tonight–as were some of our staff who wanted me to march into the school tomorrow and demand the teacher be fired. I was initially quite upset myself and just as I had my phone out to call the principal, I experienced that still, small voice of the Holy Spirit who impressed upon me the need for great patience and a Spirit-led, Kingdom response.
For some reason the verse about “not hiding your light under a bushel” (Mt. 5:15-16) popped into my head. It struck me then that in 1st century Jewish life the only time you would light a candle would be when the world becomes dark. And of course it would be silly to place a bucket over it just when it is needed the most to push back the darkness and shed light.
It further struck me that we don’t need candles and lights when the sun is shining high in the sky but rather when darkness falls upon us and all other lights go out. True Christianity is most needed when shadowy, dark days fall upon us.
Yet it is usually in the midst of those dark days that we hide our lights and refuse to show it. How? Why? Well to begin the “brightest” values of the Kingdom of God, as Jesus preached them and lived them, must be identified. They generally involve loving enemies, forgiving those who abuse us, and extending mercy and grace on those who “slap us on the cheek” and slander us.
Mistreatment by enemies, abuse, slander, discrimination and persecution are all dark events that can pull the shade down, draw the curtain and put our lives into the darkness of night. Yet it is in these very dark situations that the light of Christ–in essence the values of the Kingdom of God–can shine the brightest.
But so often…oh so often we react in the flesh just like everyone else and hide our light under a bushel. And in so doing we show we are just like everyone else. This is the greatest of tragedies and the greatest forfeits.
Christianity is designed to thrive on opportunities to be different when all other beliefs exhaust their resources! We have a source of power, strength and love that others do not have access to–we have the life of Christ within! How rarely we recognize this, admit our dependence on God and ask him to live his life, love and forgiveness through us.
Paul said it is in the exact moments when “he is weak, God is strong.” That is to say it is one thing to admit, “God I don’t have it within me to love and forgive this person.” But it is another thing entirely to continue on and say by faith, “…but you do! And I ask that you would love them through me.”
Conceding our shortcomings and natural limitations is the right beginning, but it can’t end there. It can’t end in a “period” as an excuse for not doing something. There must be a “comma” that gives rise to faith and declares, “, but all things are possible through him who gives me strength” (Phil. 4:13).
Personal shortcomings can showcase God’s strength.
Earlier I stated that Christianity is intended to shine when the lights of others become dim–especially in a Buddhist country like Cambodia. Otherwise the difference between Christianity and Buddhism is simply superficial. We are just playing religious games in different buildings!
For example:
Christian: “I go to this building to worship. It is called a church.”
Buddhist: “I also go to a building to worship. It is a called a temple.”
Christian: “I pray to Jesus.”
Buddhist: “I also pray. I pray to Buddha.”
Christian: “I give an offering of money. I give it to the pastor and church.”
Buddhist: “I also give an offering of money. I give it to the monks and temple.”
Christian: “I was slandered, abused and persecuted today by evil men. I have suffered at their hands greatly. I am going to pray for these enemies of mine everyday and do my best to show love them Christ’s love and forgiveness whenever I see them.”
Buddhist: “WHAT!! I can’t do that!”
Because the Christian life shines brightest in darkness and difficulty, it is no wonder that Jesus stated, “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?” (Mt. 5:44-46).
In dealing with free-will the Calvinist skillfully maneuvers the discussion into a framework where he can give lip-service to “free-will,” but in doing so he mars the common sense, standard understanding “freedom” beyond any semblance of recognition.
Let’s take sin’s occurrence for example. Calvinists will define God’s sovereignty over this world as his predetermination and foreordination of everything that occurs, including sinful choices. But God is said to hold us responsible because we sin freely, and not that God is the author of our sin. Much can be said of this. For example how does the Calvinist parse the difference between God’s mind being the origin for the sin of X in virtue of foreordaining the sin of X, yet not be the author of the sin of X?
Though I’ve yet to hear a cogent answer from a Calvinist that responsibly deals with this question without being evasive, it is not my intention to get stuck on this unavoidable conundrum for the Calvinist. Rather I want to zero in on the fact that Calvinism’s usage of the term “sin freely” is logically incoherent.
Calvinism’s sleight of hand is to on the one hand assert humans sin freely due to their sinful nature. On the other hand the move is made to assert that God also engineers our freedom. That is to say he determinatively steers our free will according to his prior conceived predestinations, which are deeply sequestered in his hidden decree. But engineered freedom is no genuine freedom at all! Divinely determined, engineered choices are no more free than are engineered robotic arms assembling a vehicle in an auto factory. Programming, or in the case of Calvinism, causal foreordination necessarily restricts the range of movements or choices to only one–the one determined.
In Calvinism freedom, decision, deliberation, choice and contemplation are merely illusions in our brain. In a Calvinistic world we don’t really deliberate or contemplate or choose anything in this world—including whether or not one should be a Calvinist or an Arminian! For everything has already been divinely determined. But oddly enough that doesn’t stop Calvinists from writing anti-Arminian books at a feverish pace attempting to dislodge people from considering Arminianism and persuade them to become Calvinists. It just goes to show how incoherent, bad theology and logic can’t be consistently applied in a real world context without one’s life becoming an inconvenient, self-refutation of one’s internally held beliefs.
In a Calvinist context freedom looses all sense of meaning and becomes wholly incoherent and devoid of value. Indeed to assert that humans freely sin while simultaneously holding that every sinful choice is restricted to only the choice that God predetermined is not only a patent contradiction—it is to play word games both intentionally and deceitfully with the word “free.”
Calvinists may assert they aren’t seeking to be at all deceitful. Rather they are merely using the word “free” outside the common, everyday usage and understanding of “free-will.” That is to say they are redefining freedom to serve their philosophical bent. But here the Calvinist commits an obvious equivocation fallacy. For Calvinists believe God is a free being and as such God’s choices are not causally determined by anything outside his own self-will. Therefore God’s choices and God’s will is free. But when it comes to humans the move is made to utilize the word “free” but to apply it in a totally different sense than how it is applied to God.
It may be the case that the wills of humans are subject to environments, influences and desires that God’s will is similarly not subjected to, but that doesn’t change the fact that a free choice, whether by humans or by God, is a choice which is free from any causal constraints to determine it one way or the other. Humans and God alike possess selfhood or personhood. We possess it because we are made in God’s image.
Calvinists decry the view that the “self” can be the ultimate cause for choice and argue that to say such a thing is to posit un-caused cause. In other words they want to know what caused the self to choose?” Here it must be stated clearly that there is nothing behind the determinative will of self to choose. The self is the ultimate end and final determination of every choice made. Again—so it is with God. God’s will of self determines his choices, but Calvinists don’t go around decrying that God’s willful choices of self are likewise uncaused causes.
It’s simply absurd and pointless for the Calvinist to ask, “What is the cause of self-will to choose?” It’s a bit like asking, “What does the letter “T” taste like?” or “What material objects did the universe contain before the material universe existed?” The point is the cause of self-will is the ultimate cause and explanation for human choice and to demand a further explanation for the cause of self-will is simply incoherent and absurd. It’s equally absurd for the Calvinist to assert that humans sin freely according to their sinful natures when the range of possible choices has been divinely reduced to one. For in a Calvinistic scheme every choice—including your sinful ones—are merely the effects in time of what God already predetermined you would choose prior to the creation of the universe. Hence humans are nothing more than God’s actors on God’s stage performing their lines and given roles.
A Theology in Tension 