What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

We are His sheep, but not His cattle

A few months back my mind was focused on the doctrine of heaven in the context of an e-mail exchange I was having. My correspondent wanted to know why God would send some people to hell when they are not deeply evil people, just ordinary people doing their ordinary best. Surely only the worst and most heinous of sinners deserve to be sent to hell, while most of the people you see at the local grocery store should be sent to heaven, regardless of what they believe. That, at any rate, was the gist.

It seems to me that, while this is an understandable question to ask, it betrays a misconception of heaven. (Most of my W4 readers don't need me to tell them this, but it seemed to make for a mildly interesting post.)

What, according to Christian doctrine, is the essence of heaven? I have always understood that it is the enjoyment of the presence of God, an enjoyment far clearer and better than anything we are able to experience on earth, limited as we are not only by our un-resurrected bodies but also by the presence of sin and by our remaining tendencies to embrace and cherish sin.

If the essence of being in heaven is the enjoyment of the beatific vision, then it seems highly questionable (at least to me) that we should think of the matter in terms of God's sending people to heaven and sending people to hell. (And of course we always have to keep in mind that, unless we posit something like limbo, which wouldn't apply to the ordinary adult people doing their ordinary best anyway, there is no tertium quid for eternal destiny--only heaven and hell.) If we think of God as "sending" people to heaven, are we not treating heaven as something like the Happy Hunting Grounds, as a lovely retirement center for worn-out humans where God sends his animals to be happy forever when they get old and die? If heaven is really all about being with God and enjoying Him forever, then it seems that we must desire it in order to enjoy it. (What is the experience of the presence of God like to a person who does not desire it? Perhaps something like hell?) While one might say, "Of course everyone wants to go to heaven," this is a truism only if heaven is thought of merely as a place of earthly enjoyment.

Some of a Calvinist persuasion might fear--and with some justice--that my thinking here is leading in the direction of Arminianism, or at least away from Calvinism. For if a strong, Calvinist doctrine of predestination is correct, it would seem that despite the fact that the essence of heaven is enjoying God forever, God can and does simply send people there and does make them like it. To my mind that is not taking with sufficient seriousness the notion that heaven is being one with God as a fully human person. One is led irresistibly to picture something like a puppet soul, previously in rebellion, made by something like spiritual force to desire and love God and to enjoy Him forever, which isn't my idea of the beatific vision. It seems more reasonable and more consistent with what heaven really is to say with C.S. Lewis, "All get what they want. They do not always like it."

Many of you, my readers, are beyond all doubt better read than I in works of theology. I will be interested in your thoughts.

Comments (51)

I'll be the Calvinist here.
We all deserve hell. The person who says

"why God would send some people to hell when they are not deeply evil people, just ordinary people doing their ordinary best. Surely only the worst and most heinous of sinners deserve to be sent to hell, while most of the people you see at the local grocery store should be sent to heaven, regardless of what they believe."

simply has a deficient notion of sin and most likely has a real distorted (i.e. dishonest) opinion of themselves. We all want to minimize the evil we do, we suppress the truth in our unrighteousness.
That's the first problem.
EVERY offense against the dignity and majesty of a perfect, Holy and infinite God is an infinite debt which we can never pay. What this person imagines is that God has some sort of balancing scale on which he weighs our sins and our good works, that's Islam not Christianity.

If you believe you have "free will" try for one day not to sin, lemme know how that works for ya. The unregenerate are only free to act within their nature, a sin nature. The regenerate fair a little better but we will never be perfected this side of the Resurrection.

Certainly the elect are predestined to heaven and certainly God is sovereign. He is not frustrated by us. Does not the potter have rights over the clay? He will give us a new heart and we will fall in love with Him because He is infinitely lovable. God the Father has given the elect to His Son and no one may snatch them out of His hand. We cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus by anything on Earth or in hell. The God that is frustrated by man's disobedience is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is the God that writes straight with crooked instruments.
That's just scripture... argue all you want, but your not arguing with Calvin your arguing with Paul, John, Matthew, Luke, Mark, &c... and ultimately you're arguing with God.
We are saved not because of anything we did or can do but because God is faithful and true and his glory is displayed through His grace AND through His justice. Take away either one and you have a God no one would praise... one who condemns all or saves all is either cruel or unjust.

The person above also misunderstands what faith is, what we believe is only part of faith. Faith is trust. We believe God and for that we are credited as righteous, no other reason and that trust itself is a gift. No one can say Jesus is Lord unless by the Holy Spirit. We are saved in Christ alone because He is the Lord of Heaven and Earth and just as He bore our guilt, it is His righteousness which is credited to us.

Kevin, you play the Calvinist extremely well.

If you believe you have "free will" try for one day not to sin, lemme know how that works for ya. The unregenerate are only free to act within their nature, a sin nature.

If that's the only freedom they have, then they are not free at all to sin, because sin requires the freedom to NOT sin. And perhaps the Calvinist God can think it is just to send people to hell for eternity for acts that they had no power to alter, but that's not the justice of the Christian God.

But none of that bears directly on what heaven is. I think Lydia hit the central point on the head: it consists primarily in being in union with God and seeing Him face to face. This requires becoming "perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect", which reality might only receive the final touch after death, but which starts in this life when we "put on Christ", die to self, and willingly suffer to "make up in ourselves what is lacking in Christ." And still more directly, when we love, for God is love, and all love is from God.

Any theology of becoming perfect that doesn't make room for that event being a process in which we participate ignores Jesus's command to become perfect. Although the work is God's work from beginning to end, top to bottom, in every aspect, one aspect of His work is to give to us the gift of participating in salvation. So when we participate in His work, it really is us acting, but it is His work as well.

"Take away either one and you have a God no one would praise... one who condemns all or saves all is either cruel or unjust."

No.

If God were to condemn all, his action would be perfectly just. If He were to forgive all, his action would be perfectly gracious. The condemnation of any or all sinners is not cruel in any way becaue it gives sinners what they deserve. The forgiveness of any or all sinners is not unjust in any way because that forgiveness is made possible by the death of Christ for the sins of the world. Mercy is not a transgression of justice.

To say that no one would praise such a God is flatly false. This is a God I would -- and do -- praise.

I'm beginning to think that Calvinists and non-Calvinists, like the Americans and the British, are divided by a common language.

they are not deeply evil people, just ordinary people doing their ordinary best.

This is what we all say about ourselves, and others, to justify our lives. But I know damn good and well I'm not doing my best. Maybe ordinary isn't good enough. I keep Newman's formulation close to mind: the nature of sin is that it and God cannot be together.

