Alana L.: 5k ("soveriegn")
This series is based on this 14-minute video from Alana L.: 5 Signs Your Loved One is Becoming a Calvinist
K. "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."
Hahaha, Alana nailed this one!
And as she said, "What many new Calvinists don't understand, and what they'll learn little by little by little - because if they were told this in the beginning they probably would catch on a little too quick and not follow the path [Bingo!!! She hit the bulls-eye!] - sovereign is not just a word that means 'supreme ruler' in Calvinism [as it should mean]... The sovereignty of God [in Calvinism] means that God has decreed all things - all things in eternity past that have ever happened and that will ever happen. All things that you do, think, feel. Everything! And everybody for that matter. All events, all sins, all evil - everything has been decreed. Not just permitted, not just allowed. Decreed! Caused! Brought to pass [by God]!"
You don't believe her?
John MacArthur ("Why does God allow so much suffering?", underlining added in all quotes): "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."
And click on my post "But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!" to see many more quotes from Calvinists themselves which confirms it, such as these that I also quoted in point #3H:
John Calvin (Institutes..., book 1, ch. 17): "[God's will is] the most perfect cause of all things..."
J.I. Packer (Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God): “[God] orders and controls all things, human actions among them.”
Gordon H. Clark (Religion, Reason, and Revelation): “... if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it… this view certainly makes God the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything…”
Theodore Zachariades (as seen in this clip from Soteriology 101): "... [God] orders those to commit adultery when HE WANTS TO!"
Edwin Palmer (The Five Points of Calvinism): “Foreordination means God’s sovereign plan, whereby He decides all that is to happen in the entire universe… He decides and causes all things to happen that do happen... He has foreordained everything… even sin… Although sin and unbelief are contrary to what God commands…” (😕)
James White [listen here]: "Yes, [God decrees child rape,] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless... [But if He decreed it], it has meaning, it has purpose, all suffering has purpose...so there's no basis for despair." [So White thinks that having a god whose Plan A for some people is to be abused and for other people is to be the abusers even though he commands them not to do evil is "no basis for despair"!?!😕 Gee, how bad does it have to get before Calvinists despair!?! And if that's what people are told God is like and told it's what gives our world meaning and purpose, it's no wonder there are so many atheists who'd rather have no God than a god like that.]
My ex-pastor (June 26, 2022): "... Some of you have been horrifically abused and treated horribly by somebody... it was God who brought these circumstances into our lives in the first place, painful as they may be."
My ex-pastor (September 13, 2020): "[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."
And in case you weren't sick enough yet:
Mark Talbot/John Piper (from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God): "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'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... he ordains all of our free sinful choices ["Free" that's not free is not really free. Duh!]... God has made our lives’ most evil moments as well as their best... I myself find it very difficult to understand how [God can ordain evil for our good] with some of the worst things that human beings do, like sexually abusing young children or raping or torturing someone mercilessly.
... Yet these griefs have been God’s gifts.... [And in the end, when we see Jesus face-to-face] we will see that God has indeed done all that he pleased and has done it all perfectly, both for his glory and our good..."
See! This is exactly what Calvinism's definition of sovereignty entails.
So do you still think they're not really teaching what they're really teaching?
(Are you still going to believe them when they deceptively claim "We don't say God causes sin and evil"?)
Well...
If the foundation is bad, it's all bad:
A Calvinist's misunderstanding of "sovereignty" (and "omnipotence," which is part of it) is the foundation of their bad theology (along with their misunderstanding of total depravity, spiritual death, predestination, election, regeneration, Jesus's sacrificial death, and most other things).
But "sovereignty" is the best tool Calvinists have to manipulate people into Calvinism: "Is God sovereign, or are you? Does God have all the power, or do you? Does God control everything, or do you? If God doesn't control everything, then God controls nothing. Etc."
Because no good Christian would deny that God is "sovereign, omnipotent, and in control."
And so Calvinists use "God is sovereign" to manipulate everyone into Calvinism, convincing us that if we disagree with them or oppose their ideas about God, then we are disagreeing with God Himself and with the Bible, that we are opposing His sovereignty and elevating man above God and stealing His glory and denying His Truth and claiming we're stronger than Him and saying we saved ourselves, etc.
(Do you know how religious cults work?)
And since we don't want to be a "bad Christian" like that, we - in our ignorance, naivete, and desire to be humble - trust them and let them tell us what to think... never questioning their definitions of terms or interpretation of verses... and always rationalizing, explaining away, or totally ignoring the ways their theology hurts God's good, righteous character and blurs the line between good and evil, between God and Satan.
