"But predestination!" (#16A: God's Will, babies)
In this series, I'm examining some things that Calvinists (especially my ex-pastor) say about predestination.
Here's the whole series on my other blog: the pastor's sermons ("When Calvinists say 'But predestination!'"), and my comments 1-4 (election) and 5-6 (Romans and sovereignty) and 7-9 (depravity, Book of Life, predestine) and 10-11 (shaming tactics, Feb. 2015) and 12-14 (dead, regeneration, born again) and 15 (total depravity, manipulation) and 16A (God's Will, babies) and 16B (sin, evil, suffering) and 17 (double-speak and the gospel).
Sixteen A:
In Calvinism, it's not just our eternal destinies that are predestined by God (or more accurately, "foreordained"), but also all our tragedies, suffering, sins, and all the evil done by Satan and his minions. Everything - all good and bad - has been foreordained by Calvi-god from the beginning. He preplans it all and then causes it to happen just like he preplanned, and so nothing different could have happened. And yet he will hold us responsible for doing what he foreordained us to do.
As quoted in the sermons, our pastor's adult Calvinist son once preached: "The whole testimony of Scripture is that human sin, angelic sin, disease, disaster, tragedy, plague... are all under the control of God, all ordained by God, and all accomplished by the sovereign Lord."
And his daddy taught him well and must be proud. From his September 2016 sermon: “To be alive is often to be on a brand-new journey, for good or bad, difficult or not. The question is ‘Do we really believe our theology, that God is sovereign, that He controls every detail of the universe, that He knows the good from the bad, that He has ordained it in our lives.'… God is all-powerful. He knows exactly what He is doing. He’s sovereign and in control of every detail of the universe, including our destinies.”
In this post, I'm going to share a ton of Calvinist quotes from popular Calvinists as well as from our pastor (my ex-pastor now, because we left that church in 2019) about their worst teachings, along with my comments about it. I'll write it as a numbered list of quotes and comments to make it easier (the bulk of the quotes will be after my thoughts about various relevant issues).
I'm spending a lot of time on this one because it's critical that we understand what Calvinism is really teaching about God here - because I think this is what it all hinges on. It's the bottom-line of Calvinism, what makes or breaks it. (Breaks it!) Because it gets to the very heart and character of God and shows who He really is. And if you get that wrong, you get the most important part of biblical truth wrong, and it taints everything else down the line.
But first, some important notes to help you understand what Calvinism really teaches (if I explain this upfront, I won't have to explain it each time it shows up in their quotes):
A. "Sovereign," in Calvinism, means that God preplans, causes, controls everything that happens, even all our thoughts, choices, demons and angels, sin, evil, and tragedies. (But they will deny that they teach God "causes" sin. It's why their writings and sermons are so lengthy, convoluted, and contradictory.) Calvinists believe that God must control everything, even sin, or else He's not a sovereign, all-powerful God. (Non-Calvinists, however, believe that "sovereign" is about the position of authority God is in and that, as God, He gets to decide how to act in that position, even if it means allowing people to have free-will.) "Sovereign" is Calvinism's excuse for God doing whatever they say He does, no matter how evil, unjust, or deceptive it is. No matter the kind of evil He ordains - or how much evil He ordains - it's okay because He is "sovereign" and does it all "for His glory."
The Westminster Confession of Faith: "The rest of mankind [the non-elect] God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will [meaning "We don't know why, so don't ask questions"], whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleaseth, for the glory of His Sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice."
John Piper ("Has God Predetermined Every Tiny Detail in the Universe, Including Sin?"): “Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air and all of our besetting sins? Yes… So the macro-world and micro-world are all managed by God. Which means, Yes, every horrible thing and every sinful thing is ultimately governed by God… a sovereign God who governs the dust motes, the waves (including tsunamis)... He controls everything, and he does it for his glory and our good.”
A.W. Pink ("The Sovereignty of God in Reprobation"): "If then God has foreordained whatever comes to pass--then He must have decreed that vast numbers of human beings should pass out of this world unsaved--to suffer eternally in the Lake of Fire! ... From [the human race] God purposed to save a few as the monuments of His sovereign grace; the others He determined to destroy as the exemplification of His justice and severity..."
John Piper ("Is double predestination biblical?"): "Now, the primary objection to this biblical teaching of predestination — whether you call it single or double — is that it seems to result in people being punished when they are not morally accountable. So this seems to be unjust... [but] God prioritizes something above his desire for all to be saved — because not all are saved. Something restrains God from saving all... what restrains God from saving all is that he prioritizes the glory of the freedom of his sovereign grace above saving all. Better that some perish than that the freedom and greatness of God’s grace be diminished."
(Why is it that the "sovereign" card is always played when Calvinists talk about the worst parts of their theology that damage God's character the most or about the biggest contradictions they've created which they have no good answers for?)
B. When a Calvinist says that God "allows, permits, uses, brings, foreknows, decrees, ordains, foreordains, governs, manages, etc." something - like sin or evil or tragedy or unbelief - what they really mean is that God preplanned it to happen the way it did, caused it to happen the way it did, and that nothing different could have happened. (They won't necessarily admit this out loud and upfront, but if you research their theology enough, you can see it's true.)
So when they say "God allows/uses sin," what they really mean is that God allows/uses the sin He first planned and then orchestrated, not that God truly let people decide on their own and then He worked their self-chosen sins into His plans.
Jonathan Edwards ("Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, Chapter III"): "... God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful..."
John MacArthur ("Answering Big Questions About the Sovereignty of God"): “There is no difference between what God knows, what God allows and what God determines..."
John Piper [on the sovereignty of God (emphasis is his)]: "The reason God knows the future is because he plans the future and accomplishes it... He knows what's coming because he plans what's coming, and he performs what he plans... here's what I mean by the sovereignty of God: God has the rightful authority, the freedom, the wisdom, and the power to bring about everything that he intends to happen. And therefore, everything he intends to come about does come about. Which means, God plans and governs all things." [Just because God has plans doesn't mean everything was planned by God. Just because He works His plans out doesn't mean that everything that happens is because God planned it. That would be like saying "All monkeys are animals and so, therefore, all animals are monkeys." Just because it works in one direction doesn't mean it works in reverse.]
Edwin Palmer (The Five Points of Calvinism, emphasis added): “All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history… come to pass because God ordained them. Even sin– the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history… Foreordination means God’s sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe… He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen. He is not sitting on the sidelines wondering and perhaps fearing what is going to happen next. [A false dichotomy: “Either God predestines/controls everything, or else He has no idea what’s going to happen next and is at the mercy of circumstances.”] No, He has foreordained everything… even sin… Although sin and unbelief are contrary to what God commands…”
C. When Calvinists say that God is "in control" of everything - of us, Satan, our sins, all evil, our tragedies and suffering, etc. - what they really mean is that He controls it, not just is "in control" of it. To be "in control" (in a position of authority) is biblical, because that's about God being in authority over it, watching over it, deciding what to allow or not allow, deciding what the consequences should be and how to work it into His plans. But to "control" (verb) is different. To control is about God preplanning what happens and causing it to happen just like it does, making sure that nothing different could have happened, including all our sins, all evil, all tragedies, all unbelief, etc. This is not biblical and it's horribly blasphemous, making God the ultimate source and cause of all evil and unbelief, despite the Calvinist's insistence that it's not what they're teaching.
John Calvin: "... nothing happens other than what God decrees." (Acts: Calvin, the Crossway Classic Commentaries, pg. 66)
From my pastor's July 23, 2023 sermon: "The devi is God's devil... Everything Satan does is under God's sovereign power...Satan and his angels are exactly on schedule, doing exactly what God intended them to do."
John Piper ["Does God control all things all the time?"]: "How do we know that God always controls everything? My answer is that we know this because the Bible teaches it... God governs all human plans and acts...everything that human beings do is, in the end, the will of God.... behind human acts, the biblical writers assume God [as the cause]... human beings are responsible, accountable, praiseworthy, or blameworthy for what they do. God's sovereignty does not diminish human accountability." [All this means is that even though Calvi-god "ordains" everything that happens, even our sins and unbelief, we'll still be held accountable for it.😕]
And from what seems to be a Bible study lesson on Wayne Grudem's teachings on God's providence from his Systematic Theology: "If God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning?... God is continually involved with all created things in such a way that he (1) keeps them existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them; (2) cooperates with created things in every action, directing their distinctive properties to cause them to act as they do; and (3) directs them to fulfill his purposes.
.... God rightfully blames and judges moral creatures for the evil they do... In spite of all the foregoing statements, we have to come to the point where we confess that we do not understand how it is that God can ordain that we carry out evil deeds and yet hold us accountable for them and not be blamed himself.
... Scripture nowhere says that we are 'free' in the sense of being outside of God's control. But we are free in the greatest sense that any creature of God could be free - we make willing choices, choices that have real effects. [All that this means in Calvinism is that we make decisions - the decisions God predestined us to make - about moral issues, and these decisions have consequences and effects on life, predestined effects. In Calvinism, "real choices and effects" just means that they really happen, that they're not imaginary. But it doesn't mean, as we would assume and as it should be, that we were able to make our own voluntary choice among various options or that we could've chosen something different than what happened. In Calvinism, we are "free" to "choose" to do the one thing God predestined us to do, and only that thing. This violates and contradicts the very definitions of "choice" and "freedom." And it turns God into an unjust God who punishes people for doing what they had no control over, what He caused them to do.]
... Those who hold an Arminian position maintain that in order to preserve the real human freedom and real human choices that are necessary for genuine human personhood, God cannot cause or plan our voluntary choices."
John Calvin (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, emphasis added): “The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted... Of all the things which happen, the first cause is to be understood to be His will, because He so governs the natures created by Him, as to determine all the counsels and the actions of men to the end decreed by Him..."
John MacArthur ("Answering Big Questions About the Sovereignty of God"): “[The will of sinful mankind] is free in the sense that it can choose its sin. It is bound in the sense that it can only choose its sin... It will [choose sin], but you can pick your poison... You sin under the freedom of your will, or for - if you want to call it - the bondage of your will to sin. You’re bound to sin, you can do nothing but sin... [Some "freedom," huh!] ... God starts with a blank and He creates the universe and then the whole thing unfolds, He is God, He can do whatever He pleases. And so if not everybody is going to be saved, then it was in the purpose of God that not everybody was going to be saved... He is sovereign, and it is His plan that He would be glorified in judgment as He is glorified in salvation... [But] the Bible also holds sinners fully responsible for their sin and their rejection of the gospel. And you can’t lose that tension. I don’t know how that harmonizes and I always end up at this point. Look, sinners are responsible... the sovereignty of God [goes] down to the individual activities of every single person."