Your correspondent reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend on Facebook. She claimed that I could know with confidence that I'm going to heaven. (Actually, I think she used the word 'certainty.') And if one is lacking that confidence, I asked her, what would that mean? No answer yet.

The first commenter said, "We all deserve hell." Well, okay, but it seems God decided that that's not all we deserve. Hence, the Crucifixion.

Heaven is communion with God. Those who forsake God go to Hell.

I certainly agree with Lydia that there are major misconceptions on this topic in mainstream secular society; and from CS Lewis I got that a major reason is that moderns (for the first time in history) do not believe in the soul.

In other words, modern culture is atheist, not pagan. This is why it is so hard for atheists to become Christians compared with pagans. For pagans Christianity is 'merely' about what happens to the soul. With atheists, Christians first need to 'prove' the existence of the soul, and there is probably no coherent / non-contradictory description of the soul (which would satisfy an intelligent sceptic) except in the Aristotelian/ Thomist metaphysical tradition.

For ancients there was no question but that the soul existed and was immortal. Everyone believed in the soul and its survival after death - but there were differences in the concept of the soul and in what happened to it after death (Sheol? Hades? reincarnation? Valhalla?).

For moderns, who do not believe in the soul, the mere idea that the soul may survive death is regarded as controversial, and if survival is believed it is seen as a kind of wishful thinking (rather than sheer realism).

To secular moderns, it seems a marvellous (literally incredible) thing that there is a soul, and a fantastic reward for the soul to be allowed or enabled to survive - never mind what happens to it. This goes with the decline of a belief in 'hell', which seems unreal in numerous ways.

In my reading, there never seems to have been a very clear and theologically well-founded concept of the nature of 'hell' - the Old Testament seems to suggest that the default state for non-Christians is a shadowy world of depersonalized ghostly souls, having no memory of their lives, not retaining their previous 'personalities'.

Against this background, the new Christian promise to Jews and pagans was of survival of full personhood, reunited in the soul and body again brought together.

But in a secular society, the same Christian message is working on a very different set of assumptions, and a linked system of radical denials and incomprehensions and evasions. All the ingredients need separately to be 'proved' which is possible but takes a lot of time and attention that atheists are mostly not prepared to give to the subject; at least not when they are young and able to distract themselves at will.

If God were to condemn all, his action would be perfectly just. If He were to forgive all, his action would be perfectly gracious. The condemnation of any or all sinners is not cruel in any way becaue it gives sinners what they deserve.

Well ok, Michael, but here's a Euthyphro-style riddle for you:

God does neither one of those things. And yet we know that he is both perfectly just and perfectly gracious. So is it your contention that a perfectly just and gracious God could save some, save none, or save all--that literally whatever God does with respect to the salvation of sinners, that thing would be perfectly just?

Tony said: "sin requires the freedom to NOT sin." This is a key thesis dividing Calvinists and Arminians, though it's not clear that Calvinists are the only ones denying it (or Arminians affirming it). What about Catholics and those born in original sin who aren't baptized, for example? Can one be culpable or held morally responsible by God for an action that one did not have the freedom to avoid (in a libertarian sense of freedom)? That is, does obligation require ability or capacity? Many find the answer 'yes' to the first question and 'no' to the second very counterintuitive, but some (such as me, a Calvinist) see it implied in Scripture. E.g.,:

"The Lord's bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will" (2 Tim. 2:24-26).

As for the idea of God's "sending" people to heaven or hell, the question depends not only on the nature of heaven (e.g., voluntary fellowship with God) but also on that of hell; and the apparent fact that these are the only post-eschaton options. Even if God does not "send" people to heaven, it does seem he sends people to hell. It seems to me that in Scripture hell is judgment and punishment and something that God/Christ inflicts on evildoers, not something they voluntarily enter into. This is the difficulty I have with popular characterizations of hell according to which God is just letting someone get what they want (e.g., away from him). The claim 'everyone wants to go to heaven' may not be a truism only if heaven is understood in terms of earthly enjoyment; it may also be a truism if it is understood implicitly that hell is the alternative (which it seems to be).

I don't see how the Calvinist view is inconsistent with Lydia's proposal on which heaven is about enjoying God's presence. The Calvinist will hold that God heals the sinner on the inside such that they naturally want to enjoy God's presence (not that he "makes" them want to enjoy it in any sense of external compulsion). A Calvinist and Arminian may both agree that heaven is about enjoying God but disagree on how one gets into a state whereby they want to be with God.

I was sympathetic to what Lewis was saying but it just doesn't jibe with scripture. I'm thinking for instance in the parable of the wedding guests.(Matt 22:11-14)
The King is God obviously and the guests are those called to salvation, but one comes without a wedding garment and he is thrown out of the presence of the King.
As for the question of free will, I think the question suffers from a lack of clear definition in terms. I recommend Jonathan Edwards treatise "A Careful and Strict Inquiry into Modern Prevailing Notions of that Freedom of the Will WHICH IS SUPPOSED TO BE ESSENTIAL TO MORAL AGENCY, VIRTUE. AND VICE, REWARD AND PUNISHMENT, PRAISE AND BLAME."

Any biblically based doctrine of Hell is going to have to take seriously the fact that the New Testament scriptures pretty clearly portray people being thrown into Hell quite against their will. God sends people to Hell, they don't send themselves. (Biblically speaking.)

Lydia:

I agree with your post. For the sake of our readers, though, I'd like to point out that your criticism of Calvinism on this score is of the same sort that can be made of any theology holding both that sin is unavoidable and that grace is irresistible, which in turn flows from monergism in general--though some Lutheran theologians have argued that the irresistibility of grace does not follow from monergism alone.

As Dan's comment indicates, monergists end up affirming the counterintuitive claim that one can be held accountable for actions one lacks freedom to avoid, in a "libertarian" sense of freedom (which I take him to mean the ability to choose and do otherwise). But that is not just a theological claim. Those non-Christian philosophers who are still called "soft determinists" generally strive to overcome the claim's counter-intuitiveness by substituting for libertarian freedom some weaker notion of freedom--such as freedom from external compulsion--and then limning the concept of moral responsibility so that it makes sense to hold a person accountable for an action even when they could not have done otherwise. The grain of truth in soft determinism is that, in some cases at least, it does seem that a person can be held accountable for an inner state of character or soul which renders them unable to do otherwise than they do. In some instances at least, I might be "unable to do otherwise" given the kind of person I am--which of course could hold for some good actions as well as bad. But of course that only pushes the question back. In what sense can a person be held accountable for the state of their soul, if that state is not itself the result of choices that it was once within their power to have made otherwise?

