Francis Schaeffer and Divine Determinism

The three individuals who have had the most effect on me through the years would undoubtedly be C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer and Thomas Oden.  Lewis definitively believed human beings have genuine free will, Oden was a Methodist and thus was in the Arminian camp.  Francis Schaeffer was a Presbyterian, and presumably a Calvinist, though I have noted that in all his writings I never once detected any hint of the divine determinism common in the brand of Calvinism that has so much influence today.  

I stumbled across this post from May of 2016 by Douglas Douma, a minister in the Reformed Presbyterian Church and author of he Presbyterian Philosopher – The Authorized Biography of Gordon H. Clark.  

Douma finds evidence that Schaeffer was uncomfortable with the implications of 5-point Calvinism:  

"Nowhere in Schaeffer’s writings does he give a positive appraisal of the Calvinist views of election, predestination, or divine determinism. In fact, it seems he avoided the topics entirely."


This sounds about right.  Nothing in Schaeffer's Complete Works speaks of predestination in Calvinistic terms.   Often Schaeffer's writing suggest that the dignity of man includes free will and causality at least to some degree.

Douma refers to a book to further his observation:

"Scott R. Burson and Jerry L. Walls in C.S. Lewis & Francis Schaeffer note 'A quick glance at the index toThe Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer reveals more than fifty references to freedom but no references to predestination or election.' (p. 279 n23)"

He follows with a few quotes from Francis and Edith:

“I am so glad that I increasingly am against any form of theological determinism which turns people into a zero and choices into delusions.” – Francis Schaeffer to Dr. Robert Rayburn, March 1981.

“The second thing that bothered us was what Fran today would call ‘a deterministic view of the Reformed Faith.’ This was more present then in Westminster than it is now, and the way some of the professors taught these things greatly troubled Fran.” – Edith Schaeffer, The Tapestry, p. 189.

“Whosoever will”, is true and is not limited even as the atonement is not limited. I do not believe in a limited atonement. I don’t believe in irresistible grace either. I believe God gave choice to human beings, and that choice is real. He respects the negative as well as the positive choice. He made human beings, not by accident, with minds that could think and chose even after the fall. – Edith Schaeffer to Bill Edgar, July 2nd, 2002

What follows in the post are occasions when others appear to have questioned Schaeffer himself on the issue, suggesting that perhaps Schaeffer wanted to distinguish between a materialistic determinism that makes man merely an effect of the machine or that he was simply avoiding certain topics because of his audience.   Maybe.

It should raise concerns, if so.  Why, if the doctrine of absolute divine predestination is true, it would need to be avoided in certain audiences.   This, it has long seemed to me to be a flaw in Calvinism - endless talk about grace even among the faithful, almost zero talk about the other side of the coin, that grace is offered only to some and withheld from others, excepte within the tight circle of those who are able to process its implications without reacting in horror.

There is a suggestion that Schaeffer's view of predestination and freedom is logically incoherent, but I suspect that there is a bit of reading into whatever view of freedom some critics see in Schaeffer.   A measure of free will is often seen as humans having a "first cause" level of freedom, in essence, equating anything that deviates from Calvinism with semi-Pelagianism.   Quoting Burson and Walls again:

“To suggest that God is the first cause of everything that comes to pass (total unconditional predestination) and humans are the first cause of many of their choices (libertarian freedom) is nothing short of a flat-out contradiction, a nonsensical statement. It is a logical impossibility.” (p. 93)

It is possible to believe in the complete fallen nature of man, which Schaeffer emphasized over and over again, to believe in the sufficiency of the "finished work of Christ" which Schaeffer emphasized relentlessly, to believe that human beings can only lift up "empty hands of faith" which Schaeffer again spoke of over and over, without assuming human beings initiate salvation on their own.   There is simply no question Schaeffer understood original sin the way any Protestant would and emphasized it greatly.   In no way would Schaeffer have taught that human beings initiate their own salvation.

It would make sense on the other hand that because he so strongly opposed the implications of materialism, the dehumanizing aspects that turn man into a cog in the machine and make human actions, thought, morality, and love utterly meaningless he also would have had issue with a view of divine sovereignty that implied the same thing - that all our actions, thoughts, moral or immoral notions, feelings of love or lack thereof are predetermined entirely, making human beings mere pawns on a divine chessboard. 

So I suspect his critics on the Calvinist side may be right.  Douma doesn't take a strong "more Calvinist than thou" tone in his post, but does take a cheap shot at the end:

"...look what that has brought. His son joined the Greek Orthodox Church, and L’Abri today, from my own personal experience in a 2-month visit, is thoroughly Arminian as explicitly confirmed by a number of the staff I spoke to there."

If L'Abri is more "Arminian", that is only a negative if one is a Calvinist and thinks Arminianism is less than orthodox, and as for Franky's continual slide into all sorts of different thought patterns, some of which are 180 degrees from his father, I seriously doubt a minor nod in the direction of seeing sovereignty as less than iron-clad determinism and human freedom as something meaningful would be the cause.

If nothing more, the post confirms what I sensed.   Francis Schaeffer would probably not fit comfortably into the camp of the current crop of hard core Calvinists.   He valued both the character of God and the dignity of man too much.