I generally have liked John Piper, in spite of his strongly Calvinist views. I've been a two-point Calvinist (Arminian) most of my life. I have blogged about the subject extensively. So I have to admit a bit of disappointment that Piper has essentially concluded that Arminians are enemies of the gospel. Or more accurately, a "threat to the atonement". He writes in the outline to a message "How I Distinguish Between the Gospel and False Gospels":
"There are many today, as in every day, who bring to the Bible the presupposition that sinful man must have the power of self-determination in order to be held accountable by God. This is not a biblical presupposition. It threatens to undermine the gospel because it pushes people away from believing that God can plan and bring to pass the sins that are essential to the death of his Son.
"We don’t usually think about Arminianism as a threat to the atonement. It usually comes in at the point of the accomplishment of the gospel and the offer of the gospel, not the point of the plan of the events of the gospel. But here we see that there is an intrinsic incompatibility between the basic Arminian presupposition and the gospel as including a set of planned sins against the Son of God. That presupposition is that for humans to be morally accountable agents they must have the ultimate power of self-determination at all those points where they are found blameworthy or praiseworthy.
"That presupposition pushes people away from believing that God has the right and power in righteousness and wisdom to infallibly plan the death of his Son through the sinful acts of morally accountable men. But the Bible teaches that he did. There is no atonement and no gospel without God-planned sins against the Son of God. He died at the hands of sinful men by God’s design. That is an essential part of the gospel. 'He died for our sins according to the scriptures.' "
The title is bothersome. It is clear that Arminian views (among others) are to Piper a "false gospel". Not a differing viewpoint on something scripture is confusing about - not just an alternative on a matter that has never been a point of universal consensus in church history. He calls a simple belief in a small concession to free will a "false gospel".
And not only that, he makes it absolutely clear that there is no gospel at all unless God planned the acts of sinful men. The acts that sent Christ to the cross had to be God's plan or there is no gospel. I find this rather incredible to hear.
He picks on lots of things he finds to be false, some of which I would tend to agree with. He picks on John Shelby Spong, he picks on Universalism, N.T. Wright and The New Perspective on Paul as well. Each of things things, he says, is in some way a distortion of the gospel. But in Piper's eyes, according to his words, John Wesley and C.S. Lewis, as Arminians, are just as much an enemy of the atonement as universalism or the nuttiness of John Spong.
I find this a bit "over the top" to say the least. He has every right to hold to his views on unconditional election, double predestination and more. But to argue, as he does, that simply believing that the human will, only after being lured by the grace of God, simply assents to receive unmerited and unearned grace is somehow a destruction of the atonement is a bit hard to believe.
I have respected John Piper. I have to say I respect him considerably less now.
7 comments:
Dan,
For the record, I wouldn't call Wesleyanism/Arminianism a threat to the atonement or a false gospel.
I would call it "mistaken theology" as Piper does later in the outline, as I'm sure you would call my Calvinism. (And all mistaken theology has implications.)
I also think that Piper, if he was trying to just talking about Wesleyanism/Arminianism, wouldn't use that strong of language either.
I don't think your statement that he thinks that it's "just as much an enemy" as Spong et al is accurate to what Piper has written.
He clearly says that church members shouldn't be excommunicated for the view--something he wouldn't say about some of the other points that he attacks. He also says that most American evangelicals believe in it--and I don't think he is saying that most American evangelicals are false-teachers.
And he also differentiates between Pelagianism and Wesleyanism/Arminianism, as I'm sure you would, too. And he thinks one is a worse error than the other.
I don't want to put words in his mouth (he's got plenty of his own), but I don't think he's being as dismissive as you read him.
-Matt
Matt. I may have been a bit animated in my response, but Piper's words were:
"We don’t usually think about Arminianism as a threat to the atonement...here we see that there is an intrinsic incompatibility between the basic Arminian presupposition and the gospel as including a set of planned sins against the Son of God.
"...That presupposition pushes people away from believing that God has the right and power in righteousness and wisdom to infallibly plan the death of his Son through the sinful acts of morally accountable men...There is no atonement and no gospel without God-planned sins against the Son of God. ”
As I have said before, I have no problem with an honest Calvinist who accepts absolute predestination because he believes scripture requires such a belief. I hope Calvinists can grant me the same grace to believe God's character and scripture requires human beings have at least an ability to refuse grace.
Actually the tougher part of Piper's outline is the repeated assertion of "God-planned" sinful acts. I can't help but feel such a view makes the task of Christian apologetics horrifically difficult, and I have to recall that such a view nearly pushed me away from Christianity altogether. So my response was, shall we say, energized.
Dan, with all due respect, Arminianism was a heresy started within Calvinism and was essentially a move back toward Rome. It places man's sovereignty above God's sovereignty and is essentially a slippery slope back toward Rome or toward liberalism.
The issue of man's free moral agency is not incompatible with the sovereignty of God if you will consider it further. The Bible teaches both man's moral accountability/responsibility AND God's complete sovereignty in creation and in salvation.
I was once an Arminian myself:)
Peace,
Charlie
The Bible clearly says that God planned the death of His Son and that it was by His predetermination and foreknowledge. What you are overlooking is that without GRACE man is dead in sins and is unable to overcome the blindness and afflication of sin that has so totally infiltrated the human nature that only God Himself can free him or her from that bondage. This is cause for celebration because God has mercy where He could justly impose damnation on all because all men willfully rebel against Him. If God is somehow obligated to save even one man then God must be obligated to save all and that implies universal salvation.