This is where theology usually enters the picture. Monergists answer by saying not merely that we are all personally guilty for being sinners, in a forensic sense of 'guilty', but that we are all conceived with a 'sin nature' which makes sinning inevitable and renders us incapable of pleasing God by anything we do. Frankly, I find the concept of an inherently evil nature, be it human or otherwise, incoherent; but this is not the place to make that argument. I can understand and do accept the idea that we are each conceived in a state of alienation from God, a state whose effects make it inevitable that we will sin at some-or-other time if and when we develop the full exercise of reason. Such is the Catholic doctrine of original sin. But that is quite compatible with holding that no particular sin is such that the sinner could not have done otherwise, unless the sin in question has been rendered inevitable by character flaws that, in turn, the sinner could have freely prevented or ameliorated, in a libertarian sense of 'freely'. So the Catholic doctrine of original and actual sin is quite compatible with, and indeed ultimately requires, a libertarian conception of freedom, which is more intuitively plausible than the conception we get on the monergist picture.

In the end, the monergist strategy is to interpret Scripture monergistically, so as thus to claim the authority of divine revelation for monergism, despite the almost exclusively synergist position of the Fathers of the Church. I find that strategy implausible for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it entails that the patristic and medieval Church, East as well as West, lost something absolutely essential to the Gospel for well over a millennium. I see no evidence of such discontinuity in the pre-Nicene Fathers. Theological monergism also requires an essentially lexical approach to interpreting certain key Scriptural terms, which is incompatible with the approach to Scripture in the patristic and medieval Church, where the tradition of that family known as "the Church" was taken as the key to sound exegesis. Thus, although the monergist hermeneutic of Scripture is rationally self-consistent, so are certain synergistic ones. And synergism, which typically involves a libertarian conception of human freedom, is far less counter-intuitive.


Thanks, Michael, that's helpful.

I agree that the issue of compatibilism, soft determinism, whichever you call it, does become relevant here. I've been a libertarian on the free will issue for many a year, and I suppose that independent philosophical issue just comes right in here on a truck. It seems to me obvious, on the one hand, that we cannot be blamed for acts that in no sense (not even in choosing to lose our self-control, as in the case of being under the influence of alcohol) were our free choice in the libertarian sense. And on the other hand it seems obvious that it is not even possible, literally not possible, to make a free human being have a radically different character by some sort of outside act. I think that when Scripture speaks of God as giving us new hearts, etc., the idea is that this is something we desire (in one sense of "desire," however we might shrink from the means required).

Interestingly, in the old days people who were staunch Calvinists looked at their works to discover whether they were among the elect. There was no notion that you could be living like the devil, be one of the elect, and then be suddenly transformed by a sort of Divine zapping at death. I'm not sure anyone believes that nowadays, either. And even as Christians, we all know that, even if we are not adamantly opposed to God, we certainly aren't what we should be. We _ask_ Him to make us what we should be. That seems to mean that the work of the Spirit is something consented to, at some level, by the soul. Which hardly makes such consent a matter for pride, heaven knows!

So is it your contention that a perfectly just and gracious God could save some, save none, or save all--that literally whatever God does with respect to the salvation of sinners, that thing would be perfectly just?

I think it boils down to whether or not God is perfect in Himself or if there is some gain found in the salvation of sinners.

"I agree that the issue of compatibilism, soft determinism, whichever you call it, does become relevant here. I've been a libertarian on the free will issue for many a year, and I suppose that independent philosophical issue just comes right in here on a truck. It seems to me obvious, on the one hand, that we cannot be blamed for acts that in no sense (not even in choosing to lose our self-control, as in the case of being under the influence of alcohol) were our free choice in the libertarian sense."


The problem is the Paul (and I would add the Holy Spirit who is the author of scripture) is real clear on this point...

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a a debased mind to do b what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
Rom 1:18-2:5 (ESV)

Paul doesn't say "men, who by their unrighteousness are ignorant of the truth", it says "suppress the truth. Therefore it is a culpable denial of truth. God bound himself to Adam, had Adam been obedient he could have entered into the eternal state of blessedness by works, but he wasn't so in him the entire race fell into disobedience. Christ was obedient to the law but yet punished as a sinner, by faith His righteousness is imputed to us (Rom 5)

Oh and this morning's sermon at my reformed, evangelical Presbyterian church ( :) ) was on Isaiah 55:8-11, God placed this text in front of me, now I give it to you

“Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples,
leader and commander for the peoples.
Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know,
and a nation that did not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

“For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall make a name for the Lord,
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.”
-Isaiah 55 (ESV)

Wow, there's like 4 outta 5 of Calvinism's points just in that chapter.

We obviously have very different interpretive approaches, Kevin V. Actually, I'd probably choose different proof-texts were I to argue the Calvinist position. (I was raised Calvinist-Baptist, more or less, and went to a very Calvinist-inclined Baptist Bible college.) I take it that the Romans 1 passage refers to individual people: _they_ suppress the truth--an act of the will--therefore _they_ are given over to a reprobate mind. Very much like deliberately getting drunk when you know better deep down or cultivating an addiction, in fact.

Kevin V:

The problem is the Paul (and I would add the Holy Spirit who is the author of scripture) is real clear on this point...

The problem, rather, is that you are interpreting Paul in a manner that is clearly incompatible with the patristic tradition, arguably incompatible with Paul himself in the larger context of his letters, and yields the counterintuitive result that people in general are morally responsible for committing sins they have no freedom to avoid. That is why it is nonsense to say that "Paul is real clear" on the point you want to make.

Paul is clearly saying that the sinfulness characteristic of the pagan world is due to people having ignored the evident existence and nature of God, because of the pride and lust that leads to idolatry. One cannot deduce from this, however, that anybody in particular is morally accountable for committing sins they could never have avoided. It is perfectly compatible with Paul's point to hold that, to the extent people are accountable, it's because somewhere along the way they freely chose, for bad reasons of their own, to ignore what is evident. It may well be that, given such a culpable choice, some people are no longer capable of refraining from sin. Yet following his Master's injunction, Paul also enjoins the Romans not to "judge" people, and criticizes the Romans for judging people for doing the same things they do themselves.

It has always been a mystery to me why some people insist on interpreting Scripture in a counterintuitive way that also depicts both man and God in a terrible light. I doubt it's for the sheer joy of it. Rather, this sort of hermeneutic is a tradition, of which monergists are the traditionalists. That must bring a kind of comfort I cannot fathom.


"I was sympathetic to what Lewis was saying but it just doesn't jibe with scripture."

No, Kevin, what it doesn't jibe with is your interpretation of Scripture, which is not the same thing. This is the fundamental error that Calvinists make: looking at the Scripture through a theological lens which they themselves have crafted, then declaring that how they see things must ipso facto be correct.