J.I. Packer (Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God): “[God] orders and controls all things, human actions among them…He holds every man responsible for the choices he makes and the courses of action he pursues… Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled.”
Okay now with that out of the way, onto the quotes and comments. Most of my comments will be upfront, loosely divided into separate, but interconnecting, points (it will be a little bit of a circuitous journey, so please bear with me), followed by the bulk of the Calvinist comments in a long list.
1. "The whole testimony of Scripture is that human sin, angelic sin, disease, disaster, tragedy, plague... are all under the control of God, all ordained by God, and all accomplished by the sovereign Lord."
As I pointed out earlier in this series, Calvinists wrongly believe that if God preplanned and caused one thing in the Bible (like a storm), it means He preplans and causes all things (all storms and all other things). And they wrongly lump natural evils ("disease, plague") together with moral evils ("human sin, angelic sin"), saying that if God causes/ordains things like a natural disaster, it proves He also causes/ordains things like murder and abuse. But they're making incorrect inferences and stretching things beyond what Scripture says (which I'll call "unbiblical stretches" for short).
To me, there must be a sharp, strong dividing-line between natural evils which aren't the result of sin (random sickness, tornado, financial loss, etc.) and moral evils which are (abuse, rape, adultery, etc.).
Natural evils (non-sin) and moral evils (sin) are in two different categories because God made laws against moral evils but not against natural evils. Therefore, causing natural evils is not sin, but causing moral evils is. He can cause natural evils and still be righteous, but He cannot cause moral evils and still be righteous. (But God can cause the death of someone without being guilty of murder because God is the Giver of life. And only the Giver of life has the right to decide when to take a life. Plus, remember that even though we might see death as an ending; it's not. In light of eternity, it's only the beginning. So we can't judge things based only on what happens in this lifetime.)
I'm not saying (as Calvinists do) that God is always the cause of every natural disaster, illness, physical ailment, loss, etc. Nor am I saying that He never causes a natural disaster or non-sin-based trouble. We never know how much of a hand God has in what happens in the world or in our lives, whether He caused something for a reason (but never sin!) or merely knew it would happen and allowed it.
2. It really irks me when Christians/Calvinists declare that God caused (ordained, decreed, whatever word they want to use) a particular disaster or tragedy (hurricane, virus, accident, cancer, whatever) for a reason, maybe as punishment for sin or to humble a person or teach them a lesson. As if they know how much God was involved or why it happened! Shameful! But Calvinists have to say this because they believe God "ordained (preplans and causes)" everything for His reasons. (Did you know that "Everything happens for a reason" is not a Bible verse?)
John Calvin shares this "godly wisdom" in a letter to a grieving father, Monsieur de Richebourg, whose son Louis died in Calvin's house along with another person, Claude, most likely from a plague (see LXIV, pg 246 in this collection of letters): "... What the Lord has done, we must, at the same time, consider has not been done rashly, nor by chance, neither from having been impelled from without; but by that determinate counsel, whereby he not only foresees, decrees, and executes, nothing but what is just and upright in itself, but also nothing but what is good and wholesome for us. Where justice and good judgment reign paramount, there it is impious to remonstrate. When, however, our own advantage is bound up with that goodness, how great would be the degree of ingratitude not to acquiesce, with a calm, and well-ordered temper of mind, in whatever is the wish of our Father!...
[God] took him away because it was both of an advantage to him to leave this world, and by this bereavement to humble you, or to make trial of your patience. If you do not understand the advantage of this... ask of God that he may show you. Should it be his will to exercise you still farther, concealing it from you, submit to that will, that you may become wiser than the weakness of your own understanding can ever attain to. In what regards you son, if you bethink yourself how difficult it is, in this most deplorable age, to maintain an upright course through life, you will judge him to be blessed... [to be] so early delivered from [all the dangers of life]...
[Calvin then goes on to say that it should be a consolation that the father still has a good son left.] Nor will you derive small consolation from this consideration, if you only weigh careful what is left to you. Charles survives to you... [He goes on to describe some ways that Charles was different than, even better than, Louis] in these points he was far the superior [to Louis]. You will, therefore, yourself be judge how far the possessing such a son ought to avail for taking off the pain of the bereavement wherewith the Lord has now afflicted you..."
While this isn't an altogether terrible letter - there are some good things in it that I didn't quote, good efforts to comfort - I think it's more an example of what not to say to a grieving parent: claiming that the tragedy wasn't merely allowed by God but was deliberately preplanned by God; calling it "just and upright, good and wholesome" (it's one thing to say God can bring good from tragedy, but it's another thing to call the tragedy itself good and wholesome); claiming that God did it, in part, to humble the father and test his patience; claiming that the father should think of the dead son as blessed for escaping the dangers of life through an early death; and then telling the father not to be too upset because, after all, God wanted this to happen and the father still has a good son left, a better son - so cheer up.
Wow! Just wow.
And so according to Calvin, it wasn't just that God allowed this young man to die of a disease as a natural consequence of diseases running their course through a population, but it's that God deliberately took the young man away to, in part, humble the father. (Also see my post "Are tragedies gifts from God?")
So while most of us can't know why things happen - why God does what He does or allows what He allows - John Calvin is apparently special, super-tight with God, best buds, because he does know God's mysterious reasons for the tragedies that happen.
3. And according to Calvin, God's sovereign control (preplanning and causing) even goes down to a mother's inadequate milk supply (Institutes of the Christian Faith, book 1, chapter 16): "Indeed, if we do not shut our eyes and senses to the fact, we must see that some mothers have full provision for their infants, and others almost none, according as it is the pleasure of God to nourish one child more liberally, and another more sparingly."
You see, I would say that the degrading condition of nature and genetics, due to the Fall of Adam and Eve and the effects of sin, leads to various problems, whether environmental or health or whatever. The Fall, pollution, genetic degradation, etc., have affected God's perfect creation and how He made our bodies to function perfectly, affecting even some mothers' abilities to nurse their children. And so while He allowed it to happen, He did not want or plan or cause it to happen. He just allowed the effects of and consequences of the Fall, of sin, and of our bad choices (pumping toxins into our environment and bodies), resulting in our bodies not functioning as well as God created/intended them to.
But - according to Calvin - it is God's pleasure to deliberately and premeditatively starve specific babies.
Sick!
But don't worry, because any baby that's starved to death would be non-elect anyway, according to Calvin who teaches that God only kills non-elect babies predestined to hell, for His pleasure.
From his Institutes, book 3, chapter 23: "I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God [in English: "unless it so pleased God"]?"
From Institutes, book 2, section 8 "... 'death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,'... Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother’s womb, suffer not for another’s, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God. Hence it follows, that it is properly deemed sinful in the sight of God; for there could be no condemnation without guilt."
And from his Harmony of the Law, Volume 2, Deuteronomy 13, paragraph 15: "If any should object that the little children were innocent, I reply that, since all are condemned by the judgment of God from the least to the greatest, we contend against Him in vain, even though He should destroy the very infants as yet in their mothers' wombs... Although we must recollect that God would never have suffered any infants to be destroyed, except those which he had already reprobated and condemned to eternal death." (Phew! What a relief!)
[And yet, Calvin contradicts himself in Institutes, book 4, section 17, when he tries to say that surely there are some babies that God regenerated before they died and so they are in heaven: "... infants who are to be saved (and that some are saved at this age is certain) must, without question, be previously regenerated by the Lord. For if they bring innate corruption with them from their mother’s womb, they must be purified before they can be admitted into the kingdom of God... If they are born sinners, as David and Paul affirm, they must either remain unaccepted and hated by God, or be justified."
So he confidently claims that "we must recollect that God would never have suffered any infants to be destroyed, except those which he had already reprobated and condemned to eternal death", as if it's clearly, plainly said in a Bible verse (I'd like to know which one then)... but then he also confidently claims "that some [infants] are saved at this age is certain"?
Make up your mind, Calvin! You can't have it both ways.
(And so at the very least, Calvin teaches the damnation of some - if not most - infants.)]
Calvinist Vincent Cheung echoes Calvin in his “Infant Salvation”, asserting that there are infants who are damned to hell: “We insist that if infants can be saved, then only chosen infants are saved… Perhaps the same applies to those who are mentally retarded, although there seems to be no biblical evidence to say that some mentally retarded people are saved. Their salvation is only a possibility. It is also possible that all mentally retarded people are damned… [and] on the basis of the doctrine of reprobation, they would be created as damned individuals in the first place.
The popular position that all infants are saved is wishful thinking, and continues as a groundless religious tradition... Thus the invention deceives the masses and offers them hope based on mere fantasy. The way to comfort bereaved parents is not to lie to them, but to instruct them to trust in God. Whatever God decides must be right and good. It may be difficult due to their grief and weakness at the time, but if the parents cannot finally accept this, that God is always right, then they are headed for hell themselves and need to become Christians. [So quick and eager to dish out damnation!]
... The possibility in consideration does not apply to mentally aware infants, teenagers, and adults who never heard the gospel – they will all surely go to hell… If someone dies without hearing the gospel, it just means that God has decreed his damnation beforehand.
... In itself, I have no problem with the idea that for anyone to receive salvation, in the absolute sense and without exception, he must exhibit a conscious faith in the gospel. This would mean that those who are unable to exercise faith are all damned to hell, and this would include infants and the mentally retarded, if we assume that they cannot exercise faith. I have no misgivings about this. [Phew! How wonderful that he can sleep easy at night, unconcerned with other people's damnation.] I have no problem with the idea that all who die as embryos, infants, and mentally retarded would burn in hell. If this is what God has decided, then this is what happens. [What does it say about a person to love and trust and worship a god like that?)
… If he loves his chosen ones so much that he wishes to show forth his glory and wrath to them by visiting the reprobates with judgment and hellfire, then loves wins again. [Yeah, kinda like how a demented, obsessed kidnapper-serial-killer shows his kidnapped victim how much he "loves" her by killing other people as a gift to her. Love wins!]
