"But predestination!" (16B: sin, evil, suffering)
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 B (I broke #16 up into two halves, so picking up where we left off in the last post...)
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.)
Quotes about God "ordaining" everything (for His glory), even sin, evil, suffering, and unbelief, and yet holding us responsible for it:
1. John Calvin (Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 1, chapters 16-17, emphasis added):
"everything done in the world is according to His decree"
“Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined… Men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction.”
"the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how much soever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as [God] permits - nay, unless in so far as he commands"
"Therefore, since God claims for himself the right of governing the world, a right unknown to us, let it be our law of modesty and soberness to acquiesce in his supreme authority regarding his will as our only rule of justice, and the most perfect cause of all things..." [So, clearly, according to Calvin/Calvinism, it's humble to say God causes all things, which would include sin and evil.]
2. From a Ligonier Ministries' conversation between Calvinists ["How is God's sovereignty compatible with man's responsibility?"]: "We have to understand that God is sovereign over all. He orchestrates all things. He foreordains all things that come to pass. Yet He also tells us that He is neither the author nor the approver of sin. God is almighty over all and sovereign over all, yet God doesn't tempt us." [Well, sure, Calvi-god doesn't have to tempt us to sin when he's given us a sin-nature full of sinful desires that we were predestined - by him - to obey. If someone gives you a magic potion that causes you to irresistibly want to kill every chipmunk you see with a hammer - and so you must kill every chipmunk you see with a hammer - then they don't also have to forcibly make you chase the chipmunks and swing a hammer at them. Because the potion they gave you does it for them. Also, Calvinism's "God foreordains all sins but doesn't author them" makes no sense. To say that people authored their own sins means that they wrote their sins before Calvi-god knew about them, but this would be a denial of Calvinism's "foreordination." It's too contradictory to make any sense. And it's merely a pathetic attempt to absolve Calvi-god of responsibility for our sins.]
3. John Calvin (quoted in various online sources): “God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.”
4. John MacArthur (Romans 9-16, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary): "God demonstrates His attributes for the sake of His own glory. Without sin, God's wrath would never be on display. Without sinners to redeem, God's grace would never be on display. Without evil to punish, God's justice would never be on display. And He has every right to put Himself everlastingly on display in all the glory of His attributes." [As I pointed out earlier, in Calvinism, God needs sin and sinners in order to be fully appreciated as God, to fully demonstrate Himself as God, and to be fully glorified. So then He must have been lacking in His "God-ness" and glory before sinners came along, right? Calvinism makes God's "God-ness" and glory dependent on humans, on sin. What kind of a God is that!?! And it's very "man-centered, man-elevating," despite the Calvinist's insistence that Calvinism is "God-centered, God-elevating." And look how MacArthur makes such a twisted theology that damages God's righteous character seem so God-honoring, so humble. To me, that's a sign of a well-crafted demonic lie.]
5. Richard Blaylock (Founders Ministries, "Reprobation and the Second London Confession"): "Reprobation refers to God’s eternal decree to refrain from providing saving grace to particular fallen individuals and to harden these in their willful sins so that they might be justly condemned and God’s glorious justice might be made manifest."
6. R.C. Sproul Jr. (Almighty Over All): “God wills all things that come to pass… God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin… We cannot imagine God looking at His wrath like unwanted pounds He wants to lose, if only He had the power. No, God is as delighted with His wrath as He is with all of His attributes. Suppose He says, ‘What I’ll do is create something worthy of my wrath, something on which I can exhibit the glory of my wrath...’” [Yes, God did create something to exhibit the "glory of His wrath," if that's what Calvinists want to call it: Jesus's human body to crucify in our place. Not non-elect people. “God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26)]
7. Ligonier Ministries ("Vessels of destruction"): "As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we affirm the biblical view of providence that affirms the world is governed by God’s sovereign ordination (Eph. 1:11). The length of our lives, the color of our hair, your reading of this magazine, and everything else that ever happens was decreed by God.... Those things that God has ordained include also the eternal salvation of His people, thus leaving the rest of mankind eternally damned.... How can God be just and yet punish some people if their wickedness and condemnation is foreordained?... As the Creator, God has the right to do with His creation as He pleases [meaning "So shut up and don't challenge us on this"]. God is just and His glory is manifested in punishing those whom He has ordained to do evil...."
[In Calvinism, God's sovereignty and providence means that He preplans, controls, determines, causes everything, even our decisions, sins, and whether we believe in Him or not. In Calvinism, the only way God's plans can work out is if He meticulously controls it all, allowing for no other factors but Himself to influence or affect anything.
But notice how differently (read carefully!) Dr. Tony Evans, whose theological views I trust, defines those words in The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (pg 22): "The sovereignty of God means that he exercises his prerogative to do whatever he pleases with his creation. His providence is the outworking of God's eternal plan for mankind and all of his creation. Providence is the invisible and mysterious hand of God at work in the details of history to bring to pass his sovereign will. God's providence includes every part of creation, from the inanimate world to individuals to entire nations. In his righteous, wise, and loving providence, God is bringing to pass his eternal purposes for his glory and our eternity."
He's saying that God does what He pleases, not that everything that happens does so because God was pleased to do it. He's saying that God has plans, not the God planned everything. He's saying that God accomplishes His plans (especially eternal ones) by working in and through all parts of His creation over history, weaving it all together to lead it in the direction He wants it to go, to end up where He wants it to end up, not that God preplans and controls everything and everyone.
"God causes all things to work together to accomplish what He planned" is far different than Calvinism's "God preplans, causes, and controls all things." Can you hear the difference?]
8. John MacArthur and Phil (Divine Providence: The Supreme Comfort of a Sovereign God):
PHIL: ...Is God equally in control over evil things as He is over everything else?
JOHN: Well of course; He controls everything. He’s in complete control of evil. [Remember, a Calvinist's "in control" really means "controlling."] The devil is God’s devil; he’s totally controlled by God. [See what I mean!] The world is controlled by God. Every single movement, as R.C. said, of every molecule is controlled by God, and a whole lot of it is evil. But if He didn’t control that, then it wouldn’t do any good to control only the good part because you’d be overwhelmed by the evil." [MacArthur is ultimately saying that if God didn't control all evil then it would overwhelm Him, that He's not powerful enough to manage, hold back, or resist evil that He doesn't cause/control. So much for their "big-God theology" that they love bragging about!]
9. John MacArthur ("Why does God allow so much suffering?"): "He's absolutely in charge of everything. Everything. He controls everything... He is governing history in every minute detail. There's not one molecule in the universe that's out of line with His purposes.
... So, while liberal theology and assorted other so-called evangelicals [hear the insult, discrediting those who don't see it his way] feel desperately the need to rescue God from [being the cause of evil and suffering], God is quite content to make it clear that He is, in fact, unhesitatingly sovereign over everything that exists, without a hint of reluctance. He's not asking to be rescued from bad press that's fallen upon Him because He's been blamed for all the bad things that are in the world... He's content to leave the responsibility for evil's existence and even its action, with Himself... God wills evil to exist.
... Again, and again, God takes full responsibility for the existence of evil unfolding in this world. Now, at this point, panic strikes the heart of Arminians. Their eyes roll back in their heads. They become short of breath, and they go into a rapid heart rate. Their palms become sweaty. [He's deliberately mocking and insulting those who disagree with him, painting them in an unflattering light.]
They were okay with evil exists, and they were okay with God exists. They were even okay with God is sovereign. As long you limit His sovereign power or His sovereign knowledge. [Non-Calvinists (I'm not Arminian, but I am non-/anti-Calvinist) don't limit God's sovereignty. We just think that He gets to decide how He operates within His sovereign position, that He can choose to give people free-will if He wants to, and that He doesn't have to preplan/cause everything, even sin, in order to be sovereign, as Calvinism teaches.]
... The panic hits them because they just can't let God be held responsible for evil, and they want to save God from a fate worse than death - being responsible for the existence of evil in the world. [And why shouldn't it panic us to hear Calvinists teach that God preplans/causes all the evil that He commands us not to do and punishes us for? If that doesn't panic you, then you don't really understand what's at stake and what it does to God's righteous character and trustworthiness.]
Now, how do they go about doing this? Well, they reinvent God. And you have to understand that this is a diminished God.
... [The Westminster Confession says that] all that God decrees and providentially brings to pass is all to the praise of His glory. Therefore, the existence of evil is, in the end, to the praise of His glory. [It has got to be the epitome of satanic to twist truth so badly that you make evil glorify God. God can be glorified in spite of evil, but Calvi-god is glorified by evil. And that's a big difference!]... The reason God ordained evil is for His glory. We praise Him because of what He has done to overcome evil. [Uhh, so we praise Him for overcoming the evil that He first preplanned us to do, then commanded us not to do, then caused us to do anyway, then punishes us for!?!]
... We worship you, Lord, with thanksgiving. These things, in many ways, are simple to understand and yet mysterious to us... Demonstrate forever Your glory, through allowing evil in this world [a deceptive use of "allowing"] and through triumphing through it [the evil He supposedly "ordained"]..."
10. Erwin Lutzer (this quote was found at Examining Calvinism): "Calvinists pointedly admit that God ordains evil - that is consistent with both the Bible and logic. In ordinary discussions about human events, we can say that God permitted evil, as long as we understand that he thereby willed that the evil happen... In a word, what God permits, he ordains." (The Doctrines That Divide, pg. 210)
Is there any doubt that Calvinists really mean that God preplans/causes/controls all the sins and evil in the world (while at the same time trying to deny that it's what they mean, to obscure or sugarcoat it)?
Calvinists will - with a straight face and all sincerity - say "God ordains sin, but He is the not the author/cause of sin," as if it's not a contradiction. As if it makes sense. As if "God authors/causes sin" is not exactly what their theology teaches at the end of it all.
The Westminster Confession of Faith: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin."
Calvinists will insist that God didn't "author/cause" our sins but that we did... and so He can justly hold us responsible for it... even though He (in Calvinism) preplanned/orchestrated/controlled/directed all our sins, and we had no choice, ability, or option to do anything differently.
[Listen to Calvinists sometime when they talk about their "hard teachings" and "dreadful doctrines." You'll often hear "Well, the Westminster Confessions says..." or "John MacArthur says..." or "Sproul or Piper or Grudem or Pink or Calvin or Spurgeon or whoever says..." Blah, blah, blah. Trying to get you to accept their terrible ideas by hitching them to a famous name. But I don't care what these people say about how they interpret the Bible. I care what the Bible says.]
11. John Calvin, (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God): "But the objection is not yet resolved, that if all things are done by the will of God, and men contrive nothing except by His will and ordination, then God is the author of all evils... [however] God may be free of guilt in doing the very thing that He condemns in Satan and the reprobate and which is to be condemned by men... Hence, since the criminal misdeeds by men proceed from God with a cause that is just, though perhaps unknown to us, though the first cause of all things is His will, I nevertheless deny that He is the author of sin. [Deny it all you want, Johnny, but it's what your theology undeniable teaches, no matter how you try to spin or soften it.] ... What I have maintained about the diversity of causes must not be forgotten: the proximate cause is one thing, the remote cause another... For what man wickedly perpetrates, incited by ambition or avarice or lust or some other depraved motive, since God does it by His hand with a righteous though perhaps hidden purpose - this cannot be equated with the term sin. Sin in man is made by perfidy, cruelty, pride, intemperance, envy, blind love of self, any kind of depraved lust. Nothing like this is to be found in God."
