Calvinist Hogwash #3 (the reprobate)
Right from the mouths of Calvinists (bold emphasis added):
For the reprobates:
No matter how Calvinists deceptively sugarcoat it -
no matter how they try to make it sound like they believe that God really does love all people (by calling it "love" for God to give food and sunshine to the non-elect)... and that Jesus really did die for all people (by redefining "all" to mean "all the elect or all kinds of people" or by claiming that Jesus died for all people but only the elect can benefit from it)... and that anyone can be saved (merely meaning that anyone could be one of the elect, not that everyone has a chance to be saved)
- remember that it always comes down to this:
J.I. Packer ("Election"): "Reprobation is the name given to God’s eternal decision regarding those sinners whom he has not chosen for life. His decision is in essence a decision not to change them, as the elect are destined to be changed, but to leave them to sin as in their hearts they already want to do, and finally to judge them as they deserve for what they have done [even though, in Calvinism, God predetermined them to be unbelievers and have the sinful desires they do, and they had no option or ability to choose otherwise. Hogwash!]."
John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "Many indeed (thinking to excuse God) own election, and yet deny reprobation; but this is quite silly and childish. For without reprobation, election itself cannot stand; whom God passes by, those he reprobates. It is one and the same thing."
John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "Those, therefore, whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children... individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction.... 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 so ordained by his decree."
J.I. Packer ("Predestination: God has a purpose"): "Predestination is a word often used to signify God’s foreordaining of all the events of world history, past, present, and future... predestination means specifically God’s decision, made in eternity before the world and its inhabitants existed, regarding the final destiny of individual sinners... God’s choice of particular sinners for salvation and eternal life... [and] an advance decision [of God's] about those who finally are not saved... and so it has become usual in Protestant theology to define God’s predestination as including both his decision to save some from sin (election) and his decision to condemn the rest for their sin (reprobation), side by side." [Wrong! Predestination is not about God pre-determining who believes, but pre-determining what happens to people who do believe (and anyone can). All who put their faith in Jesus are promised that they will reach glory in the end, have their bodies redeemed, and grow to be more like Christ. Predestination is about what happens after we believe, not about who gets to believe.]
Jonathan Edwards ("Man Naturally God's Enemies", Chapter 8: Mercy, justly withheld): "This doctrine affords a strong argument for the absolute sovereignty of God, with respect to the salvation of sinners.... God will show mercy to his mortal enemies; but then he will not be bound, he will have his liberty to choose the objects of his mercy; to show mercy to what enemy he pleases, and to punish and destroy which of his haters he pleases. And certainly this is a fit and reasonable thing. It is fit that God should distribute saving blessings in this way, and in no other, viz. in a sovereign and arbitrary way." [God can still be sovereign without predestining salvation. Only in Calvinism can He not be.]
John MacArthur ("Doctrine of Election, part 1"): "You’re guilty. You’re culpable. You did it. You did it with your own will. But God had predetermined it would be done. It was set in his predetermined plan and foreknowledge. That is to predetermine, to foreknow, is not simply to have information about what’s going to happen, but to predetermine it. So we understand, then, that the Bible is very clear on the doctrine of election ['but only after you go through our big Calvinist Systematic Theology books. first']."
Peter Ditzel (Word of His Grace, "Why election to salvation, and why reprobation to damnation? Part 2") repeatedly claims that God only loves believers, not unbelievers, and that He created the non-elect so that He could damn them in order to show the elect the depth of His love for them and to show them what they were saved from.
Robert Morey from the "Does God love everyone?" video: “There are those whom God loves and there are those whom God hates. Obviously, hello!... I submit to what the Bible teaches, and the Bible teaches Jacob I loved and Esau I hated, there are two classes of people and that’s the way it is. [Jacob and Esau isn't even about God choosing which individuals to save, but about God choosing Israel for a special role, to bring Jesus and the gospel to the world.] If you’re not happy with biblical teaching… fine… go out and find your own religion. Leave the Christian church and go into the Unitarian of the new age. Stop cluttering up the pews. We who remain will be in revival the moment you hit the door - because the greatest hinderance to revival and reformation are the deadbeat unregenerate humanists who clutter up the church, shouldn’t be here because you don’t submit to the Scripture. Shouldn’t be here.”
Paul Washer (from the second video here, from Discerning the World): "You know that wonderful statement that goes something like this: 'God loves the sinner and hates the sin'?... That's not [what Scripture] teaches, sorry... It does not say here that God's hatred is manifested towards the wicked deed. It says that God's hatred is manifested towards the one who commits the deed... [So] how can anyone be saved? Here's our answer: the cross of Jesus Christ... [Christ] died the death of His people..." ("His people" is Calvinist-lingo for "the elect." So Jesus died only for the elect, and God apparently hates everyone else. In Calvinism.)