(And who do you think benefits from that?)
But if we began to heed some of those red flags we're sensing and to research for ourselves what they're teaching and to compare it all against a plain, commonsense reading of the Bible, then we'd eventually learn that there's a massive problem with the way they view things... including sovereignty.
Calvinists mistakenly make sovereignty about how God must use His authority and power, believing that He must always be using His all-powerful authority all the time to preplan, cause, control everything, even sin and evil and unbelief, "or else He's not a sovereign, omnipotent, in-control God."
But contrary to Calvinism, true "sovereignty" is not an issue of how He uses His authority and power. It's about the position of authority God is in, how He reigns over all (sovereign) and has supreme power over all, even if He chooses not to actively use it all the time in every situation.
"Sovereign, all-powerful, and in-control" are very different from Calvinism's "using authority and power to preplan, cause, and control everything." One describes who God is (adjectives); the other describes what He must do as God (verbs). One is biblical; the other is not.
God can be "sovereign/in control/all-powerful" over all things without preplanning/controlling/causing all things... except in Calvinism, where He's only sovereign and all-powerful if He functions the way Calvinists think a sovereign, all-powerful God must act.
[If Calvinists can find ONE VERSE that clearly defines how God must act in order to be "sovereign," or that defines "sovereign/omnipotence" as how God must preplan, cause, control all things, including sin and evil and Satan and all our thoughts and decisions, or that says if there was anything He didn't actively preplan and control but simply "allowed" to happen then He wouldn't be sovereign or omnipotent ... then I'll start to believe them.]
A king is still sovereign over his kingdom (the highest authority there is, reigning over the land, in charge over all) even if he doesn't actively preplan/control/cause everything his subjects do... except in Calvi-land, where the king must preplan/cause/control every fart, burp, sin, evil, disaster, tragedy, and rebellion, or else he's not really the king and doesn't have any power.
Calvinists don't realize it, but they're essentially telling God how He must act in order to be God, judging His "God-ness" based on whether or not He behaves according to their definitions and ideas of how a sovereign, omnipotent God must behave. (So who's really sovereign and all-powerful now!?!)
But biblically, God gets to decide how to use His authority and power. And clearly, in the Bible, He has chosen to voluntarily restrain His ability/power to control everything in order to give us the free-will to make our own choices - not because He's not all-powerful or not sovereign or is at the mercy of humans (a false accusation Calvinists make against us if we say that we have free-will), but because He wanted it that way.
God gave us free-will because He wanted to spend eternity with people who voluntarily choose to love Him and obey Him (which necessitates giving people the option to reject Him and disobey Him). He didn't want to spend eternity with robots forced to love Him (where's the joy and glory in that!?!), but with people who truly, voluntarily want to be with Him too.
"Forced love" is no love at all. And since God is love, it makes sense He would love us with a non-forcing love and would want real, non-forced love in return.
(Would we be happy with forced love? No? Then why do Calvinists think God would be, expecting Him to settle for something we wouldn't settle for.)
And once again, as I asked in point #3H: If Calvinists view "sovereignty" the way they do - Calvi-god preplans/causes/controls everything to happen exactly as it does, and nothing different could have happened - then how do they explain verses like these:
Hosea 8:4: "They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval."
Jeremiah 19:5: "They have built the high places to Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."
Isaiah 30:1: "Woe to the obstinate children," declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine..."
Acts 14:16: "In the past, he [God] let nations go their own way."
Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die.''"
Exodus 13:17: "When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country. For God said 'If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt."
And why would Calvi-god say that he would destroy Ninevah in 40 days if he really never intended to destroy them because he knew he was going to make them repent?
And if Calvi-god himself is the one who determines/causes/controls everything Satan does, why would he give Satan limits on how much he could attack Job (in Job 1)?
And if Calvi-god controls/causes every single molecule, every movement of each wave and gust of wind... then why would Jesus rebuke the wind and the waves in Mark 4:39 (this would mean that Calvi-Jesus rebuked Calvi-god, opposed Calvi-god, and undid what Calvi-god was doing)... and why would Calvi-god need to set boundaries for the seas (Job 38:8-11, Ps. 104:9, Prov. 8:29, Jer. 5:22)?
Limits and boundaries are only needed if there is freedom to move within those boundaries. Limits and boundaries are not needed if God Himself preplans/controls/causes every molecule, every person, every angel/demon. Because in that case, it would only mean that God is giving Himself those boundaries and limits, tying His own hands, limiting what He can do. I mean, think about it, really.
