A Response to Calvinism, Part 2

In Part 1, (http://trustthebible.blogspot.com/Calvinism1) I began by saying there is a lot of good teaching in Calvinism. For example, I agree that the Bible teaches:

1. God chose that certain people would be saved before he even created the world. This necessarily means other people will not be saved. (Romans 9:22-24, Ephesians 1:4)
2. Those who are saved are saved entirely by God's gracious gift and do not contribute to their salvation in any way. Those who are lost chose to reject God through their sin and cannot blame God for their just condemnation. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
3. Not only does believing the gospel message fail to contribute to salvation in any way (I cannot claim that God saved me because of my faith but rather through it), but even my believing the gospel is a gift from God and not something I could do on my own. (John 6:44, Hebrews 12:2)

These three points emphasize God's sovereign role in salvation, promote humility for us who believe, and exalt God as entirely gracious in saving any person he chooses.

However, I think Calvinists go beyond what the Scripture teach when they assume the total inability of a person to respond to the gospel unless God first makes them spiritually alive. In addition, Calvinists add that once God has taken the action to impart spiritual life to a person they have no ability to resist believing the gospel. This is known as "Irresistible Grace," and God's action that leads to salvation is often called the "effectual call."

Once again, I think this is an unnecessary assumption that runs into conflict with the Scriptures. People certainly can resist grace. Probably the best example of this is when Jesus says in Matthew 22:37: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." God wants to save them (as demonstrated in a number of places in the Old Testament as well,) but they are "not willing," or, they "always resist the Holy Spirit." (Acts 7:51)

Now, I can understand logically why Calvinists would believe in an effectual call, given the three biblical teachings I stated above. It makes sense. However, it is not the only way to understand how God accomplishes his plans for salvation. There is another way that is just as logical and does not run into problems with the Scriptures.

How? Let me explain through an illustration. Suppose I am at home with my wife and two children one afternoon. My wife wants to get out of the house and do something as a family. She wants everyone to come. However, the kids and I would rather stay home. She considers suggesting we all go out to get ice cream. Knowing our children, she knows their desire to stay home will suddenly melt away. They will jump up, excitedly proclaiming, "Let's go!" However, I may have a different take. I like ice cream, but I have some concerns. "Does it fit our budget?" "Have I already had too many desserts this week?" The children don't care about these concerns, but they are enough for me that the suggestion of ice cream is not enough to persuade me to want to go.

My wife considers another option. Maybe she could suggest we all go on a trip to the bookstore. Now, my mood shifts and I decide it would be good to get out of the house. However, this time the kids still want to stay home. The bookstore is not as persuasive for them. Assuming there is no third option that will get all of us to agree to want to go out, and assuming my wife knows with certainty exactly how each person will respond, she now decides who she is going to go with. She will decide to either bring up the bookstore and I will go with her while we get someone to watch the kids, or she will suggest ice cream and go out with the children. No one is forced to stay home or go. No one is forced to want to stay home or go. But my wife really makes the decision of who will want to go and will go.

The problem I have with the effectual call (in addition to Bible verses that say people do resist God's grace) is that it is mystical in nature and unknown to the recipient. I also don't see any Scripture verses that teach it. In the example above, it would be as if my wife simply caused our children to want to go outside, without even mentioning ice cream or anything else. Because of my wife's choice, they would suddenly want to go out, but they wouldn't know why they changed their minds or that my wife had caused it. This sounds a lot like some kind of hypnosis.

Calvinists also often call the effectual call an "inner call" to distinguish it from the outward call of the preaching of the Gospel. I see no reason why such a distinction should be made. I believe the gospel message itself is the outer call and the means by which God changes minds and hearts to come to repentance.