... But whether a fetus, infant, or adult, if you can read this and understand this, then I am telling you that you must believe in Jesus Christ to save your wretched soul. As for my critics, yes, even obnoxious morons like you can be saved. My concern is not so much about whether embryos can exercise faith, but that as annoying and unintelligent as you are, whether you can exercise faith….. As for the embryos, if they perish, they will go where God decides – if they all burn in hell, they all burn in hell…”
Can't you just feel the love, the Christ-like compassion?
Jonathan Edwards ("The Miscellanies", point n., emphasis added) also affirms the idea of infant damnation: "One of these two things are certainly true, and self-evidently so: either that it is most just, exceeding just, that God should take the soul of a new-born infant and cast it into eternal torments, or else that those infants that are saved are not saved by the death of Christ. For none are saved by the death of Christ from damnation that have not deserved damnation. Wherefore, if it be very just, it is but a foolish piece of nonsense, to cry out of it as blasphemous to suppose that it ever is [just], because (they say) it is contrary to his mercy." [Translation: "We all, even infants, deserve damnation, so it's perfect justice for God to throw newborn infants in hell. And it's foolish for you to call this blasphemous because you think it goes against His mercy."]
... There was no mercy showed to [the fallen angels] at all. And [so, therefore] why is it blasphemous to suppose that God should inflict upon infants so much as [the infants] have deserved, without mercy, as well as [upon the fallen angels]? If you say, they have not deserved it so much, I answer: they certainly have deserved what they have deserved, as much as the fallen angels. [No. Angels were created in different conditions. Angels stood in the presence of God. And so when they rejected Him, they knew exactly what they were doing, making a conscious decision based on all the facts. Not so with people. We have to make decisions about God based, ultimately, on faith, on what we can't see. But angels made their decision based on what they could see, first-hand. Plus, we have to grow in understanding and maturity and spiritual knowledge as we age, but the angels didn't. They were created, as far as we can tell, mature and ageless. This is why there's mercy and grace for people, not angels; why Jesus died for people, not angels.].... Who shall determine just how much sin is sufficient to make damnation agreeable to the divine perfections? And how can they determine that infants have not so much sin? For we know they have enough to make their damnation very just."
And from Edwards' The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended: “We may well argue from these things, that infants are not looked upon by God as sinless, but that they are by nature children of wrath... there are some particular cases of the death of infants, which the Scripture sets before us, that are attended with circumstances, in a particular manner giving evidences of the sinfulness of such, and their just exposedness to divine wrath…"
And then after talking about infants who were destroyed in God's judgment on Sodom and its surrounding cities, and after sharing verses about how God would not destroy the innocent, Edwards says: "... God could as easily have delivered the infants which were in those cities. And if they had been without sin, their perfect innocence, one should think, would have pleaded much more strongly for them... Since God declared, that if there had been found but ten righteous in Sodom, he would have spared the whole city for their sakes, may we not well suppose, if infants are perfectly innocent, that he would have spared the old world, in which there were, without doubt, many hundred thousand infants, and in general, one in every family, whose perfect innocence pleaded for its preservation?" [Translation: "Since God won't destroy the innocent, and since He destroyed Sodom with all its infant children, it means that infants are not innocent."]
And then after sharing verses about God destroying the wicked and Bible stories about the flood and about whole cities being destroyed along with their infant children, Edwards concludes: “And here it must be remembered, that these very destructions of that city and land are spoken of as clear evidences of God's wrath, to all nations which shall behold them. And if so, they were evidences of God's wrath towards infants; who, equally with the rest, were the subject of the destruction.”
So it's not that all babies are loved by God but that some die anyway because He lets natural tragedies, birth defects, wars, or diseases run their course or lets people make bad decisions which affect babies.
No! According to Calvinists like these, God deliberately killed them early and predestined them to hell... because it pleased Him! Because He wanted it and decreed it. Because it's "right and good."
Sick!
For the record, Calvin gets his theology almost entirely from St. Augustine who has a very Catholic version of theology (and of course, Calvinists get most of their theology from Calvin), and Augustine taught that unbaptized infants go to hell - not for any sin they committed, but for the guilt of Adam's sin: "Likewise, whosoever says that those children who depart out of this life without partaking of that sacrament [of baptism) shall be made alive in Christ, certainly contradicts the apostolic declaration... it is believed, as an indubitable truth, that [without baptism] they cannot be made alive in Christ. Now he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain under the condemnation... That infants are born under the guilt of this offense is believed by the whole Church." (from "Letter to Jerome")
From "Infants saved as sinners": "infants ought to be baptized, because, although they are not sinners, they are yet not righteous... Now, inasmuch as infants are not held bound by any sins of their own actual life, it is the guilt of original sin [Adam's sin] which is healed in them [through baptism]..."
From "Unless infants are baptized, they remain in darkness": "So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament [of baptism] which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness."
From "Baptized infants, of the Faithful; Unbaptized infants, of the Lost": "Now if [infants] who are baptized are...reckoned in the number of the faithful... surely they who have lacked the sacrament [of baptism] must be classed amongst those who do not believe on the Son, and therefore, if they shall depart this life without this grace...they shall not have life, but the wrath of God abideth on them. Whence could this result to those who clearly have no sins of their own, if they are not held to be obnoxious to original sin?" [It's horrifying to think that the eternal souls of infants - their salvation or damnation - would be dependent on the parents, on what someone else decided for them, or that it was a matter of timing, a race between baptism and death, decided by whichever came first.]
He goes on to say (in "Infants must feed on Christ") that if infants do not partake of communion, they cannot have life in Him: "Will, however, any man be so bold as to say that...[infants] can have life in them without partaking of His body and blood...?... From all this it follows, that even for the life of infants was His flesh given, which He gave for the life of the world; and that even they will not have life if they eat not the flesh of the Son of man." [So should infants be force-fed the bread and wine, to save their souls?]
From "Christ is the Savior and Redeemer even of infants", meaning "baptized infants": "... the man who believes not in the Son, and eats not His flesh, shall not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Now from this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God (of which by nature they are children who have original sin, even if they have none of their own on account of their youth), none delivers them, except the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world...except the Redeemer, by whose blood our debt is blotted out... Let there be then no eternal salvation promised to infants out of our own opinion, without Christ's baptism..."
In "Why one is baptized and another not, not otherwise inscrutable", Augustine responds to those who "think it unjust that infants which depart this life without the grace of Christ should be deprived...of the kingdom of God...and of eternal life and salvation" with an answer that amounts to nothing more than "God's judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out."
I wonder if Augustine's "baptized infants will be saved, unbaptized infants won't" morphed into Calvinism's "elect infants will be saved, non-elect infants won't," which is what I think most Calvinists would adhere to, as expressed in their beloved Westminster Confession of Faith: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death... All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ... Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit [and non-elect infants?]... so also are all other elect persons who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word... Others, not elected...never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved..."
Thankfully though, according to Augustine, unbaptized (non-elect) infants will only face a mild form of condemnation for being the non-elect beings that Calvi-god predestined them to be: "It may therefore be correctly affirmed, that such infants as quit the body without being baptized will be involved in the mildest condemnation of all. That person, therefore, greatly deceives both himself and others, who teaches that they will not be involved in condemnation..." (from "Unbaptized infants damned, but most lightly...")
Phew, it'll only be a gentle fire that burns babies eternally!
And for the record, I think that any Calvinist who says babies go to heaven is being inconsistent with their Calvinism, with their idea of total depravity, that we are all born wicked, separated from God, guilty of Adam's sin, and in rebellion against God unless and until we hear the gospel and God causes us to repent. Total depravity from the moment of conception (as Calvinists say) cannot allow for babies to go to heaven, no matter how they try to mesh it.
And why, in Calvinism, should totally-depraved babies who can't control their decisions be treated any differently from totally-depraved non-elect people who can't control their decisions (total inability)? What does age have to do with anything if Calvi-god predetermines who goes to heaven and hell based on nothing about us (which would include age), but based only on his whims? And besides that, if all babies go to heaven, it means they are all "elect," which - given Calvinism's idea that election cannot be lost - would have to mean that all adults are elect too. But since we know this isn't the case, the only other option is that many elect babies grow up to become non-elect adults when they become old enough to choose to sin and reject Jesus. Not only does this contradict Calvinism's "security of election", but it also brings us back to the age of accountability, something Calvinism cannot allow for because it implies we make real decisions which affect our eternities. Calvinism is a theological mess.]
5. Our Calvinist head pastor takes the same harsh stance as Calvin, that babies who die go to hell (but he says it in a roundabout way).
From his December 1, 2017 sermon: "Isaiah is telling us in very strong language, very clear language here, that our sins have cut us off from God, from the moment of conception, of birth, and then once we start committing sins, it even adds to it. They separate us from God... We are sinners by conception, then by birth. Sinners by nature, and sinners by choice.... [After adding the idea that sinners need a Savior, he says] You say, 'I don't like that message.' My response: 'I didn't make this up...I didn't write this. My job is simply to bring it out and help you understand what the text says. It's up to the Lord to help you welcome and accept this and embrace it and love it.'" [Translation: "It's God's choice if we believe or not."]
And even more explicitly, this is from his 2019 Mother's Day sermon:
"Every single human being is a sinner by birth, by choice [which, in Calvinism, just means that you choose what God predestined you to choose], and by nature [your Calvi-god-given nature], and is cut off from God... Let me say that again...Every single human being is a sinner by birth and by practice and is cut off from God. That is true of little children. That is true of babies. That is true of teenagers and adults.
There's this concept in the evangelical world of an age of accountability, that somehow people before a certain age - sometimes it's two, sometimes it's six, sometimes it's twelve - aren't guilty before God. Friends, that is not taught in the Bible anywhere, as much as it may be favorable in evangelical bantering. For 35 years I've tried to find that in the Bible. If it is true, it isn't taught in the Scriptures. The teaching over and over and over again is that from the moment of conception, we are guilty before a holy God. We are under the judgment of God. There is no free pass. The Bible never teaches some kind of age of accountability.
If you have any doubts, Psalm 51:5, David says 'I was born a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.' Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned, not only those over nine years old, or twelve years old, or over four years old. All have sinned and fall short of God's standard. 1 John 1:8: 'If we claim to be without sin, we have deceived ourselves and the truth is not in us.'