[The only answer Calvinists have for verses like those is their ridiculous "God has two wills" one, where God wills/decrees one thing but then He also wills/decrees that people disobey what He willed/decreed, which is essentially: "God says one thing but means another. God commands one thing but causes the opposite."
And once again, what does Scripture say about this kind of double-mindedness?
James 1:8: "A double-minded man [is] unstable in all he does."
Matthew 12:25: "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand."
And yet this is the Calvinist god, a god who says one thing but means another, who works against himself but blames people for it. How can a god like this stand or be trusted!?!
And if we don't have a trustworthy God, we've got nothing.]
Cause vs Allow:
[The following, adjusted slightly, has been added from my post "When Calvinists say 'But predestination!' (shorter version)":]
Personally, I like the way I've heard pastor Dr. Tony Evans describe God's sovereignty. He says that in His sovereignty, God sometimes just allows things (I'd say like our decisions, natural phenomena/effects, demonic activity - and Dr. Evans means true "allows," not the Calvinist kind where God "allows" what He first preplans and orchestrates)... and He sometimes causes things (I'd say such as storms, illnesses, putting a certain person in power, etc.). But He never causes sin, evil, or unbelief.
[Although, He can and does put us in situations that force us to make our choice between obedience and disobedience, to act out the sin He knows is in our hearts - so that He can expose it, deal with it, and work our self-chosen decisions into His plans. Such as when He uses an evil nation like Assyria to discipline Israel. He didn't cause them to be evil or do evil, but He knew that they themselves chose to be evil and wanted to do evil... and so He put their self-chosen evilness to good use. And because they themselves chose to be that way, He could then turn around and punish them for their evilness after using them to discipline Israel. It's not much different than cops running an undercover sting that uses the choices of self-created criminals for good, to help catch the crime bosses. And because the criminals chose to be criminals - even though the cops were using them for good, for justice - the cops could then turn around and punish them for their bad choices. Do you get it? It does make sense, and it truly makes the criminals/sinners - not the cops/God - responsible for their sins and evil. Unlike Calvinism.]
But Calvinists incorrectly and unwisely lump it all together, believing that if He allows it, it's because He first decreed/planned it and then causes/orchestrates it. And so everything - even every moral evil - was predestined by God, and nothing different could have happened.
And they make the mistake of putting "natural evils" and "moral evils" in the same camp, saying that if God causes one (storms, illnesses, famines) then He also causes the other (abuse, betrayal, murder).
If you listen closely when Calvinists teach about God's sovereign control over things, they'll often start by talking about His control over nature, even brining up verses about it. And then once they get you to agree that He's caused/controlled a storm or famine or illness, they'll add in moral evils, making you think you must accept both.
But contrary to Calvinism, there is a huge and significant difference between causing natural "evils" and causing moral evils/sins - because God doesn't command against the first one, but He does command against the second. And so God can cause a storm and still be holy, righteous, good, and trustworthy. But He cannot preplan our sins and evils, then command us not to do them, then control/cause us to do them, and then punish us for them... and yet still be a holy, righteous, good, trustworthy God.
These are two wildly different things! But Calvinists lump them into the same category because it supports their twisted theology. (Also keep in mind that just because a verse says God caused one storm or famine or illness does not automatically mean He causes them all. We cannot take one verse about one particular situation and apply it to everything. This is another error Calvinists make.)
God is in control over all, but that doesn't mean He controls all.
Yes, He does control/cause some things (but not sin or unbelief), when He chooses to. But for the most part (because He set this world up with free-will humans, with angels and demons that also have a level of choice/freedom, and with natural processes that He allows to function freely within limits according to natural laws), He is "in control" over all not by controlling all, but by deciding what to allow or not allow, when and how to intervene, when to give us choices and when to decide things Himself, what the consequences should be, how to work things into His plans, etc.
But overall, He gives us free-will and an awful lot of room to make real decisions that affect things. Because He wanted real people, real relationships, not robots.
["Oh, but we don't think people are robots controlled by God," says the Calvinist.
Oh, really? Then I must have misunderstood:
Martin Luther (The Bondage of the Will, see this section, bold added): "... [God] thus works the evils by evil men... He uses evil instruments, which cannot escape the sway and motion of His Omnipotence... the evils are done as God Himself moves... All this is fixed certainty, if we believe that God is Omnipotent!... the wicked man cannot evade the motion and action of God... [but] he must continue of necessity to sin and err..."
(Notice the error, the assumption, that "omnipotent" is about how God must use His power, that He must always be using His power all the time to control/cause everything, even sin... or else He's not omnipotent. Telling God how God must act in order to be an omnipotent God!)]