When I observe the world, whether that of politics or business, irregardless of people's partisan secular beliefs, I often marvel that my fellow humans seem to act in a manner that demonstrates that they have no idea at all of what's coming at them, the terrible holiness of God which is either a joy or a scourge.

It is, indeed, a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God, as is written in Hebrews. Terrible as in terrifying.

I marvel that so many of my fellow humans carry on as if awesome holiness were either nothing to be feared or enjoyed.

People don't have to be cast into Hell. They flee to darkness and shadow to hide from the refining fire and light. That includes even the merely mildly "evil" or the casually indifferent.

Holiness, pure Love, is too much for any of us. We have to made immobile in order to endure it like the man rescued by the Samaritan, or when Peter says, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." Or when the prodigal son is overwhelmed by gratuitous blessings and grace, completely unexpected.

I think we've all known people who are afraid to love even in the simplest, most human way such as loving a spouse, a child, even a dog; that they're too afraid of love causing them pain or rejection to commit to it.

But as Jesus said, Fear is useless. Think of the millions who have no trust in God. Few are Hitlers, but all will flee the confrontation with ultimate reality, a Person of perfect Love and forgiveness.

Even those retaining a sliver of pride must and will exclude themselves from communion with Truth.

I don't actually mind Kevin V's saying "Scripture" where he is talking about Scripture as he interprets it. As a good Protestant, I'm all in favor of people's interpreting Scripture. :-) And on some points I think Scripture is _very_ clear. I just disagree with him that Scripture clearly supports the points he says it supports. If I brought up my own strongest known proof-texts for Calvinism, I could cancel them out with proof-texts on the other side as fast as you could say "Jack Robinson." That's the nature of the beast concerning this issue. Another issue that is similar, and indeed related, is the "once saved, always saved" issue, on which there is, if possible, even a closer balance of proof-texts.

"We obviously have very different interpretive approaches, Kevin V. Actually, I'd probably choose different proof-texts were I to argue the Calvinist position. (I was raised Calvinist-Baptist, more or less, and went to a very Calvinist-inclined Baptist Bible college.) I take it that the Romans 1 passage refers to individual people: _they_ suppress the truth--an act of the will--therefore _they_ are given over to a reprobate mind. Very much like deliberately getting drunk when you know better deep down or cultivating an addiction, in fact."

For me it's not a matter of proof-texts. The entire historia salutis recorded in scripture screams TULIP. It's in every book and event in scripture.
And yes that's essentially what Paul is saying in Romans 1 and when brought together with other texts in the Pauline corpus as well as elsewhere we are told no one can seek God whom God does not call and it's not that some are called and the rest are just left alone, the reprobate are positively condemned, their hearts are hard but God makes them harder (cf Rom 9).

"The problem, rather, is that you are interpreting Paul in a manner that is clearly incompatible with the patristic tradition, arguably incompatible with Paul himself in the larger context of his letters, and yields the counterintuitive result that people in general are morally responsible for committing sins they have no freedom to avoid. That is why it is nonsense to say that "Paul is real clear" on the point you want to make."

It's funny, I was a Thomist, trad-Catholic (FSSP tridentine mass-attending, Summa-banging anti-Protestant) for many years before the Holy Spirit changed my heart and mind, I have a great deal of sympathy for where your at. I can share a couple of insight I've had in the last couple of years.

a) The scripture has superior authority to the patristic tradition. If a father of the church was wrong about something (and they were) then he was wrong, it's that simple.
b) there's a lot more support for the Calvinist position among the fathers than most Catholics would like. Calvin was clearly Augustinian, though he did disagree with him on some points (see a above) and there are many others from the patristic tradition that Calvin cited and who are cited by Calvinists today. It's a mixed bag. Some were very faithful to the scriptures, others were very enamored with Greek thinking.(for instance compare Augustine with [pseudo-] Dionysus the Aeropagite, both are Platonists but Augustine is firmly rooted in the scriptures while Dionysus is way off into myth and heavily flirts with Gnosticism and keep in mind the Medieval doctors thought Dionysus was the Aeropagite mentioned in Acts so his thinking was hugely influential, Aquinas quotes him all over the place in the Summa)
A full discussion of all the fathers and the various streams of thought behind their theology is not something we can do here, but I have read the patristic tradition extensively and believe me, the streams of thought that lead to Calvinist theology are all over the place.

"Paul is clearly saying that the sinfulness characteristic of the pagan world is due to people having ignored the evident existence and nature of God, because of the pride and lust that leads to idolatry. One cannot deduce from this, however, that anybody in particular is morally accountable for committing sins they could never have avoided. I"

Actually you have it backwards, let's read the text again...
See it? Here, lemme help.

"For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator,"...
"for this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions..."

For what cause did God give them up to their lusts and dishonorable passions? Idolatry. Refusing God the honor and glory to which He is entitled is primary, it's the first commandment of the Decalogue and the sin at the root of every other sin.
Imagining that we are so powerful we can thwart the plans of God, laid before the foundation of the world, is part of that sin. We imagine human autonomy is decisive and that God can be mocked. The sacrifice of Christ is efficacious, it SAVES, not merely offers the possibility. That was right there in the Isaiah text

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom 8:30, ESV) (lydia had to know I'd pull out that one eventually)
I don't see anywhere in that verse or elsewhere where God asks your permission to do this. He is the potter, we are the clay.

I was just re-reading the Romans 9 passage. In my opinion, it is the strongest passage in the entire Bible on the Calvinist side, bar none. By a margin, actually. What I consider strongly qualifies the implication that people are blamable for what they cannot help doing is Paul's clear implication later in the same discourse, in Romans 11, that the Israelites (who are the subjects of the "hardening" earlier) may choose not to "continue in unbelief" and may therefore, in response to their acceptance of what they are now rejecting (namely, Jesus Christ and salvation by grace), be grafted in again by God. This undermines the prima facie implication of the earlier passage that God is irresistibly hardening them long-term and that they are nonetheless blameworthy for unbelief.

As for the Romans 8 passage, I am now of the opinion (which, of course, I argued against in college) that the "foreknowledge" there is key and bears the natural (and Arminian) interpretation that predestination to conformity to Christ's image is in response to true foreknowledge of free human choices.

OK, heavy discussion needs levity
I think my wife's a Calvinist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZdoSG0IdNE

This thread is unfortunately starting to resemble an Emo Phillips joke:
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. I immediately ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!”
“Why shouldn’t I?” he said.
I said, “Well, there’s so much to live for!”
“Like what?”
“Well … are you religious or atheist?”
“Religious.”
“Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?”
“Christian.”
“Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?”
“Protestant.”
“Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”
“Baptist.”
“Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”
“Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God.”
“Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?”
“Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”
To which I said, “Die, heretic scum!” and pushed him off.