All Calvin is saying here is that what's sin for man and Satan is not sin for God because He doesn't have our sin nature. So Calvi-god can do any kind of and amount of evil he wants - the same kinds and amounts we do, that Satan does - but it can never be considered evil for him (only for us and Satan) because he doesn't have our sin nature. Calvi-god's actions - even ones that would be considered evil if done by us or Satan - flow from his (supposedly) good character and pure motives, not bad ones like we and Satan have. Therefore, whatever Calvi-god does is good, even if it's the same evil things we and Satan do. ("Good" loses all meaning when it's used to excuse evil, when the line between good and evil is erased.)
12. John MacArthur would agree (Doctrine of Election, part 1): "... The pervasive notion of these skeptics and critics of this doctrine is that somehow election is unfair. Somehow it is unjust. But first of all, we want to make it very clear that God is not to be measured by our understanding of what is just... God has ways and thoughts that are to us incomprehensible, unresolvable, inscrutable... It is an essential understanding of God that he is holy, that his nature is holy, that he is infinitely and perfectly just, that he is morally flawless and perfect, that he is perfection. Everything in him and of him and for him and from him and by him is perfect. And so whatever he says is just is what justice is. [But the problem isn't what God says is just, but it's what Calvinists say is just. And that's very different!]... And whatever it is that he wills is by definition just because he is just. [Which is how Calvinists can excuse any evil thing Calvi-god does.] It is just because he wills it. It is not because he sees that it is just that he wills it, it is that he wills it and then it becomes just. [And so, therefore, it's just for Calvi-god to will anything he wants to, even murder and abuse and unbelief. It's not that he does what's just, but it's that whatever he does is just, just because he does it.]
... And I have often said, if you believe the Bible, you believe in predestination... in God choosing who would be saved....
[But the objection is] if this is all determined by divine choice before anybody’s ever born... then how can he find fault with anybody? How can you blame me if I don’t believe? How am I supposed to resist his sovereign and eternal will?
That’s a fairly reasonable response, wouldn’t you think? And this is the bone that people always choke on in the doctrine of election. And Paul anticipated it [and] gives an amazing response, 'Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?' Shut your mouth. That doesn’t clarify anything. Who do you think you are? Are you accusing God of unjust punishment of sinners? Are you accusing God of unjust condemnation? Are you accusing God of evil? You better close your mouth before you say anything else....
Don’t you dare question God. God’s the potter, you’re the clay. The clay is so far beneath the potter. It is inanimate dirt. It has no right to even entertain the idea of speaking to the potter... So what if God wants to demonstrate his wrath? Doesn’t he have a right to demonstrate his wrath? Isn’t that part of his glory? Can’t he put his wrath on display? He is God. Can’t God make his power known in his judgment, in his wrath, in his condemnation?
Yes he can.... God has every right to demonstrate his wrath [through reprobating the non-elect to hell], and he is as much glorified in his wrath as he is in his mercy."
Therefore - think about it, because this is what it's really teaching - God can predestine us to beat others to death, have affairs, and rape children, but He can't be held responsible for it, only us. It's only evil for us to do these things because we have sin-natures full of bad motives, but it's okay for Him to cause us to do these things because He doesn't have our sin-nature, because He does it with a good nature full of pure motives. That is what Calvin and Calvinism are really teaching, that our motives and nature determine if what we do is sin or not.
"God may be free of guilt in doing the very thing that He condemns in Satan and the reprobate and which is to be condemned by men... Hence, since the criminal misdeeds by men proceed from God with a cause that is just... I nevertheless deny that He is the author of sin... For what man wickedly perpetrates, incited by ambition or avarice or lust or some other depraved motive, since God does it by His hand with a righteous though perhaps hidden purpose - this cannot be equated with the term sin. Sin in man is made by perfidy, cruelty, pride, intemperance, envy, blind love of self, any kind of depraved lust. Nothing like this is to be found in God." (Calvin)
13. And notice that to further excuse God from being responsible for sin (in Calvinism), Calvin goes on to talk about the idea of two causes for sin (proximate and remote): "What I have maintained about the diversity of causes must not be forgotten: the proximate cause is one thing, the remote cause another."
What he's saying is that even though God remotely causes, ordains, preplans, orchestrates, directs our sins, we are responsible for them since we actually did them. This is like saying that the robot who bombed a village is responsible for killing all those people, instead of the programmer who programmed the robot to do it.
Nonsense and hogwash!!!
But Calvinists have many ways of trying to get us to accept their idea that we are truly responsible for what Calvi-god "ordains," even acting like it's supremely humble and God-honoring to have no idea how this is possible but to accept it anyway.
[I believe that most of Calvinism's thousands and thousands of pages of writing is merely their attempt to deny what they know deep down: that Calvinism does indeed teach that God authors/causes/controls all sin and evil and that authoring/causing/controlling all sin and evil would make Him an evil, untrustworthy God. This is why their systematic theology books are so long, wordy, convoluted, and contradictory. It's why they have to come up with so many rambling, confusing, nonsensical arguments - to try to convince others and themselves that they're not teaching what they're teaching.]
14. From my pastor's July 2023 sermon on Hosea: "[The minor prophets emphasize] God's sovereignty, His absolute reign and jurisdiction, His ordaining of all things that come to pass, for His glory, over the nations, over rulers, over world events, and over our lives, that God foreordains anything that comes to pass for the good of His people and for His glory... [and yet later he contradictorily says:] Our choices have consequences. Your choices on a daily basis are very real. You are accountable for your choices, and they have consequences...and you will be morally accountable to God for your choices."
15. Charles Spurgeon ("A Defense of Calvinism"): "That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent or contradictory to each other. If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is fore-ordained, that is true; and if I find, in another Scripture, that man is responsible for all his actions, that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths can ever contradict each other. I do not believe they can be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be in eternity. They are two lines that are so neatly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth doth spring." ["So believe it now, in spite of all the red flags, and find out after you're dead if you were right or not."]
16. Vincent Cheung (The Problem of Evil, emphasis added): "…man is morally responsible even if he lacks moral ability; that is, man must obey God even if he cannot obey God. It is sinful for a person to disobey God whether or not he has the ability to do otherwise. Thus moral responsibility is not grounded on moral ability or on free will; rather, moral responsibility is grounded on God's sovereignty – man must obey God's commands because God says that man must obey, and whether or not he has the ability to obey is irrelevant...
Scripture teaches that God's will determines everything. Nothing exists or happens without God, not merely permitting, but actively willing it to exist or happen … God controls not only natural events, but he also controls all human affairs and decisions…
God controls everything that is and everything that happens. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power… God decreed evil ultimately for his own glory, although it is not necessary to know or to state this reason to defend Christianity from the problem evil… Although the evil we are speaking of is indeed negative, the ultimate end, which is the glory of God, is positive."
17. Tom Hicks (Founders Ministries, "The Nature of God's Eternal Decree"): "The twin truths that God decrees sin but is not the author of sin must be held together in tension. The [Second London Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689] affirms both because the Bible teaches both, but it does not attempt to reconcile them completely... An 'author of sin' is the person who actually commits the sin. [Um, no! The author writes it, the actors act it out.]... God is not a sinner, though we might ask questions about how this could be, given that God decrees sin. But the Scriptures do not tell us. While we may not know the answer to that question, we can confidently rest with assurance that God does know. ["Believe what we tell you now, gullible little sheep, and wait until you're dead for it to make sense." How convenient!] ... When human beings choose freely, the confession says they have the ability to choose other than what they chose... God decrees contingent things without imposing any necessity upon them. His decree renders contingent things certain but not necessary. In the case of sin, human beings can always choose otherwise, but God’s decree makes their choice certain.
... But the confession denies that God’s decree depends on knowledge conditioned by the future free choices of human agents. Rather, God’s knowledge of the future depends on God’s decree alone. God knows the future because He decrees the future." [So then tell me again, Calvinist, how even though God decrees everything that happens ahead of time, He is not the author of sin and we could have made different choices!?! 'Cuz I still don't get it.]
18. Mayhue and Johnson and John MacArthur ("Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation")
Mayhue: "... And the other thing that people stumble over: If God is sovereign, and He is, if He predestined, and He did, if He elected, and He did, and if man is responsible, and they are, then how do you reconcile that? [Calvinists can't reconcile this because they have terrible, unbiblical definitions of God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. You can't reconcile or make sense of hogwash.]... the Bible doesn't tell us this. It tells that God's sovereign, man is responsible, when we get to heaven he'll tell us something else that'll make sense." [Once again: "Accept the terrible, contradictory things we say now, and wait until you're dead for it to make sense."]
... Johnson: "Well, you have to understand that our responsibility is not limited by our ability. Scriptures commands us to do a lot of things that we are morally incapable of doing. [And yet, he lists only one, the "be perfect" verse.]... So the fact that our ability is limited does not limit our responsibility... And it is the duty of all to believe, to trust Christ, to repent. And yet, they don't have the moral ability unless God gives it to them..."
... Mayhue: "... No matter where you go, God is sovereign, God's determinative; man is responsible, and man participates with his will. But he doesn't have free will to determine, and he doesn't have free will to override."
MacArthur: "So that even a believer is responsible for his own failures and sins, but gets no credit for doing what is right."
[Although Calvinists use the "be perfect" verse (Matthew 5:48) to support their idea of "See, God commands us to do things He knows we can never do and so, likewise, He commands unregenerated people to believe even though He knows they can never do it on their own"... the "be perfect" verse is not about doing everything perfectly or never making a mistake or never sinning. According to the concordance (Strongs 5046), it's about spiritual maturity. And it's even translated as maturity in other verses about people. So it's not about doing everything exactly right or never sinning (something we cannot do), but it's about growing in spiritual maturity until the end (something we can do).]
Biblically, God can and does put people in situations that make them decide to act out the evil in their hearts so that He can deal with it, discipline it, and work it into His plans, but He does not put the evil in their hearts or force them to choose it or give them no way out. He simply puts them in situations that force them to make their decisions - what He foreknew they would do, not what He preplanned, forced, caused them to do. This is how God can use sin and evil in His plans but not be responsible for it.
But that's not what happens in Calvinism. In Calvinism, God preplans our sin and evil and then makes sure we are born with only the desire to do the sin and evil He preplanned us to do, giving us no ability to change our desires, and then He orchestrates things so that we have to do it, and then He punishes us for doing it - even though we had no ability to choose otherwise, by His decree.
But yeah, sure, we're responsible.
19. From a Ligonier Ministries transcript of a Calvinist conversation ["How is God's sovereignty compatible with man's responsibility?"]:
Parsons: "We have to understand that God is sovereign over all. He orchestrates all things. He foreordains all things that come to pass. Yet He also tells us that He is neither the author nor the approver of sin. God is almighty over all and sovereign over all, yet God doesn't tempt us.
We have to understand at the outset that God's sovereignty and man's responsibility are not apparent contradictions. They are not against one another. I wouldn't even suggest that they are in tension, because God ordains the ends of all things as well as the means of those ends. He ordains prayer. [And therefore, the lack of prayer too.] He ordains evangelism [and lack of evangelism]. He ordains our works, our deeds, what we do, what we say, what we believe, and the ends of those things. He ordains both. That is not a contradiction. These things are working together according to God's perfect plan for His glory and according to His good will.