... We are born at war with God...in rebellion against Him and His laws. We bristle at authority. Everybody bristles at authority. We break His laws every day. We deserve judgment and hell. And the Bible says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked and beyond cure. And it started at conception.
... The only way to be saved, justified, reconciled to God, is to repent and have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ... Every single human being is cut off from God... The only way to be saved, made right, justified before a holy God, is to repent of our sins, turn around and go the other way, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." (Translation: "Babies who die before they can repent are in hell, permanently cut off from God. Remember, no one gets a free pass.")
Once again, this was his Mother's Day sermon. Mother's Day! I was livid! Fuming! And I've never even lost a child. But my heart broke for those who did and who had to hear that garbage. He may as well have just gotten up there and said, "Hey, all you grieving mothers, I hope you know that your dead baby is in hell. Happy Mother's Day!"
We resigned from that church a week later.
(And here's the letter we sent the elders months before, hoping we could make a difference so that we didn't have to leave - a letter which the elders did nothing about.)
[And for the record, 1 John 1:8 wouldn't apply to babies because babies can't claim anything about themselves since they have little to no self-awareness yet.
And yes, Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned, but I believe there are verses that show that God doesn't hold our sins against us until and unless we are old enough to know what we're doing, to choose between accepting or rejecting Jesus, such as Deuteronomy 1:39 which refers to a time when children become old enough to tell the good from the bad, and Isaiah 7:16 which talks about an age when people are old enough to choose the right and reject the wrong, and Ezekiel 16:20-21 when God calls the sacrificed children "My children," and Jeremiah 19:4-5 when He calls the sacrificed children "innocent." And then there's also 2 Samuel 12:23, Matthew 21:16, Matthew 18:6-14, and Matthew 19:14. (And notice how often the Bible says that we are condemned for rejecting/resisting Jesus. But babies cannot reject or resist anything yet.)
I think the Bible shows an overall picture of God loving children and covering their sins with His grace before they are old enough to repent and decide for themselves to believe in Jesus. So yes, we are all sinners, but God can cover our sins - with Jesus's blood for those old enough to accept it, and with His grace for those not old enough or conscious enough (mentally-handicapped people) to accept it.
(Calvinists can't believe in an age of accountability because that would affirm the idea of human choice, of people making decisions about Jesus. And in Calvinism, salvation is not about our choice but about God's choice for us.)
And Psalm 51:5 in the KJV - the more accurate translation - does not say that David was sinful from birth, but it says that his mother conceived him in sin, which could mean that his parents were doing something considered sinful when he was conceived (such as maybe the way they were having sex or the time/day they had sex, maybe on a forbidden day) or maybe he's talking about being born into a sinful world. Either way, there is no hint in the KJV that David is calling himself sinful from birth.
None of these verses support infant damnation. (Also see my post "Do babies go to heaven or hell? A critique of Calvinism's answer.")
Also for the record, our pastor must have gotten backlash for that sermon because shortly after it, he wrote a post on the church blog where he backpedaled, saying that he's not sure if babies go to heaven or not, but that maybe they do. Pathetic. So I sent an email saying that we knew exactly what he was teaching in that Mother's Day sermon and that how dare he now think he can pull the wool over our eyes, tricking us into thinking he didn't teach what he did. Shameful.]
6. I wonder, can we really expect Calvinists to not believe in infant damnation when they say things like this about babies:
Paul Washer (from the sermon "Not Ashamed of the Gospel")": "I submit to you that if that 18-month-old baby had the strength of an 18-year old man, he would slaughter you there where you stand, father, rip the watch off your arm and walk across your bloody body and out the door without feeling an ounce of remorse."
R.C. Sproul (from the Idol Killer video Evil and Depraved - the Reformed View of Children): "Calvin was once talking about babies and said that babies are as depraved as rats. And I said that's the one time I really really oppose the teaching of John Calvin...because that's terribly insulting to the rat." (You might also like Idol Killer's "God's Fault - Who is Responsible for Evil?")
John MacArthur (from The Distinctive Qualities of the True Christian, Part 1): "Nowhere, or at not point, is a man's depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... How do we know man is a sinner at the base of his character? How do we know man is a sinner at the root of his existence? The answer: by what he creates. Whatever comes from the loins of man is wicked because man is wicked. So I say to you that nowhere then in the anatomy of man or in the activity of man is depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... because it is at precisely that point which he demonstrates the depth of his sinfulness because he produces a sinner."
What the @#$% is wrong with these people!?! (Not sorry!)
(So what about Psalm 127:3, huh? "Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him."? Apparently not. Apparently, according to Calvinists, children aren't blessings from God, but they're terrible wicked sinners that prove what terrible wicked sinners we are. If that's a reward/blessing, I'd hate to see what a punishment/curse looks like!)
And from our pastor's January 2016 sermon on the wrath of God: "Truth-suppression begins very early in life. Children have no interest in truth…zero. Babies, toddlers, cute little kids, my cute grandkids, they have no interest in the truth. What is a child’s primary interest in life? ME! [As it should be at that age! Babies can't think about others yet - that's a learned thing. All they can do for the first few months/years is think about their needs. It’s called "survival instinct". They can't care for or fend for themselves yet, and so they have to depend on us to do it for them.] It’s the All-Great Universe of ME! They don’t want to know the truth [because they can’t even understand the concept of truth yet!]. Frankly, I think if they were big enough, sometimes they would vaporize us. If you look at the rage in a child, toddler, baby that is screaming because you’re imposing truth on them…
... Why am I born such a good truth-suppressor? Because I’m born sinful. Not just a little bit, we are born incredibly depraved to our core… desperately wicked. We are slaves to sin… We are born rebellious, and we don’t want authority over us… the heart is desperately wicked… deceitful above all things… We can’t handle the truth and so we suppress it.”
Oh, those awful, horrible babies! Nasty little evil things!
Our pastor even wrote a blog post about how God "commands" spanking, and that it has to hurt. The whole "spare the rod, spoil the child" thing. I, however, sent in a comment about how I believe God commands disciplining our children, not necessarily spanking them. I believe the "rod" is a tool of correction, guidance, authority, not necessarily something to hit them with. (And I told them that they picked an awful picture for the blog post, that the picture of the young, scared child huddled on the ground is disturbing because it looks like he's hiding a dark secret of abuse. But the church never printed my comment. Go figure!)
Voddie Baucham would agree with our pastor (from this sermon about total depravity): “People who don’t believe in original sin don’t have children. … That’s a viper in a diaper. The angry cry happens early. The demanding cry happens early. The stiffening up of the body, that happens early. … One of the reasons God makes them so small is so that they won’t kill you. And one of the reasons he makes them so cute is so that you won’t kill them.”
And his solution (from another sermon) is: “God says your children desperately, desperately need to be spanked. [Give me the Bible chapter and verse!] Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord, and spank your kids. Okay? They desperately need to be spanked. And they need to be spanked often. They do. I meet people all the time, and they’re like ‘Yeah, you know, I can think of maybe four or five times I ever had to spank Junior.’ Really? That’s unfortunate. Because unless you raised Jesus the Second, there were days when Junior needed to be spanked five times before breakfast… You need to have an all-day session where you just wear them out.” (So I guess repeated beatings will make them elect if they're non-elect or change what Calvi-god predestined for them or change their hearts before his timing!?! Interesting.)
Enjoy this video from Idol Killer on Voddie's "viper in a diaper" sermon: "Your Children are Evil".
7. But take heart, because at least all those babies will have company in hell - because everyone who hasn't heard the gospel and Jesus's name are non-elect and predestined to hell too, according to Calvinists:
Vincent Cheung (“Infant Salvation”): "If someone dies without hearing the gospel, it just means that God has decreed his damnation beforehand."
John Piper (Can an elect person die without hearing the gospel?): "You have to hear the gospel and believe in order to go to heaven. If you don’t hear the gospel and believe, you don’t go to heaven. If you don’t go to heaven, you weren’t among the elect."
John Piper answering the question What happens to those who have never heard the gospel?: "They perish. And they perish justly... I don't believe, since the cross of Christ, that anywhere in the world there is a person outside the gospel who is a genuinely brokenhearted, repentant, truster in the grace of God. Rather they suppress the truth [as Calvi-god decreed], and since they suppress the truth they have, that will be the foundation of their judgment."
John MacArthur, answering a question about if those on a remote island who never heard the gospel can be saved: "No, you can't receive salvation, except through Christ... If God had determined to save that guy in isolation, somehow He would see to it that the gospel arrived to him."
SBC Voice (Missions and the fate of those who never hear): "One of the things that helps me is to realize that there are no 'innocent' persons out there that are condemned for the ill fortune of not hearing about Jesus. The Bible is clear that 'all have sinned' (Rom 3:23) and that all have rejected even the truth that has been revealed to them so that they are 'without excuse' (Rom 1:20). Further, if anyone is condemned apart from hearing and receiving the gospel, they are not condemned for not hearing the gospel. They are condemned for their sin and rebellion against a holy God in thought, word, and deed." [So even though the non-elect never had a chance to believe in Jesus, they are still condemned - not for not hearing the gospel, but for their sins, which also were predestined by Calvi-god.]
Matt Smethurst from The Gospel Coalition (What happens to those who never hear the gospel?): "So will God condemn the innocent tribesman who has never heard the name of Christ? No, because there are no innocent tribesmen. Scripture simply does not picture fallen humans as having some vague but noble desire for mercy and forgiveness. Moreover, we seem to have an inescapable pull toward enacting our faith in ritual, liturgy, and sacrifice. So what does the man on the island do? In the imagination of the inclusivist, he just cries out for vague mercy and forgiveness, claiming no merits of his own. In the real world, however, he probably participates in a form of idolatrous folk religion that contradicts and undermines the gospel of grace [thereby proving he is non-elect and "earning" his predestined damnation, of course]."