Sage,
It has nothing at all to do with the silly Euthyphro pseudo-problem. When God condemns, it is not cruel. When God forgives, it is not unjust. The demands of justice and of love are fully met on both counts -- every time.

Lydia,


As to the primary issue of the post of divine goodness and sending people to hell since the Calvinists and the Catholics have had their say, let me chime in with an Orthodox take to make the discussion fully ecumenical and perhaps give you another option to consider.

I’d recommend looking at St. Basil’s homily on God not being the cause of Evil, contained in the little SVS selections of his, On the Human Condition. http://www.amazon.com/Human-Condition-Vladimirs-Seminary-Patristics/dp/0881412945/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266198530&sr=1-1
In analytic philosophy the closest account to the Orthodox view is Jon Kvanvig’s, The Problem of Hell where he gives an Issuant account. http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Hell-Jonathan-L-Kvanvig/dp/019508487X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266198780&sr=1-1


In sum the account is that divine love explains both states in the after life. The difference is in the recipient. Some are prepared to live in God’s presence and some are opposed to it. Some may be prepared without previous historical knowledge of Christ (though they certainly get it in the afterlife) but the grace given to them to be so is always and only through Christ. (One apocryphal account has it that a man kept condemning Plato for teachings opposed to Christ until Plato appeared to him in a dream and told him that he should stop cursing him since Plato was one of the first to believe in Christ when he came to the world of the dead.) Biblical passages about condemnation then should be read in a metaphorical light, just as passages about God “repenting” and such are read.

Other’s solidify their own character to be opposed to the divine life. Character solidification does not entail a loss of libertarian freedom since the AP condition on LFW only entails a plurality of possible options, not a plurality of morally opposed options. Consequently, just so long for example as the blessed in heaven have a plurality of divine objects to choose between, they can have LFW and be morally impeccable, just as God is.

As an aside, not all traditions hold to the Beatific Vision (the Orthodox don’t), so that isn’t an essential part of the problem.

Kevin,

As Michael L. rightly noted, LFW isn’t precluded by an inability not to sin, just so long as there are a plurality of options to choose between.


You recommended Edward’s account of the matter on free will, but Edward’s account suffers from a host of problems. First, Edward’s view entailed Pantheism, which he admitted since creation was a necessary product of the divine nature. (Gordon Clark comes to a similar conclusion btw.) Second, if Edwards were right and nature determines actions, then if Adam has a good nature, then this renders the fall inexplicable and Edward’s account is somewhat inconsistent and lacks explanatory value for paradigm cases. Edwards also conflates causation with deterministic causation. But it may be true that every effect has a cause, but it may not be true that causes necessitate the effects that they do or render them inevitable. For other errors of Edwards, see Hugh McCann’s essay “Edwards on Free Will” in Paul Helm & Oliver Crisp’s “Jonathan Edwards: Philosophical Theologian.” http://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Edwards-Philosophical-Paul-Helm/dp/075463163X/ref=pd_sim_b_7#noop

On other matters, if Scripture is superior in authority to the patristic tradition, then the *formal* canon of scripture must not be a product of patristic tradition, but it is.
Second, if the fathers are unreliable and not to function as judges, so much more seems to be the case with the average Christian today who can’t seem to find their theological arse with both hands. If the Scripture screams TULIP then practically everyone prior to the Reformation, including the Lutherans at the Reformation must be stone deaf, which seems implausible.

Kevin,

Calvin was clearly not Augustinian in a good number of areas. Calvin rejects baptismal regeneration, Nicene Trinitarianism with the Father alone is autotheos, and predestination to grace, denying sacerdotalism and ex opere operato, while endorsing doctrines like limited atonement and sola fide which Augustine denied.

More to the point, Augustinian preemption is compatible with lots of positions and doesn’t pick out Calvinism exclusively. One can be a Thomist, Scotist or a Molinist and believe sola gratia quite consistently without implying Calvinism. Moreover, Calvin’s predestinarianism, like Augustine’s, entails a significantly defective Christology that dissent from Chalcedon in a Nestorianzing way. The humanity of Christ is predestined to be united to the Logos such that “Christ” refers not exclusively to the divine person of the Logos, but to the resulting composite formed after the union, such that “Christ” is a human and divine hypostasis. (See WCF 8.2) Consequently, anthropological monergism entails Christological Monothelitism and Monoenergism.
For Calvin and the Reformed tradition’s dissent from Chalcedon, see Richard Muller’s, Christ and the Decree. Or Bruce McCormack’s comments http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/a-deformed-christ/

For Augustine, see http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/christic-grace-in-augustines-christology/

&

http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/some-notes-on-the-christology-of-nestorius/

For Monoenergism and Monothelitism, see Cyril Hovorun’s, Will, Action and Freedom: Christological Controversies in the Seventh Century.


As for the charge of Hellinization, predestination was a quite Hellenistic thesis as well as could be found in middle and late Platonists such as Plotinus who uses the very same compatibilistic arguments to justify the moral responsibility of souls in a pre-embodied state who are determined to fall into bodies.

Dionysius is quite influential but no Gnostic. Moreover, the interpretation of him among the Latin’s that you seem to find distasteful is the standard gloss of the relation between divine attributes and divine simplicity found in all of the major Reformed Confessions and theologians. The Reformed doctrine of God goes out the window without Dionysius.

As for Romans 8, most ignore that said predestination includes a total recapitulation of all of creation in Christ. Paul speaks this way of predestination as recapitulation of all of creation in Christ in Eph 1:10-11 too.

Also, the act of deliberation entails the conditions on LFW, for if I am deliberating, I have already chosen between alternatives, to make a choice or hold off on doing so. And it is very hard to see how softly determined agents are different from manipulated agents. The latter clearly aren’t morally responsible or at least much less so and sincere there seems to be no clear reason on how we are to differentiate the two kinds of cases, it doesn’t seem as if causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility.

As to the question of God being justified in damning everyone by rights, the question isn’t if God is entitled to damn everyone, but if God is good while damning everyone.

Lydia,

This has been a very helpful discussion. Thank you!

Earlier in the comments, Mark Butterworth wrote, "Holiness, pure Love, is too much for any of us. We have to made immobile in order to endure it like the man rescued by the Samaritan, or when Peter says, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." Or when the prodigal son is overwhelmed by gratuitous blessings and grace, completely unexpected."

I had this sort of experience clawing my way out of religious feminism. The love given to me by those I had viewed as opponents (when feeling charitably) and enemies (when not feeling so charitably) was difficult to accept. It was uncomfortable, almost physically painful to accept such love and friendship. It's a bit like have a flashlight shown in your eyes after walking around in the dark on a moonless night. One recoils in pain.