Vincent Cheung (The Author of Sin): “All that God does is intrinsically good and righteous, so it is also good and righteous for him to create the reprobates… Some would be horrified by this because they are more concerned about man’s dignity and comfort than God’s purpose and glory., but those who have the mind of Christ would erupt in gratitude and reverence, and affirm that God is righteous, and that he does all things well.” [So instead of thinking "Hmm, a good, just, righteous God couldn’t predestine or cause unbelief and sin, and so I should probably reevaluate my theological views to see if I'm misunderstanding Scripture," they unconsciously think "Well, since I believe a sovereign God has to cause everything and since God is good, then it must mean that it’s good for Him to cause sin and unbelief." And then they shame us for disagreeing with them, accusing us of elevating man over God, our feelings over God’s rights, sovereignty, and glory. "Shame on you, bad Christian, for not accepting God's right to get more glory for Himself by predestining people to hell like we say He does!"]
Arthur Pink (The Sovereignty of God): "Faith is God's gift, and 'all men have not faith' (2 Thess. 3:2); therefore, we see that God does not bestow this gift upon all." [See this post to learn how faith is not the gift, but eternal life is.]
"Upon whom then does He bestow this saving favor? And we answer, upon His own elect- … But is God partial in the distribution of His favors? Has He not the right to be?... Not only has God the right to do as He wills with the creatures of His own hands, but He exercises this right, and nowhere is that seen more plainly than in His predestinating grace… Yet is it not self-evident that if God foreknows all things, He has also foreordained all things? Is it not clear that God foreknows what will be because He has decreed what shall be? …
To argue that God is ‘trying His best’ to save all mankind, but that the majority of men will not let Him save them, is to insist that the will of the Creator is impotent, and that the will of the creature is omnipotent." [False dichotomy: Either God's in charge or we're in charge.]
"When we say that God is sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom He chooses. God does not love everybody…"
Rev. Angus Stewart, Covenant Protestant Reformed Church ("Does God really desire to save the reprobate?"): "Election, briefly stated, is God’s eternal, unconditional choice of some fallen sinners unto eternal life in Jesus Christ. Reprobation is God’s eternal rejection of others. God chose not to save them but to punish them in the way of their sins. This too is an unconditional choice of God before He formed the world.... It was pleasing and good to God that some people would have the gospel hidden from them, even though they heard it preached...
So then, does God love everybody, including the reprobate, those whom He has chosen not to save? Does God desire to save everybody? Does God have a wonderful plan for everybody’s life?
God does love all His elect people... God does desire to save the elect... God does have a wonderful plan for the lives of all of His elect people...
If these questions, though, are applied to the reprobate, the answer to all of them is 'No.' God does not love them... All who are reprobated, God hates. God does not desire to save them... They are cursed in their unbelief and rebellion both in this world and in the world to come. They perish forever and ever in hell. This is not a wonderful plan for them. In God’s purpose it brings glory to Him. It magnifies His justice. But for them it is not a wonderful plan. He does not have a wonderful plan for the reprobate...
God judged that it was good not to save these people but to punish them for their sins... It was a sovereign choice of His, and it pleased Him. To say it pleased God means that God desired to do it; that is what He willed and wished and wanted to do."
Wayne Grudem ("Election and Reprobation" in Systematic Theology): “Sometimes people regard the doctrine of election as unfair, since it teaches that God chooses some to be saved and passes over others, deciding not to save them. How can this be fair? Two responses may be given at this point. First, we must remember that it would be perfectly fair for God not to save anyone… to save none of those who sinned and rebelled against him.” [Basically, “Ignore those predestined to burn and just be thankful God saved anyone at all.” They say this all the time. And I bet it's easy to say when you think of yourself as one of the elect.]
“But if he does save some at all then this is a demonstration of grace that goes far beyond the requirements of fairness and justice…. But who are you, a man, to answer back to God?... If God ultimately decided to create some creatures to be saved and others not to be saved, then that was his sovereign choice, and we have no moral or scriptural basis on which we can insist that it was not fair.” [It always comes back to this: deflect from the bad, highlight the good, and shame those who disagree, manipulating them into keeping quiet.]
“But… there is something else that God deems more important than saving everyone. Reformed theologians say that God deems his own glory more important than saving everyone, and that (according to Rom. 9) God’s glory is also furthered by the fact that some are not saved.” ["So since it’s 'for God’s glory' that He predestines people to hell, you'd better just shut up and accept it and praise Him for it!" And for the record, Romans 9 has nothing to do with God predestining who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. See "When Calvinists say, 'But Romans 9!'"]
