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."

A Thought About Coffee and Determinism

I am quite sure there is "nothing new under the sun" and no really new or original ideas, but a thought came to me regarding determinism that I  have not heard expressed by others.   

Naturalistic determinism would have us believe that every effect has a prior cause and that everything that occurs is the result of a prior cause, including our thoughts and actions.   Taken to its logical conclusion, we don't have free will.  When we act we are only acting in a way that we were predetermined to act by a multitude of prior causes.  

Here's the problem that I see.

Further Thoughts on Romans 9 and Predestination

Predestination is generally an in-house debate Christians have amongst themselves and as such should not be a major discussion beyond the church doors.  But for me there is always a larger issue.   If Christianity is seen as a worldview, a "way of seeing" then the implications of a theistic determinism extend well beyond theological squabbles.   It cuts to the very heart of who we are as human beings and the meaning of the events of history.  It cuts to the very character of God.

I have long argued that one of the key proof texts for Calvinists who believe that God is sovereign in meticulously planning every event, Romans 9, is a misunderstanding of that passage based on failing to fully appreciate the context.  And one of the key proof texts for divine determinism actually proves the opposite point when connected to its Old Testament roots.

The primary question of the book of Romans, particularly chapters 9-11, is whether God is breaking a promise to Israel in granting grace to the Gentiles.   Why should anyone object to grace?  He states it is "not a matter of man's willing or running" - it is not of the law.  

In this context of mercy Paul does mention Pharaoh and a "hardening" of his heart.    Specifically in vs 18, Paul notes "He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires"  (NASB)

Context matters.  The idea of "Hardening" should be considered in light of Romans 1, where in reference to the entire race, Paul says God "gave them over" to depraved mind, a consequence of not acknowledging God.  It should also take into account Romans 11 where the blindness of the Jews serves a purpose in reaching the gentiles but the state of national Israel's unbelief is not irreversible.

But the key passage is next in v19-25:

Daily Suffering: The Practical Difference Between Calvinism and Arminianism

There is no mystery in the universe as profound and troubling as the problem of evil.  Many who are atheists will cite this very problem as the primary reason for not believing in God.

On an intellectual level, an Arminian can live in a quiet truce with other Christians over this issue because on an intellectual level, both sides generally accept that much of the problem is indeed a mystery.  But on an emotional level, the question goes too deep.

On an emotional level, I fear the Calvinist and the Arminian are in completely different universes when it comes to dealing with pain, suffering and evil in the midst of human experience.  (More)

Roger Olson - Arminian Order of Salvation

Roger Olson may be the most able articulator and defender of the Arminian viewpoint out there.   I thought this was well done.

Here's the heart of how salvation works logically (not chronologically) from an Arminian perspective.

William Lane Craig on Romans 9

I've been recently confronted with a number of debates about Sovereignty and free will. Willaim Lane Craig has this to say about Romans 9 and the corporate view of election, which essentially says election is not about God individually predestining some to salvation and others to condemnation, but God choosing a "people", those who are "in Christ". Craig writes:

"[L]et's talk about Paul's doctrine of election in Romans. I want to share with you a perspective on Paul's teaching that I think you'll find very illuminating and encouraging. Typically, as a result of Reformed theology, we have a tendency to read Paul as narrowing down the scope of God's election to the very select few, and those not so chosen can't complain if God in His sovereignty overlooks them. I think this is a fundamental misreading of the chapter which makes very little sense in the context of Paul's letter.

John Piper Calls Arminianism a "Threat to the Atonement"

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.

A Closing Comment Regarding Calvinism

Blogging can be therapeutic. Over a period of several months I have had a chance to jot down thoughts on why Calvinism was first of all something nobody bothered to tell me about in my younger days as an evangelical, like an iceberg with just a bit of shape above the water and a massive edifice below the surface. I described how a fuller understanding of absolute sovereignty became a rude awakening in my short seminary stint, one that nearly crushed my spirit and faith, as if I had just discovered that Darth Vader was my father. I described some philosophical reasons why arguments in favor of absolute sovereignty seemed contrived and dealt with a couple of key Biblical passages that seem to support it. In all, it felt good.

But the time has come to take a step back. For all my frustrations with the way Calvinists understand sovereignty and free will, no universal church council has condemned them. Sure the Council of Orange says some Calvinist sounding things, stopping just short of the all out victory of predestination over free will. The Roman Catholic Council of Trent was not particularly kind to Luther and Calvin's views on sovereignty and grace, but only Catholics would find that council to be binding.

In short, the debate over how free will fits with God's sovereign hand in the past, present and future is a family squabble. As much as some Calvinists have insisted that Arminians and Catholics are "semi-pelagian" heretics, most have been unable to completely cut defenders of free-will theism out of the family picture. And as strongly as Arminians argue against a sovereignty that redefines or excludes free-will, most readily admit Calvinists are otherwise orthodox.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 9

This will be my last argument on this topic. Then I'd acually like to say something nice about Calvinists...but for now, here goes...