... He is sovereign. We are responsible. He is ultimately sovereign over all things. We are penultimately responsible for that which He calls us to be responsible."
Thomas: "... Clearly, there is something called 'divine sovereignty' and 'human free agency.' We're not robots. We're not automatons. We are responsible creations who make moral choices. [Notice that he says "responsible creations who make moral choices," not "free creatures who make free-will choices," which is how we might interpret it. So what he's really doing is denying free-will and saying that we are creatures who make choices about moral issues - choices that Calvi-god predetermined us to make - and yet we will be held responsible for those choices, as if they were truly voluntary and as if we could've chosen something else. Calvinists are often very careful with the words they use, wanting it to sound one way while meaning it another.]
We don't have free will in the sense that you can choose all the good that's out there. We are, by nature, totally depraved, but we do have free agency for which we are morally responsible. [Translation: "Totally-depraved people can only choose sin, but they will be held responsible for it, even though they couldn't choose anything else."]... it has been important to Reformed theology to emphasize free agency and moral responsibility such that we are responsible for sanctification, for growth and advancement in the Christian life, and to accept the free offer of the gospel, but we cannot do so apart from God's sovereign prevenient grace in us..."
Parsons: "... One of the things I've noticed over the years is that when men and women, younger and older, come to understand the sovereignty of God, sometimes they fall into a trap.
It happens like this: they understand that God is ultimately the One orchestrating all things. He is permitting, but He is permitting 'not by a bare permission' as the Westminster Confession states. God is working in and orchestrating through different causes, but sometimes people develop a bad theology where it's almost as if they blame God for their own sin. [Because they understand that that's exactly what Calvinism essentially teaches when you get past all the ways Calvinists try to hide it, soften it, sugarcoat it, or deny it.] We can fall into that trap, and that is the devil's trap for us. We can sometimes think that God is responsible for our sin and that He is the One to blame for it. [So Calvinism covertly teaches the heretical idea that God causes sin... but then they accuse us of falling into the "devil's trap" when we expose it for what it is. Clever. Smooth. Satanic. Cult-like gaslighting, shaming, and manipulation.]
We must understand very clearly that God does not approve of our sin. [Calvi-god doesn't approve of the sin he ordains? Strange.] Does God sovereignly, in some mysterious way, permit us to sin (though not by a bare permission)? Absolutely. That does not mean he is the author or approver of sin. We cannot blame Him for our sins of omission or commission, what we do or what we fail to do. I know that sounds obvious, but it's a trap that many people fall into, especially when they're newer to Reformed theology." [Well, of course - because those who are new to Reformed theology have heard enough of it to understand what Calvinism is really teaching and to see that it contradicts the plain teachings of the Bible as they've always understood it to be until this point, but they're still too new to have yet been fully manipulated into silencing their red flags and shamed into accepting the things they know don't sound right. It takes time to accomplish that.]
20. A.W. Pink in Doctrine of Election: "Arminians contend that to affirm God has unalterably decreed and fixed the history and destiny of every man, would be to demolish human accountability, that in such a case man would be no better than a machine. They insist that man's will must be free, free equally unto good and evil, or otherwise he would cease to be a moral agent. They argue that unless a person's actions are without compulsion, and are in accordance with his own desires and inclinations, he could not be justly held responsible for them.
From this premise the conclusion is drawn that it is the creature and not the Creator who chooses and decides his eternal destiny, for if his acts are self-determined, they cannot be divinely determined. Such an objection is really a descent into the dark regions of philosophy and metaphysics, a specious attempt of the Enemy to lead us away from the realm of divine revelation. So long as we abide by the Holy Scriptures, we are safe, but as soon as we resort to reasoning upon spiritual matters we are certain to err." [He doesn't actually address the dilemma at all. He just builds up and tears down other arguments about other things, and then says that you are straying from Scripture into philosophy if you question his view.]
... Man is a moral agent, acting according to the desires and dictates of his nature: he is at the same time a creature, fully controlled and determined by his Creator... Absolute necessity and human responsibility are, therefore, perfectly compatible, whether we can perceive their consistency or not." [Translation: "It's compatible just because we say it is."]
21. John Piper, in this article, tries to make the case that even though God (in Calvinism) predestines people to be non-believers, they still get real invitations to be saved: "God's final and decisive governance of all things, including who comes to faith, is compatible - it fits - with all humans being morally accountable to God for whether they believe or not.
... Therefore, my response to Leslie's statement - that many people are created with no chance of ever being saved - is to say that everyone is being wooed and invited by God every day, either through natural revelation...or through conscience, or they're being wooed and invited by gospel truth. These revelations of God are their chance to be saved. It is a real invitation."
22. Got Questions (in "Who are the elect of God?"): "Critics have claimed that [the Augustinian view of election] robs man of his free will... [I]f God elects according to His sovereign will, then how can we be responsible for our actions?... A good passage to answer these questions is Romans 9...'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion'. [This answers nothing. It's just "Shut up and accept it."] God is sovereign over His creation. He is free to choose those whom He will choose, and He is free to pass by those whom He will pass by. The creature has no right to accuse the Creator of being unjust. The very thought that the creature can stand in judgment of the Creator is absurd to Paul, and it should be so to every Christian, as well.
... Both predestination and personal responsibility are true—God is completely in control, and humanity makes choices and is completely accountable for those choices. The Bible does not present these as irreconcilable truths (as theological traditions sometimes do)... If God is great enough to be the Creator of all, then He is not stumped by the mutual existence of His sovereignty and human volition, choice, and responsibility."
23. Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology, pg. 331): "... 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 does not tell us...how it can be that God holds us accountable for what he ordains to come to pass."
24. As Amanda Farmer's Calvinist pastor ridiculously asks, "'I want to ask you [Amanda] one last question,' Joshua focuses on the issue of moral responsibility. 'Why do you so strongly insist that ‘one must have a free choice in order to be morally responsible’?'” (I also quote this in my review of her book.)
25. John MacArthur in "Twin Truths: God's Sovereignty and Man's Responsibility":
"How could we [make the idea of man's responsibility for his choices square with the idea of] divine sovereignty in salvation. How do those things come together?
They don’t. I say it again, they are parallel truths, they are both true. I’ve been around a long time and I have seen every imaginable, every conceivable effort to harmonize those things done by people, well-intentioned people, very gifted people, well-known preachers, theologians, writers, commentators who tried to harmonize it. Anybody whoever tries to harmonize those two things destroys one or the other of them, or both of them. You can’t change them, you can't tamper with them. You must be content to believe them both.
Now how can I help you to deal with that? I can’t harmonize it. I can’t bring it all together. I can’t solve your dilemma. I can’t answer the apparent paradox. So what am I left with? I want to make you comfortable with your inability not to get it. Okay? That’s my objective, okay? I just want you to be completely happy that you don’t get it. Okay? Just put you to rest, stop fighting that. That’s where we’re going today. I want you to be comfortable with the fact that, wow, you just might not understand something. I know that’s a big pill to swallow because of human pride, but get over it and be content not to get it.
Now I want you to understand that when the Bible deals with these things, it doesn’t explain itself... These things are stated in Scripture as parallel realities and never really explained or harmonized because they both exist. And the fact that we can’t understand them leaves us with one option, and that is to believe them both and be content with that.
... The first thing to acknowledge is this, what God knows and what God understands is vastly beyond us. It is at a depth we cannot fathom. In fact, he says, how unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways.
Can you take the instruction from that? You cannot understand these two things and how they harmonize in the mind of God. You never will understand them in this life. They are unsearchable and unfathomable. There are plenty of people who would like to give God a little advice and their idea of harmonizing these. But the problem is in verse 34, 'Who knows the mind of the Lord and who became His counselor.' Do you think God’s waiting for you to give Him some hints on how He can simplify? Who do you think you are? You don’t know the mind of the Lord. You can’t even come close. You’re not going to counsel Him.
Furthermore, in verse 35, He’s not obligated to you to give you any more information than you have. 'Who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to Him again.' Do you think God owes you something? You think He owes you an explanation? No, in the end, 'from Him, through Him, to Him are all things, we put them there and we leave them there. To Him be the glory forever, Amen.'
Now, I did all that, said all that, took you through all that so that when we start to look at the role that faith plays, you’re going to be at peace and at rest as you think about that in comparison to the wonderful section on regeneration, the work, the divine work of God.
... Father, thank You for our time this morning, as we have grappled in our minds with these things—some of us for a long time—and perhaps not understood how marvelous and how wondrous these realities are. And how the very reality that they’re beyond us speaks of their divine character [demonically-clever]... Amen."
26. A.W. Pink (Doctrine of Election) talks about the doctrine of election being such a mystery, so lofty and beyond our understanding (manipulation! gaslighting!), that "we should fully expect to find much that transcends the grasp of our poor earth-bound minds. What was the use of God communicating to us only that which we already knew? Nor are the Scriptures given to us as a field on which reason may be exercised: what they require are faith and obedience... The holy Word of God does not come to us craving acceptance at the bar of human reason. Instead, it demands that human reason surrender itself to its divine authority and receive unmurmuringly its inerrant contents.
... The supreme act of right reason, my reader, is to submit unreservedly unto divine wisdom, and accept with childlike simplicity the revelation which God has graciously given us. Any other, any different attitude thereto, is utterly unreasonable—the derangement of pride.
... But just because God's Word is addressed to faith, there is much in it which is contrary to nature, much that is most mysterious, much that leaves us wondering. Faith must be tested—to prove its genuineness. And God delights to honor faith: though His Word be not written to satisfy curiosity, and though many questions are not there fully answered, yet the more faith be exercised, the fuller is the light granted... We must therefore expect to find in the Bible much that strikes us as strange... Is it not, then, most unreasonable to reject the truth of election because human reason cannot fathom it!"
27. And it's no wonder that Calvinists sound like this because they get their theology from Calvin who got it from St. Augustine who said (in "It is an inscrutable mystery why some are saved and others not"): "... nothing delivers us [from the wrath of God] but the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. The reason why this grace comes upon one man and not on another may be hidden, but it cannot be unjust. For 'is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.' But we must first bend our necks to the authority of the Holy Scriptures, in order that we may each arrive at knowledge and understanding through faith. For it is not said in vain, 'Thy judgments are a great deep.' The profundity of this 'deep' the apostle, as if with a feeling of dread, notices in that exclamation: 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!' He had indeed previously pointed out the meaning of this marvellous depth, when he said: 'For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.' Then struck, as it were, with a horrible fear of this deep: 'O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.' How utterly insignificant, then, is our faculty for discussing the justice of God's judgments, and for the consideration of His gratuitous grace, which, as men have no prevenient merits for deserving it, cannot be partial or unrighteous, and which does not disturb us when it is bestowed upon unworthy men, as much as when it is denied to those who are equally unworthy!"
28. John MacArthur in Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation, showing what he really thinks of those who disagree with his view of election:
"Let me tell you something. Somebody who doesn't believe in the doctrine of election, somebody who doesn't understand sovereign grace, somebody who comes through some Arminian approach and gets manipulated into salvation, is the kind of person—whether they were saved or not, gets manipulated into a decision—is precisely the kind of person that would think [that we can sin all we want so that grace can abound]. That's why you preach the sovereignty of God... But that is a typical, typical kind of response where there's no particular love for holiness; there's no particular concern for obedience. It's just a continued worldly, fleshly life. And that's because people were manipulated into a decision that they think they made. And once they made the decision, that's the end of it. I mean everything's all settled. They can live any way they want. God really isn't that involved to start with; so what do they owe Him?
