God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 3, paragraph 1.
This is double-talk and contradiction. If God ordained everything which comes to pass then it is thereby necessary that he ordained sin!
Rick Warren, in his Purpose Driven Life, even states that everything about you -- sex, body shape, race, hair color, eye color, etc -- was ordained by God and that everything we are doing or saying was ordained by God.
You can’t on one hand say everything has been ordained by God and then on the other hand say God doesn’t ordain sin. You can’t say on one hand that God ordained everything we do or say and then on the other hand say we are responsible for everything we do or say.
Calvinism indeed makes humans nothing but pre-programmed puppets.
8 comments:
In your comment here, you've raised two separate, but related issues. The first is the ordinance of God. The second is man's ability to act as an independent agent.
First, God's ordaining of all things. If you'll revisit the Westminster quote, it does NOT say that God didn't ordain sin. I'm a Calvinist and we absolutely believe that God ordains sin. God ordains all things. Instead, it says that God is not the Author of sin, which is true. Those two things are completely different things.
"In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will..." Eph. 1:11
To ordain something is to plan it and to either directly or indirectly bring it to pass. All things that have and will ever happen in human history were planned by God before the foundation of the world. To be the author of sin is to directly cause it - by tempting or forcing someone to sin. God doesn't tempt anyone.
In the case of sin, God indirectly brings it to pass. He uses indirect agents such as Satan (who the Bible also presents as totally controlled by God) and also steers the will of man to bring about His plans. See Romans 9. It's certainly true that Pharaoh was not a believer even in the Old Testament sense of the world. However, God explicitly stated that He hardened Pharaoh's heart in order to cause him to sin against God. For that's what it was when Pharaoh continued to refuse to let the people go: sin. That's a good example of what it means to ordain sin rather than to be the Author of it.
Second, man as a free agent. I grew up in a church that staunchly defended man's free will. It took years of reading Scripture and the Holy Spirit working in me before I realized that there's no such thing in the Bible. If anything, time and time again, God presents man as subject to the will of God, with no ability to determine the course of his life let alone his own salvation.
See Jonah, who had no interest in going to Ninevah, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Pharaoh. See the conversion of Saul/Paul, who knew all about Christianity and Jesus, wanted none of it and yet God overrode his will and forced his eyes open to the truth. See 2 Tim. 2:25-26 where Paul prays with Timothy that God would grant repentance (salvation) to those who are in opposition. If their wills are free, why does God need to grant them repentance? Also, see Martin Luther's writing in the Bondage of the Will, in which he expounds at great measure on the fact that our wills are definitely not free, that God is actually totally and utterly sovereign (double predestinarian - Luther uses those words) and that we can be thankful for that because without election, no one would ever choose God (Rom. 3:10-17).
Man exists (along with all of creation and all of human history - past, present and future) to promote the declaration of God's glory.
As believers we're dearly loved, but that's still our purpose. If we were perfectly crucified in Christ and dead to ourselves in this life, we would have no will, no words, no actions, no thoughts other than the will, words, actions and thoughts of Christ. That's the point. That we be empty vessels through whom the world sees Christ. And of course we want that. I know I do.
The word puppet has negative connotations, but in truth, the two are identical: to be dead to ourselves is to be a willing and joyful puppet of Christ. (Those in the world are unwilling puppets of God.) And of course, why would I want to be anything else when it is through His sovereign ordaining of all things that Christ is perfectly magnified?
If God ordains sin, then He is the originator of sin. If He ordains everything we do, then he ordains us to sin. If all things were planned by God (other than letting us life free-will choice lives) then God planned for us to sin and even planned what sin we’d commit.
As for Pharaoh, it says he hardened his own heart. And when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart is was God’s actions which caused the Pharaoh to harden his own heart, just like human actions can cause people to harden their hearts against them.
The Bible teaches nothing but man’s free will. If man has no free will, then God is unjustly condemning him for his actions. To say man has no free will is one of the most foolish statements ever. It exonerates homosexuals, adulterers, murderers, etc because they have no free will choices — it’s all been planned for them.
God guides his people and no one denies that. But God allows us our free-will choices -- he didn't program us.
This commentary on Ephesians 1 is useful here:
https://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-calvinist-misuse-of-ephesians-11-13.html
Victoria says "To be the author of sin is to directly cause it." No, to be the author is to write it. And in Calvinism, Calvi-god wrote the whole script from beginning to end, everything we do and think, then he causes it to happen. If we cannot do anything other than what Calvi-god preplanned for us (I do not call him "God" because Calvinism's god is not the God of the Bible), then he is indeed the author of our sins.
And predestination, in Ephesians, is about what's promised to a person after they choose to believe. Believers are predestined for redemption and to bring God glory. It's not that certain sinners are predestined to salvation, but that the path a person takes after becoming a believer is predestined. Think of it like a bus that's headed to a certain destination. The path is determined for that bus, but the people choose whether or not to get on the bus. I recently wrote about this same issue on my blog at https://anticalvinistrant.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-study-of-calvinisms-favorite.html.
Thanks, Glenn, for writing against Calvinism too.
(And I wonder if Victoria discovered Calvinism in the Bible all on her own ... or if she "discovered" it with the help of Calvinist theologians and authors telling her how to read the Bible. That's how they get people. They tell you their interpretation of the Gospel first, and then they show you the passages that support them. Most people do not become Calvinists without the help of Calvinist theologians telling them what to think.)
Not only is it the case that a THEOS FIRST-CONCEIVES and then decrees to infallibly come to pass - every sin and every evil. It also logically follows - once the sin or evil is decreed to infallibly come to pass - no alternative of that which is decreed to infallibly come to pass is possible - for any alternative of that which is infallibly decreed would falsify the infallible decree - which his impossible.
This means - every sin and evil is made IRRESISTIBLE t o man - and its decree is NOT conditioned upon anything having to do with the creature or the condition therefore.
Thus on this view - Adam for example - was not permitted to NOT eat the fruit.
He was granted NO CHOICE in the matter because because the process of choice requires multiple options from which to select - and all options other than that which is infallibly decreed are EXCLUDED by the infallible decree.
Therefore in Calvinism - man is ever given only one single RENDERED-CERTAIN option.
And man is granted NO CHOICE as to what the option will be
And man is granted NO CHOICE as to what his role with be in that option.
Thus NO CHOICE in anything that comes to pass
Anonymous 11/12/21,
You are right on the money, which is exactly the main problem with Calvinism. If man has no choice but what God ordained for him , then how can he be guilty of sinning?
Glenn e chatfield all I can say is AMEN! AMEN! And AMEN!
Unknown and I AMEN TO THAT!
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