God does not preplan our decisions and actions, but He gives us the ability to choose among real options that are possible for us. And He knows how to work whatever we do into His plans, whether we obey or disobey. And so if we sin, it is truly our choice. We didn't have to choose it. But He will work it into His plans. And if we had chosen the opposite - to not sin - then He would have worked that into His plans instead. He "causes all things to work together for good," not "causes all things." Except in Calvinism.
The real reason - and, really, the only reason - Calvinists are so hesitant to admit that Calvi-god causes sin and evil (when it's what their theology undeniably teaches) - is because "cause" is related to "blame/responsibility."
They know that according to their definition of "sovereignty," they must admit that Calvi-god preplans/controls/causes all things, even sin and evil (and they should admit that he is really the only cause of it all, because no one but him has the ability to make decisions or control anything).
But they also know that to say "he causes sin and evil" implies (rightly so) that he's to blame for it. And they know they can't say that. And so this puts them in a bind, having to find other ways to say "cause" when they really do mean "cause," and having to make it seem like he's not to blame for/responsible for sin and evil, when he really is.
From Calvinist David Mathis's article "Does God 'cause' sin?": "We May Say That God Causes Sin: For us, the question arises as to whether God can be the efficient cause of sin, without being to blame for it... [But if] the connection between cause and blame in modern language is no stronger than the connection between ordination and blame, then it seems to me that it is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin. Certainly we should employ such language cautiously, however..."
[I think this is why their Calvinist theology books are so long - because they have to come up with all sorts of convoluted arguments (building error upon error, twisting the Bible as they go to make it fit their errors and creating new errors to cover for the previous errors) to make it seem like Calvinism doesn't make God responsible for sin, when it really does.]
To show the contrast between Calvinism's and non-Calvinism's view of sovereignty, I'd like to end this section by quoting a conversation between Warren McGrew (Idol Killer) and a Calvinist woman (he shared this story in his video "You don't understand Calvinism - Considering the Reformation", starting at about the 24-minute mark.):
Warren says that he was hanging out with family, and a woman walked in and said "I've been watching your videos on YouTube. I want you to know I disagree with you. I believe God is sovereign."
Warren said that he also believes God is sovereign, and he explains it this way: "When I say 'sovereign,' I mean God is King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and He is the highest authority to which we can appeal. He's the ultimate Judge, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord. When I say 'sovereign', that's what I mean... [But when you say 'sovereign'] you mean 'meticulous effectual determinism,' that God decreed all the evil in the world, all the good, and brought everything to come to pass. You're thinking 'fatalism.' And so we're gonna disagree on how we define 'sovereign' - because I think it's a great blasphemy to accuse God of sexual abuse or decreeing and bringing about all adultery and all evil and all sin and suffering. I think that is the result of man's rebellion against God, not God's ultimate Will and that He wanted this. I think this is contrary to His Will. Ultimately, He'll redeem and restore it, but we're contrary to it." [Well said, Warren!]
Then she responded, "I want you to know something, Warren. My husband committed adultery on me... I know God did that for my good and for my husband's good - because he repented, he got more devout with the Lord and our marriage improved as a result. So I know God's the one who led him into temptation, that led him into that adulterous affair, and that God effectually decreed it for our good."
And Warren responded, "Ma'am, God can redeem without being the devil to bring that about. Just let God be the fireman, He doesn't need to be the arsonist. Just let Him be the fireman, let Him be the hero and put [the fire] out. Let's own our own evil. Don't blame God for your husband's infidelity. That's not real repentance. Don't blame God for your husband's lust. Don't blame God for your husband's abuse. Put that squarely on that man's shoulders, and he needs to take that to the cross in repentance... Don't blame God for your husband's evil."
Warren goes on to say in his video that "She just could not let go of the idea that because somehow this great sin was turned into good that ultimately that meant that God was the one who caused it. So when we talk about 'sovereignty' in the Calvinist system, we're operating under a completely different definitional set."
Once again, well said, Warren!
[And I liked when Warren responded to "You don't understand Calvinism" with "It's not that we don't understand Calvinism; it's that Calvinists are being inconsistent" (paraphrase). So true!]
And how sad is it that good, well-meaning, humble Christian have convinced themselves that God Himself is the one who preplanned and caused the terrible evils other people did to them - all because Calvinists have convinced them that that's what a "sovereign" God does and that He should be trusted and praised for it anyway.
It's truly sickening! (And eventually heart-crushing and faith-destroying.)
[The posts in this series will be added to the "Alana L." label as they get published.]