I still don't know where I fall on free will, irresistable grace, etc. in general. I only know in this instance it *seemed* as if I could do not other than follow God's promptings.

Kamilla

"First, Edward’s view entailed Pantheism, which he admitted since creation was a necessary product of the divine nature. (Gordon Clark comes to a similar conclusion btw.)"

I hadn't heard this criticism before, thank you. I will evaluate Clark's work.

"Second, if Edwards were right and nature determines actions, then if Adam has a good nature, then this renders the fall inexplicable and Edward’s account is somewhat inconsistent and lacks explanatory value for paradigm cases."

So is your position that Adam did not have a good nature? That would definitely not be in line with Genesis and I've have never met a Catholic that didn't think the world, including man, was created good. Though you can argue Aquinas' concept of superadded grace makes man defective even in the prelapsarian state and I think that's an accurate criticism.
I can't say for all protestants, I don't know the views of all the different groups on this issue but if there is a group that believes man was created not good I'd have to say on the outset, that's unbiblical.

"Edwards also conflates causation with deterministic causation. But it may be true that every effect has a cause, but it may not be true that causes necessitate the effects that they do or render them inevitable."
That's possibly a valid criticism, I'll have to reflect on that, thanks for bringing it up.

"On other matters, if Scripture is superior in authority to the patristic tradition, then the *formal* canon of scripture must not be a product of patristic tradition, but it is.
Second, if the fathers are unreliable and not to function as judges, so much more seems to be the case with the average Christian today who can’t seem to find their theological arse with both hands. If the Scripture screams TULIP then practically everyone prior to the Reformation, including the Lutherans at the Reformation must be stone deaf, which seems implausible."

This is an old hackjob criticism of sola scriptura that is unworthy of the intellectual vigor you displayed elsewhere, it's been answered thousands of times by those far more articulate than I, if you wanted to know the answer you'd be able to find it easily.
The rest takes us too far afield, we've already hijacked the topic enough I think :).

Honestly I love Lewis in general, certainly as a Catholic I viewed his writings as far more "catholic" than most so-called Catholic theologians of the 20th century. One of the first books I ever read as a Christian was Mere Christianity and I grew up on Narnia.
I think he was brilliant, articulate and had a profound love for God. I've said elsewhere he may be looked at centuries from now as a 20th century Augustine... nonetheless that doesn't make him infallible (no more than Augustine was) and I think he's wrong on heaven.
His view, which I think he derives from a Thomistic framework, is too wrapped up in Aquinas' theology of being. Lewis in many places refers to and uses the framework of the Medieval chain of being and that's what's underlying the thinking here, I believe.


As for the Romans 8 passage, I am now of the opinion (which, of course, I argued against in college) that the "foreknowledge" there is key and bears the natural (and Arminian) interpretation that predestination to conformity to Christ's image is in response to true foreknowledge of free human choices.

What Calvinists rarely, if ever, acknowledge is that if God's selection process is not based on a foreknowledge of who would accept Christ if freely, personally offered, then man is left with a powerful excuse before the throne of God.

The problem is that the only way to explain that excuse away is to reduce God's judgment process to one similar to an engineer declaring some machines defective and scrapping them, which is a cold and callous judgment not compatible with the Calvinists' view of God's relationship with the world and humanity.

"If the Scripture screams TULIP then practically everyone prior to the Reformation, including the Lutherans at the Reformation, must be stone deaf, which seems implausible."

To say the least. Calvin may have been an Augustinian, but Augustine was certainly no Calvinist. Neither was any other church father. And cherry-picking the Fathers for supposedly Calvinist statements is a lost cause -- you can do that with virtually any doctrine, true or false.

"It has always been a mystery to me why some people insist on interpreting Scripture in a counterintuitive way that also depicts both man and God in a terrible light."

Mike, according to the Calvinists, our intuition relating to these things, being depraved, is wrong. If we understood these things as God does, they wouldn't be counterintuitive. Handy, ain't it?

Michael L, great to see you back. Truly pleasing.

and those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. (Rom 8:30, ESV) (lydia had to know I'd pull out that one eventually)
I don't see anywhere in that verse or elsewhere where God asks your permission to do this. He is the potter, we are the clay.

Kieth, let's go back to the John passage I mentioned: "be you perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect." This is either a command, or a counsel, or an efficacious action on the part of Christ. I have never heard it described as a counsel, as if it were good for some to follow, but not all. It is ridiculous to consider it an efficacious act on Christ's part, similar to his miraculous rearrangements of reality: saying "see" to the blind man, or God's "let there be light." For those very Apostles who heard him soon sinned, and one of them betrayed Him to the high priest. So we are left with a command, an injunction, a requirement. In what sense is it intelligible that God give a command to DO something that the creature is incapable of doing? It isn't. No intelligent agent does that. No, the reality is that Christ give the command because each of us are called to be perfect and each of us are capable of being perfect (albeit not without God causing that perfection).

Every time we act in a human act, i.e. a human choice, our will moves toward a good, either apparent or real. But that is an ambiguous and indistinct description of the event. Every being, and every act, has its root origin in God, the First Mover. So also with human acts. If God is the First Mover of all of our acts, then either God causes sin, or the sin is not a necessity in the act. What happens is that God initiates the movement of our will toward the good, and either our will remains complacent in that movement along to its intended good conclusion, or we obstruct the action by deflecting (or defecting) toward an apparent good that is contrary to God's will. If we don't obstruct, then our will chooses the good and we DO a good act, because God initiated the movement of our will toward the good.

This happens EVERY time we act. Including when we choose to be received into the Church of Christ, for example. If God did not initiate the act, then we could not act. If all of our acts are sinful acts by reason of a sinful nature, then our choice to become members of the Church would also be sinful, which is nonsense. If God caused our good acts without enjoining our cooperation, there would be no point to Christ's command to "be perfect", as we would be perfect on account of God's action in us anyway, and nothing we do would matter about that perfection.

In addition to the ordinary "grace" by which God makes each new human act an act by which the person can, if he cooperates, do the good, God also gives other graces by which He makes the completion of the good act more ready, such as when He strengthens the intellect's apprehension of the good, weakens the concupiscence, or blocks temptations. These can operate in two ways: one is external to the will, as the above examples. The second is internal to the will, or even (as it is said) prior to the will - God can move the will toward its end by a more firm movement than it would usually tend. Since God is the originator of each human soul, of each person's will, and it is by His power that each human will remains in being and retains its nature to tend toward the good, it is by no means contrary to the will (and its free nature) for God to move the will in a more firm manner toward its natural end than it usually moves. Therefore, God (and God alone) can move the will to the good irresistably without moving the person "against his will , i.e. with violence. But God never moves the will away from the good, still less does He do so irresistably, and all of the passages which refer to God "hardening" of hearts are to be understood as God permitting them to reap the hardness of heart that their own chosen sins naturally produce, instead of God reducing their inclination to sin that He does so often, mercifully. And this hardness is exactly what the Pauline text means: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. who by their sins suppress the truth from their own minds and hearts.