From the EFCA website: "What is the destiny of the unevangelized who have not heard of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ—can they be saved? Since the coming of God’s final work in Jesus Christ, Scripture speaks clearly of the need to hear and to believe the gospel. Among those capable of understanding the gospel, we affirm that we have no clear biblical warrant for believing that, since the coming of Christ, God has saved anyone apart from conscious faith in Jesus... While God could reveal Christ to some apart from the normal means of the ministry of the Word (e.g., through dreams or visions), we have no biblical warrant for believing that He will reveal Himself in that way to anyone... Because all have sinned and are deserving of God’s condemnation, we believe that we can be saved only by the atoning work of Christ, and we believe that we can be sure that people can be saved by that work only if they are told about it."
Jordan Standridge (Where do people go who have never heard of Jesus?): "When we think about those around the world who have yet to hear the Gospel, our reaction should be two-fold. We should remind ourselves about the perfect holiness and justice of God, who will be perfectly righteous to cast every unregenerate human being into Hell. And at the very same time, our hearts should break in compassion over these souls, and we should pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers... People who never hear of Jesus go to Hell."
David Platt (What happens to people who never hear the gospel?): "All people everywhere are guilty of sin before a holy God. Here's why this point is important. So many times this question is asked: 'Pastor, what happens to the innocent man or woman or child in this remote part of the world who's never heard of the gospel when they die?'
If you were to ask me that question, I would say, 'Without question, based on the Bible, those people go to heaven even though they've never heard the gospel. [Wait for it.] Without question, an innocent man, woman, child would go to heaven without ever hearing the gospel, because they have no need to hear the gospel. [Keep waiting...] If they're innocent of sin, they don't need to hear that Jesus died to save them from sin. If they're innocent of sin, they'll go straight to heaven. Of course they'll go to heaven.' [Still waiting...]
The only problem is those people do not exist. [There it is!]... There are no innocent people in the world just waiting to hear the gospel. There are guilty people all over the world - that's why they need to hear the gospel.
... He loves us and has made a way for us to be saved from our sin... The way is faith in Jesus... [But] people cannot put their faith in Jesus if they never hear of Jesus... Over two billion people cannot go to heaven if they don't have faith in Jesus, but they cannot have faith in Jesus if they don't hear about Jesus... Believers [the elect] in all nations will call on Jesus and those who call from all nations will be saved... God in His sovereign wisdom and kindness has chosen to use you and me to carry the greatest news to the ends of the earth. If we don't go, they won't hear, they won't believe, they won't call and they won't be saved..." [Ergo, all those who do not hear the gospel or cannot respond to the gospel (this would include remote tribesman, babies, and the mentally-handicapped, wouldn't it?) are non-elect, predestined to hell.]
John Piper (We are accountable for what we know): "I think this text carries a huge implication for understanding the justice of God in dealing with people around the world — some of who know God only through natural revelation rather than any gospel witness. They’ve never heard the gospel. In Romans 1:18-23 we see that every human being has enough knowledge of God to be held accountable before him at the judgment day.... Whenever people ask me, 'What about those who have never heard the gospel?' My answer, based partly on Luke 12, is that no one will be judged for not obeying revelation they did not have. We will all be judged according to the knowledge of the truth we have access to."
Note carefully that Piper is not saying that everyone has enough revelation of God through nature to be able to believe. He's not saying that they're being judged because they had a chance to believe but chose not to.
He's saying that the non-elect ("those who know God only through natural revelation rather than any gospel witness" - because, in Calvinism, all elect people will hear the gospel) have enough revelation of God in nature only to make them guilty for their sins, their unbelief (even though it was predestined), but not enough to save them.
It's kinda like saying that your car is predestined to go 100 miles per hour. But the police - knowing that your car must go 100 miles per hour, that it's impossible for you to change it - post a "Speed Limit 5 mph" sign. The police didn't post it to make you change your speed, to help you, to save you - because they knew you couldn't reduce your speed - but they posted it only to make you guilty of speeding, to make you a lawbreaker, so that they can punish you like they always planned to do anyway.
That's what's going on here. In Calvinism, the revelation of God in nature is not to save the non-elect or to help them find Him, but it's to condemn them, to make them guilty.
John Calvin even says it clearly, that God did not reveal Himself in nature to draw us to Him but to condemn us, to make us guilty for not seeing Him (Institutes, Book 1, Chapters 5-6): "Wherefore, the apostle, in the very place where he says that the worlds are images of invisible things, adds that it is by faith we understand that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3); thereby intimating that the invisible Godhead is indeed represented by such displays, but that we have no eyes to perceive it until they are enlightened through faith by internal revelation from God. When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man (Romans 1:19); on the contrary he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable (Acts 17:27)."
As he says in Institutes, chapter 6 section 1, God gave revelation of Himself in nature (paraphrased) "in order to bring the whole human race under the same condemnation." So it's not to save us or help us find Him, but to ensure that we are damnable. [Why then should we thank Him for or be impressed by His wonderful creation if it wasn't meant to display His glory and magnificence to lead us to Him, but it was meant to damn us? That would be like a death-row inmate being impressed by and thankful for the electric chair.]
Similarly, our Calvinist pastor said this in his June 22, 2014 sermon: "[Nature] screams out there's an Almighty God. So we call this 'general revelation.' Theologians call it 'natural revelation.' There is a certain amount of information about God that comes through creation and nature... But 'special revelation' is the information about God that can only be known through the Bible... [General revelation] is not enough information in order to lead someone to Christ as Savior. It is enough information to indict them on Judgment Day, but it is not enough information to save them."
And again in a July 2015 sermon on what happens to those who don't hear the gospel (his reference verses were Romans 1:18-25): "General revelation is enough to indict us, but it's not enough information to save us... We must call on the name of Jesus to be saved... Lost sinners must hear the gospel and call on the name of Jesus... Those who've never heard are liable and they will face judgment someday..."
And again in January 2016: "General revelation can’t lead you to Christ. It’s enough to inform you about God and to indict you, but it’s not enough to save you. That’s why Paul says that no one will have an excuse on Judgment Day... It’s exhilarating to be outdoors, but it’s not enough to lead you to saving faith. That’s why God gave us the Bible.... So what about those who never heard the gospel?... All people suppress the truth in their wickedness. That’s everybody on the planet…all people, to the most primitive tribal person you can imagine on the most remote island. Everybody suppresses the truth that there is an almighty, personal God they are accountable to… Unless the gospel is preached [to them], they can’t believe.”
And again in July 2018: "What about the innocent native who never heard of Christ? Well...there's no such thing as an innocent native. All of us are born into sin and depravity... All people suppress the truth because of their sin and wickedness... All people know there's a God [because of general revelation]... so all people are without excuse... Those who never heard of Christ are damned for two reasons. One: They are born rebels and they sin throughout the course of their lives. And two: They're sinning in a floodlight of God's revelation of Himself."
In Calvinism, general revelation is only enough to make the non-elect damnable (and all those who never heard of Christ are non-elect), not enough to lead them to salvation.
(So why on earth would we thank God for His creation and for how creation points back to Him if it's the very thing that damns most people to eternal hell and torment? That's sick.)
8. Read this and see how you understand it: Romans 1:18-20: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
What do you think it's saying?
When Calvinists read it, they automatically read into it the Calvinist presupposition of "total depravity/total inability," viewing it through Calvinist lenses, Calvinist doctrines.
They think it means that since the non-elect cannot want God or believe in Jesus, their wickedness (total depravity) will cause them to suppress the truth - and so God's revelation of Himself in nature is not to lead them to Christ (because the non-elect can never come to Christ) but to make them guilty for rejecting Him. Even though God predestined them to hell, it won't excuse them from hell. God will still hold them accountable for their sins, even though they never had the ability or chance to repent from them.
R.C. Sproul (in Chosen by God: God’s Sovereignty) says that a problem with believing in free-will (that God offers salvation to all, gives everyone the ability to believe, and lets them choose) is this: “However, there are millions and millions and millions of people who never hear the gospel and who, in fact, don’t have the opportunity… God has not made sure that everybody in the world hears the gospel. Could God make sure that everybody in the world hears the gospel? Could God print it in the clouds if He wanted to? Yes, but He doesn’t. So [in a strike against believing in free-will] we are left with the problem that God does not do everything He conceivably could do within the bounds of His own righteousness. He does not do everything conceivable to ensure the salvation of the world.”
Therefore, according to Sproul, Calvinism is better because, in Calvinism, God is more gracious for making certain that at least some will be saved.
However, I believe that God did indeed write His truth in the clouds. And in the trees and the mountains and the stars.
Psalm 19:1-4: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
This is why all people have a chance, why all people can find Him. And this is why there is no excuse for not.
According to Calvinism, the truth of God in nature and in our hearts is only for the purpose of damning the non-elect when they irresistibly reject it; it was never intended to help them find God and lead them to salvation.
But I think God put Himself in nature and in our hearts in order to lead us all to Him, to salvation. Everyone can find Him in His creation and in the truth imprinted on their hearts (Ecc. 3:11, Romans 2:15), even without access to a Bible. He did all He could, at the most basic level, to point the way to Him, to show people that He’s real, “so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each of us," Acts 17:27.
God's truth is evident everywhere in nature and in our hearts. And it's a truth that we all have to respond to and make a decision about, no matter how primitive our culture. And we are held accountable for how we respond to whatever level of revelation God gave us. If we pursue the truth of God that we see in nature, God can lead us to Him. But if we reject it and make up our own gods and paths, then we are guilty of suppressing the truth He's revealed - and that's why we can be punished justly.
So even without a Bible, people know truth, enough to either pursue it or suppress it. (But Calvinists say that the non-elect only have the ability to reject it.) Everyone has heard/seen enough truth to make a decision to pursue God or to resist God, even if all they have is a very primitive, basic form of truth.
No one is destined to hell. No one is beyond hope, beyond grace, beyond forgiveness, beyond God’s reach. We can all reach out and find Him, because He is near to us all and wants to be found.
"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men...", 1 Tim. 2:3-5.
"He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance," 2 Peter 3:9b.
“For God so loved the world…”, John 3:16.
He's given everyone the ability and chance to know He's real, to find Him. Some get only the general revelation in nature and in our hearts, and some get the more full revelation of the Bible. But whatever level of revelation we get, there's enough to show He's real and that we need to believe in Him, to reach for Him. We are responsible to respond to whatever revelation He gives us. And so if we don't - if we ignore the evidence of Him that we see all around us and that we feel in our hearts- then we will be held guilty for it.