A.W. Pink ("Doctrine of Election"): "God is ineffably holy, as well as infinitely gracious. As the Holy One He abhors all evil, and as the moral governor of His creatures it becomes Him to eternally manifest His hatred of sin. As the gracious one He is pleased to bestow favors upon the undeserving, and to give an everlasting demonstration that He is 'the Father of mercies.' Now in election both of these designs are unmistakably accomplished. In the preterition and condemnation of the non-elect, God gives full proof of His holiness and justice, by visiting upon them the due reward of their iniquities. In the foreordination and salvation of His chosen people, God makes a clear display of the exceeding riches of His grace... If God has performed a miracle of grace in you, my reader, and begotten in your heart a love for Him, be fervently thankful for the same, and disturb not your peace and joy by asking why He has not done the same for your fellow transgressors." ["Ignore the non-elect and don't worry about what happens to them. Just celebrate that your name was picked for heaven!"]
My ex-pastor did a Christmas series a couple years ago about why people reject Jesus. Wow, talk about a negative angle, about some discouraging, hopeless messages during Christmas. It's not a hope-filled "you can be saved" message, but a depressing "why most people won't be saved" message - and at a time when many people will venture into a church for the first time, willing to give it a try, to see if it's worth coming back, to see if there's any hope for them. Bah humbug! And in one of the sermons, the first five or so reasons he gave for why people don't turn to Jesus were accurate and biblical. But the biblical stuff was merely leading up to - and a cover for - the unbiblical stuff at the end, the stuff he really believes, the only reason that really counts in Calvinism (summary): "If you reject Jesus, it's because God didn't call you because God didn't choose you to be saved. And even if most people are predestined to hell, we should just be thankful that God chose to save anyone at all when we all should be in hell." This is a Christmas message at a Calvinist church!
Also from my Calvinist ex-pastor (Jan. 2016): “We can’t seek God. We won’t seek God. We are God-haters. And unless God chooses to seek us and open blinded eyes, we are helpless and hopeless as slaves to sin… Not only are we unwilling to come to God, the sinner is unable to come to God unless God first seeks them. That is why we can’t seek truth.” [So if God doesn't seek you, if He hasn't chosen you, you have no chance to be saved.]
And from my ex-pastor's Aug. 2015 sermon on predestination: “How many sins does it take to be a sinner? The answer is zero because we’re born steeped in sin, because we inherit it from Adam and Eve and their rebellion. We call that the doctrine of internal depravity, inherited depravity… human beings are born infected and absolutely contaminated by sin on every level… We are under the power of sin… The unsaved person, outside of Christ - because they are slaves to depravity, every one of us, born that way - is not able to seek God. Not only don’t they, they can’t… unwilling and unable…
The definition of election, predestination, is it's the Bible's teaching that as God looks out on rebellious, sinful humanity, He chooses to have mercy on some sinners and not others [Interesting, because the Bible says "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11:32)]… In other words, He’s not an equal opportunity convicter.…
God is equally glorified in the salvation of sinners as He is in the damnation of sinners [So then if Calvinists are truly concerned most about God’s glory, it shouldn’t matter to them if someone is saved or not, and they should actually rejoice in the damnation of the non-elect.]… The elect get mercy. The unelect get justice. Nobody is treated unfairly. [Easy to say when you think you're one of the elect.]
So remember that everything God does is for His glory. Everything. We want to get God off the hook on this one, but God puts Himself right back on the hook on this one… So why does God still blame us if He elects some and not others? The answer from Paul is ‘Who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?’… One of the best books to recommend to you about this is Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul [Of course! Most of his sermons on Calvinist doctrines are filled with and end with recommendations of Calvinist books.].”
Vincent Cheung ("The Problem of Evil"): "God is the only one who possesses intrinsic worth, and if he decides that the existence of evil will ultimately serve to glorify him, then the decree is by definition good and justified. One who thinks that God's glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity. [What kind of a god is that!?!] A creature's worth can only be derived from and given by his creator, and in light of the purpose for which the creator made him. Since God is the sole standard of measurement, if he thinks something is justified, then it is by definition justified. Christians should have no trouble affirming all of this, and those who find it difficult to accept what Scripture explicitly teaches should reconsider their spiritual commitment, to see if they are truly in the faith.” [Translation: If you don't agree, you're not a Christian.]