In my understanding, God's decisions looked something like this.
1. God chose to create humanity knowing they would sin against him. This would be their choice. God did not want anyone to reject him through sin, but he knew that if he gave them the choice, they would. He decided to create them anyway.
2. God also chose to offer salvation to the sinful people. He would accomplish the means of salvation through sending Jesus. In this way he would maintain his justice and yet demonstrate his love.
3. He chose the method of salvation. He could have chosen any number of methods for giving salvation. He could have given it to every third person born, or to everyone over six feet tall, or to everyone who placed faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation. It was this last option that God chose because it best demonstrated his glory. He also chose the way the gospel message would go out and a nearly infinite number of other details about how to do this (for example, the exact date and location of Jesus' death). He knew exactly who would believe and wouldn't believe as a result of his decisions. His choices resulted in a specific group of people being predestined to salvation, whereas others were not.
4. God chose the method of changing the hearts of unbelievers to be through the preaching of the gospel. "It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes," (Romans 1:16) "faith comes from hearing the message," (Romans 10:17) and "God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8)

From my perspective, the events looks like this:
1. I sinned against God and had no desire to obey him. I was thus guilty and deserved his condemnation.
2. I heard the gospel message that God loves me and sent Jesus to die on the cross and make payment for my sin. Jesus then rose from the dead and offers eternal life to all who believe in him.
3. This powerful message changed my desires and thoughts about God. This change was not by a mysterious process I was unconscious of, but I audibly heard the gospel message and consciously sensed its impact on my heart. I came to place my faith in Christ.
4. God acted to forgive my sin and give me eternal life, along with all the other aspects of salvation.

It is ultimately because of God's choices, not mine, that I am saved. He could have chosen to do things in a slightly different way, and I may have never heard the gospel or have had the opportunity to believe. I would stand condemned and God would be perfectly just.

Yet, in this understanding, I still could have resisted the gospel. And, more importantly, I can genuinely preach to every person that God loves them and offers them salvation. Just like my wife can genuinely want everyone to get out of the house and join her on an activity even though ultimately only one group will. My wife would prefer that everyone come to get ice cream, but that wasn't one of the options. In the same way, I think that God wants everyone to respond to the gospel and be saved, even though he knew from the beginning that would not happen.

Why do some believe and not others? It has nothing to do with goodness. In fact, the Bible suggests the opposite. Jesus said, "The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you," referring to the religious leaders. Nor do I think it has to do with God giving a mysterious effectual call to a predetermined list of people. Rather, God has designed the gospel in a way that highlights his mercy and love by leading sinful people to respond in faith to him.


Trust the Bible's purpose is to grow your confidence that the Bible is true and the ultimate resource for life." You can join the Facebook group by clicking here. Trust the Bible is a weekday radio program that begins at about 8:10 each morning on WDOG 93.5 in Allendale, SC. Listen to previous programs online: www.fairfaxfbc.org/trust-the-bible.html

A Response to Calvinism, Pt 1

I'll start by saying that there is a lot of good teaching in Calvinism. I don't think anyone should completely reject the teachings usually associated with it. Many great Christian minds have come to be Calvinists through a careful study of the Scriptures, many of them are heroes of the faith to me. However, I do think that some elements of Calvinism unnecessarily cause confusion and lead people away from trusting the Bible. I want to address those areas in a few posts. I will not address every verse and every argument, I am not writing a book. But I will briefly address what I think are the central issues.

How does Calvinism lead people away from trusting the Bible? Calvinism in popular usage refers to a collection of doctrines related to God's sovereign role in salvation. It is a theological system, defined by five points forming the acronym "Tulip": Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverance of the Saints. It claims that a person has no ability to believe in the Gospel and be saved unless God first gives them the "new life" or "new heart" that the Bible associates with salvation. God has predestined a select group for salvation and everyone in that group will believe and be saved. Everyone else will be lost.

This system creates a tension with a number of Bible verses. If you embrace this system as a whole, it is difficult to explain why the Bible says, "God so loved the world..." (John 3:16), or that God "desires all people to be saved" (1 Timothy 2:4). Usually, Calvinists respond that, for various reasons, the words "world," or "all people" in these verses refer only to the ones God chose to save, not all the people in the world. In my opinion, if a theological system leads you to make such a strained interpretation of a straightforward verse, there is something off with that system. It is a kind of lack of trust in the Bible.

So why would someone be a Calvinist? First, some passages in the Bible do teach that God chose to save some and not others. One of the clearest examples is Romans 9:22-24:

"What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath-- prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory-- even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?"

I say some because I think the quantity of these kinds of verses is overstated by Calvinists. Romans 8:29 mentions "predestination" but it is not talking about predestination to believe and be saved, but rather that God has predestined believer in Jesus to be sanctified. There are many examples of Calvinists using the words "predestine" and "chose" in the New Testament to support their system, but in only a few cases are the words actually referring to salvation. However, one verse is all that is needed to say a doctrine is supported by the Bible. The issue is not whether or not God has chosen to save some and not others, but the way in which God goes about accomplishing his purposes.