... Let me tell you: This country is literally filling up with those kind of converts under this seeker-friendly approach in churches. Because the whole idea of seeker-friendly ministry is basically to appeal to people's fleshly lusts. Bottom line: What do they want? They want what makes them feel good. Felt needs. That's the flesh. Has nothing to do with the spirit; has nothing to do with the soul; has nothing to do with God. So as soon as you gear your ministry to fleshly lusts, you're on the wrong wavelength to start with. And then you give 'em an Arminian kind of gospel, where they save themselves by making a decision, and there's really—now what you've got them basically convinced of is that the church is all about hey, whatever feels good to me, that's what it is. And so that's the way they live their lives. And the church fills up with, you know, the unconverted living in a deception."
Not very gracious, is it?
[Dr. Tony Evans defines "election" this way in his book The Tony Evans Bible Commentary (pg 15): "The sovereign prerogative of God to choose individuals, families, groups, and nations to serve his kingdom purposes as he so wills. Election is specifically related to service, usefulness, and blessings - not individual salvation. Jesus died for all human beings without exception and desires for all to be saved." I couldn't agree more!]
29. And though he's talking specifically about open theism in this part of "Answering Big Questions About the Sovereignty of God", MacArthur even says that he thinks those who don't view God the way he does cannot even be Christians: "That – that is a horrendous view of God. When I – when you say it’s a heresy, I would say it borders on such a severe heresy as to perhaps have a God other than the true God. We would say you can’t be a Christian if you have a wrong view of Christ. Can we – can you be a Christian if you have a completely wrong view of God?... [No.]" (I am speculating that his own words will come back to bite him in the end.)
30. From a commenter I'll call RadCT in a reddit post (see my post on it): "In the Bible, there is no verse that says that God does NOT author sin. And in fact, He Himself says in various verses that He is the direct cause of man's sins... Sin is when we break God's laws. But since He didn't give Himself these laws - since He didn't tell Himself that He can't do those things - then it's not sin for Him to do them... God gets to decide what's just and what's not. So even if something seems unjust to us, it doesn't mean it is unjust. Because it might be just in God's judgment. [Then how in the world can we follow His many biblical commands to seek/do justice, if we can't tell the difference between just and unjust because there might not be one!?!]... Non-Calvinists try to say that God is not responsible for sin and evil, but He Himself happily takes responsibility for those things. You seem to be wondering why God can hold us accountable for our sins if He predestines our sins... [But] Don’t ask that. You are only human and have no right to question God. A clay jar does not question the one who made it... I know this isn't an easy truth to accept, but it's still truth.... Choices do matter. They've just been predestined by God for us... maybe you just dislike Calvinism on an emotional level. I know it's hard to accept emotionally. I understand. And I am willing to talk to you about it more. We do have choices in life; they're just choices that we have not freely willed."
31. John Piper (from the article "God delivers from the suffering He ordains"): "... the Bible teach[es] that God governs all things, including our sufferings... There's a reason why my book on Providence has seven hundred pages. That's how long it takes to even come close to laying out the vastness of the biblical foundation of the all-pervasive, all-governing, all-wise, never-meaningless, never-whimsical, never-random, never-unjust, always-purposeful, always-good sovereignty of God. [No, that's how long it takes to try to trick people into thinking you're not saying God causes sin when you really are and to try to fix all the contradictory messes you made with your bad theology/philosophy and incorrect biblical interpretation.]
... In other words, since it was not ultimately me or natural forces or satanic opposition or the evils of human adversaries that made me see many sore troubles and calamities, but rather it was you, O God, my Father - my all-wise, all-loving, all-powerful Father - therefore, I have every reason to be confident that the same power and love and wisdom will bring me up out of those troubles according to your promise." [Trusting the promises of Calvi-god who causes people to do the evil he commands them not to do but preplanned them to do and will punish them for doing... That's funny!]
32. John Piper also shares this brilliant bit of teaching about our response to the evil God ordains [from this article]: "How can we hate what is evil if God has ordained it to happen? You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen. God might will something precisely so that you would hate it.
It might help to put these categories in place. I operate - because the Bible leads me to - with two understandings of the will of God: 1) the moral will of God, which is revealed in Scripture, and 2) the sovereign will of God, which is everything that comes to pass. [Translation: "God says one thing but means another. He commands one thing while predestining the opposite to happen." Question: Would you trust a God like this?]
... Does God will the salvation of all men and yet only will the salvation of some men? I argue, Yes, because both of these are in the Scriptures."
33. An atheist (Godless Granny) asks a Calvinist named Joe this question: "What is the purpose of telling people about God if the only way they can come to believe is if God chooses to come and move them?"
Joe answers "Because any kind of evangelistic efforts, I have a 100% success rate for the kingdom of God. So either it is going to add to the condemnation of vessels prepared for wrath, for destruction, that God will use to glorify Himself - so it will be adding to the condemnation of unbelievers where God will be just in destroying them for eternity - or He will use the preaching of the gospel...[to] draw the elect to Himself. So I have a 100% success rate with whatever I'm doing because I'm accomplishing God's purpose either way." [It's "success" to bring people more condemnation in hell? And it's "for God's glory"? That's sick and disturbing. Watch the video of this conversation at Soteriology 101's "Warning: This may be the CRINGIEST video you watch about Calvinism".]
Godless Granny then asks, "If you found out that God chose not to save one or more of your children, how would you feel about that?"
Joe answers "It means He's God. You see, God is a bigger being than I am. He's higher than I am. And I sure hope that God has chosen my children...but if God chooses not to save my children, that is His prerogative because He is God and I am not God. He decides who's in His heaven. He decides who's in His hell."
Godless Granny then points out that the odds are that at least one of Joe's children is predestined to eternal torment in hell, and she asks "And you don't have a problem with that?"
And Joe responds "Okay, we've got two ways to look at this. This is a glass half-full or half-empty. Either I can rejoice that God chose a wretched sinner for salvation, which is me, or I can worry about God's choices with other wretched sinners. When I realize that the human nature and the human position against God is that I've sinned against an almighty God and that everyone deserves His judgment, I should be mystified, shocked, and stunned whenever He chooses anyone, not surprised when someone doesn't get chosen." [This is the glorious end of Calvinism, where it leads to! Oh, how this must hurt his children's hearts!]
35. In this Leighton Flowers- James White debate (starting at the 1:27:12-minute mark - and for the record, Leighton did an awesome job!), Leighton asks James "Why can't [the reprobate] believe and why are they being judged for their unbelief if that's a default condition from birth that they have no control over?"
James answers "God is demonstrating to the entire universe His justice... the praise of his glorious grace."
Leighton asks "So you think it's just for God to judge somebody who, by default, can't believe?"
James: "God is demonstrating the praise of his glorious grace... in both the salvation of undeserving people and in the condemnation of people who love their sin and remain in rebellion [by Calvi-god's decree!]."
36. Robin Schumacher (The Christian Post article "If God wants everyone saved, why isn't everyone saved?"): "God’s passion for His glory takes priority over the salvation of everyone... God gets glory when He showcases His justice and wrath in the same way He does when He distributes His mercy... [God] desires to put His justice on display with those He allows to continue in their chosen sin. ["Allows" and "chosen" are deceptive words because Calvi-god predetermined that the non-elect would have the unregenerated nature which comes only with the desire to sin and reject him, which means the non-elect only have the ability to desire to sin and reject him, which means they can only "choose" to sin and reject him. No other options or abilities are possible for them. They cannot change their nature, and so they must follow the desires of their Calvi-god-given nature. They "choose" to sin and reject him because Calvi-god predestined that it's all they could choose. That's not truly merely "allowing" anything, and it's not true "choice!"] He receives glory in this as well... This is the answer, then, as to why everyone is not saved and what God desires more than everyone’s salvation... what God desires most – His glory that comes from displaying both His mercy and justice on those He chooses."
37. Eric Cramer ("Is God glorified when people go to hell?"): "We need to not give ourselves more importance than we really deserve. God is totally justified and glorified if He threw all of us into hell as punishment for breaking His law... God is glorified when a sinner repents of his or her sins and places their faith in Christ and Christ alone for salvation.... He is also glorified when a sinner is punished and sent to hell because it upholds His holiness and justice."
38. Jim Hamilton, 9Marks ("How does hell glorify God?"): "Hell glorifies God. Do you object to this?... You are a creature in the Creator’s work of art. Accept it. He is the Creator, not you."
39. Vincent Cheung, ("The Problem of Evil"): "One who thinks that God's glory is not worth the death and suffering of billions of people has too high an opinion of himself and humanity... Christians should have no trouble affirming [that God creates people for hell for His glory], and those who find it difficult to accept what Scripture explicitly teaches should reconsider their spiritual commitment, to see if they are truly in the faith.” [Translation: "If you don't agree with me about predestination, you're probably not even a Christian." And for the record, it's God who thought highly of humanity, more than we could ever deserve - highly enough that Jesus would give His life for us. So when Calvinists lower the value of humans, they lower the value of Jesus's life, death, and sacrifice, which lowers God's glory.]
40. From my pastor's October 2014 sermon about God's love (notice the contradiction): "Having established the truth of God's universal love throughout Scripture, the Bible goes deeper and says that not only does God love all people, not only does He love all individuals, but there is a flip side to it: He does not love all people alike... God does love the world, but He doesn't love all people alike... The Bible is very clear. God loves mankind. God loves people. God loves peoples. But He doesn't love all people and He doesn't love all people alike. He puts His affections on some and not others... He loves all people, but He does not love all people alike, for His glory. [Calvi-god loves all people, just in different ways. He loves the elect by saving them from hell, but he "loves" the non-elect by merely meeting their basic needs while they are alive on earth (common grace), by letting them live for a little while before sending them to hell for being the unbelievers he predestined them to be. That's what Calvinists mean when they deceptively say "God loves all people." (If that's love, I'd hate to see hate.)
And for the record, though Calvinists teach that God is kind to the non-elect to show them a little pseudo-love and pseudo-grace before sending them to their predestined damnation, the Bible itself tells us why God shows kindness to the unrighteous: "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:4). This is very different.
God intends for His kindness to lead stubborn, unrepentant, storing-up-wrath-against-themselves sinners (verse 5) to repentance, to salvation. He intends for unrepentant people to see His kindness and, consequently, to turn to Him, repent, believe in Him, and be saved. That is His intention for all sinners, all unrepentant people. He does not intend for anyone to go to hell. He has not predestined anyone to hell. He desires that we – all of us sinners - see His goodness, seek Him, turn to Him, and be saved, not that most people burn in hell for all of eternity because He only really loved the elect enough to save them. (Oh, does Calvinism make me mad!!!)]
... [Then he preaches on Romans 9, human depravity, how terrible people are, etc., and he says:] After thousands of years of [human] rebellion, that God would be willing to elect any rebellious sinner to eternal life shows tremendous love and grace and mercy.
... [Then he goes into how God doesn't choose whom He saves by foreknowing who will choose Him, because if God waited for us to choose Him then no one would choose Him, because "dead people can't choose," and he quotes from Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will, and then he says:] Unless God chooses to open our eyes, we can't believe. Period!... Faith is a gift from God, but it's not a gift that comes to all sinners. It comes to some but not others. [Faith is not the gift; eternal life is. See "Is faith a gift God gives (forces on) us?"]
