Why is Calvinism so dangerous? #11 (What glorifies God?)
[In this series, I'm breaking the long post "Why is Calvinism so dangerous?" into bite-sized pieces.]
11.
The Bible says ... God is glorified when people praise Him, trust Him, believe in Him, preach the good news, obey Him, etc.
Psalm 29:1-2, 86:12,96, 115:1- glorify God for His lovingkindness and truth, Isaiah 42:12, Matthew 5:16, John 15:8, Romans 15:9- glorify Him for His mercy, 1 Cor. 10:31, 2 Cor. 4:15- spreading grace and thanksgiving glorifies God, 2 Cor. 9:13, 2 Thess. 1:11-12
But Calvinism says ... It glorifies God to cause sin and unbelief and to send people to hell.
But Calvinism says ... It glorifies God to cause sin and unbelief and to send people to hell.
Find me one verse that says this!!! Just one!!!
This is simply Calvinists trying to find a "good" explanation for why Calvi-god causes sin, evil, and predestines people to hell: It's "for his glory," and so that makes it okay. They start with their erroneous beliefs, build their view of God on top of it, and then find ways to make their erroneous beliefs sound good.
But find me the verse that says this. Seriously.
God can use evil for His glory, but He cannot and does not cause evil for His glory. He can preplan to work our sinful choices into His plans, to make something good out of it (because He knows ahead of time what we will choose to do), but He cannot and does not preplan that we commit the sins.
Calvinists will inevitably go to "God caused Assyria to attack Israel" to "prove" that God causes us to do what we do, to be evil or good, to sin or obey, to be believers or non-believers, saying “See, God causes all things that happen, even causing people to be wicked for His purposes and glory. But then He still holds them responsible for it. We don’t have to understand it; we just have to accept it, because He is God.” (They've all been trained to do this.)
But the easy answer here (which they refuse to see) is that God didn’t cause Assyria to be wicked people and to do wicked things (Can you find a verse that says He did?). He just worked their self-chosen wickedness into His plans, almost like saying “You want to be wicked? Fine! Then go be wicked over there by Israel for awhile, to punish them for their waywardness. And then when you’re done, I can punish you for being the wicked people you chose to be.”
And He can rightly, justly do this because He didn’t make them be wicked; He just worked their wicked choices into His plans. (Kinda like cops setting up an undercover sting where cops use a criminal's bad choices to help them catch other criminals. They didn't cause the criminal to be a criminal or to do bad things, they just incorporated the criminal's decisions into a plan for good, to get justice done.)
Likewise, they bring up how God used wicked men to put Jesus to death. But can you find one verse that says God caused them to be wicked? Or did He just let them be the wicked people they wanted to be and then put it to good use, working it into His salvation plans?
But the Calvinist will always use these examples to “prove” that Calvi-god causes sin but punishes people for it, and that it’s okay because he is “sovereign.”
But if God causes everything for His glory, every evil and sin, then Calvinists would have to conclude that murder glorifies God ... and abortion and child abuse and suicide and rape and every other sin out there.
And they actually do conclude that these things are ultimately for good, for God's glory. Listen to this clip of Calvinist James White defending his belief that child-rape is caused by God, because if it wasn't caused by God then there would be no purpose in it.
So, in Calvinism, it's so much better to have a God who causes child-rape than for Him to simply allow someone to make that evil decision on their own, because at least we can know it has a purpose then, that it's a "meaningful" rape!?!
What the @#$%!?! (Oh, my blood is boiling! Don't get me started!)
(And chill out, dude ... cuz all I said was "What the at sign, hashtag, dollar sign, percent". 😉)
Yeah, that totally makes Calvi-god worth trusting and loving, now doesn't it!?!
(What is wrong with Calvinists that they can't see the evil in this? What a strong hold Satan has on their minds!)
Serious question: If all evil is caused by God for His glory, why should we take a stand against any of it? Why be concerned for those going to hell, for those struggling with addictions, for those being abused, for those being aborted? Wouldn't fighting against the evil in the world actually be fighting against the things that God is "causing" for His "glory"? How dare we interfere with God's right to get glory however He wants to!?!
One dogmatic Calvinist said this about why Calvi-god causes evil: "Because it glorifies him to cause evil." And so I asked, "But if it glorifies him to cause evil, then why should we fight against it?" And he said, in all seriousness, "Because it glorifies him when we fight against evil."
So, let me get this straight: God causes evil for His glory and then He causes us to fight those very evils for His glory? Causing evil and fighting evil are both equally glorifying to God?
Ultimately, in Calvinism, you would have to conclude that all evils are really good, God-glorifying, and God-pleasing. In Calvinism, there really is no line between good and evil. (Who do you think wants to spread the message that God causes evil for His glory and so it's good? Because it's sure not God.)
But what is it again that Jesus said about a house divided in Matthew 12:25-26: "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?"
But yet Calvinists would have us believe that it's okay for God to first cause evil and then cause people to fight that evil, all for His glory. But this is simply God fighting God, making plans to thwart His plans, using His glory to fight His glory. (Makes sense, huh?) And according to Jesus, a kingdom that fights itself cannot stand; it comes to ruin. (Once again, who do you think wants this kind of message to spread? Because it's sure not God.)
Leave it to Satan to use God's glory against God! To use humility against Christians, convincing us that "humble" Christians accept God's "sovereign right" to cause sin and evil! And to get a bunch of well-meaning Christians to fight for and spread the idea that God is the kind of God who is glorified by child-rape and putting people in hell!
Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!