John MacArthur ("God's Absolute Sovereignty"): "Human pride loathes the suggestion that God orders everything, controls everything, rules over everything... God is not the author of sin, but He certainly allowed it... God controls all things, right down to choosing who will be saved.... People are responsible for what they do with the gospel—or with whatever light they have, so that punishment is just if they reject the light. And those who reject do so voluntarily. [See the deception. But Calvinists don't mean "voluntarily" like it should be defined. They just mean that we "voluntarily/willingly" follow the desires of the nature God gave us with its built-in desires that we must obey and can't change - like being given a magic potion that makes us "want" to commit a crime, but since we "wanted" to do it, we can be held guilty for it, instead of the one who gave us the magic potion. It's hogwash!]...
Above all, we must not conclude that God is unjust because He chooses to bestow grace on some but not to everyone. [That's not the unjust part. The unjust part would be God punishing people for being the unbelievers He caused them to be.] God is never to be measured by what seems fair to human judgment. Are we so foolish as to assume that we who are fallen, sinful creatures have a higher standard of what is right than an unfallen and infinitely, eternally holy God? What kind of pride is that?..."
[So in a wonderful example of Calvinist contradiction and double-speak (and manipulative-shaming), MacArthur goes from God controls everything... to God just allows sin... to God controls all things, even who gets saved... to people are responsible and voluntarily reject God... to God chooses whom to give saving grace to. (And if we don't agree with him, we're foolish, prideful, and judging God.) And yet Calvinists wonder why we "don't understand Calvinism."]
A.W. Pink ("Doctrine of Election") "... the elect of God might continue to commit all manner of wickedness and yet go to heaven... [but] the non-elect, no matter how virtuous they be, or how ardently they long for and strive after righteousness, must assuredly perish."
John Piper ("What do I do if I tried to believe in Jesus but can't?"), in response to the question "I've concluded that I don't have saving faith. I've tried to believe in Jesus for two years but I can't. I fear I'm beyond saving. What can I do?":
"Well, it may be that the Lord has put you in this situation—that is, withheld from you the kind of faith that you're looking for (saving faith)—in order to make you feel absolutely desperate... we cannot produce faith. If we have genuine faith, it is a gift... I hope you realize you are absolutely, radically, deeply, powerfully dependent on God to give you faith... You are commanded to believe, yes, you are. You are responsible to believe, but you can't believe. You're dead!... The Lord grant you to receive the gift."
[Of course, he says more than this, trying to put a positive spin on it, to make it sound like there's something the person can do: "receive faith." But what choice do they have over "receiving" something that's supposed to be injected into them by God? Is it possible to not "receive it" if they're elect and predestined to believe? His advice amounts to nothing - because what he and Calvinism really teaches comes down to this: It's up to God if you get faith or not, and if you don't, then you're non-elect and there's nothing you can do about it.
Now contrast this with something Billy Graham said in response to the same kind of question.
The question: "I really want to believe in God and in Jesus, but I just can't conquer my doubts. Whenever I think I've put them behind me, then I start wondering if I'm just kidding myself and maybe God doesn't even exist. How can I get out of this rut? Or are some people just naturally doubters?"
The answer: "Yes, perhaps some people are more inclined to be doubters. After the resurrection, Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, had the same facts the other disciples did, but unlike them he refused at first to believe. But when he saw Christ, his doubts vanished and he immediately exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
Notice what changed Thomas: It wasn’t his feelings, but the fact that Christ was alive and cared about him. And the same can be true for you. You see, often our faith is based only on our emotions; sometimes we feel God is near us or we feel we believe in Christ—but other times we don’t feel that way. But feelings are not a reliable guide to the truth! Our feelings come and go—but the facts remain the same.
What am I saying? Simply this: Put your faith in Christ, and keep your focus on Him as He is revealed in the pages of the Bible. In other words, don’t trust your feelings, but trust the facts—the fact that Christ was God in human flesh; the fact that He died on the cross for you; the fact that He rose again; the fact that He promises to save all who turn in faith to Him.
Begin by asking Christ to come into your life—and He will. Then take time every day to pray, and to read His Word, the Bible. When you do, your faith will grow and your doubts will fade."
Calvinism's answer - even if they won't say it this way - is basically just "Wait and hope and pray that you're one of the elect, that God will inject you with saving faith to make you believe." (And essentially, it's feelings-based. Their assurance is in their feeling that they got saving faith, that they're one of the elect.)
But Graham's answer - the Bible's answer - is basically "Anyone can put their faith in Jesus, and when you do, you can trust that God will save you because that's what He promised to do for anyone who believes."
In Calvinism, we don't know if God loves us and if Jesus died for us and we play no part in having faith because it's something God places in the elect only - and so we can only hope and pray that God picked us, but we can't do anything about it if He didn't.
But biblically, God loves everyone, Jesus died for everyone, and so anyone can be saved, and our part is to willingly, consciously put our faith in Jesus, to commit to Him, and it's something we can choose to do at any point in our lives. And when we do - even if we don't "feel saved" - we take God at His Word that we are saved and we begin immersing ourselves in His Word to grow in His Truth.
