Why is Calvinism so dangerous? #6 (Veil lifted when?)

 [In this series, I'm breaking the long post "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?" into bite-sized pieces.]

6.  
The Bible says ... Satan blinds eyes, but Jesus takes the veil away when we turn to Him.  And "receive" and "believe" (in the concordance) are active, not passive.  We do them.  "Receive" means to reach out and grab ahold of what is being offered to you (salvation).  And "believe" is to let yourself be persuaded by something (the truth) and to commit to it.


But Calvinism says ... God blinds eyes (prevents the non-elect from believing in Him) and opens eyes (causes the elect to believe in Him).  Faith is something done to us, not by us.

2 Corinthians 4:4:  "The god of this age had blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."  [Calvinist version: Calvi-god causes Satan to blind the non-elect so that they can never see the Truth, so that they go to hell for Calvi-god's glory.  Question: If the non-elect are already born without the ability to believe, why the need to blind them?  If he didn't blind them, would they somehow believe, contrary to what he predestined?  NOTE: "The minds of unbelievers" is a mistranslation.  It should be "minds of them which believe not" (KJV).  The first is a noun, making it sound like it's who we are, that people are created to be unbelievers.  But the second is a verb: "believing" is something we choose to do or not do.  This is not about blinding non-elect people so that they can't believe in Jesus; it's about Satan blinding those who choose to not believe, who choose to resist Jesus, so that they cannot understand spiritual truths.  See "A random verse that destroys Calvinism (and Is the ESV a Calvinist Bible?)"]
  
2 Corinthians 3:16:  "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away."  [In Calvinism, "anyone" means "the elect."  And keep in mind that Calvinism actually reverses this verse.  This verse says that first we turn to the Lord and then the veil is taken away.  But in Calvinism, the veil has to be taken away from the elect first, by the Holy Spirit, so that they can turn to the Lord.  Note: This passage in Corinthians is actually specifically about the veil over the Jewish people because they put their faith in keeping the Law.  If they insist on believing that keeping the Law earns them salvation, there will always be a veil over the truth that salvation is found only in Jesus.]

Romans ...   
1:5:  "Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship..."  (In the concordance, "received" is active, not passive - the person reaches out and grabs what is offered to them.  It's not forced on them or instilled in them while they wait passively, as happens to the elect in Calvinism.)

5:11:  "... but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation" (We actively grab onto the reconciliation that Jesus makes possible.)

5:17:  "... how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness" (active, not passive, reach out and grab it)

8:15:  "... but you received the Spirit of sonship ..."  (active, not passive)

10:4:  "... Christ is the end of the law, so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes."  (In the concordance, "believes" is to let yourself be persuaded by something and, consequently, to commit to it.  It's NOT "to have someone else [God] cause you to believe.")

Ephesians 1:13:  "... Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit."  (Having let yourself be convinced of the truth and choosing to commit to it, you were saved and received the Holy Spirit.)

John 1:12:  "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God"  (All those who reach out and grab onto Him and the salvation He offers, who allow themselves to be persuaded that He is the way, the truth, and the life, who choose to commit to Him - these are the people who become children of God.  For more on what the concordance says, see "According to the concordance, it's NOT predestination".)


Calvinists believe that "faith" is a gift that Calvi-god has to give and that he only gives it to the elect.  And they base this, in part, on Ephesians 2:8-9:  "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not of yourselves but it is the gift of God, so that no one can boast."

I used to think faith was the "gift" in this verse too.  Until I dug deeper.  And now I believe that "salvation" is the gift spoken of in this verse, not faith.  (Once again, see "Is Faith A Gift God Gives (or forces on) Us?")  And it's offered to everyone.

But Calvinists believe that the gift is faith, and that God "forces" it on the elect but withholds it from everyone else.  And so if He doesn't give you faith, you can never believe in Him.  

And they also use verses like Acts 16:14 and Luke 24:45 to support their view that God "forces" the elect to see/believe the Truth, that He gives certain select people the "gift of faith."  

Acts 16:14 talks about God opening Lydia's heart to believe Paul's message.  Calvinists say this means God caused her to believe in Jesus.  But - big mistake - they assume that the message she heard was the Gospel and that God opened her eyes to believe it and be saved.  But this isn't in the text.  The text simply says that her eyes were opened to the message Paul gave.  And I believe that it very well could be that his message was about the need for believers to be baptized (the same message he gave to some disciples in Acts 19, a few chapters over), because the very next thing she does is get her family baptized.  Besides, if you look at the verses before, you'll see that she was already a worshipper of God, a believer.  So this is most likely a case of God helping a believer take the next step, and not one of God causing a non-believer to believe.  

After I pointed this out to my ex-pastor who loves using the Lydia example as "proof" of Calvinist predestination/election, he made sure to add something like this to his next sermon about it: "Yeah, it says here that Lydia was a worshipper of God, but she wasn't really saved.  Not until God opened her eyes."  

Really, you don't say!?!  Tell me more, O Wise One, about things that aren't in the Bible! 

 

(For more on Lydia, see "Things my Calvinist pastor said #8: Man is oblivious to sin, Lydia wasn't a believer". )

And Calvinists will point to Luke 24:45, about God opening the minds of the disciples to understand the Scriptures.  But once again, this isn't causing unbelievers to believe.  It's opening the minds of those who already believe to help them grow in their wisdom and faith.

The thing is, Calvinists read into verses things that aren't there.  So if a verse talks about something like God opening someone's eyes, they think it must mean that He caused them to believe, that they couldn't believe before that, that He didn't open other people's eyes, and that if He doesn't open your eyes then you can't believe.  But all of that is reading into the Bible things that aren't there.  It may simply be that God helps us learn and grow and take the next step on our faith journey, a journey that He invites all people to take, a journey that anyone can join if they want to.  It may just be that all the information we need to know is right in front of us, but that God tries to help us see it if we have a hard time seeing it ourselves.

Have you ever met someone that you know you met before, but you can't remember who they are or where you know them from, but then someone says something that suddenly makes you remember everything?  Was the information you needed withheld from you before that?  Were you being deliberately kept in the dark by some mysterious force?  Or did you have all the details you needed somewhere in your head to figure out who it was, but you just weren't able to figure it out without a little help?  

Just because a verse says that God prompts someone or "opens their minds" to help them understand something doesn't mean that He kept them blind before opening their minds or that not opening your mind means He prevents you from seeing the truth.  It might just be that God gives us a little help sometimes to see the things we should be able to see but that we have a hard time seeing for some reason or other.