In many other instances, Calvinists reach their conclusions based on assumptions about what they believe a text implies. This is where problems with biblical interpretation begin. In the rest of this article, I will specifically address how this happens when it comes to "Total Depravity." I will address other aspects in future posts.

First, what is Total Depravity? Calvinists use the term to mean that sin has impacted every aspect of a person. We are all born in slavery to sin and our intellect, emotions, spirit, -everything about us is depraved. This does not mean that every person is as sinful as they could be, or that a sinner always does the worst thing possible in every situation. Rather, our fallen state means that it is impossible for us to act and think in a way that is truly pleasing to God (Romans 8:8). The result is that we are spiritually "dead." So far, so good. Paul writes, "And you were dead in your trespasses and sins," (Ephesians 2:1).

But what does it mean to be spiritually dead? Calvinists believe the phrase implies that a person is incapable of responding to the gospel message and believing in Jesus. Because someone who is physically dead cannot do anything in the physical realm, they reason, so someone spiritually dead cannot do anything in the spiritual realm, like believing in Jesus. They then build an order of salvation around this assumption. Someone must first be "regenerated," or given spiritual life by God. Then they can (and will) believe the gospel. The sinner has nothing to do with God's act of regeneration. God does this for a specific group he has chosen from the very beginning. If God did not choose you, then it is impossible for you to respond to the gospel and be saved. 

But all of these conclusions rest on the assumption that those who are spiritually dead cannot respond to the gospel, an assumption that I do not think the Bible supports. For starters, even Calvinists must admit that spiritually dead people can do some things. For instance, they will face God in the judgment. So to say that spiritual death is equal to physical death in that you cannot do anything at all is to press the metaphor too far. So what does the Bible mean by spiritual death? Let's look to the Bible to find out, not our own assumptions. Here are two key passages:

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses." -Colossians 2:13

"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." -John 5:24

In both cases, going from death to life has to do with having your sins forgiven. You are spiritually dead if you are guilty before God. You are heading to judgment where you will be condemned. You have no hope of doing anything to make yourself right before him. You are doomed to eternal separation from God. But when God forgives you, then you are spiritually alive. Thus the Bible uses the term to refer to hopelessness in your own ability to secure salvation apart from the gospel, not hopelessness to respond to the gospel apart from God first making you alive. 

See also John 3:36:  "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."

Again, eternal life is contrasted with not having God's wrath on you. Also, note that someone who believes has eternal life. The verse does not say that the one who has eternal life believes, as the Calvinist supposes. In fact, many verses contradict the order of salvation in the Calvinist system. In Acts 16:31 we read, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved!" Paul does not say, "Be saved, and you will believe in the Lord Jesus!" 

The Calvinist may also argue that someone who is not saved cannot put faith in Jesus because that would be a good work, and we are not saved by works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Again, that is an assumption that the biblical text does not support. When the Bible says we are saved by grace and not works, it does not mean that unbelievers can never do anything good. It means that no good work can justify us before God. We cannot get any closer to salvation through our works. Faith in Jesus is the same way. Faith does not make us justified before God. I cannot say that my faith in Jesus makes me any closer to being righteous before God. My choosing to stop rejecting Jesus is not a good work that earns a reward from God. That would be like saying that "Because I chose not to murder someone I was angry with yesterday, God owes me salvation!"  No, that doesn't earn me anything from God. Rather, I am saved through faith. God chooses to give salvation to those who have faith. Salvation is entirely his work. Paul also goes to great lengths to demonstrate that faith is not a good work in Romans 4. 

In Part 2, I will discuss Irresistible Grace and get to what I think is a more biblical understanding of Romans 9:22-24. Click here to go to Part 2.

Trust the Bible's purpose is to grow your confidence that the Bible is true and the ultimate resource for life." You can join the Facebook group by clicking here. Trust the Bible is a weekday radio program that begins at about 8:10 each morning on WDOG 93.5 in Allendale, SC. Listen to previous programs online: www.fairfaxfbc.org/trust-the-bible.html