There is no inherent problem between predestination in Scripture (such as the Pauline text at the top) and the reality that our good acts happen both because God causes them and "because" we don't defect from the good in them. Do you think that God cannot see all of the good acts He is going to initiate in each of us? Do you think that He cannot move us toward the good in a way that ensures the elect will, in fact, remain in the path He sets them? But nothing about this operation by God makes it so that those who go to hell go there for any other reason than sins they commit that they had the freedom to NOT commit, had they not defected from the good that God initiated in them by moving their will to the good.

Well, I'm sure the failure is mine to explain the theology adequately, I know RC Sproul can do much better. For those that are interested, here's a lecture series on the subject

http://bit.ly/7cjVhp

God Bless

Kevin (cont.)

Calvin was clearly not Augustinian in a good number of areas. Calvin rejects baptismal regeneration, Nicene Trinitarianism with the Father alone is autotheos, and predestination to grace, denying sacerdotalism and ex opere operato, while endorsing doctrines like limited atonement and sola fide which Augustine denied.

More to the point, Augustinian preemption is compatible with lots of positions and doesn’t pick out Calvinism exclusively. One can be a Thomist, Scotist or a Molinist and believe sola gratia quite consistently without implying Calvinism. Moreover, Calvin’s predestinarianism, like Augustine’s, entails a significantly defective Christology that dissent from Chalcedon in a Nestorianzing way. The humanity of Christ is predestined to be united to the Logos such that “Christ” refers not exclusively to the divine person of the Logos, but to the resulting composite formed after the union, such that “Christ” is a human and divine hypostasis. (See WCF 8.2) Consequently, anthropological monergism entails Christological Monothelitism and Monoenergism.
For Calvin and the Reformed tradition’s dissent from Chalcedon, see Richard Muller’s, Christ and the Decree. Or Bruce McCormack’s comments http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/a-deformed-christ/

For Augustine, see http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/christic-grace-in-augustines-christology/

&

http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/some-notes-on-the-christology-of-nestorius/

For Monoenergism and Monothelitism, see Cyril Hovorun’s, Will, Action and Freedom: Christological Controversies in the Seventh Century.


As for the charge of Hellinization, predestination was a quite Hellenistic thesis as well as could be found in middle and late Platonists such as Plotinus who uses the very same compatibilistic arguments to justify the moral responsibility of souls in a pre-embodied state who are determined to fall into bodies.

Dionysius is quite influential but no Gnostic. Moreover, the interpretation of him among the Latin’s that you seem to find distasteful is the standard gloss of the relation between divine attributes and divine simplicity found in all of the major Reformed Confessions and theologians. The Reformed doctrine of God goes out the window without Dionysius.

As for Romans 8, most ignore that said predestination ignores a total recapitulation of all of creation in Christ. Paul speaks this way of predestination as recapitulation of all of creation in Christ in Eph 1:10-11 too.

Also, the act of deliberation entails the conditions on LFW, for if I am deliberating, I have already chosen between alternatives, to make a choice or hold off on doing so. And it is very hard to see how softly determined agents are different from manipulated agents. The latter clearly aren’t morally responsible or at least much less so and sincere there seems to be no clear reason on how we are to differentiate the two kinds of cases, it doesn’t seem as if causal determinism is compatible with moral responsibility.

As to the question of God being justified in damning everyone by rights, the question isn’t if God is entitled to damn everyone, but if God is good while damning everyone.

Kevin,

No, my position, which is the Orthodox position (big hint, I am not Catholic), is that Adam was created naturally good, but not yet morally righteous. That is acquired by personal activity. In any case the point was to deny that nature determines actions. At most it may circumscribe options, but it doesn’t whittle them down to one in any given circumstance, unless of course you assume that goodness is one thing.

Aquinas’ notion of the donum superadditum is that of Augustine. This is a significant difference between Augustine and Calvin. Augustine held against the Pelagians that grace was added to nature. The latter held that grace was natural or righteousness was natural and therefore could never be lost as long as humans were in the imago dei. This was the key error of the Pelagians, conflating natural goodness with personal righteousness. Calvin and the majority of the Reformers endorse the Pelagian option, ironically enough by taking righteousness to be natural. It is pre-lapsarian Pelagianism, which is why they have to posit that human choices override the divine will for the imago dei and fundamentally alter it, so much so that at times they speak of the imago dei being lost.

It has nothing at all to do with the silly Euthyphro pseudo-problem. When God condemns, it is not cruel. When God forgives, it is not unjust. The demands of justice and of love are fully met on both counts -- every time.

Michael, I don't think I think what you think I think. Whatever the case, I don't see in your response an argument or an explanation, just a restatement of your original assertion. If you think my question is so silly as not to deserve a real answer, just say so and I won't ask again--my belief in God's goodness is settled and I'm not interested in perturbing anybody else's. I'm just genuinely interested in what your answer would be.

I have many things to say on this topic, but, as one of the purposes of Lent (whether you agree with it or not) is to reign in unruly passions and increase one's discipline for doing good and following God and since one of my large defects is in talking too much, I have decided, again, this year to suspend reading blogs and posting blog comments until after Lent. So, see you all, Lord willing, after Lent.

The Chicken

But it's not Lent yet! :)

Sage,

It looks like we're talking past each other, though we don't intend it. I didn't mean that your comment was silly, but that the Euthyphro dilemma is because it seems to me not to take God's character properly into account. The character of God is such that He wills and does what is right, good, just. His character, which alone is the very measure and fountain of righteousness, is not the result of will. It's the other way round: His character gives rise to what he wills, not that what he wills gives rise to his character. He could not, for example, have changed his character such that the decalogue would include a commandment to murder or to commit adultery. Character is fundamental. He does and he commands what is in line with his unchangeable character. Nothing in his character precludes either a condemnation of sinners -- or their forgiveness. Being truly righteous because they are in line with his character, the former is not cruel in any way, and the latter is not unjust. Providence has supplied in the cross of Christ, on the one hand, and in Hell, on the other, the means to administer the mercy and justice that arise from, or reflect, his character.