As Billy Graham says in "The Ability to Believe": "Faith means more than an intellectual assent to the claims of Christ. You are not called upon to believe something that is not credible, but to believe in the fact of history that in reality transcends all history. Faith actually means surrender and commitment to the claims of Christ. We do not know Christ through the five physical senses, but we know Him through the sixth sense that God has given every man—the ability to believe."
Or as Dr. Tony Evans says it in "What is Faith?": "What do we mean when we talk about faith? We use the word a lot, but it’s a concept that many of us have found hard to grasp. Hebrews 11:1 defines it well: 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.'
What this tells us is that faith is based on content. It isn’t just about vague feelings. Nor is it a question of how much faith you have. It’s about what you are trusting in and how that is reflected by your actions—by the movement of your feet. Faith is acting like God is telling the truth. It’s acting like it is so, even when it’s not so, in order that it may be so, simply because God said so.
You shouldn’t look to your feelings first, because feelings change all the time. Instead, look at your feet first. In what direction are you moving? Are you operating in obedience to God?
When you look at the Hall of Faith in Hebrews 11, you’ll discover that the people listed in that chapter are included because of what they did in response to what God did. God moves in response to faith because faith is a critical mechanism for seeing and experiencing the supernatural realm as it enters into the natural realm.
Faith is substantial, but faith deals with what you cannot yet see. If you put seeing before faith then it isn’t really faith at all. Faith is anticipating what you are looking forward to. Faith is about expectation, and the biblical word for that is hope. When you and I learn to expect big things from God and move in sync with Him through obedience (which is the essence of faith), then we will see more of God in our everyday circumstances. We will have more hope... Faith is not an event. It is a lifestyle. So, let’s grow in our embrace of faith so that we can see more of God at work in our daily choices, actions, and expectations. There’s a lot more He is ready to do when He knows we’re trusting Him to do it."
Much different than "wait and hope that God gives you faith and makes you believe in Him," isn't it? (Calvinists believe that "faith is a gift that God has to give it to you, and since not everyone has faith, it means God doesn't give it to everyone." But... once again... faith is not the gift. See this post for more on that.)]
Jonathan Edwards ("Sermon IV: God's Sovereignty in the Salvation of Men"): "God, therefore, as it is his design to manifest his own glory, will and does exercise his sovereignty towards men, over their souls and bodies, even in this most important matter of their eternal salvation. He has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardens.... Let us with the greatest humility adore the awful and absolute sovereignty of God.... Those who are in a state of salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to him, who maketh them to differ from others... They should exalt God the Father, who chose them in Christ, who set his love upon them, and gave them salvation, before they were born, and even before the world was. If they inquire, why God set his love on them, and chose them rather than others, if they think they can see any cause out of God, they are greatly mistaken.... It is absolutely necessary that we should submit to God, as our absolute sovereign, and the sovereign over our souls; as one who may have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and harden whom he will..."
John MacArthur ("Answering Big Questions About the Sovereignty of God"): "He is sovereign, and it is His plan that He would be glorified in judgment as He would be glorified in salvation... The sinner is responsible to act and to come [to Jesus]. If he does not, he’s fully culpable. So I love the fact that that tension is there [trying to make a bad thing sound good, and it's easy to love the "tension" when you think you're one of the elect], that God holds the rejecting sinner, the unbelieving sinner fully responsible for his rejection." [So even though, as MacArthur states earlier in the interview, the unregenerated sinner can choose nothing but sin, Calvi-god still holds him "responsible."]
"How that harmonizes with the sovereignty of God in saving some is – is beyond my comprehension." [He's trying to sound humble by accepting this messy, terrible contradiction. "Well," I'd say, "you'd better figure it out, Johnny Boy, because there are some huge, terrible implications wrapped up in this that are detrimental to God's character and truth. And 'I don't know' won't cut it if you're wrong."]
"God rules the universe. And whatever God does is right, whatever God does is just. So by God’s definition, [saving some but not others] was the determined righteous thing for Him to do. Whether or not it is quote/unquote 'fair' from a human viewpoint, was not the determining plan in God’s mind." [It's not God's actions that are wrong; it's the Calvinist's understanding of God and His actions that are wrong.]
Terrance Tiessen ("God's great grace to the non-elect") "... since by definition no grace is 'deserved,' no one has ground to complain about how God treats them... how very gracious God is to everyone, including the non-elect. Admittedly, all God's grace serves to increase the guilt of those who reject it or who take it for granted, but this does not diminish the intrinsic goodness of the kindness God shows to all undeserving sinners." [So he calls it "great grace" for the non-elect even though it's only meant to make them more damnable!?! And I bet Calvinists wouldn't be so quick to call God so great, gracious, loving, and kind if they were one of the non-elect.]