This is how I see it. And it's why I think that anyone can be saved, even if they live on a remote island with no Bible and all they have is God's general revelation and His call on our hearts. If they were to look around them and realize that since there is a creation then there must be a Creator, and if they earnestly and sincerely reached out for Him, I believe God would honor their search and reveal Himself to them more and save them.
They, I believe, would still be saved by Jesus - because His death paid for their sins - even if they don't know His name and can't call on Him personally. It's like being able to walk across a bridge whose name you don't know to escape a fire-consumed island and go to a safe one. You were still saved by that bridge - not by some other bridge or some other means - even though you didn't know its name.
If people on remote islands do their part to seek God (as He is, not their own ideas of Him), He will lead them to truth somehow, a level of truth that will save them, even if they do not have a Bible. This is how I think it is.
Notice that I am not talking about those who heard of Jesus but rejected Him, who choose to worship other gods (or themselves) instead. Rejecting what you know is different than being unaware of what you don't know. Atheists and people in other religions can, of course, turn from their idolatry and find Jesus and be saved - but as long as they cling to false gods, they are rejecting Jesus, the only one who can save us.
And I am not downplaying the importance of spreading the gospel - because, of course, without the Bible, it will be a lot harder for people to understand things clearly, know truth, know how to live, know what God is like, etc.
So even though it's possible (I believe) for people to be saved by responding to the truth God gives them in nature, it's much less probable without God's Word. It's like how someone in a pitch-black maze can find their way out by feeling around in the dark, but it's much easier if someone turns the lights on for them and gives them a map and helps walk them out. And then it'll be much easier, in turn, for those people to help the next ones. But if everyone is left feeling around for the exit in the dark by themselves, much less people will make it out. So spreading the gospel is critical to helping people understand God's truth more fully and to saving as many people as possible.
I like Soteriology 101's answer to What about those who never hear the gospel?:
"So, what is the answer to the question, 'What about those who never hear the gospel?'
Everyone has what they need to respond to God.
No one anywhere in this world has any excuse for his or her unbelief. [Calvinists say that even though the non-elect are unable to believe in God, by God's decree, that's no excuse and so they'll still be held accountable for their sins. Non-Calvinists say that people have no excuse because God's given us all the ability, opportunity, and responsibility to see Him in nature, seek Him, and find Him, and so we're accountable for if we don't. Now let me ask you: Which one of these views makes God duplicitous and untrustworthy?]
Mankind is responsible to all of God’s revelation because they are able to respond to all of God’s revelation. If they acknowledge the truth of the little revelation that they have received then God is faithful to entrust them with more (Mt. 25:21). If they trade the truth in for lies then they have no excuse (Rm. 1:20).
In short, the general revelation is sufficient to lead any one to know God’s special revelation, thus no one has any excuse for their unbelief."
And I like Greg Laurie's answer too: "I believe God will judge us according to the light we receive... Everyone has been made in the image of God... And He has set eternity in our hearts... And though we may not have heard the gospel, there is still the testimony of God's creation... of nature that speaks of a Creator.
... If you're a true seeker of truth, you will find your way to Jesus Christ...because God says in Proverbs 8:17 'Those who seek Me will find Me.'... Rather than worshipping the many gods of Rome, [Cornelius] believed in the God of the Jews. He didn't really know how to know this God, but he believed in Him and would even offer prayers to God. So you might say that Cornelius responded to the light he had, how much light he was given, calling on the God of Israel. He had never heard of Jesus Christ but was asking God to reveal Himself to him. So what does the Lord do? The Lord heard his prayer, because God says that those who seek Me will find Me. So the Lord sent an angel to retrieve Simon Peter who then brought the gospel to Cornelius who, hearing the gospel, believed. So it just shows that if a person is seeking, God will make Himself known to them... We know the heart of God, and that He's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repent."
Of course, Calvinists will just say that it proves he was "elect." They'll say that he was seeking God and that the gospel was brought to him because he was elect. (Which is unproveable and built solely on a Calvinist foundation.) And they can't and won't be broken of this idea until and unless they are willing to see the inherent errors of Calvinism, the presuppositions they start with and view Scripture through.
And this is something highly-educated people are often very resistant to do, especially after all the time and effort they spent educating themselves into their views in the first place. People don't want to consider the possibility that they could be wrong, that all the time and effort they spent learning things led them in a wrong direction. Their pride prevents them from seeing or admitting it.
And they certainly don't want to feel the rug pulled out from under them, to feel their worldviews crashing down around them. It doesn't feel good and it means reconsidering, relearning, rebuilding. And so instead of doing this - instead of giving the other side a fair hearing and looking into it sincerely for themselves and being willing to reevaluate their views and to admit they could be wrong - they double-down and find others who agree with them and who can give them some kind some of answers to cling to, no matter how flimsy, illogical, or contradictory.
We'd usually rather find more reasons - any reasons - to cling to what we already think and maintain our status quo than to upset the balance and have to go through the trouble of changing things or starting over from the beginning.
Education is a double-edged sword. It's great - and important - to learn more information, to grow in knowledge and wisdom. But education can be a trap, a self-made prison of pride, locking us into our own view of things, making us resistant to admitting that we could be wrong because we are so proud of how educated we are, how much "smarter" we are than everyone else.
(And of course, this is a trap that anyone and everyone can fall into, not just religious people or Calvinists.)
9. And now circling back to God "ordaining" everything:
While not all Calvinists will say that all babies who die are predestined to hell (some say only elect babies die, some say a mixture of non-elect and elect babies die, some say only non-elect babies die), all Calvinists would have to say that if a baby dies, it was God's Will, what He wanted, that He deliberately planned for that baby to die the way it did (and that He planned for people in remote areas to die without hearing the gospel, because they were predestined to hell). Because in Calvinism, everything is controlled by God, including when we die, how we die (even if it's from sin like murder or abortion), and whether we go to heaven or hell, regardless of our age.
But I would say that we can't know or proclaim how much God was involved in a trouble or tragedy. (Calvin apparently can, but the rest of us can't.) At the very least, God is always the one who decides whether to allow it or stop it, but He's not always the planner or causer of it (and He's never the planner/causer of sin).
And allowing something is not the same as causing it, especially when it comes to tragedy and sin.
Here's a question someone asked in the comment section of a Soteriology 101 post (can't remember which one): “If God destines something to an end or permits it and sustains it to the same end, what is the difference?”
And here's my reply: "What’s the difference between a God who allows someone to make their own decision to rape and kill, and who punishes them for their choice … and a God who causes someone to rape and kill, with no option to do anything different, but who then punishes that person for raping and killing?
What’s the difference between a God who genuinely offers salvation to all people, who lets us make our choice about if we want Him in our lives or not, and allows us to face the consequences of our choice … and a God who predestines our eternities and choices, who causes unbelievers to be unbelievers, who never gives unbelievers a chance to seek/find Him or to find salvation, and who then punishes unbelievers in hell for being the unbelievers He caused them to be?
If you can’t see a difference, what does that say about your view of God and the Gospel? Either that, or you’re just not thinking about it carefully enough."
In Calvinism, God preplans, causes, controls not only every non-sin-based evil, but also every sin-based evil. And everything that happens is what He wanted and planned to happen, even evil and sin. And to "prove" it, Calvinists will refer to verses about God causing a specific natural trouble or about God working someone's self-chosen sin into His plans. But these are unbiblical stretches and bad inferences, reading more into Scripture than what's there, using it to teach something it does not say.
I believe that, for the most part, God allows things to happen, not often causing things. And He never preplans/causes/forces people to sin, though He can and does put people in situations that force them to act out the self-chosen sin that's in their hearts, so that He can expose it, discipline it, and incorporate it into His plans and bring something good out of it. But He didn't force them to choose sin. He gave them the ability and option to choose to not sin, but He let them choose what He foreknew they would choose, and then He finds a way to use it for good. [FYI: Calvinists define "foreknowing" as foreordaining/fore-decreeing/fore-planning, not just "knowing beforehand," as it should be. Another unbiblical stretch.]
I believe God has set boundaries and natural laws for people and nature. And within those boundaries, He allows people, angels, demons, and natural processes (air currents, ocean waves, cell growth, genetic activity, etc.) to move and act with a certain amount of freedom.
A question I've asked before: If, as Calvinists say, God controls every movement of everything, why does He create boundaries, such as boundaries for what Satan can do to Job in Job 1 and boundaries for the sea in Job 38:11? Boundaries are only needed when there's freedom to move within those boundaries.
Dr. Tony Evans teaches (though I can't remember which sermon) that life is kinda set up like a football game is, that God has boundaries and rules and can intervene and call fouls, but that within those boundaries and rules, He allows people to move freely for the most part, making their own decisions. Of course, God is also weaving our decisions into His overall plans, bringing something good out of them, but He allows us to make real decision on our own within boundaries and rules.
And because the world, nature, and people are fallen and because demons are allowed to influence things, things will go wrong sometimes, whether through sin or natural processes.
And so God didn't necessarily preplan/cause all the troubles, but many of them are the result of things running their course naturally, of living in a fallen world, of demonic interference, or of free-will choices made by us or others. God knew the bad things would happen and allowed them to happen because He knew He could work it into good, but He didn't necessarily preplan/cause it. I think this is how it is for most problems we face: allowed, not caused, by God.
I know it isn't much better in some people's eyes that God knew bad things would happen and allowed them to happen, that He didn't stop it - but it is better than having a Calvinist god who wants, plans, causes all the sin, evil, and tragedies that happen, a god who first commands us not to sin but then causes us to sin and then punishes us for sinning. (What kind of a god is that!?!)
A God who allows us to do what He doesn't want can still be trusted, but a god who causes us to do what he commands us not to do cannot. God doesn't necessarily want, plan, cause our tragedies and suffering Himself (and He never causes sin or forces people to sin, giving them no way out), but He lets the world and people and angels/demons operate with the free-will He gave it (within boundaries), which will inevitably lead to problems and troubles at times, whether interpersonal, physical/health, natural, job/financial, or whatever.
An example: Repeated inbreeding leads to severe genetic problems. Calvinists would have to say that God Himself preplanned/caused the genetic problems, that He deliberately picked those specific people to have those specific problems, for a specific reason. And they would also have to say that God foreordained their inbreeding, despite His commands against sex with close relatives.