Chicken, we'll miss ya' while you're not eating blogs. :-) I hope my other Catholic readers aren't going to do that. W4 would be deserted! :-)

Eastern Rite Catholics practice Lent starting on Clean Monday instead of Ash Wednesday.

When God condemns, it is not cruel. When God forgives, it is not unjust.

If you believe in the literal truth of the Old Testament that seems plausible. The Flood was conclusive evidence that humans were expendable in the eyes of Yahweh. On the other hand, Christianity means accepting that God changed his rather destructive relationship to mankind by offering up his own son as the ultimate sacrifice to redeem sins.

He could not, for example, have changed his character such that the decalogue would include a commandment to murder or to commit adultery.

Those commandments were clearly made in a narrow context. The commandment against adultery was strictly limited to having an affair with another man's wife - additional wives and concubines were permissible, as was an affair with an unmarried virgin if the man proposed marriage afterward. The commandment against murder didn't apply at all to warfare since genocide was a strategy approved by God.

Step2,
Punishment for their sins does not mean that human beings are expendable, any more than forgiving them their sins means that justice is expendable. Christianity does not mean that "God has changed his rather destructive relationship to mankind." There's plenty of mercy and justice in both Testaments, from the forgiveness of Nineveh in the Old Testament to the destruction of sinners at Armageddon in the New.

Yes, the commandments have a historical context. Who denies it?

"I have decided, again, this year to suspend reading blogs and posting blog comments until after Lent."

Geez, thanks for the reminder, MC. I did the same thing last year and totally forgot this year, probably because I'm not blogging as much. I'll see y'all in about 6 weeks. Blessings.

Don't worry, Lydia, I'll make up for the both of them. I'll post twice as much.

However, in keeping with the season, I will be abstemious by only using every OTHER letter.

W u n' t a b n c ?

Hey, what happened to the extra spaces? Grrr.

I'm beginning to think that Calvinists and non-Calvinists, like the Americans and the British, are divided by a common language.

Ain't that the truth!

As a note of personal mention, I think I tend to lean more toward the Calvinist position. I might simply be echoing the thoughts of many writers and speakers that have inspired me, though.

I see, in many circles, some clearly drawn lines on this issue of election, etc., and while I do think that the discussion is important and that discussion about God is not something to shy away from, even if it breeds controversy (maybe, especially if it does), I've had a somewhat more passive approach in conversations about this as of late. (As I said, though, I wasn't ever in a position of strong defense of any view here—likely out of ignorance... and laziness.)

It strikes me as at least a tad presumptuous to assume that we can say with certainty exactly how God saves people. Or maybe not, maybe it's just all going over my head and/or my interests now simply are found elsewhere.

Can I say thanks for the contributors above, at least?

Perry Robinson says, "If Scripture screams TULIP, then practically everyone prior to the Reformation, including the Lutherans at the Reformation must be stone deaf, which seems implausible."
If one reads Martin Luther's 1525 reply to Erasmus in De Servo Arbitrio one must conclude that Luther believed in Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, and Irresistible Grace.
Subsequent Lutheran Confessions did not go as far as Luther, and denied Irresistible Grace.

Punishment for their sins does not mean that human beings are expendable, any more than forgiving them their sins means that justice is expendable.

Justice is not even an option when talking about the near total destruction of the human race. It is something you would expect from a malevolent deity, not a beneficent one.

Yes, the commandments have a historical context. Who denies it?

I guess it depends on whether you believe omniscient moral perfection is restricted by historical context or not.

Justice is not even an option when talking about the near total destruction of the human race. It is something you would expect from a malevolent deity, not a beneficent one.

Wait a minute. Where do you get that? When God gives us a gift of life, that gift, totally undeserved on our part, does not come with any kind of a guarantee: "good for 70 years, any manufacturer's defects will be replaced or repaired." No, God's gift of life is for some period of time that is up to Him. He can't violate justice by giving someone a life-span of only 6 months, or 5 minutes, because that person never had a right to ANY life-span whatsoever. So if God decides to not grant any additional life, so to make the life-span of everyone on the planet to cease as of 10:02 pm on Thursday, it is impossible that He is being unjust in not giving them more life. They can't hold a right to receive from God more life than that.

One is led irresistibly to picture something like a puppet soul, previously in rebellion, made by something like spiritual force to desire and love God and to enjoy Him forever, which isn't my idea of the beatific vision. It seems more reasonable and more consistent with what heaven really is to say with C.S. Lewis, "All get what they want. They do not always like it."
Let us take the example of St. Paul. He was a soul in rebellion and encountered God on the road to Damascus. In that encounter, Saul was converted. How did this happen? We can see God used created things (Saul's eyesight, his brain, his mind, a blinding light that others could see) to bring about his conversion. Saul was indeed encountered as a full, embodied human being, which should address your concerns against a kind of Gnostic reductionism.

But then what was the precise mechanism of the heart change? This question is concerns a part--or, better, an aspect--of a human being, so it necessarily involves a kind of reduction. While we need to avoid reductionism, addressing an aspect of a person necessarily involves a kind of reductionism, but one I think may be beneficial as long as the larger non-reductive picture is kept in view. Scripture uses a few illustrations of this:

Ezekiel 36:25-27 (Ezekiel 11:19) I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Romans 2:29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.
Does God taking out our hearts of stone and giving us hearts of flesh and by his Spirit "causing" us to walk in his statutes (unlike the Israelites) make you uncomfortable? I don't think his doing so makes us automatons; he does not micromanage our hearts (wills), but gives us a new heart which is of his Spirit. But he does not do all this apart from our physical being, but effects the change through preaching (made up of sound waves), blinding lights, etc.

But we are changed by God and given hearts that desire him as he is (Lord, Creator, Redeemer, Friend, etc.), and in the new heavens and new earth our psychosomatic unities are fully sanctified so that the root change of heart can be fully manifested. Analogously, one could imagine the full evilness of heart for those who do not know God (but are really nice only because they were formed in the cultural inheritance of Christendom or otherwise granted common grace) will be manifest in Hell.

Honestly, I'm not sure what this has to do with Calvinism per se; it seems to have to do more with how the spiritual Creator interacts with physical/spiritual creation ("He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power." or "And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."), whether that be humans, wind, earth, demons, etc. which became a problem only with Enlightenment dualism.

Indeed the big "problem" with Calvinism regarding human vs. divine will is a subset of the rejection of the Creator/creature distinction (in the Enlightenment's philosophical rejection of the Creator), which made the creature Man into God, paving the way for difficulties in reconciling the assumed qualitatively equivalent Man's will vs. God's will when the qualitative equivalence is an artifact of rejecting the qualitative difference between Creator and creature (and Creator will/human will).

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.