When the debate over free-will and sovereignty is framed, as it usually is, in terms of the debate between Medieval Catholic emphasis on the priesthood, the sacrament, the miracle of transubstantiation and the power of the church against the Protestant emphasis on the grace of God, the Grace of God and the Grace of God, it is not hard to see why many protestants lean toward Calvin.

But what struck me as I started looking into the history of the early church, was how many early church fathers would seemingly have been very comfortable with the views of Arminius. The debate between Augustine and Pelagius again will find most humble readers of scripture side with Augustine. But Augustine was fighting that battle in the 4th century. Much history and theology existed prior to that skirmish.

For this, my next to last venture into this question, I mainly want to quote a number of voices of the early church.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 8

Finally getting back to my personal resolution to the free will vs. sovereignty debate. Just one more after this and I'll move on to other things.

Back in my brief stint in seminary, I was required to read portions of Louis Berkhof’s massive Systematic Theology . In it I recall reading one particular paragraph that struck me as odd in relation to foreknowledge, which of course the Arminian, (and Romans 8:29) say precedes predestination. Said Berkhof:

"The Arminian, of course, will say that he does not believe in a foreknowledge based on a decree which renders things certain, but in a foreknowledge of facts and events which are contingent on the free will of man, and therefore indeterminate. Now such a foreknowledge of the free actions of man may be possible, if man even in his freedom acts in harmony with divinely established laws, which again bring in the element of uncertainty; but it would seem to be impossible to foreknow events which are entirely dependent on the chance decision of an unprincipled will, which can at any time, irrespective of the state of the soul, of existing conditions, and of the motives that present themselves to the mind, turn in different directions. Such events can only be foreknown as bare possibilities." (Systematic Theology, p. 107)

Seems to me that what Berkhof is saying is that if God allows any sort of contingency, any sort of possibility that creatures can actually choose from more than one option, then he cannot know the future.

Why I Am Not a Calvinist Part 7 - Hebrews

I will wind down my rantings about Calvinism shortly. My last post on this topic dealt with Romans 9, a passage typically used to support a predistinarian view. Hebrews 6, on the other hand is a typically Arminian proof text and with good reason.

As a teenager, I read this passage with terror. I thought I had committed an unpardonable sin and it is a minor testament to the plain reading of this text as not supporting eternal security that I came to that conclusion. The text in Chapter 6:4-6 says:

It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.

I stated earlier that I support a view of eternal security that is based not on God's decree, but on the infinite value of Christ's sacrifice. That is - I do not believe one can casually lose his or her salvation. Grace is too gracious and Christ's blood too precious.

What is being spoken of here seems to be something different.

Why I am Not a Calvinist Part 6 - Romans 9

At some point in my views of Calvinism I have to deal with difficult passages of scripture. And the most difficult is Romans 9. So here goes nothing...

I was always told as a young college student that a text without a context is a pretext. I had no idea what that meant, but it made "context" a part of my vocabulary. So while I often struggled with the implications of the words in Romans 9:10-18...

Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Clearly this is good support for a predestinarian view. And I admit it was troubling. But, at least to my own satisfaction, context helped me through it.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 5: Eternal Security

An acquaintance told me the other day that her child was planning to leave a Christian College for another Christian College because of the overbearing nature of the chapel services. She explained that in the denomination with which this college is associated, "they don't believe in 'once saved - always saved'. To this lack of belief in eternal security in part, she attributed what unfortunately sounded like a daily bludgeoning of the students from the pulpit to confess sin and get their spiritual lives straight.

Having spent some time in "holiness movement" circles, I can certainly sympathize. Revivalism, left in the hands of men to create the revival by tactics of mass persuasion, can be a destructive thing. Presumably, by going to a different institution where Christians are "eternally secure", this abuse might be avoided.

I find that the average lay person is often drawn to a Calvinist viewpoint because of the belief in eternal security, the belief that a Christian, once saved from the consequences of sin, can never again be lost. I, if truth be told, have always believed in a slightly limited form of eternal security, but for very un-Calvinistic reasons. In fact, as a young layman, had no notion that eternal security was in any way related to Calvinism.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 4: Logical Possibilities

"The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he had so ordained by his decree...Nor ought it to seem absurd when I say, that God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it. For as it belongs to his wisdom to foreknow all future events, so it belongs to his power to rule and govern them by his hand" (Institutes of the Christian Religion, III.xxiii.7)

Here is a question. If it is true that God can do anything that is logically possible, that is He cannot create a square circle for example, and if it is true that evil is not the opposite of good but rather the absence of good, and if it is true that goodness is defined as that which corresponds to the character of God, then the following two scenarios are submitted for consideration.

It is not possible for God to create a world where there are beings who have true freedom and no possibility that those beings will choose evil. Hence the free-will defense of the existence of evil makes a certain amount of sense.