Calvinists hate when we point out that in Calvinism, people are just puppets or robots, acting out their prewritten parts, which makes God the cause and controller of all sin and unbelief. But in this Soteriology 101 clip - "Preprogrammed to Believe Lies?" - John MacArthur unwittingly affirms it when he says that unbelievers are "preprogrammed to believe lies."
Echoing what Leighton says: Preprogrammed by whom? If something's been preprogrammed, then there is a programmer, and the programmer is responsible for what was programmed. This very much affirms that, in Calvinism, God is the robot-programmer (or puppet-master, if you prefer) ... and that the robots and puppets can only do what the programmer makes them do, making God the cause and controller of sin and unbelief.
Jonathan Edwards ("Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, Chapter III"): "It can be made evident by reason, that nothing can come to pass, but what it is the will and pleasure of God should come to pass... It is a contradiction to say, he wills it, and yet does not choose it, or had not rather it should be so than not... God decrees all the good that ever comes to pass; and therefore there certainly will come to pass no more good, than he has absolutely decreed to cause; and there certainly and infallibly will no more believe, no more be godly, and no more be saved, than God has decreed that he will cause to believe, and cause to be godly, and will save."
[You know, having read Jonathan Edwards and John Calvin and John MacArthur and John Piper, etc., it's interesting that the more you read Calvinist arguments for some of their more difficult, contradictory, disgusting beliefs, the more you see that they never actually answer the difficult questions. All they do is constantly answer with counter-questions, out-of-context verses, unrelated issues, philosophical ideas, and accusations of how prideful you are - without actually answering the question in any meaningful, logical, biblical way. They trick you into following them down a skillfully laid trail of Calvinist ideas, reeling you deeper and deeper into Calvinism without you realizing it - all without answering the question.
So if you ask something like "How could it be justice for God to predestine people to hell," they'll answer with things like "Well, why did God save anyone at all if we all deserve hell?" and "Is God sovereign or are you?" and "God held the people who crucified Jesus accountable for their sin even though He predestined it would happen" and "God's thinking is higher than our thinking" and "The Bible has no tension with what it teaches; it's only we who have trouble with it because of our tiny human brains" and "Who are you to talk back to God", etc. - all because they can't find even one verse about God predestining people to hell.]
Peter Ditzel (Word of His Grace, "Fact Check: God hates the sin but loves the sinner") claims that God doesn't just hate sins but that He hates the sinner (and according to him, believers are not sinners because Jesus paid for their sins). Ditzel also claims that we're supposed to love the sinners whom God hates because we don't know who the elect are and we don't want to accidentally hate the elect.
He goes on to say (in different words) that what some Calvinists call "common grace" (God giving rain and sunshine to the non-elect) is not really grace at all... because God hates the non-elect. So why would He show them any grace?
He uses the example of barnyard chickens to illustrate his point: The chickens might think the farmer is "gracious" to feed them, but the farmer doesn't actually care about or love the chickens. He's only "gracious" to the chickens now so that he can slaughter them later to feed to his children, the only ones he really loves. God has no grace for the non-elect, according to Ditzel. And God loves and saves "the world" (John 3:16) by loving and saving only the elect.
[At least he's an honest Calvinist!]
A.W. Pink (Doctrine of Election): "the preaching of the gospel is the appointed instrument in the hands of the Holy Spirit whereby the elect are brought to Christ... It is by hearing the gospel they are called out of the world... Therefore the gospel must be preached to and believed in by them before they can rejoice in the knowledge that their sins are forgiven. The gospel, then, is God's great winnowing fan, separating the wheat from the chaff, and gathering the former into His garner.
[And now listen to the booby-prize, this consolation prize for the non-elect:] Moreover, the non-elect gain much from the gospel even though it effects not their eternal salvation. The world exists for the elect's sake, yet all share the benefits of it. The sun shines upon the evil as well as the good; refreshing showers fall upon the lands of the wicked as truly as on the ground of the righteous. So God causes the gospel to reach the ears of many of the non-elect, as well as those of His favored people. Why? Because it is one of His powerful agencies to hold in check the wickedness of fallen men. Millions who are never saved by it, are reformed: their lusts are bridled, their outward course improved, and society is made more suitable for the saints to live in." [So "while the gospel brings no eternal good for the non-elect, it does help them live more moral lives so that the world is a better place for the elect." Hogwash! That wouldn't be such a nasty idea if people choose for themselves to be unbelievers. But, in Calvinism, God causes them to be unbelievers who can't benefit from the gospel, and so they are only here to benefit the elect and to bring God glory through their damnation. That's disgusting.]