... [Then he quotes the verses about God having mercy on whom He wants and hardening whom he wants, saying that Americans hate these verses. And he adds:] Without the doctrine of predestination and election, no one would go to heaven... God elected, God chose, God drew, God opens your eyes, God saved, and because He did all that, you were able to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and repent." [Once again, "election" is about God choosing who serves Him and how, and who He blesses and how, not about who gets saved. If you get this wrong, your whole theology and view of God will be severely screwed up.]
41. From my pastor's February 2014 sermon: “There is nothing [God] cannot forgive, be it child abuse, murder, rape, adultery, cheating, defying, betrayal… [and yet later in the sermon he says:] The book of Numbers is all about who God is… A God who ordains everything that comes to pass for His own glory. A God who is not watching history; He’s making history. A God who doesn’t sit back and just look. He’s a God who ordains everything that comes to pass to line up with His plan for His glory.”
A god who "ordains everything for his own glory" is a god who ordained all the "child abuse, murder, rape, adultery, cheating, defying, betrayal," and who - according to Calvinists - did it all "for his glory."
And that's not a god to worship or trust. That's a god to be terrified of.
Note: Calvinist preachers are often strategic about how and when they reveal the bad news, the terrible beliefs of Calvinism. They'll sandwich bad Calvinist beliefs between two good, biblical things. Or they'll share a bad Calvinist belief upfront quickly, and then they'll bury it with more biblical things. Or as this pastor did here, they'll share biblical truths upfront, but then add on what they really believe near the end of the sermon ("God forgives all sins and evil... but God 'ordains' all sins and evil."), qualifying and changing everything they just said, hoping that what they're really teaching escapes our notice.
Unfortunately, I suggest that we need to think of Calvinist preachers like pathological liars, the kind who say all sorts of things they don't mean to cover up what they do mean and who carefully, strategically reveal the bad stuff in covert, furtive ways that escape attention. That way, they can tell the "Calvinist truth" but not get in trouble for it.
So don't just listen to what Calvinists say, but listen to how they say it, how they couch it, sandwich it, sugarcoat it, qualify it, contradict it, or shame and manipulate people into accepting it. And even listen for what they don't say, what they leave out, what they're hiding. What they say is often very different from what they really mean, especially when it comes to their worst doctrines. (See "A Calvinist's best defense of their worst doctrine" for an example, some of which I already wrote about in these posts.)
I'm not trying to be mean here. I'm trying to help you learn to discern what they really believe. And since they don't just come right out and say it honestly, it takes some skill on our parts to hear what's underneath the words they use, to discern what they mean from what they say.
42. From my pastor's March 2017 sermon about why there's suffering and evil in the world (referring to Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs): "The secular assumption is that ‘normal’ people – whatever that means – don’t do things like that. They’re not cannibals and sadistic killers. Something went wrong with him. That’s a secular assumption… [because] from birth we’re born corrupt and evil. And so it’s a secular assumption to think that something has to happen to make us really evil. Any of us are capable of that kind of horrific evil. Hannibal Lector answers [the question 'What made you like this?'] very biblically...‘Nothing happened to me. I just am. I’m evil.' That’s the biblical worldview.
Let me go a little further. This is why infants, children, and toddlers disobey by nature. I have 2 [young grandchildren] living in my house… They are a delight. They are sinful. I am watching my older one – 2½ years old – and he is really pushing the envelope these days. He’s a precious little guy but, my goodness, his heart is already twisted and dark… This is why children, infants, toddlers, and kids need discipline. It’s why they need spankings. It’s why they need boundaries. And it’s why we need to enforce these things."
[Why? To what end? Nothing can affect what Calvi-god "ordained" for them, and nothing can change them before he does. And if they’re non-elect - completely unable to repent and be good - then isn’t that just spanking incapacitated people who are incapable of changing? May as well beat up a wheelchair-bound person with a bat while yelling, “Stand up already! I said ‘stand up’!” Spanking and disciplining children in Calvinism is nothing more than temporary behavior modification, doing nothing for the soul because – according to Calvinism – Calvi-god predetermines their behavior and choices, and nothing can change their hearts until and unless Calvi-god does. So why spank or disciple unregenerated people? Will it make them elect?]
... [About why the world is full of suffering and evil:] This is NOT PLAN A. This is not the way it was set up. This is the result of human sin and rebellion. [This is a huge contradiction to the other times when he's preached that everything that happens is what God wanted, planned, and ordained, such as when he said this in his August 2015 sermon: "[We] rush to get God off the hook for human suffering [by saying things like] 'Well, this is not what He really intended; this is not really Plan A.'... And every time we do that, God puts Himself back on the hook and says, 'I am in charge, thank you, and I will run the universe as I see fit, and I don't owe you an explanation.' So in one sermon, sin and suffering is God's Plan A, but in another sermon, it's not. Remember, never take what Calvinists say at face-value. What they say in one place, they deny in another. What they deny at first, they later affirm in covert ways. Kinda like a magic trick where the magician uses one obvious hand to draw your attention while pulling off the trick with the other stealthy hand that you're not paying attention to. I'm not trying to be mean, but this is just the way it is, the way they operate, because they are trying to get us to buy into things they know that we'll resist and be horrified by. And so they have to be very careful and strategic how they go about doing it. (If Calvinism is supposedly so obviously biblical and God-honoring, why the need to be so strategic about it? Something's clearly wrong when they need to use the tactics they do to trap people in their theology. Once again, see "The 9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult.".)]
… We ask, 'Why did God allow any of this in the first place? He could have stopped Adam and Eve. He could have stopped the consequences.' That’s true. Why did God allow/permit/ordain evil and suffering on our planet? [Deceptive use of "allow/permit," leading us to assume that he means God lets us make our own truly-free choices. But what Calvinists really mean is that God "allows/permits" only what He first decreed.]
The short answer is: Nobody knows. He never says. I think the best guess from church history goes back to Saint Augustine…who said something along this line, 'At the end of the day, when you look at the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, you can only come to one conclusion about why suffering and evil exist: because God determined He would gain greater glory by bringing good out of suffering and evil than if it never existed in the first place.'
And he argued that simply from the Bible’s teaching that God does everything for His own glory. And evil and suffering would not exist if God did not ordain it to exist. He is not guilty, but clearly He permitted and allowed them, and since He does everything for His own glory, He had to determine He would get more glory by allowing them onto the world stage and then redeeming out of it than if it never existed at all.”
43. From my pastor's March 2014 sermon about finding hope in hard times: “God is on the throne! Random evil doesn’t just happen to people. Random loss doesn’t just occur in our lives. God is in control of each aspect of every detail, right down to our salvation, right down to our health, and jobs, and employment, and our spouse and our children and our livelihood.
… God is sovereign over history… Arthur Pink wrote a book called The Sovereignty of God, and he said that the sovereignty of God – His absolute control of every atom of the universe - is designed to inspire hope… Random evil doesn’t just occur. God is sovereign over history.
… God is sovereign over our losses… No matter what God has taken away from us, God is sovereign over loss. Why is this such a big deal? You see, too often we want to do what I call 'get God off the hook' theology. We want to get God off the hook, saying 'God didn’t do this.' I remember a pastor after 9-11 who got up the next week and banged on his pulpit and said 'Look it, 9-11, planes going into buildings - God didn’t do this!!!'
We want to get God off the hook, and every time we try to, God puts Himself back on the hook in the Bible and says, 'Yes, I did!'
… God is sovereign over those who seek to harm us. Who of us hasn’t been harmed by somebody?... We’ve had people betray, lie, steal, vilify, slander, and do unspeakable things to us. Some of us have undergone horrific abuse at the hands of parents or aunts or uncles or brothers. God is sovereign over those who seek to harm us.
That could not be said more clearly than [in the Bible] where it describes Antiochus Epiphanes and what a wretched, evil, brutal man he is… and the point of the text is that it was God who brought him to the world stage… [And like in Joseph’s life] it was God who ordained [all the bad that happened to him]. [And so likewise, "It was God who brought your abuser to you, who ordained the horrific abuse they did to you." Filthy hogwash! (... okay, taking a deep breath now, calming myself down...)]
God is sovereign over those who seek to do us harm. That means, friends, that there is no such thing as random evil or random acts of tragedy.
By the way, I think that those who get this best are the English Puritans… they understood about God using evil people in our lives [Calvi-god first decrees it, then orchestrates/causes it, then "uses" it.]… that God does it for a reason, for example, to bring us to faith in Christ, or to refine us, or to help us become holy, or to strip us of pride, or to be able to comfort others who’ve gone through similar circumstances… John Flavel in The Mystery of God’s Providence says '… In all the sad and afflictive providences that befall you, eye God as the author. Set before you the sovereignty of God…' Amen!?!” [No! Not Amen! Not with the way Calvinists define sovereignty.]
[And so according to Calvinism, it's supposed to be more comforting that God preplans and causes evil - evil which He commanded us not to do and will punish us for - than that He allows it to happen, allows men to make terrible decisions He doesn't want.
It’s one thing for God to not want evil but to allow it anyway and to then use people’s self-chosen evil for His purposes, to work it into good. But it's a totally different thing for Calvinism's god to preplan, want, cause, orchestrate, control, and be glorified by evil – evil he commands us not to do but then causes us to do, giving us no chance or ability to do anything differently – and then he punishes us for doing what he caused us to do, what we had no control over or choice about. This is very different than allowing people to make their own choices - choices God didn't want nor plan nor cause - and then working our choices into His plans. One of those Gods can be trusted, the other god can't. One of those Gods is truly good, the other god is evil disguised as good.]
And along these same lines, from his April 7, 2019 sermon (after talking about a Bible passage where God caused/did things, “God did it, God did it, God did it”): “God doesn’t do random. Not in your life. And not in your ministry… Some of us here desperately need this reminder today because we’re going through something that really discouraging us. You may have a child wandering from Christ. You may have a marriage that’s tanking at the moment. You may have a diagnosis that’s just floored you. You may have a job situation…and evangelistic situation…a financial crisis. Something has got you down, something has got you challenged, something has got you doubting whether God is good [Yeah, it’s called “Calvinism”], whether God is still in control – and you look at a sermon like this where God is the subject of virtually every verb: God doesn’t do random.”
44. Here's another one about 9-11 which I did put in the post of sermon quotes, but I'll repost it here since it fits the topic. From my pastor's September 12, 2021 sermon about the devil being "God's devil" (so he gives a sermon about God ordaining the 9-11 attack one day after its 20th-anniversary - classy):
In reply to the quote from non-Calvinist pastor who said that "9-11 was of the devil, God had nothing to do with it", our pastor said: "Why should a Christian cringe at that statement? Because God had everything to do with 9-11. If He didn't, then He's not God. Period! That doesn't mean that He's the one who instigated flying airplanes into buildings and all, but God signed the authorization papers!
I was interviewed the morning of 9-11...and asked 'Where was God on 9-11?'... And I said something along the lines of 'Well, I guess He's in the same place He was on 9-10. He's on the throne! Let us never forget that God was not caught by surprise today. He is the one orchestrating world events. He gave life and breath to those 19 men who were murdering thugs. He knew exactly what was going on. He was directing the whole thing.' ["Orchestrating and directing" contradicts "that doesn't mean that He's the one who instigated flying airplanes into buildings." Calvinists often first make it sound like they mean "God allows/uses our evil choices," but what they really mean - and later confirm - is that God "allows/uses" what He first foreordained, and only what He foreordained. So everything that happens is what God preplanned to happen, and nothing different could have happened.]