Universalism is obviously unbiblical. Also, Arminianism is implicitly Calvinistic if you look closely. If God foreknows the future, how would God foreknow a future that is certain to come to pass? Unless you're going to go in the direction of Open Theism which means that God isn't really God at all. God only knows what might happen just as any human being only knows what could happen. Thus, we're left to save ourselves by our own bootstraps because God can't really do anything about it.
Me? I would rather go with the God who is totally sovereign, trusting that He is able to do what I cannot do: save myself.
In Christ,
Charlie
Charlie. I've been away from this blog for a while. Long story. But I appreciate your comments.
You wrote: "What you are overlooking is that without GRACE man is dead in sins and is unable to overcome the blindness and afflication of sin that has so totally infiltrated the human nature that only God Himself can free him or her from that bondage."
I certainly don't deny any of that. NO ONE comes to the father unless the spirit draws him. I would fully affirm grace is necessary for us to even begin to respond. Also, I'm very much against open theism.
You added: "If God foreknows the future, how would God foreknow a future that is certain to come to pass?"
This is something C.S. Lewis dealt with, but I think the answer is fairly simple. God is outside of time, (else time would be greater than God). Being outside of time, he can fully know the outcome of all events - even free choices.
The question asked next is, if my future choices are already known, then are they really free? The answer is still related to time. If I chose something freely yesterday, I cannot change it because it is in the past, yet it was still a free choice. Future events become fixed once they have occurred, from our perspective.
The question is simply does God know the future because he knows it, or does he know the future because he controlled every aspect of every choice of every human being?
I simply don't think that is necessary for God to remain sovereign and it cuts against the grain of too much scripture - passages that speak "as if" we had free will. God is fully in control because he foreknows all things - yet it is not necessary for him to have decreed all things for him to be in control.
So I'm with Calvinists on the depravity of man and salvation by grace alone through faith alone. I'm not with them on limited atonement or irresistible grace. I'm in favor of eternal security if it is based on the cross and not on the decree.
Well, since God sustains all life and even creates time and guides history providentially, we're back to your denying that God is really God. If God is simply watching the future unfold, He cannot really know the future until it happens. If, however, God does absolutely know the future, then He must have planned it and decreed it to happen just as it did. God does this, btw, without overriding man's free moral agency. The will is free in the sense that we make our own choices as free moral agents. But it is not free in the sense of being free to do only good. We are slaves to sin and only the Son of God can set us free. Therefore, to say that the will is "free" is misleading. The will is in bondage to sin. Sinners do what comes naturally: they sin.
Thus, those who are totally corrupt cannot come to God UNLESS the Spirit draws them. Until a man is born again he willfully rebels against God. Since not all come to God, it stands to reason that God does not draw every single individual to Himself.
He does, however, draw men from all walks of life, all nations and cultures. All refers to the classes of men that God draws, not to individuals.
If man plays a part in salvation, then salvation is ultimately up to man, not God. Therefore, God must be powerless to actually save even one individual. It remains a crap shoot. I hope someone will choose God.
However, from the biblical perspective, God chooses whom He will save, including Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, etc. It no mere chance that anyone is saved but by God's sovereign choice. Your view is essentially that God is unjust if He damns anyone to hell for rejecting Him unless He gives them grace. But since we all deserve hell, how would God be unjust for damning every single one of us if we willfully and deliberately are rejecting His offer, even if we do not receive irresistible grace?
Did every single individual in Noah's time have an offer to board the ark? And what about the holy wars of the Old Testament where God commanded the genocide of whole tribes and nations of people, men, women and children? In your view, God is unjust for doing this. In my view, God simply gives us what we justly deserve.
Now, mercy is receiving what we do NOT deserve. This is precisely why the Calvinist or Reformed view is one that shows God's grace and mercy for what it really is: MERCY and GRACE. Salvation truly is unconditionally given to whom God wills to give it.
Any view that gives man any credit or merit or part in salvation is actually a move back toward Rome where man merits and earns his way to salvation by being good or making the right choices.
Charlie. Just a quick couple of responses. You wrote: "If God is simply watching the future unfold, He cannot really know the future until it happens. If, however, God does absolutely know the future, then He must have planned it and decreed it to happen just as it did."
I simply don't agree with that premise. That, to me, limits God and makes time the ultimate reality of the universe. Nothing in scripture or reason would require, in my mind, that foreknowledge cannot exist outside of God's absolute decree.
"Your view is essentially that God is unjust if He damns anyone to hell for rejecting Him unless He gives them grace. But since we all deserve hell, how would God be unjust for damning every single one of us if we willfully and deliberately are rejecting His offer, even if we do not receive irresistible grace?"
But here you use words like "reject" which implies a true act of the will. If God decreed that rejection and those who reject God had no role whatsoever in either inheriting original sin nor in committing sins themselves, then why do they "deserve" hell?
I would actually agree that all deserve just punishment for sin because we do sin freely, as well as by our nature. The only difference we have is that I believe grace is offered to all, that all are drawn by God's mercy, but not all respond. And I do not believe for a moment that accepting free grace is in any way adding to our salvation or earning it.
I definitely believe all men are bound by sin because scripture is very clear on that point. I definitely believe salvation is offered unconditionally to those who did nothing to earn it. I just do not see in scripture anything that would lead me to believe in limited atonement or irresistible grace and much that would lead me away from those two petals of the TULIP.
But I think we'll just have to disagree - we've both been down these paths before and we're not going to convince each other, which is fine. What I object to most is the equation of a moderate, classical Arminianism which fully affirms that salvation is by faith alone with either Pelagianism or "heresy". That's what rankled me about what I understood Piper to be saying. I think there is room for disagreement on the difficult topic of predestination.
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