Peter Ditzel (Word of His Grace, "Why election to salvation, and why reprobation to damnation? Part 1) claims that God didn't just "allow" people to be damned, but that He determined it for good reasons. He says that God created the non-elect not because He wanted them saved but because (my paraphrase) the non-elect are needed to help make the world a better place for the elect to live in, which helps the elect develop and mature. And by seeing sin and understanding the wrath that God will pour out on the unrepentant non-elect, the elect can better appreciate God's goodness and love which He reserved for them.
Wyatt Graham ("Should Christians say God predestines people to hell?"): "God has foreordained and controls all things whatsoever by his mysterious foreknowledge and providence. By definition, the eternal destinies of the elect and non-elect must fall under God’s foreordination and control. The 16th-century Reformer Peter Virmigli wrote 'I separate reprobate from predestined because the Scriptures nowhere (that I know of) call men that are damned predestined' (Virmigli, Pred. 2.14)."
[Oh, so it's all about the terminology. Calvinists are bothered by which word gets used when talking about God preplanning people to go to hell, but they're not bothered by their idea that God preplans people to go to hell. "You're right, Calvinists, the debate over which term you use is so much more important! Carry on."]
According to Virmigli, 'Reprobation is [defined as] the most wise purpose of God by which he has before all eternity constantly decreed, without any injustice, not to have mercy on those whom he has not loved, but passes over them, that by their just condemnation he might declare his wrath towards sins and also his glory' (Virmigli, Pred. 2.15)
... God has decreed to let people act according to their nature. If someone chooses to reject God, they have done so according to their nature. God did not coerce or cause them to do so. People choose sin over life." [More accurately, in Calvinism, God created them with the unregenerate nature that came with the built-in desire to reject God - and only that desire - and so since that's all they could "want" to do, that's all they could "choose" to do.]
John MacArthur (from “Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation”): “The doctrine of election [a completely Calvinist concept] simply means that God, uninfluenced and before creation, predetermined certain people to be saved… And the King of the universe does exactly what He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it…
God does say he loves humanity, and there is a universal love of God that manifests itself in common grace, manifests itself in temporal, physical deliverance from death; the sinners live and enjoy life. It manifests itself in a universal call of the gospel [which the non-elect are created to resist]… And so there is a universal offer [which the non-elect are created to reject] that, from the standpoint of God is a legitimate offer, and which, sad to say, even heightens the culpability of the sinner."
[He has to say it's a "legitimate offer from the standpoint of God" because he knows that it's not a legitimate offer to from our viewpoint. And notice that, in Calvinism, the offer of salvation is not meant to save the "non-elect" but to "heighten their culpability," to make them more damnable.]
"[To say that Jesus is the Savior of all men] means that He's the Savior of all men in a physical, temporal sense. All you have to do is look at the fact that the world is full of unbelievers who live, to know that God by nature is a Savior. [Nice spin, saying that just because sinners are allowed to live and breathe for awhile shows that Jesus is a "Savior" of all men.]... I mean that's grace. And that tells us that God, even on a temporal, physical level, is a Savior… And He shows that by giving people life [before their predestined eternal damnation]."
"So the real question, as I said then, is not, you know, why do certain people die, but why do most people live? [Deflection! Downplaying the bad! "Don't think about those predestined to hell but only about those predestined to heaven!" Hogwash! Heartless!] Because that's an evidence that God, it's just His nature to save. And with regard to believers… He's our Savior not physically and temporally, but spiritually and eternally…"
John MacArthur (“Does God love the elect and hate the non-elect?”): "The fact that some sinners are not elected to salvation is no proof that God's attitude toward them is utterly devoid of sincere love. We know from Scripture that God is compassionate, kind, generous, and good even to the most stubborn sinners."
[Calvi-god showers the non-elect with temporary food, rain, sunshine and delayed damnation before putting them in their predestined hell forever because Calvi-Jesus didn't die for them... and Calvinists call this "love." But it's wildly different from how God Himself says He shows His love: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us," Romans 5:8. Whose definition of God's love are you going to believe: the Calvinist's or God's?]
"There is a true and real sense in which Scripture teaches that God hates the wicked. So an important distinction must be made. God loves believers with a particular love... It is an eternal love that guarantees their salvation from sin and its ghastly penalty. That special love is reserved for believers alone [“the elect”, in Calvinism]. However, limiting this saving, everlasting love to His chosen ones does not render God's compassion, mercy, goodness, and love for the rest of mankind insincere or meaningless."