Satan carried it out. Satan is accountable, those men are accountable... but they didn't do it somehow separate from God's authority or jurisdiction. God signed the authorization papers! Like it or hate it.
God had everything to do with 9-11. He has everything to do with any other tragedy. God never, ever, ever tries to get Himself off the hook when it comes to worldwide tragedies. He takes full credit for Noah's flood or any other major tragedy you see in life. [For God to cause a flood that takes people's lives is far different than for God to do something like cause people to commit murder, breaking His command against murder.] Because God wants you to know that He is the one running the show. He is the one who signs the authorization papers for anything that happens on our planet.
... God uses wicked agents, people, to do His deliberate plan. [Yes, but Calvi-god first foreordains them to be wicked, and then he uses their wickedness.]
... We often agonize over things like predestination and human accountability, but the Bible shows no tension whatsoever around predestination and human accountability [Sure, the Bible doesn't have tension with it. The tension comes in when Calvinists misunderstand these things, when they create an unbiblical view of them, leading to all kinds of damage and contradictions.]
... How's that fit together? I don't have a clue. But there you have it. God has a sovereign, divine plan that even includes how people respond and yet those people are still fully accountable.
... God has purposes for allowing and ordaining satanic and demonic conflict at times... And the point is that the devil is God's devil. He exists, he functions, he operates, only under the authorization papers and sovereign hand of an all-powerful God who is using him for His ends and purposes..." [Once again, "using" Satan's actions is one thing, but preplanning, causing, controlling Satan's actions is another.]
[He also preached a "the devil is God's devil" message on July 23, 2023: "The devil 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 for them to do."]
45. From my pastor's October 2019 sermon on forgiveness: "How you handle and respond to mistreatment - when someone has hurt you, wounded you, lied about you, betrayed you, abused you - or me - how I respond directly reflects what I really believe about God deep down inside.
The ability to forgive...requires a proper understanding of who God is and His providence in our lives - it's critical - and of God's authority in your life. Look it, for anyone to say -and we've all said it or thought it - for any of us to say that we're not going to forgive, what we're really saying is this: 'God, You had NO RIGHT to bring that into my life.'
... The Bible teaches that God sometimes strategically uses sinful people in our lives to refine us and humble us, to do His good work in our lives.
It's not a very appealing teaching, necessarily. And it's not very common to read it or hear it in the American evangelical world. You almost get the sense that if anything is unpleasant your life - whether disease or illness or betrayal or a turn of career or health or whatever - listen to the evangelical talk and what you'll typically hear is 'Satan's out to get me. The Evil One's been working overtime to get me.' Maybe. But Satan only exists under God's authority. [In Calvinism, God is not just "in authority" over Satan, but He controls Satan's will and actions.]
... One of the things the Puritans got really, really well was God's providence, God's sovereignty, God's authority... They understood that God sovereignly chooses to use evil people and sinful people in our lives as believers, if we know Christ, ON PURPOSE to humble us and teach us dependence on Him. Not every evil person that comes against you is automatically completely of Satan. God is orchestrating events and He's still sovereign over the process. [Remember, in Calvinism, "sovereign" means God controls - not just is "in control" - of all sin and evil. And it's one thing for God to cause natural "evils" like storms, illnesses, famines, etc., but it's a completely different thing in Calvinism for God to cause moral evils that He commands us not to do. Natural evils and moral evils are not in the same category.]
... Biblical forgiveness is an affirmation that God is good and that He has A RIGHT to use ANYBODY in our lives for His purpose, His glory, and for our good... Sometimes He will use evil, sinful people to get us where He wants to get us." ["And a God who causes that much evil can totally be trusted!" Hogwash!]
The Puritans remind us that we don't need to get God off the hook when it comes to evil and suffering... [We] rush to get God off the hook for human suffering [by saying things like] 'Well, this is not what He really intended; this is not really Plan A.'... And every time we do that, God puts Himself back on the hook and says, 'I am in charge, thank you, and I will run the universe as I see fit, and I don't owe you an explanation.'
[As I said, he later contradicts this in his March 2017 sermon when he said that all the sin and suffering and evil in the world is "...NOT PLAN A. This is not the way it was set up. This is the result of human sin and rebellion."]
... Are you trusting God in the midst of your past, present, and future in whatever He has ordained and appointed for you as far as suffering, tragedy, abuse [he totally faltered and paused after saying "abuse", as though he realized how people would respond to him saying that God preplans, directs, orchestrates our abuse, a terrible moral sin, and then he rushed to bury it by listing these next ones really quickly] or trials or difficulties or illness or disease or betrayal? [Betrayal would be another moral sin. If you listen closely, Calvinists will almost always start by teaching that a sovereign, all-powerful God "ordains" natural disasters and illness (as this pastor did earlier in his sermon) - and then once they get you to accept it, they subtly slip in moral evils later, as if since He causes the one He must also cause the other, as if they are the same kind of "evil." But they are not! Don't fall for this Calvinist bait-and-switch.]
... Or are you murmuring against Him?... You may get an answer someday about why you were abused or why you lost a child or why a spouse walked away. [You may get an answer!?! Do you understand what this is saying? That God deliberately preplanned, orchestrated, and caused the abuse, young deaths, divorce, betrayal, adultery in your life, for a reason. It would be one thing for God to allow these things to happen because of free-will, but this pastor already threw out the idea of free-will and instead teaches that "we have to conclude that God is in full control of every detail of the universe, including the suffering, evil, and tragedy in our lives... for His own glory and the advancement of His name among the nations" And now he includes abuse, young death, and divorce among the things God controls/causes, for His glory and name.]
But, friends, answers at the end of the day don't provide a whole lot of comfort. What provides comfort are promises from God's Word. [Let's see, this god says he wants one thing when he really wants another... he preplans and causes moral evils that he commands us not to do and then he will punish us for doing what we had no control over, no choice about... he causes people to be unbelievers but still "commands" them to repent, but then he punishes them for being the unbelievers he caused them to be...he is just as glorified by evil as he is by good... yep, totally trustworthy! We can totally trust the promises that come from a god like this! (Hogwash!)]
... Do you perhaps need to repent of your murmuring and the chip on your shoulder against God, and surrender today and say 'Lord, I don't understand the way You run the universe, and I don't necessarily like it, but You're God and You're good.' It'll make all the difference in your path to healing. All the difference."
... Some of our hearts this morning are breaking. Find refuge and hope in a good and holy God who says 'I have all things under My control. Everything that's going on in your life, or has gone on in your life, or will, I know about and have ordained for you. And you can find comfort and hope and trust Me.'
I guess that as long as we deflect from the hard questions and ignore the fate of the non-elect, it's all good! As long as we don't ask "But how can Calvi-god command people to believe while predestining most to hell, and how can he command us not to sin but then cause us to sin and then hold us accountable for sin," then we can enjoy those sunsets, focus on the good, and praise him more easily for the blessings he gives the elect, right?
... #1) God is good all the time... Our God is a loving God and He is good to the core of His being, no matter what happens in the world... He is good and even what He does is good, even when cancer strikes, even when I'm lied about, even when we lose a child, lose a job, lose a dream, tragedy strikes, we lose somebody we love. God is good. [The Puritans] say that the real question is not 'Why do we suffer so much?' The biblical question is 'In light of our rebellion, why is God so good to us?'
... #2) God is all-wise, all-knowing, and all-powerful, and He doesn't owe us any explanations... [God's] providence means He's all-powerful, all-wise, and He governs all things... But providence is more than God just having advanced knowledge... God's providence means His sovereign, wise leading and active directing of all things for His glory, and of all events, everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Friends, this is tonic to a weary soul, to know that a good God is all-wise and all-powerful, that whatever He's doing, no matter how much I'm confused by it, is ultimately being done for my good and His glory, even when the timing of what He's doing results in painful circumstances, in sorrow, in weeping, in heartache, in loss.
... If you're in the midst of deep water right now, pain, suffering, a season of grief and loss, are you trusting God with your pain and suffering? Are you rejoicing or are you murmuring?... The Bible reminds us that God is good, and fully in control of everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. What sustains true born-again Christians in the face of horrific natural and moral evils is not explanations but God's promises." [Would you trust the promises of Calvinism's god who ordains, governs, directs all the evil we do even though he commands us not to do it and will punish us for it? Should we trust a god like that? Why? How is that a "good" god? How much would it take to become a bad god?]
48. From my pastor's September 13, 2020 sermon on God being in control: "No matter what is happening, we have a God who is all-powerful, who is good, and He knows exactly what He is doing in the world and in your life... God is in complete control of all world events, even - and this is critical - even when evil dictators arrive on the world stage... even those who work cruelty or genocide. It is very clear that God is the one who gives them the very breath that they take every morning in order to reap their genocide or their carnage, as much as that may jolt us. By virtue of the fact that God has created everything, He is the absolute owner and final disposer of all He has made.
... He exerts not merely a general influence but actually runs the world which He has created. [I have no problem with the idea that God is over all things or that He incorporates wicked rulers into His plans. I have a problem with the Calvinist idea that God has predestined them to be wicked in the first place, that He gave them no chance to be any other way. God doesn't cause them to be wicked; He just incorporates their self-chosen wickedness into His plans.] The Bible teaches that God has what we might call 'complete operational jurisdiction' over His entire creation, over nations, over kings, over emperors, over rulers, and over our lives... Indeed, our God is in heaven and He does whatever pleases Him.
... [The doctrine of God's providence] is a huge source of comfort to the people of God because it is a regular reminder that whatever's going on in our lives, even if it's painful, it is being directed by an all-knowing, good and loving and wise heavenly Father, who does everything for His children out of His love.
... If you have any doubt that God is in absolute sovereign control over all things, if you have any doubt that He has complete operational jurisdiction over His universe, just notice how many times God says 'I will do this' or 'I will do that' [in Jeremiah 24:6-10]. [So because God has plans and does things means, in Calvinism, that everything that happens is because He caused/planned it. Since all monkeys are animals, all animals are monkeys.].
... Truth #1 that should bring great comfort...if you know Jesus as Lord and Savior...whatever has happened to you or is going on right now in your life, a great comfort from Jeremiah 25 is that God is sovereign over nations, He is sovereign over rulers, He is sovereign over your life. Nothing happens in the weather, nothing happens on the political stage, nothing happens in your life, in your marriage, in your family, in your finances, nothing, nothing, nothing that God does not have absolute operational jurisdiction over. And that's a huge comfort to the people of God.
... [Truth #2 is this:] The Puritans remind us that God often uses the ungodly, the evil, in order to specifically discipline, refine, chastise His saints, as much of a jolt as that may be to 21st century ears. And if we don't see that...we will miss God's loving hand of providence in our lives, we will focus on the injustice of what happened, and we will end up moving in a direction that is extremely unhealthy spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. ["So don't think about how unjust it was that someone abused you or hurt you or that your spouse had an affair, but think about how loving Calvi-god was to ordain it in your life in the first place. Comforting!"]
Bottom line is this, how I respond to any mistreatment, how you respond to any mistreatment from anybody, righteous or unrighteous, my response shows my view of who God is... And unless I humble myself and seek Him, I'm going to get bitter and perhaps invite further discipline, if I don't understand what He's doing. God sometimes uses unjust people to discipline, refine, and humble His saints in ways that, frankly, leave us baffled, may leave you baffled in your own life or watching a loved one or watching a child or watching a parent or a friend or neighbor or somebody else. It's baffling, and it goes back to who is God and do we trust Him.
The third truth we learn here, which almost now will seem completely contrary, is that God will punish those who do the evil to us. God will punish them. The Bible serves us notice that no matter what God's Will might be for the decisions and choices of others and how those choices impact our lives, that in the end, all human beings are accountable for their moral choices and what they do to other people.
... This is where this sermon starts getting really, really weird... And by the way, this is a very sanitized presentation of what Nebuchadnezzar did. You gotta think of something like the Nazis, Isis. This is a brutal invasion...slaughter...pillaging, destruction, killing...and who did it!?!... God says three times 'He's my servant and he's doing exactly what I ordained him to do.'
...The mysterious providences of God. There are times when after studying a [Bible] passage, you will look up and have a bit of a headache... It is God's Will, in verse 9, for Nebuchadnezzar to attack, pillage, and enslave the people of Judah...but then in verse 12, it is God's Will to punish Nebuchadnezzar for enslaving and attacking His people.
... In other words, there are times when God will seem to will things in one direction...but then it will - and I'm going to use the word in quotes, because I don't understand it - it will 'appear' God wills something in the exact opposite direction simultaneously. Here we come to something that theologians throughout history call 'the two wills of God'...meaning that when God wills something on one level, He will appear to will its opposite on another level at the same exact time.
An example of this is the doctrine of predestination. In 1 Timothy, God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. But in Romans 9:18, the apostle Paul writes that God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy and hardens whom He wants to harden, in the context of they don't have salvation. So in one level, it is God's Will for all people to be saved. On another level, we're told at the same time that God chooses to have mercy on some and to pass over others and harden them.
... Do you find it strangely comforting that God's ways are mysterious?"
[At the end of the sermon, he reads a quote from Calvinist Lorraine Boettner - "Amid all the apparent defeats and inconsistencies of life, God actually moves on in undisturbed majesty" - and he gushes over this and highly recommends immersing yourself in this kind of writing for finding comfort in a troubled world.]
49. From my pastor's November 2019 sermon about Job, about trusting God when He doesn't make sense in our times of confusion, pain, suffering, and uncertainty (he started this sermon with a true-life story of a young father who died early of cancer): "God is in full control of His universe, including suffering and tragedy... Too often when Bible-believing Christians in the west see tragedy, see calamity or experience it in their own lives, we want to immediately go to blaming Satan or his demons, that anything uncomfortable, anything painful, anything that smacks of suffering, uncertainty, betrayal, pain, misery, automatically comes only from Satan.
... As western evangelicals, our immediate default is to try to get God off the hook. 'God could not have been involved in that tsunami... in the events of 9-11... in my cancer... in the death of that child, and on and on.'... You may not like everything you hear this morning...but I'm not going to try to fix it up... I am supposed to get [it] accurate as the Author intended. And Job is very clear that God is in full control of the universe, including suffering and tragedy. And when I want to go to default and get God off the hook for suffering and tragedy, it's interesting that - in the Bible - God always puts Himself right back on the hook... He alone sends and withholds calamity... God is in full control of His universe, including suffering and tragedy. And frankly, He's not interested in trying to get off the hook.
... God allows and appoints suffering for His own good reasons... What caused all of [Job's] tragic disasters?... God allows-slash-appoints tragic disasters. These are really two sides of one coin. Saying 'God allowed it' is too soft. God clearly is orchestrating what is going on here [Job's tragedies]... and He ordains suffering for His own good reasons.
... Why did all these horrible things happen to Job?... [Some Christians say] Satan alone caused these disasters...that God turned everything [in Job's life] over [to Satan]... But it's clear Satan is certainly behind these events, but he had to ask permission to touch Job, and it's God who signed the authorization papers. That is a very key piece of theology a lot of people miss. [No, it's a key piece that Calvinists get wrong. "Signing the authorization papers/allowing" is not the same thing as "orchestrating/controlling/ordaining, etc." Biblically, God did turn Job over to Satan, within boundaries. God gave Satan permission to harm Job, but God let Satan decide which disasters hit Job. God let Satan cause them. God did not decide it nor orchestrate it nor cause it nor ordain it, etc. He just gave Satan permission to do whatever Satan wanted to do, within boundaries. (There's no need to put boundaries around Job if God Himself is orchestrating everything Satan does to Job. In Calvinism, that would be God giving Himself boundaries of what He can and cannot do.) But Calvinists believe that "allowing" disaster/evil is equal to God orchestrating, appointing, ordaining, directing, controlling disaster and evil. This is a huge key piece Calvinists mess up, and it severely hurts their theology - their views of God's character, God's involvement, our responsibilities, Satan's actions, etc.]
... [After 9-11, one pastor said] 'Listen, God had nothing to do with 9-11. Nothing!'... And I sat back and cringed, because what he was really offering theologically was far worse. Why? Because if God had nothing to do with 9-11, then where was He on 9-11? [So Calvinists think it's better if God orchestrates - fully preplans and causes - all tragedies and evils than simply allows people to make evil decisions on their own. Calvinists would rather have a God like that, convinced it somehow makes Him more trustworthy. And notice that, in Calvinism, if God doesn't fully orchestrate/control evil, then it must mean He is totally absent and uninvolved in it, totally out of control. A false dichotomy, presenting those as the only two ways God could possibly operate in the universe.)
... God is running the universe, and He knows what He's doing, even if we're absolutely confused and grieving at the moment... God ultimately allowed and orchestrated these disasters. [To most people, "allows" and "orchestrates" are not the same thing. God can allow something He doesn't preplan/orchestrate. He can let people make their own decisions to do things He doesn't want them to do, and He can work it into His plans somehow. This is "allows." This is biblical. But in Calvinism, God "allows" only what He preplans and orchestrates, exactly as it happens, even things He commands us not to do. (As this "how to teach the Doctrines of Grace" guide says under "Lesson: Sovereignty of God": "He allows his commands to be broken. He does not allow his decrees to be broken." And yet Calvinists can't see the damage it does to God's trustworthy character to say that He gives commands that He then "ordains/orchestrates" people to break!) This contradicts the basic commonsense understanding of "allows," and so it's deceptive whenever Calvinists use the word "allows."]
... God doesn't want to get off the hook... In the end, the devil is God's devil. Satan is a puny pawn in the hand of an almighty, holy God. And even though he thinks he's waging war, in the end he will find out he did exactly as God sovereignly decreed, under God's sovereign decree. And that God is good and Satan is evil... Now I don't know how to put all that together [because his theology is wrong!] and it gives me a headache, but I do know that if your theology doesn't give you a headache sometimes, it's probably a product of your own creation." [Gaslighting - trying to trick you into shutting off your alarm bells and accepting something you know sounds wrong, making you feel like it's okay if Calvinism's contradictory nonsense gives you a headache, doesn't make sense, and appears to damage God's character because that "proves" it's biblically accurate. "So don't worry about it or try to figure it out, just accept it." Gaslighting!]
50. From my pastor's April 22, 2018 sermon: "Did the Fall ruin God's plan?... To answer that, you have to go back to foundational texts like Ephesians 1:11: 'God works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His own will.' [To work something out - to work all things together - is different than the idea of God preplanning, orchestrating, causing all things.]... That means everything! There's nothing outside that... As R.C. Sproul so eloquently puts it, 'There is not one maverick molecule in the universe where God is not sovereign.' Nothing is operating outside of His sovereign decree. That means that nothing happens in the universe, not even in the origin of sin and evil, without God not only allowing it but ordaining it. [It's biblical to say God is sovereign over all, that He is over all things, but Calvinists mean that God meticulously preplans and controls all things, that He decreed all things to happen, even sin and evil. Very different.]
... God ordained and intended for the Fall, otherwise it wouldn't happen. [No. He foreknew it would happen and planned ahead on how to incorporate it, to redeem it, to work it into good, but He didn't "ordain" it as in preplanning that the Fall would happen, giving Adam and Eve no choice but to sin. Also, it's a false dichotomy to say "either God ordained the Fall or else it wouldn't happen" - because it assumes it couldn't be any other way, that God couldn't have allowed people to make their own choice to disobey, couldn't have foreknown what they would voluntarily choose, but that He simply had to preplan and orchestrate it.]
... Why? St. Augustine has said, 'God has done everything to glorify Himself.' So in His great wisdom, He had to have made a determination that by ordaining evil and then overcoming and conquering it, somehow He would be more glorified in the end. [It's glorifying to overcome the evil He first dreamed up and orchestrated!?!] There is no other answer biblically... So the Fall did not ruin His plan. [No, of course not, because in Calvinism, the Fall was His plan.]
51. And from my pastor's June 2022 sermon about Joseph and forgiveness: "Today we are going to be talking about one of the hardest things a human being can be called on to do, and that is to forgive someone who's abused them. Some of you have been horrifically abused and treated horribly by somebody. All of us have been betrayed at some point in our life, intentionally targeted, treated unjustly, someone has been cruel to us. And the question is 'How do you forgive them?'
... Some of us are sitting here today and the pain is so very deep about the way we've been treated by somebody. Any time we're physically abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused, lied about, oppressed, taken advantage of, wrongly blamed - the list can go on - here's the decision we face: 'Will I become bitter and hold a grudge, or will I choose to forgive and let it go?'
And here's the key: My choice at that point - how I choose to respond to someone who has abused me - shows what I really think about God... All of our bitterness is ultimately traceable to resentment of God. Why? Because it was God who brought these circumstances into our lives in the first place, painful as they may be... And if I'm going to say 'I will not forgive this person. I'm going to hold it over their head,' then what I'm saying is 'No matter what You decided, Lord, no matter how You arranged this, You're the one that's guilty. And I am bitter and resentful towards God.'
... [After he talks about the evils and abuse Joseph faced and quotes Joseph's line about "What you meant for evil, God meant for good," he says:] It doesn't just say God used it for good. No! God arranged this for good.
'All of this,' Joseph said, 'God did it to me. God did it for all of us... God ordained that you (the brothers) would do your evil actions - and yet He's innocent; you are guilty - and yet God intended it for good in my life. And yet God is somehow innocent, and yet He ordained the whole process.'... God is fully sovereign and in control, and He is good," [The "somehow" is kinda revealing, isn't it? Calvinists know how badly their beliefs reflect on God and His character and that they really have no answer for it, no way to adequately mesh God's "sovereignty" with human "responsibility" without making it seem like God Himself is responsible for all evil and sin. And so they have to resort to a pathetic "somehow."]
Can you see why we left that church!?! (And that's just what I've found after watching around three dozen sermons or so.)
52. I also heard about a time (this is hearsay, so keep that in mind, but I don't doubt that it happened exactly like this) when a woman came up to our pastor after a sermon like the ones above and asked point-blank if he was saying that God is really responsible for the childhood abuse she experienced. And the pastor hemmed and hawed, apparently unwilling to come right out and say what he really meant.
53. Will Graham ("God's glory is more important than us"): "God works for 'the glory of His name'. That is the real purpose of your life and existence. Everything is ultimately subject to the grand purpose of glorifying God’s great name. That’s right- everything! Even salvation and condemnation! God will be glorified eternally independently of what lot befalls the sons of men."
54. David Mathis, 9Marks ("Hallelujah over hell? How God's people rejoice while their enemies perish"): "Yet [in the end]... we will rejoice in his power on display in the destruction of the wicked [wicked by Calvi-god's decree]. Even now, we can shape our hearts to rejoice appropriately in those truths...meditating on the happiness of God’s people not despite but because of God’s destruction of the wicked... Divine judgments against the wicked are for you."
55. C. Matthew McMahon (The Two Wills of God, pg 349): "The saints should delight in the reprobation of the wicked... We come to understand and praise God concerning the damnation of other people. We understand that we could have been what they are. We contemplate their eternal destiny, and bow before the throne to praise the Creator and the Father we have. How awesome is that grace which He bestowed upon us in His Son!"
56. R.C. Sproul: "Don't you know that when you're in heaven, you'll be so sanctified that you'll be able to see your own mother in hell and rejoice in that, knowing that God's perfect justice is being carried out." (from the 4:45-minute mark in the Idol Killer video "James White Responds - Infant Salvation?")
57. John Piper ("How does it glorify God to predestine people to hell?") says that having sin and people in hell is ultimately good because it makes God's grace and mercy (for the elect only!) and the experience of salvation (for the elect only!) "shine the more brightly" by contrast. And it makes the elect feel a "more exquisite joy and gratitude for our salvation... our gratitude will be intensified." So "How does God get glory? He gets glory because his grace and mercy shine more brightly against the darker backdrop of sin and judgment and wrath, and our worship and our experience of that grace intensifies and deepens because we see we don’t deserve to be where we are [compared to the non-elect]." (So the joy of the few elect at being saved is worth the torment of the many non-elect predestined to hell!?! That's sick!)
58. Gordan H. Clark (Religion, Reason, and Revelation): “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it… Let it be unequivocally said that this view certainly makes God the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything…”
And from Predestination: “[Some people] do not wish to extend God’s power over evil things, and particularly over moral evils… [But] the Bible therefore explicitly teaches that God creates sin.”
59. Jeff Durbin, talking to a woman about evils like gang rape (see clips of it in this review The Madness of Calvinism and the full video in Jeff Durbin Answering 'The Problem of Evil'.): “God actually has a morally sufficient reason for all the evil He plans… nothing happens in the universe apart from His will… So let’s say this evil happens. How do [people try to] get God off the hook?... By saying 'He didn’t want that to happen, or He’ll fix it, or He wouldn’t mess with your free will'… [But] the truth is that all those answers make God unworthy of worship… He actually decrees all things." [So in order for God to be worthy of worship, He has to want and decree - not just allow - evils like gang rape. That's sick! ]
60. Theodore Zachariades (as seen in this clip from Soteriology 101): "God works all things after the counsel of His will, even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so... and when He wants to, He orders those to commit adultery when HE WANTS TO!" (Seriously, watch the clip. You gotta see him. And this almost makes me wonder if he's getting his "get out of jail free" card ready, lining up his excuse.)
61. James White was asked [listen here] this question: “When a child is raped, is God responsible and did He decree that rape?” And White replied "If He didn't then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose... Yes, [He decreed it] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless... [But if He decreed it], it has meaning, it has purpose, all suffering has purpose, everything in the world has purpose, so there's no basis for despair [other than the fact that a god like that is evil!]... But if we believe that God created knowing all this was going to happen but with no decree - He just created and all this evil is out there and there's no purpose - then every rape, every situation like that, is nothing but purposeless evil and God is responsible for the creation of despair...." [So as long as he "decreed" all that evil and child-rape, then Calvi-god is somehow not responsible for despair!?! What the...!?!]
62. Mark Talbot/John Piper (from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, page 42-44): “God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Nadar and even the sexual abuse of a young child... God speaks and then brings his word to pass; he purposes and then does what he has planned. Nothing that exists falls outside of God's ordaining will. Nothing, including no evil person or thing or event or deed. God's foreordination is the ultimate reason why everything comes about, including the existence of all evil persons and things and the occurrence of any evil acts or events. And so it is not inappropriate to take God to be the creator, the sender, the permitter, and sometimes even the instigator of evil.” [How much more of a hand would Calvi-god have to have in evil - how much more than foreordaining, creating, and instigating it - to be considered truly evil himself? Is any level he plays in it okay merely because "he's god"?]
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Given the terrible things Calvinism teaches about God and His character ("And you know it does, Calvinists. You know it!"), is it any wonder that people have had these kinds of reactions to it (quoted in my post "Calvinism's Heart-Breaking Destruction"):
From a Reddit post called "Calvinism is disgusting":
"As an ex-Christian who used to be a Calvinist, what alarmed me is that all the fears about satan applied to god... [Calvinists] ascribed so many characteristics to god that could be applied to satan that made them seem indistinguishable." (from 'deleted')
"I remember as I was leaving my faith, I thought 'If God exists, then he let my parents waste thousands on private Christian education, let me be baptized and study his word and be confirmed, let me have periods of doubt and repentance, all when he knew that I would be damned to hell.' Even when I was still a Christian, he knew that I was damned and he never helped me." (Uriah_Blacke)
"My parents used to say 'even the cutest baby is a dirty rotten sinner.' It was somewhat of a joke in our family, but also definitely what we all believed. I’m turning 30 this year and I still have trouble turning down the volume on this narrative about myself. It has led to issues in my friendships, with my partner, and now, with my parents... I have deconstructed to the [point] of agnosticism... This has crippled my emotional growth as an adult in ways..." (foreverlanding)
"The [Calvinist] concept of total depravity is so completely toxic. I'm still unlearning this as well. It does make me angry sometimes thinking about how absolutely f*cked up it is to teach children they are inherently awful just for being... The system is designed to make you feel like a POS [piece of sh*t] just for being a human. I'm 37 now and am agnostic after trying really hard to believe until about 2ish years ago. I feel more hopeful and free without the church." (eab1728)
"Agreed. Total Depravity isn't the "Good News" espoused in Reformed circles... Reformed doctrine never allowed me to truly accept my own self-worth; it robbed me of dignity and replaced it with constant, grating guilt. And it's utterly worthless in the face of real hardship... I am a universalist now, which couldn't be further from Reformed doctrine. And honestly, what a relief." (come_heroine)
"This is a screenshot from an email that I sent to my mom when I was 12 years old, simply titled "distressed". [In the email, the 12-year-old is telling the parent that she (I'll just assume it's a 'she' for now) is distressed because she's praying and reading the Bible, but nothing is happening. She's looking for assurance that she's saved, one of the elect. And the father replies that she should keep asking God to show her the way, that only God can save her, that only God can awaken her dead spirit and make her alive, that she can't do anything to save herself. So essentially, it's "Do something about it, but you can't do anything about it, and so wait to see if God convinces you that you're one of the elect." So confusing. So biblically off-track. And it basically just boils down to "if you're not elect, you can't do anything about it and there's no hope for you." No wonder the kid is distressed!] I'm so angry that I was taught that I was completely bad, simply by being human, and I deserved to be tortured by the Creator for all of eternity, AND I COULD DO NOTHING ABOUT IT. All I could do was pray to God and hope that he had mercy on such a miserable, worthless, depraved wretch such as twelve-year-old me. I lived with a phobia of hell until the cage of my mind opened when I was 22, and I could finally think for the first time in my life..." (why-homo-sapien)
"A few years ago I was wondering why my self-esteem was so crap and then suddenly realised that the people who taught me to hate myself were my parents, through the medium of calvinism :)" (pktechboi)
From the Reddit post (with a few minor spelling and punctuation corrections) called I have posted on another Group as well. I NEED SOMEONE TO EXPLAIN Calvinism to me because what I understand of it is scaring me!!! : r/Christians (reddit.com): "Okay.... so I have just watched a sermon from Paul Washer (which I thought was one of the most amazing sermons I have ever seen). That man has a fire for Christ that cannot be extinguished. But for the first time, I found out what Calvinism is. And I am scared to death!!! So if I am not elected by God to be saved, I will not be saved??? No matter how much time I devoted to prayer, how many times I have been broken by his feet have, how many hours I spent learning scripture, how many days I "thought" I was talking to my best friend. It was all just a lie??? I come in heaven just to realize I was never elected??? And get thrown into hell because the day I was born I was already doomed from the beginning??? And my whole faith is just one big hoax???"(Dingus_bellator1027)
(That's some serious struggling going on right there! And Calvinism can offer no real hope, no real help, no real comfort other than "wait until you die to see if you won the salvation lottery or not".)
From the Reddit post "Verily verily I say unto thee, f*ck this sh*t!" which starts with this quote from Kevin DeYoung (which can also be found in his article on limited atonement): "Jesus did not die for every sinner, but for His own people. The Good Shepherd gives His life not for the goats, but for the sheep":
"This was a huge factor in my own deconversion. Even if this was an actual literal proven fact, there's no way I could love and worship a being who did/does this." (from justalapforcats)
"Welp, that takes a lot of pressure off of me as an atheist. I won't worry about whatever Jesus did, because he didn't die for me anyways." (from chucklesthegrumpy)
Miss_an100 responds to that with "...When I realized our own judicial system treats us better than this sadistic god, I was out. 30 years of my life. Sure, there were good memories. But the weight of it all sure took a toll on me eventually. Thankful I can breath a bit more easy now not worrying if I have committed the unpardonable sin. I’m certain I have 100x over. ;) ..."
If you are raising kids in a Calvinist church, take all of this very seriously. Because this could be them someday: "I have recently discovered the doctrine of election and I believe that I am not elect. I don't have any spiritual fruit and I hate God with all my heart. My question is, at this point is it right to want to die? Might as well go to hell now instead of later. I do not want to kill myself (I never will hopefully) but I cant see a reason to live when my end destiny will be the same." (from "deleted") (Found in Election and Suicide : r/Calvinism (reddit.com))
(And I can only hope that the last one is a sick joke.)
Yeah, that's pretty much Calvinism in a nutshell, minus the colorful language (or not, because even that colorful language was "ordained" by Calvi-god for his glory).
[For the record, I like Lee Strobel's answer to "Why does God allow suffering?" It's so much more biblical and commonsense than Calvinism, and it keeps God's good, righteous, trustworthy character intact.]
In Conclusion:
Can you see why we had to leave our Calvinist church, why we couldn't support or encourage it with our tolerance of it or even appear to support it by staying on the membership role there? Can you see why we had to make a clean, solid break with it and why I now write so fiercely against it? Do you understand what's really at stake here?
It seems to me that, in Calvinism, there is no line God can't cross, that He can do the same deceptive or evil things Satan does, but it's supposedly okay for Him and we have to trust Him and worship Him anyway, no matter what.
But if God can do the same things Satan does - if they both want the same things, will the same things, cause the same things, and are glorified by the same things - then what's the difference between them? Where is the dividing line? Why is Satan considered evil but God considered good when they're both on the same page, doing the same things, working towards the same goals?
Calvinism reduces God to Satan's level - turning God into Satan - but then it shames us for fighting it, making us the problem, not their theology. Satanically brilliant!
And it's especially brilliant because turning God into Satan essentially turns Satan into God - the ultimate case of calling good "evil" and evil "good."
And so - I wonder - who do you think's behind a theology like that?