But I would say that God created the world with moral laws and with natural laws which govern reproduction and cellular development, and that inbreeding violates those laws, leading to the "natural," inevitable consequence of genetic problems. So it's not that God Himself gave those people or animals genetic problems for a reason; it's that they are reaping the consequences of their choice to violate the moral and natural laws He set up.
Question: If God deliberately "ordains" the specific health problems we have, then why does He pick on families like the Whittakers, the Appalachian family known as "the most inbred family"? Why give them a bigger share of genetic problems than everyone else? Why does genetic corruption seem to correspond with inbreeding, instead of just being randomly dealt out by God across the whole human race?
The Whittakers' genetic problems coincide with their lifestyles, suggesting that certain lifestyles and choices naturally lead to certain consequences because they violate God's natural and moral laws.
[However, even though genetic problems are more concentrated and consistent in inbred families, genetic problems or health issues can happen anywhere because nature was corrupted at the fall of Adam and Eve, and because Satan is active in the world, and because we make bad choices, such as mothers who drink or use drugs, and because we have pumped tons of toxins into our air, water, food supply, bodies, etc. There are many reasons why our bodies have problems. And I think God allowed the problems, but doesn't necessarily preplan/cause/ordain them. He just allows nature to run its course.]
Same with something like drinking too much. Alcohol has certain effects on the body, and so if someone drinks too much, they get drunk, behave badly, get in accidents that could maim or kill, and might die of alcohol-related complications. It's not that God preplanned/caused the tragedies they faced from their drinking; it's that He created grains to act a certain way when fermented and allowed alcohol to have certain effects on the body and then allowed people to decide how much to drink, and if they choose to drink too much, it will lead to certain consequences that didn't have to happen if only they drank less or not at all.
Same with something like having a terrible diet and not exercising. God didn't preplan/cause that person to have certain health problems. He just let them face the consequences of choosing to eat a poor diet.
If someone works with radioactive elements for a living and they die early of radiation poisoning, it's not that God deliberately gave them radiation poisoning or preplanned/caused them to die that way. It's that God gave certain qualities to radioactive elements and yet the person took the risks of handling them, and now they are facing the consequences of their choice.
So if you jump off a cliff, don't say it was "God's Will" that you fell to your death, that He "ordained" it. Instead, admit that you decided to ignore God's law of gravity and that you reaped the consequences of your choice.
God created the world with certain boundaries, natural laws, and moral laws in place, and then He lets us choose how we interact with those laws, whether we respect them or violate them. And then He lets the consequences happen, whether of our own choices or the bad choices of others. And this is far different than a God who preplans and causes every bad thing to happen exactly as it does to specific people for a specific reason.
In most situations, I believe, He lets things run their course within the boundaries and laws He set up, according to our choices and the natural processes of the (fallen) world.
And so if we honor His Word and the moral laws and natural laws He set up, things will go much better for us. But if we don't, then we take the risks that come with violating His laws, and we will have to face the consequences of our choices, consequences He didn't necessarily want or plan for us but that He allowed to happen as a result of our choices.
And sadly, we often have to deal with the consequences of other people's choices too, such as when someone chooses to hurt us. God didn't want that to happen and He set up moral laws to prevent that from happening, but He lets people have the free-will to make their own choices, even if they choose to break His laws. It's the risk of living in a free-will world.
But God had to allow people to make real free-will choices - which naturally leads to real consequences - in order to reach His goal of spending an eternity with people He loves who voluntarily love Him in return. (I think this is also why there is a hell, see "God's greatest priority (and why there's a hell)".) Creating people with the ability to choose to love/obey Him means creating people with the ability to reject/disobey Him. And sadly, that's what many people choose.
He will fix it all in the end, dish out justice, and right all wrongs - but until then, we live in a free-will world where everyone's decisions affect everyone else. And sadly, it often means pain and problems until Jesus comes back to restore all things again.
But even though God lets things run their course to a degree, I believe He's always watching over it, always deciding what to allow or not allow, always grieving over sin and hurting when we hurt, always finding ways to bring good out of what happens, and always ready and willing to step in to help whenever we call on Him in prayer, even if we're facing the painful consequences of our bad choices or the choices of others.
But I also think that He doesn't always step in to help us unless and until we call on Him in prayer, unless we invite Him to intervene and guide us and help us - because He lets us decide if we want His help or not. It's part of the free-will He gave us, the option of seeking His way, His wisdom, His guidance... or of ignoring Him and going our own way, following our own "wisdom."
He lets us ignore Him, disobey Him, and leave Him out of our lives and decisions, if that's what we choose. But He's always there, ready and willing to be called upon for His help and guidance. Because He wants to be included. He wants to guide us in the best path possible because He wants the best for us and for others, for our relationship with Him, for our eternities, and for His name and glory.
Sadly, Calvinism's belief of "everything that happens is what God wanted to happen, and nothing can change it" may cause them to - unintentionally - let whatever's going to happen happen - que sera, sera! - without them fighting back much in prayer or seeking a different way or doing their part so that God will do His. They accept whatever comes their way as "God's Will," when it really might be that they could have changed things by calling on God or following Him down a different path or resisting temptation or engaging in some serious spiritual warfare.
As John Calvin says (Institutes, book 1, chapter 17), even "prudence and folly are instruments of divine dispensation," that God either causes us to be prudent and safe or to be foolish and to bring disaster on ourselves, for His reasons.
But I say that not everything that happens is because "it was God's Will." Sometimes things happen because of our own self-chosen laziness, apathy, resignation to the circumstances, or lack of prayer. Or maybe because of our selfishness, greed, lust, jealousy, vanity, pride, anger, hatred, stupidity, ignorance, deliberate ignorance, lack of self-control, fear, disobedience, hesitation, violation of natural/moral laws, our sins or other people's sins, a breakdown in nature, demonic activity, or whatever.
(But blaming everything on "God's Will" - on "divine dispensation" - sure does make it easier to excuse ourselves from responsibility for what happens, from the consequences of our actions, and for any lack of effort, prayer, or obedience on our parts, doesn't it?)
10. And just so you know, according to the concordance, God's "Will" is about His preferred plans, what He desires to happen. It's not - as Calvinists define it - "everything that happens." It's not "Everything that happens is God's Will, what He wanted, planned, and caused to happen - and nothing different could have happened - because God always causes His Will to happen."
This fundamental error of theirs is why - in order to explain how Calvi-god can "ordain" sin and people in hell when he says he wants us to obey and wants all men to be saved - it's why Calvinists have to resort to things like "God has two Wills, you see: a spoken one (what He says He wants us to do) and an unspoken one (what He causes us to do, including sinning which violates His spoken commands). Yes, we know it sounds contradictory, but it's not. Just accept it because God is sovereign and can do what He wants, and whatever He does is good and for His glory. You don't have to understand it or like it; you just have to accept it. Who are you, O man, to talk back to God anyway? He's so far above us and our puny, human understanding. We have no right to judge Him and His ways." And other cult-ish things like that.
It's nonsense and hogwash. (And just because Calvinists say it's not contradictory doesn't make it not contradictory. A man who beats his wife while claiming that he's not beating his wife is still guilty of beating his wife.)
Biblically, God's Will is not everything that happens. His Will is what He wants for us, what He prefers to have happen. And He will guide us in it and help us in it, but He allows us to decide to follow/obey Him in it or not. And if we don't obey Him, we won't stay in His Will. His Will - what He wants us to do, what He wants for our lives, what He wants to have happen - doesn't always get done. Because we don't always do our part.
If you get this wrong - if, like a Calvinist, you believe that God always causes His Will to happen and that everything that happens is His Will, even sin - it can lead to...
... John Calvin (Institutes, book 1, chapter 16): "all things are ordered by the counsel and certain arrangement of God... produced by the will of God ... [and so if] a merchant, after entering a forest in company with trust-worthy individuals, imprudently strays from his companions and wanders bewildered till he falls into a den of robbers and is murdered, his death was not only foreseen by the eye of God, but had been fixed by his decree... The Providence of God [guided him to that end]."
... From a Soteriology 101 post called "Frustrated by the state of the world?", non-Calvinist Fromoverhere asked: "But in Calvinism, yesterday's abortion was what God wanted or it would not have happened. Simple question to you Calvinists: Were yesterday's abortions in your city what God wanted?"
The Calvinist Filemon responds with “The answer is Yes... Now using the negative logic, I ask you, ‘If God hadn’t wanted this abortion to happen, do you think it would ever have happened?’ And as evil as it is, the abortion was no more evil than the death of Jesus, which was the worst sin ever committed on earth. And I ask you, ‘Who did plan this death and who controlled everything and everybody to fulfil His plan?’"
Rhutchin (another Calvinist) affirms Filemon: “Even Fromoverhere knows that God is always present at every abortion and has the power to stop any abortion at any time. It is God’s choice to have the abortion continue, and because God chooses for the abortion to continue, we say that the abortion was God’s will. Calvinists say that God made this decision before He created the world so that it was part of His decree to create.” [A false inference Calvinists make: that because God didn't stop an evil, it means He wanted it and planned it. It's bad theology built on their bad presuppositions and incorrect definitions of things like sovereignty, God's Will, etc.]
... Fromoverhere also shares this in the comment section of the Soteriology 101 post Calvinism and Pastoral Care, demonstrating where Calvinist theology ultimately ends:
"It is a true pastoral story, summarized here:
The crying couple is in the Reformed (Calvinist) pastor’s office. She is weeping that the husband has been cheating with her sister for years. The husband confesses. The pastor says it is not good.
The husband tells the pastor that he (the pastor) has been teaching for years on the (Calvinistic) 'sovereign will of God.' God decrees/ordains/wills all things that happen.
The reformed pastor tries, in the midst of the sobbing, to explained that it was not God’s 'will of command,' even though, it must have been, hmmm, curiously enough, God’s 'ordained decree' (a bumpy few sessions, as you can imagine, with the husband reminding the pastor of previous messages).
For a Calvinist, all that has happened and will happen is directly ordained and decreed by God. As long as one holds to that position, then ultimately all sin and misery are directly the responsibility of God. Of course for 'His glory' and 'your own good' (what a thoughtful husband to do all that for his wife’s ultimate good!)."
... A Calvinist grandfather-to-be said this about his unborn grandchild (see here, and my post about it): "This is an ultrasound photo of our first grandbaby... And even though I love this baby, I know God may not and may [have] created it for damnation."
And apparently, he also said that God may have even decreed his unborn grandchild to be a mass murderer... and "God can do what He chooses to do with His creation" and "God is not ashamed of Himself so why should I be."
And he said this about God decreeing rape: “God must then direct the rapist not just who to rape but how to perform the rape and how long… Amen, but I would go even farther than that, God originated every detail in His mind from all eternity and decreed it to be so.”
But I believe that not everything that happens is what God wanted, willed, planned, caused - because He allows us to do what He doesn't want us to do and to not do what He does want us to do. God's Will doesn't always get done because He leaves it up to us to do it or not do it.
Of course, He's got ways of working even our mistakes and disobedience into His overall plans, of making something good out of it all. He can take whatever we do and work it towards His end goals. But if we disobey or fail to do what He wants/commands, if we don't seek Him in prayer and don't live by His Word, then we miss out on His first and best plans for us - because we drifted from His Will, from what He wanted/preferred us to do. (However, whenever we get off-track, He can and will find a new "good path" for us every time we repent and seek Him and choose obedience again. It will be different than what He first wanted for us, but it can still be good. A different kind of good.)
This is why prayer and obedience are so important. It makes a difference. It invites God to accomplish His Will in, through, and for us. Even though God is powerful enough to do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, all on His own, with no help from us, He has chosen to work in cooperation with mankind, with lowly humans, to get His Will/plans done. We can either work with Him, against Him, or without Him. The choice is ours. And God will let us face the consequences of our decision.
And as we all know, we can't make God do something He doesn't want to do, but there are things God is willing to do for us if and when - maybe even only when - we pray and obey. And so if we don't pray and obey, we will miss out on those things. Our job is to pray; His job is to answer.
11. And as we all know, God might - and often does - say "no" to our prayers, even desperate ones. And this can be very hard on us, maybe even devastating to us, shaking our faith in Him. But as long as we've done our part to seek Him in prayer and to obey His Word (and to make sure we don't have any unconfessed sin that's affecting things), then we can trust that He has a reason for saying "no" - that He understands the situation better and more fully than we do, that He can see the outcome (earthly and eternal) better than we can, and that He has other plans for us that we don't know yet.
We don't always know why He says "no" - and we rarely like it or understand it - but if we know Him well and have a proper understanding of Him, then we can trust Him, even in the "no" answers and broken dreams and painful trials.
[This is different than Calvinists who have to trust a god who preplanned and caused all the tragedies and suffering that they have to seek his comfort about, a god who preplanned and caused all the sins and evils that happened to them even though he commands us not to sin or do evil and he will punish us for it. If Calvinists can trust and find comfort in a god like that, then that's their problem. And sadly, they don't know what it's like to find comfort in a truly good, trustworthy, righteous God!]
I read something once from Ann Voskamp called (I think) "The White Horse Maxim," which pops into my mind now and then. And it went a little like this:
A man and his son owned a field that they farmed for a living. And one day, they found a white horse in the field, tearing up the plants.
"Oh, this is terrible. What a curse!", cried the farmer.
But then they caught the horse and tamed it and were able to use it to farm the field.
"Oh, what a blessing," said the farmer.
But then one day, the son was thrown off the horse and broke both arms and couldn't farm for months, reducing their sales and income.
"Oh, what a curse," said the farmer. "I wish this horse never came to us. Why did this happen to us, God? Why?"
But then, due to a war, the army issued a draft. But since the son had broken arms, he was excused from the draft and didn't have to fight in the war.
"Oh, what a blessing! Thank you, God, for sending this horse," praised the farmer.
The point is, of course, that we're too quick to judge the events that happen in our lives, to label them good or bad, and that we can't see things from God's perspective and don't often know why He allows what He allows. We can never know sometimes how much something is good or bad, or the ways that the bad can be turned into something good, or how God might be sparing us from a worse pain by bringing us a smaller pain or by saying "no" to a prayer or dream we have.
So let's not be too quick to judge what happens in our lives or to throw in the towel or to speak against or judge God. I bet that in eternity, we'll see the big picture about the hard times we went through and we'll say, "Ah, now I understand! Thank you, God, for handling it Your way, instead of mine. I just wish I trusted You more while I was going through it. It would've spared me a lot of heartache."
[Can I share some things I've learned during the hardest times, about what should come after you've poured out your pain and doubts and anger to God honestly, but respectfully?
At the end of it all - even if you're still hurting and freaking out and not sure if you really trust Him - the best thing you can do is to say out loud, every day if need be, "I trust You, God, no matter what. Help me trust You. I believe, Lord; help my unbelief." (One of my favorite Bible verses, so real and raw and rich with meaning.)
When you don't feel like praising Him is when you most need to find things to praise Him for. And I don't say this for His sake, but for yours. For ours.
And one more: "When you least feel singing is when you need to sing the most. So sing anyway."]
Our part is to pour out our hearts to God in prayer - our hopes, dreams, plans, needs, prayer requests, praise, and confession of sin - and to live by His Word and to obey whatever He says. His part is to answer and guide and work it all out as He sees best. And as long as we're doing our part, we can trust that He'll do His, and that He'll do it right, giving us the best answer and guiding us in the best path, as long as we follow Him.
If we are living by prayer, His Word, and obedience, then we can trust that we are safe in His Will for us, even if there's still pain and trials.
But if we are not living by prayer and His Word and in obedience, then we cannot blame what happens on "His Will." Because it's not what He wanted for us. He wanted obedience, but we chose disobedience or ignorance. And so He allowed what He didn't want, the consequences of our choices that He wanted to spare us from, that we would've been spared from if only we had prayed and obeyed.
We have an effect on whether or not God's Will gets done by us and in our lives. We cannot thwart His overall plans because He can find ways to work even our disobedience into His plans, or if we won't obey, He can find someone else who will. But we will affect the part we play in His plans, in getting His Will done, and we will create consequences in our own lives (and eternities) based on our choices.
God has plans - great plans - for our lives and mankind, and He invites us to come along with Him, to follow Him in it, to be a part of it. But He leaves it up to us to decide if we want to or not. And we'll reap the consequences of our decisions.
Can you see why it's so important to - as much as we can - have an accurate view of God, of how He works and interacts with us, of what He expects from us, of what our responsibilities are, etc.? And it's much, much different than Calvinism's "Everything that happens is God's Will, foreordained and caused by God."
But don't just take my word about all this. Take off the Calvinist glasses and research it for yourself, reading the Bible straight through from beginning to end, and then beginning to end again, to see for yourself how God interacts with people and responds to our choices and what He expects from us. Pray that God helps you understand His Word and truth as much as you can, and then you'll see.
[But be careful, Calvinist wives, about what books or resources you read in front of your husbands, especially if he follows Calvinist Joel Webbon (Right Response Ministries, see Faith on Fire's video "Pulpit Narcissism vs. Godly Women"): "Husbands, be very vigilant with your wives and what they are reading and what they are listening to... one of the primary and most common ways that good, godly women get derailed is women's Bible studies. They go to a study without men. And a woman is teaching this study, and she is not only teaching but also being taught... and little by little by little, the study is not sound. It's not faithful to the Scripture. And the husband thinks he's doing his duty because he's outsourced his wife's theological education. There are certain books that I just had to say (to my wife), 'Hey, I don't know if this is a bad book, but I don't have time to read it, and so you're not going to read it either."]
12. A sidenote: To "prove" their idea that God controls everything we do, that everything is His Will because He controls us to do His Will, even if it means "ordaining" us to sin, Calvinists will use a verse like Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases"
But... here's the thing... Proverbs was never meant to be hard-core, literal, bottom-line theology. Proverbs are principles, not promises. Proverbs are wise sayings and practical advice, not hard-core doctrinal truths on which to build beliefs about God, faith, salvation, etc. or through which to filter the rest of the Bible (more unbiblical stretches).
And so when Calvinists use a Proverb as hard-core, literal, bottom-line theology, then you tell them that they can't pick and choose which Proverb to do that with, but that they must do it with all of Proverbs, including "and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony" (Proverbs 23:2) and "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife" (Proverbs 21:9) and "Punish [your child] with the rod and save his soul from death" (Proverbs 23:14, which - if Calvinists take Proverbs as literal theological teaching - would have to mean that salvation comes not just through Jesus but also through beating your child with a rod).
And when they use the Proverb about God directing the heart of the king to "prove" their idea that God controls the thoughts and actions of all people, then you point out to them that if they want to take that verse literally, then they have to admit that God only directs the heart of the king - and no one else - because that's what it literally says.
13. I shared these earlier, but I recommend these sermons from Dr. Tony Evans to get a better, biblical idea of how God acts and what He expects from people:
"How to get your prayers answered" - where he teaches a biblically-accurate view of God's "two Wills," unlike Calvinism's contradictory "two Wills" which says that God says one thing but causes the opposite. Dr. Evans says that God has an Unconditional Will about some things (the things He decided to do regardless of us), and He has a Conditional Will about other things (the things He decided to do but only in response to what we choose, only if we do our part first). His Conditional Will is where we get the "if you...then..." verses from, such as "If you obey, then I will bless you" and "If you believe, then I will save you." God has decided that there are some things He will do for us only on the condition that we do our part first. And anyone can. He promises certain things, but leaves it up to us to decide if we want to fulfill or not fulfill the conditions to get those promises. And this is how it is with salvation. He promises to save anyone who puts their faith in Jesus - and anyone can - but He leaves it up to us to decide if we want to do that or not.
And "Connecting with God for a breakthrough" - about how important prayer (and obedience) is because God doesn't always intervene in our circumstances unless we want Him to and call on Him. God has set certain natural laws in motion in the world and has given mankind a certain level of dominion and autonomy. And though God can intervene any time He wants to, He doesn't always, or even often, intervene unless called upon. This totally contradicts the Calvinist idea that God meticulously controls everything and that everything happens exactly as God preplanned it to.
(Also see my post "Understanding God's Will, with notes on Calvinism" for similar things.)
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And now, moving on from the bulk of my comments to the bulk of the Calvinist quotes, showing you Calvinism in its full glory.
(And you thought you were almost done, that you already read the bulk of the Calvinist quotes. Oh, no, we're just getting started.)