[Oh, what a relief for the non-elect: knowing that God “sincerely” showers His “compassion, mercy, goodness, and love” on them - in this brief “like a mist” life that vanishes quickly - by giving them food and rain for 80 years before sending them to hell for all of eternity for being the unbelievers He caused them to be! Wouldn’t want to miss out on that totally meaningful “love”! It’ll make all the difference when they’re burning in hell for eternity!]
From Truth Story (Election and Reprobation), a synopsis of Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology: "Election is 'an act of God before creation in which he chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of his sovereign good pleasure.'... So God did not foresee any future faith or merit in Christians. Instead, he elects people unconditionally regardless of their actions...
There are several objections to the doctrine of election. The first one relates to how our choices are not real choices – including our choice on whether we accept Christ. Choices are voluntary because they are what we want to do and what we decide to do. This does not mean they are absolutely free, without input from God. But they are nevertheless real choices. [So Calvinists call it a "real choice" simply because we're doing what we "want" to do (what we were preprogrammed to want to do, in Calvinism), not because we actually have other options to choose between or because we could've decided something else. But this violates the very definition of "choice": an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. In Calvinism, we have no other possibility than to "choose" what God predestined us to choose. This is not a "real choice," no matter how much Calvinists claim it is.)
Another objection is that election is unfair... [But is God] obligated to save any humans? Simply put, he’s not... God has every right to do with his creation as he wants. Because he is God. But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?"
And finally, a selection of quotes found in "God's hatred of the reprobate" (Covenant Protestant Reformed Church):
Martin Luther (1483-1546, The Bondage of the Will): “the love and hate of God towards men is immutable and eternal, existing, not merely before there was any merit or work of ‘free-will,’ but before the world was made; [so] all things take place in us of necessity, according as He has from eternity loved or not loved … faith and unbelief come to us by no work of our own, but through the love and hatred of God”.
William Perkins (1558-1602, The Workes of That Famous and Worthy Minster of Christ in the Universitie of Cambridge): "God before all worlds did purpose to hate some creatures, and that justly, so far forth as his hating of them will serve for the manifestation of his justice"
Pierre du Moulin (1568-1658, Anatomie of Arminianism): “Whom God hateth from the womb, to them he doth not give sufficient and saving grace... So that there are some whom God hath rejected with a spiritual rejection, before they have done either good or evil; therefore he doth not give them sufficient means to faith, or to salvation: for this cannot be made to agree with hatred”
John Kennedy of Dingwall (1813-1847, “The Pleasure and Displeasure of God”): “You have no right to regard [God's] love, which is commended in the death of His Son, as embracing you if you have not yet believed... What right have you to say that He loves all? Have you seen into the heart of God that you should say He loves you, until you have reached, as a sinner, through faith, the bosom of His love in Christ?... God loving a sinner without a purpose to save him! The thing is inconceivable... Love to one utterly ruined, and that love commanding resources that are sufficient for salvation, and yet no purpose to use them! Let not men so blaspheme the love of God..."
John Murray (Romans, vol. 2): “[Divine hatred can] scarcely be reduced to that of not loving or loving less … the evidence would require, to say the least, the thought of disfavour, disapprobation, displeasure. There is also a vehement quality that may not be discounted … We are compelled, therefore, to find in this word a declaration of the sovereign counsel of God as it is concerned with the ultimate destinies of men”.
Homer C. Hoeksema (A Scriptural Presentation of God’s Hatred): “All history, in which vessels unto honor or unto dishonor are formed, is the revelation and realization of the counsel of God according to which He loved Jacob and all His elect people, but hated Esau and all the reprobate”.
Cornelius Hanko ("Particular Love, Particular Atonement, and Missions," Standard Bearer, vol. 42, issue 4): “God loves His people in Christ, but He hates all the workers of iniquity... If God hates the devil and his host, does He not hate those who are branded in Scripture as the very seed of the serpent, a generation of vipers?"
David J. Engelsma (Hyper-Calvinism and the Call of the Gospel): "The proof of the Reformed position is evident to all. The apostle Paul was an avowed, ardent predestinarian, holding double predestination—election and reprobation. As a predestinarian he did not believe, nor did he ever preach, that God loved all men, was gracious to all men, and desired the salvation of all men, that is, he did not believe, teach, or give the well-meant offer of the gospel. On the contrary, the apostle believed and proclaimed that God loved and chose unto salvation some men, and some men only, hating and reprobating others. He taught that God is gracious only to the elect, enduring, blinding, and hardening the others. He held that the preaching of the gospel, so far from being grace to all hearers, is a savor of death unto death to some, in accordance with God’s purpose in bringing the word to them. This purpose is not a saving purpose, but the purpose is to render them inexcusable and to harden them."
Lovely stuff, isn't it!