It is, however, possible for God to create a universe where beings are NOT free, and where, as a result, none choose evil. Given that scenario, why did God not create such a universe? Why does evil exist? Why did God create a universe in which He decreed that certain men would choose evil?

The answer most Calvinist put forth is that it is beyond our knowledge and wrapped up in the justice and wisdom of God. But once again, if "God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it" then what meaning can words like justice and wisdom have?

Why I Am Not a Calvinist - Part 3: Justice

I noted in my last post that from my own personal perspective, Calvinism suggested a God with a completely different character than the one I had long believed in, and for that reason, it caused a huge crisis of faith. As long as the debates about grace and free will were primarily about how works relate to salvation, it always seemed to me that this was one of those debates that could be discussed quietly over coffee and was not worth making a fuss over. But when it came to the point where it appeared God was, by his eternal decree, the "author" of evil, I fell into a state of anguish.

It was in my short stint in seminary that I was introduced to the idea of "compatibilism". This is the suggestion that free will is compatable with determinism, based on the idea that individuals freely choose what they are predisposed to choose by their character, circumstances, psychology, etc. In other words, if I choose A as opposed to B under a given set of conditions, then I will have freely chosen A and will always choose A given the same set of conditions. My own nature, combined with the set of conditions in which I am found, produce a specific result.

In Calvinism, this makes it possible for some to say that God accomplishes his sovereign will by creating human beings with a specific makeup and placing them in the right set of conditions to insure that what they freely choose will be exactly what His design predicts they will choose. The distinction then is between "free choice" - meaning that one chooses between two or more options, as opposed to voluntary compliance - meaning that a person "voluntarily" chooses one and only one possible option.

Why I am Not a Calvinist - Part 2: Are Critics of Calvinism Fair?

Before I go any further on this topic, two points.

First, this issue is a very personal one for me. Calvinism calls into question, in my mind, the very character of God. As much as I have tried over the years to leave this question in the realm of "mystery", one of those unanswerable questions we'll understand someday in the sweet bye and bye, I find I cannot. I keep finding myself confronted with Calvinist assumptions that most evangelicals don't think much about and don't follow through to their conclusions. Most lay evangelicals accept Calvinist ideas regarding eternal security and total depravity and at the same time argue that evil exists because of the free-will of man. They are Cal-minian, even though that is, according to many Calvinists, not logically permissible.

Second, I want to be fair. I have Calvinist friends. (Maybe not many after this series of ramblings). It is my impression that most serious folks in the Reformed tradition find themselves there because they believe the Scripures require them to be. And they are not insensitive to the objections critics raise. So the question comes up as to whether critics of Calvinism misrepresent what Calvinists actually believe. Primarily, this falls into the area of whether God is responsible for evil and whether God arbitrarily creates some expressly to be condemned for all eternity.

So before I go further, I need to document why I believe Calvinism opens itself up to criticism, not on the basis of Arminian characatures, but from particular statements of faith in the Reformed tradition.

Why I am not a Calvinist - Part 1

Jesus wept.

Those two words in John 11:35, aside from being the famous shortest verse in the Bible, are one of the primary reasons I am not a Calvinist. The fact the Jesus wept at the tomb of a friend is to me one of the most powerful images in all of scripture and speaks volumes about the way Jesus viewed death and human suffering. And the more I think about this event, the more I see that I can’t fit it into a deterministic-Calvinist framework. Let me explain.

(My understanding of Calvinism, by the way, comes from several seminary level courses at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Most notably, it was stressed that it is not logically consistent to be a Cal-minian, to believe in absolute sovereignty and free will without redefining free will to mean "willingly doing only what God decreed we would do before the foundation of the world". It was stressed in that context, that a free-will defense of the existence of evil cannot be squared with Calvinism, meaning that the existence of evil in the world cannot be attributed to the free-choice of man without threatening the absolute sovereignty of God. If God is sovereign, all events are part of his plan from before the foundation of the world, without exception.)

The passage in question deals with the raising of Lazarus. Jesus comes to the tomb of Lazarus and weeps. What does his weeping imply? To get at that question we have to take a step back into the context of the chapter.

Post and Future Calvinism

Been ruminating on the one and only issue that has ever caused me to question my faith - the Calvinist TULIP. It started when I saw the article in CT, Young Restless and Reformed a couple of weeks ago. It documents a trend among twenty-somethings to embrace Reformed theology.

My initial reaction was "oh no!". More on that later. Second reaction was that it makes a certain amount of sense. Young people looking for a more robust theology, something deeper than the inoffensive seeker-driven relevancy of many of the mega-church, have to turn somewhere. Many have turned to history, liturgy, creed and confession. I guess I should not be surprised to see many turn to robust Reformed theology.

The article credits some of the trend to the books and preaching of John Piper. I had opportunity to hear Piper once and found his message on that day to be engaging and appreciated his humble and self-deprecating delivery a nice counterbalance to his obvious intensity. But the article also revived some old ghosts. The author, Collin Hansen recounts his own experience: