“He did it because he could not help himself, which explains everything and nothing” ― Johnny Rich, The Human Script link
This post is filled with far more questions than answers. I am looking forward to hearing your answers.
Justin Taylor wrote How Sovereign Is God for The Gospel Coalition(TGC) website. As many know, the only ones who are members of TGC are Calvinists (YRR, Neo-Reformed, Neo-Puritan.) In this post he quoted Charles Spurgeon:
I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—
that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit, as well as the sun in the heavens—
that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses.
The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—
the fall of sere leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.
Taylor then says:
Does Scripture really teach this? I believe the answer is yes.
Taylor goes on to quote Scripture for proof that God is involved in the minutia of daily life. Why minutia? Because Spurgeon appears to believe that God directs even the "chaff from the winnower." God apparently tells that piece of dust exactly where to go.
Desiring God (John Piper's website) posted The Sovereign Hand of Sleepiness written by an obviously weary mother, Kristin Tab. What she has to say echoes Spurgeon and Taylor.
My sovereign God (and yours) has ordained every night of my life, just as he has ordained my every day. He is the author of the number of times I wake each night, just as he is the author of each one of the days of my life, be they blissful, benign, or “bad.” And so whether I wake one time or six on any given night, he knows that, and he has, in fact, designed that night as part of my life, for my ultimate good, and his ultimate glory.
The God who has accomplished my salvation, from start to finish, is the God who ordained it before the beginning of the world (Ephesians 1:4–5). Will the God who chose me from before the beginning of time forget me, now that it is the middle of the night and I can feel every ounce of energy I had stored for tomorrow draining away?
The answer is an emphatic no. And here is the solution to the practical dilemma of exhaustion, the place where exhaustion becomes a steering wheel that drives us toward God in a different way than sleep does. Sleeplessness causes us to look away from ourselves — our capacity, our resources, our energy reserve, our mental acumen, our physical strength, and our careful planning and scheming — and it causes us to rely solely on him who “does not faint or grow weary” (Isaiah 40:28). It is there, in the middle of the night, with the baby — or computer, or hospital IV, or mental stressor — that we find ourselves coming to the end of ourselves. And the end of ourselves is a very good place to be.
I agree with the author that God will not forget us in our difficult times. In fact, few Christians would disagree with that sentiment.The real question is how far God goes in manipulating the minutiae of my life.
As a people, we tend to be binary in our thinking. In choosing between two courses of action, Course A and Course B, we often ponder the question "Which is the will of God?" Here are my questions based on Tab's and Taylor's posts.
Could it be that both A and B would fit into the will of God?
Do we view God as being limited as to the number of choices that he gives us human beings?
In fact, could God allow for an infinite number of choices that would fit into his will for our lives?
Does it always really matter to him in which exact direction that piece of dust goes?
Could it be that God was not the causative agent in that wake/sleep cycle?
Instead, could it be that He enters our life as we cope with the day to day difficulties and the occasional major disruptions?
Scenario: When my son was a toddler, he would wake up and take off running from dawn to dusk. This resulted in three sets of stitches from various falls.
Is God's plan for the universe so rigid that he made sure that my son needed to have three sets of stitches as opposed to two sets of stitches?
Were three sets of stitches necessary for God's ultimate glory? Why wouldn't two do?
Could it be that God is so big that, no matter how often my son fell and opened a wound, it would all fit into His vast plan?
How much does God intervene in this world?
Why do these descriptions make him sound like an Obsessive-Compulsive God, manipulating the direction of each piece of dust in a wind storm?
Could God have placed some parameters to make sure we do not blow our world to smithereens until he comes to make it all new?
Other than an interruption of those parameters, could an infinite number of choices be made and still be part of a bigger plan?
Did He direct my hand so that I picked out two shoes that were mismatched and it took me 2 hours and lots of coffee to discover it?
Did he have me do this because, if I put on matched shoes, his plan for the universe would be in jeopardy?
If you think that I am being foolish on the shoes issue, then why is it OK that Kristin Tab is telling us God arranged for the exact amount of her sleeplessness is for his glory?
Where does the controlling of behavior by God stop ? Or does it never stop?
I have a number of gray/silver shoes. Is this because the number of my gray shoes then contribute to God's ultimate glory? Really?
Also, is God's ultimate glory determined by how many times I wake at night? If so, why?
Is His glory that fragile?
Why is Tab's post not an example of fatalism? Fatalism is defined as:
a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them;
Why is not an example of determinism?
the belief that all events are caused by things that happened before them and that people have no real ability to make choices or control what happens
This post has lots of questions and I look forward to the discussion. Now, God has ordained me to clean the kitchen right now. I wonder if I could convince myself that God does not really want me to clean the kitchen because He would rather I go feed the birds?
Lydia's Corner:Leviticus 25:47-27:13 Mark 10:32-52 Psalm 45:1-17 Proverbs 10:22
only the arrogant would assume to know how to explain the sovereignty of God.Calvinist know everything, there is no mystery to them.
second! 😛
I think the view that God superintends everything is clearly the only biblical view, there is no point arguing against it.
Why is Tab’s post not an example of fatalism? Fatalism is defined as:
a doctrine that events are fixed in advance so that human beings are powerless to change them;
Why is not an example of determinism?
the belief that all events are caused by things that happened before them and that people have no real ability to make choices or control what happens
Seems to me that this is exactly fatalism and determinism. I often ask myself these same questions.
If God has determined even the ammount of sleep I get each night, if he controls even the movement of dust, then why do we evangelicals, (neo-Cals in particular) so upset about anything that ever happens? We obviously have no control or choices about what happens. All we can do is choose to see everything as God’s plan for his Glory.
Now lets noodle that out a second, abortions, obviously no one makes that choice it is predetermined by God just as the path of dust and amount of sleep. Homosexual acts, obviously not a choice but rather something predetermined by God, henious sexual crimes committed, just another way to bring about God’s glory. See this makes no sense to me and I never can get anyone who believes God determined the path of dust or the hours of sleep they would get each day to explain how or why god controls those minute things and yet magically people get to make choices about abortion, sex, or other sin issues.
If their argument is true then doesn’t this make God the author of our sin as well as our faith and salvation?
The bible is clear that under God’s sovereignty, he is free to allow man to make genuine choices, and that volition is part of the image of God in man.
No, He hasn’t ordained that I clean the kitchen right now. Obviously, He has ordained that I waste several morning hours reading and commenting on the internet when there are undoubtedly more practical things I could be doing.
(However, so glad you’re here. Some days it’s all I can do just to read survivor blogs on the internet, and ponder, and try to figure out where to go from here, and what matters, and why.)
YES!!!!! Homerun, grand slam!!! MOM!!! THANK YOU!!!
Before I had my serious betrayal I tried to discuss this very issue with a guy I knew from Sovereign Grace. I had read on the internet how some Neo-Reformed were reacting to Matthew Warren’s suicide (son of Rick Warren in spring 2013) Due to how Neo-Cals define sovereignty which I see as nothing but determinism I asked the following questions to the guy in Sovereign Grace
—–
1. Did God predetermine Matthew Warren’s suicide?
Now if God did predetermine Matthew Warren’s suicide I have a series of questions that I would like you to answer.
2. Did God predetermine the specific gun that Matthew Warren would use to kill himself?
3. Did God predetermine the specific bullet that would be loaded into the chamber?
4. Did God predetermine the trajectory of the bullet through Matthew Warren’s brain?
5. Did God predetermine how Matthew Warren’s head would explode? Meaning when the bullet passed through Matthew Warren’s skull did God predetermine how much brain matter would fly, spatter, etc…? Did God predetermine where parts of Matthew’s cerebellum would land on a wall or a floor? Did God predetermine how much blood would pour out of Matthew’s body?
I guess the greater question I am trying to ask is the following…to what detail is God involved in Matthew’s suicide?
I have a million things I want to tackle at my blog, but one of them is this very topic. How Neo-Calvinism makes the problem of evil worse since its nothing but pure determinism. In the process it also helps feed atheism and drive people from Christianity. How? If many people reject faith based on the aspect of why would a loving God allow evil, or pain and suffering; and you have a group of people who teach a sense of sovereignty that is nothing but determinism, then you are feeding the problem. Its like pouring gasoline on a fire. Which for me it did that…for years.
Ok since we are going down this road, if God has predetermined everything, then what exactly is the point? I mean this sincerely, If the whole thing is about showing God’s Glory, who exactly is he showing it to? To those who He predetermined would see it? And if destroying the non-elect is predetermined to bring about his His Glory, why aren’t they spared in some way instead of being tormented in hell for eternity for doing exactly what God ( the one who has predetermined they would do all that they have done) made them do? This makes absolutely no sense to me and does not describe the God that i see in Jesus, You know the one who is the exact image of God.
Ken wrote:
Do you mean he determines exactly how many stitches my son was to receive?
Just imagine what this theology and listening to it Sunday after Sunday does to a child who has endured some type of abuse. God ordained abuse just for them. The child, and many times adults, have no way to process what the preacher or writer is saying except to believe that God sent abuse to them and God’s purpose matters, but their life and pain doesn’t matter. This type of unfettered writing and speach coming out of writers’ and pastors’ makes me ill. It reminds me of people who believe that they should beat themselves, deprive themselves, and grovel. They believe it makes them more spiritual and closer to God. They do it so other’s see their suffering and know how spiritual.they.are. Meanwhile, those who have endured horrendous abuse are left to believe that God wanted this for them. Ugh!
Mitch wrote:
Yes, Mitch. It is exactly this that makes me question my faith.
My reformed friends tell me that God can do no unjust thing, and that it’s perfectly just that he formed some vessels for glory and some for destruction. I went to a church that tried to get me to swallow the pill with sugarcoating that said, “We shouldn’t be blaming God for the fact that people are destined for destruction, we should be praising him and glorifying him because he deigned to save some who *ought* to have been destined for destruction otherwise.” I think I first heard this sort of thinking from R.C. Sproul, but it was taught in our ex-church for decades as well.
And yet, I can’t help asking, what kind of lovingkindness is involved in creating people *on purpose* so that they can live short, futile lives and then go on to an eternity of torment?
If God orchestrates everything, and if some things are evil, then yes God is the author of evil.
If Adam’s sin has thrown a monkey wrench into all creation, and if God orchestrates everything including evil like Adam’s sin, then God had thrown a monkey wrench into his own creation and then blamed in on Adam.
What is wrong with this picture? There is something really missing here.
@ Ken:
Do you honestly believe that the places where dust motes fall are predetermined by God?
@ Nancy:
God is the author of evil?
Nancy…did God foreordain American Airlines flying into 1 World Trade on September 11?
Did God foreordain Adam Lanza killing 27 people in an elementary school in Connecticut?
Did God foreordain ISIL to decapitate Japanese hostages in Syria?
Did God foreordain Jeffrey Dahmer to murder and cannibalize 18 (?) people in Milwaukee?
Did God foreordain a Sunday school teacher to molest and sexually abuse a child?
Did God foreordain Bernie Madoff to engineer the largest Ponzi (?) scheme in history and for one of his prominent clients to commit suicide?
Like I said in my note above to the guy I knew from Sovereign Grace…did God foreordain Matthew Warren’s suicide?
If God is the author of all that than I would suggest that acts of war, terrorism, financial fraud, school massacres, and sexual abuse are in the end acts of worship to God. Since God orders it its the way man can worship his creator. In the end not only does it make the problem of evil worse but it makes acts of evil to be acts of worship. Is this why Sovereign Grace refused to report a child abuser at CLC or Fairfax? If the abuse was ordered by the Lord than reporting the child abuser to the police is sinning against the Lord as you are going against the Lord’s plan.
Mitch wrote:
Good points, Mitch. I can remember a blog post from a YRR pastor who was shocked that a youth approached him after his talk about God’s sovereignty and asked sincerely if God was a narcissist. This shocked the YRR pastor but I thought it made sense in light of how they present God’s Sovereignty.
They think they are glorifying God by presenting Him this way. In effect, they are doing the opposite in the long run.
Most of these guys from TGC/T$G and YRR movement have been extremely indoctrinated by the Mohler’s, Pipers, etc out there. They have not seriously thought through what they teach. I would have to conclude by their teaching it was God’s design for SGM/Mahaney to cover up child molestations and of course, Driscoll rise to empire was God’s intention. It goes round and round. It is a black hole.
I really think this thinking is affected by at least two issues. First the neocal definition of sovriegnty. I have no doubt the Bible teaches God is sovriegn, I just doubt that word means what they think it means. If you have the wrong definition for a word that your entire theology is hinged on then of course your theology will arrive at multiple wrong conclusions and implications.
Second it seems to me that this view is probably much more a product of world view influenced by sociological circumstances and phscological factors than a product of the teaxhings of the Bible.
Maybe three things, many of them confuse the idea of an inerrent text with the idea that their interpretation is ierrant. I don’t really care for the Chicago statement since it talks about documents we don’t have. But even that definition says the text must be rightly interpreted.
@ Eagle:
Read again what I said. I said “if” and “then.” I did not say “I think.” You have missed the point.
@ Ken:
Ken, I once believed as you do. What moved me was reading The Innocence of God by Udo Middelmann. You can google “The Islamization of Christianity” also by Middelmann to get the “short version”. God orders things but not meticulously. My present view.
@ mitch:
Please. What is this with “neocal” definition of sovereignty?? John Calvin and the Old Calvinists believe the exact same thing. Piper and others are simply more vocal and upfront about it. Ask any “old calvinist”. Ask Jed. Check the Westminster Confession of Faith (not by any stretch a neocal document). It dates to 1647. If you don’t agree with Piper give some substantive reasons. Let’s quit the namecalling as it helps no one. I pointed Ken to another understanding of sovereignty. Maybe you, too, ought to read it.
As someone who has suffered from insomnia for years, two of which were extreme insomnia, I can see why sleep deprivation is used as torture. The idea that God voluntarily chose to torture me like that, even after obeying him and getting pregnant while chonically ill (and getting worse as a result) is sickening. I don’t know what is wrong with these people. Their hearts must be as cold as the Grinch’s.
My first thought is that if God ordains every speck of dust to swirl in a specific pattern, or ordains every single person’s sleeping pattern – how mundane and how exhausting it must be to be God.
For a long time now I have thought that God didn’t care if I did A or B. Wouldn’t that be limiting God and the abilities that he gave me if he only ordained that I did A? I also find it interesting when people ask for God’s guidance in a certain area of their life. What I really want to say to them is, what if you just lived life and allow God to work as you go?
Now THAT is right up there with Mohammed abu-Hamid al-Ghazali for X-Treme Predestination. al-Ghazali’s Incoherence of the Philosophers separated Faith from Reason within Islam some 800 years ago, and Islam’s been suffering the aftereffects ever since.
Al-Ghazali was contemporary with St Thomas Aquinas, and tackled the exact same problem — how to reconcile Greek logic (primarily Aristotle) with Revealed Faith/Scripture. The two men came to totally opposite conclusions — Aquinas was able to reconcile Aristotle as human wisdom, a subset of knowledge and wisdom; al-Ghazali put Faith and Reason in opposition, and Faith must prevail. Al-Ghazali’s example I have heard cited was a cloth on fire: it is NOT burning; God is Willing the cloth out of existence and the flame, heat, and ashes into existence ex nihilo. No connection, only the Sovereign Will of God. In’shal’lah.
@ Godith:
I checked out the use of the term high church for presbyterian high church and ran across a lot of information some of it not entirely explanatory but adequate for my purposes. I also found a page on line called a primer of presbyterianism and I was astounded at the diversity within presbyterianism. I have no background in calvinism of any kind, so this was all new to me. Thanks for the info.
Kathi wrote:
It would be like me posting this by having to type the ones-and-zeros machine code for every letter, every command, and every function involved.
“Just like Utter Determinism, Except CHRISTIAN(TM)!”
Lydia wrote:
Don’t these guys show signs of NPD themselves?
In which case, they’re just redefining God into their own image.
Eagle wrote:
Don’t forget the more common rank-and-file reaction “Why Bother? Whatever Will Be, Will Be. Eh, Kismet.”
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Ding Ding. Exactly right
Nancy wrote:
Remember the Paradox of Evil?
1) God is all-good.
2) God is all-powerful (omnipotent).
3) Evil exists.
Any two of these three, no problem. All three together, and you have a paradox.
Extreme Predestination attempts to solve the paradox by redefining (1) to place God above and beyond Good & Evil. God Wills what God Wills, and who are we mere creatures to call it Evil?
As Christian Monist once wrote, “You end up with a God who is Omnipotent but NOT benevolent.”
They preach stuff like this because of their own inherent control issues. They cannot fathom NOT understanding God, even though the Bible states no one can understand God completely. So they chalk everything to His will. Also, it relieves those with abusive tendencies from responsibility…”god made me do it…” barf. Which goes right along with another recent article by someone in that circle that basically states, if someone hurts you with thier behavior, it’s your fault you are hurting. Put it all together and you have a theology ripe for abuse.
God as not only cause but also God as micromanager just keeps hitting the wall over and over as far as I can see. For example: we have physical laws of nature. If we say that God created all things then we surely have to say that God set up the physical laws of nature. The laws of nature seem to function predictably. But then if something happens consistent with such laws of nature, some people say that God specifically caused that particular thing for his own glory. However, there does not seem to be any actual evidence to show when God intervenes in the laws of nature and when he just lets things proceed as already set in place, if he actually does intervene, so what are we to think? Does God hide what he does so that we cannot tell if something is just how things work or if it is ‘from God?” If so, is he hiding what he does for his own glory? How does that work? But if we say that we don’t know when or if God intervenes, then we say we have no evidence to uphold the theory of micromanagement on the part of God since God is hiding what he does. And we would not know the best course of action in any case.
This issue has played out historically, and still does, in medical ethics. It is not an unimportant issue. Obviously I know what I think, but I am raising these questions for discussion. It would be interesting to hear what other people think.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Yes. Exactly.
(1) If the existence of God means that God is the specific cause of all things, if that is what sovereign/omnipotent means, (2) and if what seems to be evil exists, (3) and if God can do no evil, (4) then evil does not exist, and what we call evil is not evil. Therefore, if God exists then evil does not.
I was a Calvinst at one time. Pretty hard core. And my ” conversion” came all at one….why am I trying? If God knows already, why should I even attempt?
If God causes all these horrible things, then he’s already decided and knows who is being sent to hell.
As a friend of mine said, if He knows,” I better do everything I can here for ‘ fun’ ….eternity in Hell is a long time.”
I’ll make a brief attempt at dismissing absolute determinism. Our most fundamental science, quantum mechanics, doesn’t give precise answers when applied to atomic or molecular scale problems. It supplies probabilities. Suppose there is an experiment when done gives A for answer 75% of the time and B otherwise. A single trial will unpredictably give a result of either A or B. If the experiment is done a 1000 times the resulting counts of A and B will be in the ratio of 3 to 1 within statistical errors, not exactly 3 to 1. There is no way to predict the outcome of a single trial. Quantum mechanical processes govern the lowest level biological processes in our bodies. This argues very effectively in my opinion that we are not deterministic. I also concede that lack of determinism is not the same as free will.
Is God subject to such physical laws? I believe not. But the number of such decisions that would have to be made in a second for even a single individual make is beyond calculation. I believe God reserves the right to intervene in His creation as He pleases. We are in the season that commemorates His most notable intervention.
My bottom line is that He has given us free will, expects us to follow His moral code to the best of our ability, will judge us accordingly and fortunately has indicated there will be grace shown.
God has obviously given us a free will, hence our Lord commands us to do certain things. If everything is ordained and we were like mere robots we would not need the scripture, or Christ to die for our sins, or need to repent, or believe the gospel, or resist sins, or to endure to the end, or be commanded not to be weary of doing good. Adam was put in the garden and told he could eat of any tree in the garden EXCEPT the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.Dare I say that the scripture teaches that we even become divine co-workers with God. Wow! I call it ‘blessed synergy’.
It seems they mistake sovereignty for dictatorship. or vice versa. Do I think God is sovereign over the speck of dust? Sure. It acts according to his creation. But does he then direct each speck as we would count out paper clips? No.
Have you heard of the Slenderman incident? It happened near here, when our son was visiting last summer.
He asked a visiting Calvinist friend, “So God caused a 12 year old girl to be lured into the woods and nearly stabbed to death by her two friends, and then cause her to survive and spend weeks in the hospital and in recovery at home, all for His good pleasure and glory?”
Then….
“Doesn’t that mean that God, in essence, wielded the knife? Couldn’t He have found some other way to glorify Himself?”
Then…
“That’s not a God I am interested in following.”
And then there was silence.
Sounds like a theology that could only be born among the middle class in a comfortable and safe first-world country.
I didn’t have the privilege of being raised in that environment. I very much believe in God’s presence and comfort in our suffering, and I believe he brings good out of very bad situations by his grace an mercy. But I won’t for a second agree that God caused my mom to have typhoid or my brother to get malaria or me to almost die at age 5, or the Muslim fundamentalism that now terrorizes the Christians and many Muslims in country where I was raised, or my friend’s mother to be accidentally electrocuted, or another family friend to be shot to death by thieves in the middle of the night, or another friend to drown in a lake while saving two children. These are not the acts of the God I serve. He did not superintend them. They were not his will. They had no place in God’s original plan, and will have none in God’s kingdom when it is fulfilled.
We live in a fallen world, with people to whom God gave free will and creativity. That means we and others have real choices and make them and have a role in shaping our world, for better or worse.
Anyone who has raised kids should have an inkling of what I’m talking about.
The Calvinistas’ doctrine here is cold comfort at best and clinical detachment from reality at worst.
Tim wrote:
The concept you describe here seems to be out of the reach of the folks Dee quoted in the article.
@ Godith:
Have you read what Calvin wrote about reprobation in the Institutes? Scary stuff. And I always keep in mind that it was against the law to disagree with Calvinism (and Catholicism) for many years in European countries. Therefore very little debate.
My take has been that Calvinism tends to cycle… rise and wane historically since the Reformation. Some groups went more social gospel and others were “sinners in the hands of an angry God” types that burned out. Even the Puritan descendants pretty much burned out and many became Unitarians. I think the last resurgence was a good thing because of the internet the peasants are having a debate that used to be mostly in theological Academia in the last few hundred years. Before that, it was illegal. :o)
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
That is what I have come to think after interacting in that world for 10 years. They are absolutely eaten up with “authority” issues. Every single issue is framed around “authority”. Whether it is God or man.
@ oldJohnJ:
Thank you. I love it when scientific Christians weigh in.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
I actually like the example of the cloth and fire (one thing coming into existence as another blinks out) as an imaginative exercise, re. perception and how we view the world and the things that happen in it. It is very creative, and i have to wonder if *that* was one of al-Ghazali’s intentions in using it. Also, have tons of prople misunderstood him? I don’t know, but i think “possibly” is in that equation somewhere. (As is usually the case when people go for hyper-literal readings of all kinds of texts, not just the Bible.)
I’ve always found the discussions to be had around predestination and ultimate sovereignty lead to some of the most interesting ideas. And it seems to be a topic humans have been talking about for a while like the above quote from Epicurus (though it does have disputed authenticity to him, fyi). Interesting article, I enjoyed it.
Theology is a tricky thing. Obviously, we are not God, and we do not have all the facts in order to construct a model that explains everything with 100% clarity and accuracy. So all of our models of explanation have flaws and weak spots where we don’t always get it right.
That said, determinism fails in so many ways. I can think of a few.
It renders the terms “good,” “glory,” “ordain,” and “occurrence” circular and tautological, and therefore meaningless. Consider this condensed version of deterministic providence: “God ordains every occurrence for his good and glory.” Any one of the four words must be defined by the other three, without any outside reference. For example, what is glory? It is the result of what God has ordained to occur for his good. What is good? It is the ordained occurrences that bring glory. And so on. What is good, glorious, or ordained is all the same. The words become indistinguishable in determinism, although determinists rely on the rest of us to import our meanings into these words to hide the circularity. By the way, Irenaeus (disciple of Polycarp and he of John the apostle) said “the glory of God is man fully alive.”
In determinism, all evil has its origins in the mind and will of God. Because of the circularity in the above paragraph, the most horrendous evil becomes good to the determinist, because it occurs, therefore was ordained to bring God glory. See the circularity? Woe to them that call evil good.
Third, determinism does not fit the words and deeds of Jesus. How can an orthodox view of Jesus uphold determinism in Matt 23:37-39 for example, or Matt 26:53?
Fourth, we cannot live out determinism. Name me one determinist (Neo-cal or otherwise) who does not condemn sin. Our inborn (and even redeemed!) sense of right and wrong won’t let us say “God’s will has been done” when children are molested, or Jews slaughtered, or…. None of us live like evil is what God has ordained all of the time. It cannot produce a consistent life in that regard.
There is more, but that’s enough for now.
Jim G.
oldJohnJ wrote:
Precisely.
Eagle wrote:
I gotta chime in here too Eagle. I think she hit her wide receiver in the end zone with a diving catch and then ran for 2 instead of booting it through the uprights.
===> (smiley face goes here)
Jim G. wrote:
yes! This echo’s what NT Wright says about when we are reflecting Christ we are “more” human. When we do evil, we are less “human”.
Good to see you here. I always enjoy your comments and learn something (teaching)
@ Nancy:
Great! Generally the Presbyterian Church in America is less “high” and more reasonable. More easy-going. Less legalistic. You get the idea 🙂
@ Lydia:
I highly recommend the blog:I, Jacob Arminius. (google it) Presents classical Arminianism. I don’t go a day without reading it!
This stuff is no different then the Greeks and Romans who believed in deterministic gods who did various activities to their human underlings at their whim. No different then the Hindu gods who determine which people belong where- yes exactly the caste system. No different then most religions out there. Oh wait ……yes…. Calvinism is no different.
One of the ways I feel you can tell the difference between religion/religions and Christianity is the idea and implementation of FREE WILL.
Faith wrote:
Hello Faith. What difference do you feel there is in that? I’d appreciate some clarity of your idea here if you don’t mind. Thanks!
@ Nancy:
Oops…sorry!! 😀
Excellent thoughts, Dee. I have often been frustrated with the very same thinking. It really seems to trivialize God to the extreme. The illustration that I have often used is the orbit of the Earth around the sun. I have asked Calvinist-leaning friends if God is “steering” the planet in its annual path around our star. Invariably, they will respond that God is actively moving the planet in its orbit. I can imagine God sitting in heaven saying, “Oops, you’re getting out of alignment there, Earth. Turn 3 degrees to the right. Now stay there . . . no, that’s too far to the right.” Isn’t it easier to explain that God has determined the scientific bounds or laws whereby things just work? He has the ability at any time to step in and alter those laws for his own purposes, but the vast majority of the time he allows those laws to function properly.
Keep in mind that the common charge from Calvinists to these questions is that to believe otherwise is some form of deism.
Strongly recommend the reading of just about anything by Roger Olson. Good grief, this fatalism is nauseating.
What kind of God would tell you have a real choice to make (but secretly know you cannot make it because He won’t let you) and then punish you for not making the right choice?
Too bad Calvin isn’t still alive. Talk about your NPD and psychopathic traits–maybe a good shrink and some serious chill pills would help him.
Seriously, seems to me the only folks who can stomach the more hyper Calvinism are the depressed and the downright mean.
@ Faith:
Of course Calvinists believe in free will as well as determinism–thus they are called “compatibilists” (those two things are compatible). Philosophically I think it is hard to reconcile these two. Even non-Calvinists (like Methodists, Anglicans, and Baptists) believe God’s grace is necessary in order for people to believe, as do Calvinists. I don’t understand how Lutherans believe in predestination but not in limited atonement. The Lutheran position has too much mystery in it. Also that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood. Can’t get it.
@ Jim G.:
I have read that twice now and will do so at least once more, it is that good. I hope you comment some more for us.
Godith wrote:
Check out ‘substance theory’ on wikipedia.
Jim G. wrote:
(The cynic might say that it all depends on what sin, and who’s doing the sinning… but I digress!)
You make a very good point there. Determinism of the kind cited in the post is pure speculation, though obviously it can be shown to be biblical by appropriately filtering the 31000 verses * (so can open theism, and even atheism). Nobody can live by it, any more than you’ll ever see a preacher simply project passages of scripture on a screen and then silently point to them – no matter how strongly he affirms the sufficiency of scripture.
* Or 31 kiloverses, in round numbers at least. Though the original autographs didn’t have chapters or verses!
The problem I have with Taylor’s article is that he completely ignores the (very many) Bible passages that teach exactly the opposite of his position. I’m sure Taylor (and most of our readers) realize that this is not a new conversation. This is a problem with any position that claims both confessionalism and inerrancy. Much of the Bible is not allowed to speak for itself, but has to be ignored or explained away.
I may have issues with Calvinism, but that is not my present concern. My present concern is crummy hermeneutics.
dee wrote:
Or that I eat tuna fish or peanut butter for lunch? 🙂
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
Exactly! The whole OT is a comedy of errors! God intervenes at various times because His ultimate plans will not be deterred by man. His intervention comes following man’s bed choices and decisions only to arrive at His desired outcome in spite of them.
Interestingly, Francis Schaeffer, who was of the Reformed persuasion himself, nevertheless confronted determinism at Westminster Seminary: https://liturgical.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/francis-and-edith-schaeffer-at-westminster-theological-seminary/.
There’s Calvinism and then there’s Hyper-Calvinism. But as one of the posters above said, theology is a tricky thing!
One thing I do find ever so slightly amusing is this idea that extreme determinism is the only theology that properly glorifies God. That is, if I believe God doesn’t subject the entire physical universe to nano-management *, I am somehow thinking less of him.
So, I have to take risks, and face unexpected setbacks and failures. As I go through life I must develop resourcefulness and resilience. Many people do all of these far better than I do, too – and better than God. Because he does none of them.
* I.e., the next step on from micro-management. There are more, but I’ll leave it at that…
“Did He direct my hand so that I picked out two shoes that were mismatched and it took me 2 hours and lots of coffee to discover it?”
Dee, according to my understanding of Scripture, my answer is: Maybe.
Why would God care? Because what we do does not occur in a vacuum. Maybe someone might have pointed it out to you, this led to a conversation, and during this conversation you shared your faith. Or something even less noticeable occurred as a result of your mismatched shoes, something that God wanted to happen. Or it was simply your choice and God still used it for His purposes. (If God can do this with sinful choices, Gen 50:10, why not with non-sinful choices?) Or it was simply something you did that led to nothing that God particularly desired.
When we think of major events that occur in our lives, can’t we often trace it from relatively trivial events that occurred beforehand? Looked at this way, nothing we do is definitely trivial.
@ Godith:
I will check it out although I am definitely not Arminian, either. I have been studying Calvinism for about 10 years now so I am not really “open” to much about the deterministic view anymore. It all seems like circular explanations to me now. However I will affirm your right to it! :o)
I see compatablism as Calvinism’s way to make that view of the determinist God palatable. It basically outlines God playing a trick on you making you think you have limited free will(to sin) when the doctrine also teaches you really don’t. I have been round and round with many a YRR about it.
I think Zack Hunt summed up my frustration with Calvinism perfectly in his Open Letter to John Calvin:
“Which is why, John, it’s hard not to conclude that Calvinism is a sustained exercise in the defense against the obvious. By which I mean you’re constantly on the defense against the obvious conclusions of your claims.”
http://zackhunt.net/2014/05/13/dear-john-an-open-letter-to-john-calvin/
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
In my above comment (3:59PM EDT) I was hinting at yocto-management 🙂
A fifth and even more insidious problem with the neo-Edwardsean brand of determinism floating around the neo-cal movement today is that (in my opinion) it clashes with the idea that the Christian God is triune. We must echo the 1600-year old words of Gregory of Nazianzus when he said “When I say ‘God,’ I mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Our God is one being who is eternally three persons in communion with one another. If it stands at the heart of who God is to desire glory above all else, then which Person receives it? Is it the Father, or the Son, or the Spirit? If God is all about his own glory, then what stops the Father from taking the glory of the Son? If it is at the heart of God to be glorified at the expense of the creation, then that is what God is eternally all about. It follows that there must be some sort of competition, or at least some jealousy, within the Godhead himself, if self-glorification is his chief end.
In other words, if the ends (God’s glorification) justifies the means (determinism), then who can guarantee that the same consequentialist (ends-justify-the-means) ethic does not drive the inner workings of the Godhead himself? If so, does Jesus of Nazareth really stand surety (T. F. Torrance’s words) for Yahweh? The gospels’ portraits of the relationship between Jesus and the Father do not paint Yahweh as a consequentialist, but the neo-cal determinists do.
Jim G.
Bridget wrote:
Wow-good insight.
refugee wrote:
I struggle with this as well.
@ Nancy: I am with you.
@ Jim G.:
“Third, determinism does not fit the words and deeds of Jesus. How can an orthodox view of Jesus uphold determinism in Matt 23:37-39 for example, or Matt 26:53?”
The context of these verses is Jesus’s strong rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees, the leaders. They were the ones who killed the prophets. Jesus refers to gathering “your children together,” so Jesus is not speaking to the children, but to the leaders. It was the leaders who were “unwilling” to let the people listen to Jesus. (cf. Mt 23:13) (Of course, many listened to Him anyway.) In context, this passage does not refer to individual believers resisting God’s will for them to be saved; it refers to the leaders as a whole hindering many of the people from listening to Jesus.
I’m not sure about your point regarding Mt 26:53.
JeffB wrote:
And what if it was just mismatched shoes and nothing happened?
fwiw, Olsen has a pretty good article related to this:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/03/calvinist-attempts-to-rescue-gods-character-considered-and-refuted/#disqus_thread
@ Kolya:
Schaeffer was a full-out fundamentalist Presbyterian for much of his early,llife. He and his family were sent to the French-speaking part of Switzerland to evangelize Catholics and bring them back home to Calvinist Protestantism. In fact, they were literally asked to leave an all-Catholic canton. They ended up moving across the valley to a Protestant canton, and eventually started L’Abri there, in their chslet.
@ numo:
Chalet
@ Jim G.:
I think their view of the Trinity comes from the focus in that system on authoritarianism. There is always a pecking order in all relationships right down to their view of elders, church governance, etc.
Where did ESS come from? The idea of ESS astonishes me.
Nancy wrote:
The Deists of the 18th Century were partially right with their Cosmic Watchmaker idea. Physical Laws of Nature are the operating system for the physical universe — boot it up and let it run in the background so you can concentrate on other things. Like the critters who pop up in this reality like apps in an OS.
Ever wondered if God is playing a massive game of Sim Earth?
@ Lydia
ESS was invented in the early 1970s as an answer to “ever encroaching feminism” into the church. George Knight was the architect. It did not catch on until Moltmann and his social view of the Trinity espoised in his groundbreaking work in the early 80s. Ironically, the hyper-hierarchical ESS crowd depends on the hyper-egalitarian Moltmann for the theological depth to make the theory stick for those who are already authoritarian.
I wasn’t really thinking of ESS in what I wrote. ESS is only a side issue here. In western Christian theology there has always been the tension between God’s oneness and his threeness. All of us struggle with that a bit. Sometimes, in our minds, God is singular, and sometimes he is plural. I think it is difficult for glory to be the aim when we think consciously of God as triune.
Jim G.
Jim G. wrote:
Thanks for the historical background on ESS. I totally agree with the above but had never really thought of it that way. It is inconceivable to think of Jesus’s aim as wanting to “glorify Himself”.
I read Dee’s entry before the comments began. I could have written many of the replies before they existed because I have spent over 50 years of my Christian life trying to figure this all out. I have worn out pastors and Sunday school teachers through the years asking these IF questions. I would spend hours upon hours, beginning at about third grade, wanting someone to please explain God’s soverignty to me. I have almost had mental breakdowns over this. I have begged God to please send someone to logically explain this all to me. J. Vernon McGee, that dear dear man who taught through the Bible explained it the best and when the craziness hits me again, I go to youtube and listen to him again. I know God is real. I have experienced his sweet love over and over. But, I have been working out my salvation with free and trembling for most of my life. My precious Christian parents never questioned God’s will and they lived so peacefully. My Dad fought in three wars and walked through his military life amazingly peaceful and happy. I am wondering if temperment has something to do with all this. I was adopted. My parents and their biological children were just like them. I was the odd one out, always asking why, why, why. I’ve read the Bible through year after year and have placed question marks throughout, many about sovereignty. J. Vernon McGee keeps me sane.
Me: So are you God?
Calvinist: Of course not!
Me: How Odd. If you are not God, then that
means there is something that exists in reality
that is not God. That is, if you really exist.:-)
If God can make something *exist* other than himself,
perhaps he can make something that can have its own
*purposes*.
This “Otherness” is demonstrated in the trinity.
God is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit.
Jesus submited his will, so there are at least TWO
distinct wills in the Godhead.
Thats why the Father can love the Son.
They are distinct.
We too, must be distinct enough from God that it makes
sense for Him to say He loves us.
And it makes no sense for God to command me to
love Him if I am simply an extension of His will .
InI which case He is like a little girl playing with her dolls.
How this works is a great mystery.
God creates the “Not God” and yet still maintains
control over reality and cares for each and every bit.
Thats why I say one of the the most profound theological
statements I can make is “I am not God”
On this subject I totally agree with Piper, Spurgeon(whom I love to read), and Justin Taylor. I can’t get past what the scriptures teach on this matter.
To me it is comforting, as God can take my mistakes, even my sin, and turn them around for my good.
As for gloryfying Himself? Absolutely. John 6:65, Matthew 11:7, Jonah 2:9 are just a few of the many scriptures that point to God’s Sovereignty.
Titus 1:1 says that we are chosen of God as well as Romans 8:28. Again, this is a comfort as nothing could have stopped our coming to Christ.
I think this article by John MacArthur offers another good explanation and I for one rejoice in the Sovereignty of God as defined by these men. I wouldn’t want it any other way, but it wouldn’t matter if I did or didn’t. God is God. End of story.
http://www.gty.org/resources/Articles/A167/Gods-Absolute-Sovereignty
@ Eagle:
As is was ordained from the beginning!
dee wrote:
Please allow me to clarify. I wrote two posts which I had hoped would be displayed together (unfortunately, they got separated by another post).
These posts were contradictory – one was the God ‘sovereignly brings everything about’ view and the other was ‘he allows man to make choices’.
I was hoping to illustrate – in a not too serious way – that if the former is/were true, did God forordain me to write two contradictory posts, or did I choose to do this? Or did he foreordain that I choose to do this!
My own take on this subject, fwiw, is that God is sovereign in the sense of never not being in control. He always has the final say. But because his is unassailably sovereign, he doesn’t need to constantly demonstrate this by controlling everything.
I don’t see sovereignty an entailing that he personally (if you like) brings everything about that happens. He set up a functioning natural world that doesn’t require constant micro-managing. He quite clearly allows man to make choices e.g. where to live, whom to marry. He allows us to reap what we sow, and of course we live in a fallen world now.
As far as salvation goes, God’s sovereignty is shown in the fact granting this is at his discretion and on his terms alone. Man has no freewill to change this or try to negotiate about it. He has also predestined the futures of those who believe and those who do not believe but obey unrighteousness. I imagine there is general agreement on that.
The rub is whether God allows us to choose to believe, or because of our fallen condition sovereignly elects who will believe or not and be saved, mercy to one and justice to the other. Clearly God alone has the right to decide this, and although I am fairly sympathetic to the reformed view on this, have never really been convinced that God exercises his right, but does allow us some element of choice.
Providing we don’t put man in charge of the salvation process, I’m not convinced it really matters that much. The answer to the question might be intellectually satisfying, but I’ve started to think we shouldn’t or needn’t ask the question in the first place.
But I certainly don’t buy into the notion God has preordained how much sleep I get. That seems to be determined by whether or not I am too stupid to get to bed on time. You can take a biblical truth too far until it reaches reductio ad absurdum.
oldJohnJ wrote:
Yes, I thought of you when I wrote that! God must be competent at both Yotta- and yocto-management if indeed he is sovereign at both the cosmological and the quantum scales.
Some friends (actually, my and Lesley’s spiritual mentors) were over for dinner the other day and we pondered, among other things, the relative dearth of scientists in the theological community. In Romans 1, Paul observes that God’s attributes are displayed in his creation – which, of course, makes abundant sense. But too many theologians take a certain interpretation of scripture, gloss over the fact that even that interpretation is inevitably driven by cultural influences, and then impose it a priori on creation. Rather than using creation alongside scripture to shed light on God’s nature.
In fact, Romans 1:20 is a very difficult and frightening verse for the kind of people who want to sit at an Innerancy Summit (whatever that’s supposed to be). Because in it, scripture itself affirms that God has revealed himself other than by scripture alone and, indeed, before scripture was ever written.
I think of the Trinity as a sort of cosmic mutual admiration society, with each person unselfishly bringing glory to the others. Only a Being that exists as multiple persons in one substance can avoid being a total narcissist.
The topic brings up questions related to Open Theism, which I find compelling. But yesterday, I had a pastor lump open theism in with “other heresies.”. I’m curious if this is a common view, especially since Roger Olsen, who I trust on other issues, sees open theism as a viable option.
Meticulous providence is so hard to reconcile with the realities of life.
@ Nancy:
“Substance theory”–that was pretty amazing. I plan to study it more. Thanks for the help.
@ Lydia:
I had seen the “letter” but it was good to read it once again. Hope others do.
@ numo:
No offense but this information about Schaeffer is a mixture of truth and error. He was a fundamentalist in many ways early on but had a faith crisis. They went to Europe initially to do child evangelism, having seen the spiritual devastation following WWII. They ended up in Switzerland, not to evangelize Catholics or anybody else, per se. L’Abri grew organically as people began showing up, beginning with their daughter Priscilla’s friends from University.
@ Jim G.:
Great comment.
Former Fundy wrote:
Some of them go further and question whether we are Christians.
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
🙂 Great comment by the way.
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
We have discussed this a number of times. When I read this post, the “God wanted me awake 6 times last night for his ultimate glory” I thought things had one a bit too far and that it was time to revisit it. Or was that my own choice after all?
Nick Bulbeck wrote:
and @ oldJohnj
I would love to hear you and ojj discuss the issue that seeing God in creation does not exactly look like the same God that one sees in scripture.
Now, admittedly while you all are fascinated by sub atomic ‘particles’ and deep space I live in a more limited world of more predictably probabilities, and that is less challenging philosophically. So I would be interested in how you all handle this issue.
Victorious wrote:
Good night! I was working on my first cup of coffee when I read your comment and I thought you said peanut butter and tuna fish together! I love both, btw.
Kolya wrote:
My understanding of Hyper-Calvinism is this. the Hypers believe that God created people for hell and for heaven. The Calvinists believe that God only predetermined people for election.
Now, my brain cannot deal with the difference-no matter how hard I try. And I have read just about every Calvinist theologian of the Calvinista variety out there. Perhaps God predetermined not to let me understand this so I could question the whole thing! Maybe I am supposed to be a thorn in their side!!
Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:
I read that. It is really good.
@ numo:
I did not know that.
Lydia wrote:
I have seen this applied on all sides of the theological spectrum. It always seems to be about “I’m in charge. God says it.”
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
Again you made me laugh!
@ Jim G.:
I really, really like your comments! I did not know about that part of the ESS history and I thought I understood how it came to be. Thank you!
@ Nancy:
I should have added @roebuck. He has lived/taught at the heart of one of the crucial issues in that question also.
dee wrote:
Count on it!
@ Janice McKenzie:
Thank you for your heartfelt comment. Let me share something with you.
Tomorrow, Duke Chapel is going to do a walk through the Stations of the Cross for anyone who would like to join them. I plan to join in with a friend.
I used to believe that only Catholics did that. When I was a kid, my Catholic friends took me into their church and showed me the stations. I was not raised in a religious home and the statues, some of them depicting blood on the figure, kind of scared me.
Fast forward some decades as a Christian. I have walked through some difficult times, especially with my daughter’s brain tumor and the health of my other two now grown children. As opposed to believing that God willed my daughter’s tumor, I now see that a loving Christ who was beaten and put on a Cross, enters my pain and walks beside me, my husband and my children.
His will was for us is not to have suffered and one day that will be the case once again. Until that day, I hold fast to the Hand that was pierced and the Savior who gets it. Last year, the new Dean of Duke Chapel looked out over the crowd on the eve of Good Friday and said “Many of you have been abused by the church. I want you to know that Jesus understands your pain. He was abused by the church as well.”
He is a Savior who gets it and was willing to live it. I reach out for the pierced Hand on many days, especially when I read all of your stories of abuse by the church. I truly believe He did not will it but that He will walk it with you because He, above all, was wounded by His church and deeply cares for his people who have been hurt as well.
annonymous wrote:
Yes!!!!!! As one of our readers has also said “God is sovereign over His own sovereignty.”
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
I agree and believe that to be true.
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
I cannot as well.
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
I don’t buy their definition.
So, we can agree on two point yet disagree on the final point. I would venture to guess that I have read the Scripture as much as you, have pondered theoworks of many great teachers as much as you, have contended and struggled with the concepts as much as you, and have come out as a non-Calvinist.
Perhaps God has ordained two different points of view?
@ Godith:
Please read Edith Svhaeffer’s book L’Abri for some of what i have said. She wrote about it elsewhere, too. And yes, they were evangelizing RC children to begin with – no ifs, ands orbuts about it.
@ Godith:
L’Abri did not begin – even in its most basic early form – until after they movedto the Protestant canton of Vaud.
I lived there for a while, briefly, back in 1977.
@ dee:
See, among other things, Frank Schaeffer’s memoir Crazy for God. But much can be picked up ftom Edith Schaeffer’s books, as i just mentioned in areply to Godith.
@ Janice McKenzie:
I have two adopted grandkids. They both know that they were abandoned at birth. One of them cannot let the ‘why’ thing completely go. Or the question about wondering who her biologic parents are/were. The other has no patience with the ‘why’ question or the what about the biological parents question and just wants to let it be and move on. We have not idea what is the difference unless it is primarily personality/ temperament. But they both seem to be okay overall.
Ken wrote:
On this we definitely agree. I really liked your comment.
Trigger alert-graphic descriptions of children in pain- Do not read further if this might upset you. It is necessary to my argument.Also, remember that I had a child who suffered in one of the described ways.
The danger of reductio ad absurdum is that if it is accepted, then we must say that God planned the rape and torture, the live burial and death of Little Jessica Lunsford. As Jessica Lunsford struggled for her last breaths, God was doing this for his glory.
We must say His glory is shown in the little children on oncology floors (I spent one to many days there with my daughter) who cry out in pain and confusion. Every time one of those children wakes in the night and screams in pain and fear- God planned it.
Did God enter that pain? He will if we do not reject Him. Can He take that pain and use it to help others? Yes because I have seen it in my own life. I see Him as a compassionate God who enters our pain and walks with us.
Let me finally share a story that I rarely talk about. I know it will open me up to lots of questions but I’m willing.
My daughter was 3 and was operated on in November. My son was born in January and her brain tumor had returned, in a really big way. It was growing rapidly. I had another daughter who was 4 and was acting out a bit since our lives were turned upside down with a new baby (who had an ear infection at Day 8 and ear tubes at 4 months from which he bled regularly due to infections)
My husband had to work to keep up with our insurance and we were in Texas, far from our families.
One day, prior to her second surgery but with our awareness of her returned tumor, I was trying to fix supper. My baby was on my back in a back knapsack because his ears caused him to cry a lot. So, he lived on my back as an infant. It soothed him. He was crying to eat, my 4 year old daughter was begging for attention and my 3 year old daughter was lying on the couch with, as we learned later, a bad headache.At one point I looked over at her and she was smiling.
I remember that night because, after my husband got home, I went out for a run and bawled the entire way. A couple of neighbors saw me and later told me. I remember this like it just happened.
A couple of years later, my oldest daughter asked me at dinner if anyone had ever drawn a picture of Jesus when he was on the earth. I began the usual explanation that, as far as we know, we do not have a picture but he was Middle Eastern appearing, etc.
My 5 year old Abby (her real name) piped up and said, “I know what he looks like.” Smiling indulgently, I asked what she meant. She told me that one time when Will was a baby and I was trying to make dinner and he was crying, she got a really bad headache and she didn’t want to tell me because she knew I would stop everything and try to figure out what was going on. It was getting late and everyone was hungry.
She said she felt someone rubbing her back and her headache went away. She turned her head and said she saw Jesus smiling at her and then he disappeared. To this day, she believes she saw Jesus. I asked her to describe him and she said it was hard but he was smiling at her.
Now was that a visual hallucination brought on by the tumor? She never had one of those but I suppose it is possible. But, I prefer to think that Jesus entered her pain and our family that night to encourage us on our way.
I am not one to quickly believe such things. In fact, I am somewhat of a skeptic when it comes to religious visions. However, that vision brought peace to my suffering daughter.
That is how I view Jesus. He enters our sufferings and encourages us as we walk through our pain. However, this was a bit of an unusual entering.
@Jeff B
@ JeffB:
I understand the context of the quote, but the problem (for the determinist) lies within the quote itself. It is the “How often I would have gathered…but you would not” that throws the monkey wrench into determinism. If determinism is true, then the “you would not” was already determined from before the foundation of the world. There is no possible alternative, because God had decreed and rendered certain Israel’s sin from before time. The “how often I would have gathered” becomes meaningless, because it cannot possibly happen. Moreover, out of the mouth of Jesus, it becomes tremendously deceptive (if determinism is true) because here is God-in-the-flesh acting like it was possible for Israel to not sin. Remember, in determinism, whatever occurs and only whatever occurs is truly God’s will. Why is the God-man acting like something else could have happened? Wouldn’t he have known better?
The same idea is found in Matthew 26. If determinism is true, then Jesus ***could not*** call on those legions of angels because it did not happen. Calling on the angels was not decreed (and we know this because it did not occur), and therefore was not possible. If determinism is true, and God fully ordains all that comes to pass, why is God-in-the-flesh acting in such a manner as to imply the opposite of determinism? Why is he behaving like counterfactuals (things that did not occur but could have, in this case calling the angels or Israel’s faithfulness) are real possibilities? How can “God” be rigidly deterministic and Jesus not? Do we not see a real disconnect here?
Jim G.
Dee–your understanding (which is mine also) of God entering our pain and walking with us through it rather than deterministically causing it is good plain middle of the road to conservative Wesleyan teaching.
Or free grace without the dispensational aspect. Nothing says a sovereign God cannot sovereignly grant human beings free will with all the ramifications that brings without losing one iota of sovereignty.
Or as the guy up in ND said when a tornado way out in the boonies took out his farm house: everyone was telling him it was “God’s will” and that “God sent it” and that “God had a purpose for it.” His take was that God allowed his greatgrandpa free will as to where to build the house, even though God surely knew that years later a tornado would hit it. God chose not to move the tornado that time (though of course He could have) and would surely use it to the man’s good, but was not the cause of the house being hit. In other words, the man granted that an all sovereign God could have prevented the tornado but does not generally interfere with letting nature take it’s course. Since God chose to do so, the man figured the best thing to do was seek God’s aid in coping, seek God’s presence in walking through it, and not blame God for allowing free will to operate.
We too have a child with some pretty devastating physical problems. I do not believe God caused them. I do believe they are in a sense the result of God giving free will. By that I mean they require a certain genetic makeup, which comes from specific pairings people have been allowed to choose for millennia. So in a sense if our son’s great great grandpa had chosen a different wife perhaps our son would not have that specific condition. God wasn’t surprised by the condition and indeed walks with us through it. I can even find some hidden blessings and strengths or benefits we have experienced as He walks through it with us.
Doesn’t mean He caused it, willed it to happen, or inflicted it on us. Rather, He sovereignly allowed mankind some pretty huge choices, starting in Eden, and things have gone downhill by our own, sometimes unknowing hands ever since.
And yet He is always there, always with us, and always good.
@ numo:
I read her book so long ago. I guess I forgot. I forget a lot these days!
linda wrote:
My heart is with you in this.
Being raised in a Calvinist church and an IFB non-calvinist school, I was left with the feeling that it did not matter whether God was good or not. He was in charge so since nothing better explains our existence we had better follow him. That is the way I still feel about many Calvinists and fundies’ god. After beginning a born again relationship with God when I was 30 (54 now), and I began to hunger for righteousness, their idea of following God gets more scary all the time. I can’t imagine following God if I thought he was the author of evil, which no matter how the Calvinists explain it, that’s what I take away from their theology.
So Eagle, I believe you are right about them driving people to atheism. My brother is so deep in atheism right now, I tell him that he is preaching it just like the evangelicals he is so bitter about preach their beliefs. BTW, he is a Calvin college graduate!
Dee, please check your TWW email. I’ve sent something for you to consider.
@ dee:
Well, so doi!
@ numo:
So do i.
Jim G. wrote:
Lydia wrote:
To think of a supernatural deity in human form (Jesus) as the one who created all that we see (and don’t see), even space itself and the spaces between the spaces, it doesn’t make sense does it? How could that kind of power be insecure and in need of constant glorification?
dee wrote:
Let me take a stab at it. I know this misrepresents the position badly, but…I sometimes think like this:
Let’s say God has frequently warned my wife and me about the perils of skydiving without parachutes.
Depraved rascals that we be, we jump out of a plane sans chutes anyway, thumbing our noses at God.
To make things everlastingly worse, we’ve chosen to jump out over the vast sea of ECT.
God, who’s under no obligation to save us, and has 2 very large up hands, sticks out one mighty hand and snatches me from the flames. “I love you and have a wonderful plan for your life”, he comforts me.
“My Son paid the price by appeasing my wrath, in order to save all those I want to save for my glory.”
“But what about my wife? I’ve spent most of ny life loving her like Christ loves the church, in order to picture the Gospel to all creation.”
“What’s happening to her is her own damned fault! She can go to hell, for all I care!”
“but…”
“Who are you to talk back to ME?”
“ok.. Thanks for saving me… I guess…”
@ Patti:
Seriously considering Calvinism as an ethical question was one of the main things that drove me out of Christianity way back in the day. I’ll say this about the reformed view, they handle free will and an omnimax deity in a logical, consistent way. If not to my way of thinking a particularly ethical or just deity hence my apostasy, though if fatalism is right I had no choice 😛 Of course I recognize now that there are many, many different interpretations and schools of thought in Christianity, all supported in their own way and traditions. I appreciate Calvinism trying to address free will with an omnimax creator, a lot of other traditions tend to ignore it as an issue.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
I would hardly call your leaving “apostasy”!
@ dee:
Dee: I would say our interpretation of the scripture disagree on this point. I see God as active in everything. I have tried and tried to go over it again and again and I can’t seem to get past this point of view.
But….where people like Bruce Ware for example believe in ESS, that is a horrid doctrine in my opinion and I see that nowhere. The Trinity I believe are three in one, not submissive. They may or may not have differing roles, but one is not subjective to one another. I believe it works more like the equality in marriage, not submission.
I would never say I am not wrong, it is just my interpretation.
@ numo:
No, it’s a fair charge.
@ dee:
Hyper Calvinism is a doctrine that emphasizes God’s Sovereignty over human responsibility. Hyper Calvinists believe there is no need to evangelize.
William Carey was a Calvinist missionary who was chided by Hyper-Calvinists for wanting to go and spread the Gospel.
@ numo:
The book Crazy for God is not accurate, I hope you realize! People who were there like Os Guinness have said so. Frank Schaeffer has “issues”. I’ll leave it at that. I wish him well.
As for God glorifying himself. Yes, I believe this. Ephesians 1 reads: He predestined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.
None of this is fatalism as we are talking about a very personal God, a God who knows the very number of hair on our heads according to what I read in scripture. Who knew us before we were even born according to the Psalms. That is far from fatalism.
@ Debbie Kaufman:
Evangelism is not really the issue. There was no need for it as a church/state system.
The problem is how can humans be held responsible when their behavior was predetermined.
@ Godith:
There is a very greay deal in that book that *is* accurate, and that confirms things i saw and experienced there.
I think Os has an axe to grind, in that Franvis chose Frank instead of him. Honestly, there is a lot of petty rivalry at that place, and i can see why Udo and Debnie went off to start their own version of L’Abri. Fwiw, i really liked John and Prisca, and think John has been treated very badly by many.
That Frank has always had “isdues” is a given; that doesn’t make him incapable of telling the truth. I thought Swiss L’Abri was highly eccentric, back in that late 70s, and that many rather odd (though nice) people were deeply involved in the community. I did not meet Frank and his wife, and doubt i would have gotten along eith him. But he serms to be willing to open up about many things that others have tried to hide, and really, the fact yhat his parents basically had no respite (because missionaries were supposed to work 24/7/365) was something that both caused and exacerbated all sorts of problems.
@ Muff Potter:
I know. It does not fit. It is also a very scary view of justice.
@ Dave A A:
Wow-that hit me! Thanks.
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
Now you are getting a little closer to what I am trying to do here. I respect the position of the Calvinists although I do not interpret things in the same way. I believe that they are Christians, without hesitation. That same courtesy is not extended back to us non-Calvinists by some. Sproul says” we are Christian’s barely.”
Think back to the horrors of racism. African Americans were thought of as humans, but barely. In fact they were viewed as something like 1/3 the worth of a white man. This is bigotry and arrogance rolled up in one big ugly mess.
Unfortunately I believe there is bigotry in taking the position that we are lesser Christians or Christians who neuter the Gospel. etc. It is wrong. period.
Godith wrote:
I have found Frank Jr to be kind of over the top.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
if so, then you’ve got plenty of company! i should be on that list.
@ dee:
Wow. I can understand why you don’t talk it but am glad you did today. It gives me hope. It is precious.
@ dee:
have you read Crazy for God? his sisters Debbie and Prisca backed him up on what he said about their family, life at L’Abri, etc. i agree with them; after all, they grew up there, too.
@ numo:
the memoir in question really struck a chord with an MK i used to know, whose folks were doing the same kind of work at the same time as the Schaeffers. he was not surprised at all by Frank’s allegations that his father physically abused his mother and his children. it was a very open “secret” among old L’Abri hands.
@ numo:
also, Edith S. wrote a very long memoir in which she spoke openly about her husband’s abusive behavior. it never gained much traction, but i have a copy here. (am blanking on the title at the moment.) Frank’s mom said 90+% of what he said in Crazy for God in her own books, but nobody paid her any attention. however, Frank saying the same things – wow. the attacks still keep coming.
@ dee:
he often is, but that doesn’t mean he is making things up re. his family. i’m not a fan, but Crazy for God helped put things i’d seen/heard into perspective, and i’m grateful for that.
lydia wrote:
Thank you for saying that. It is a tender moment in my life and it is hard to talk about it. The first time I ever shared it was with a mother of 5 children who was dying from a lymphoma. People in her life kept telling her she would be healed but I sensed it was not going well.
One day, she saw me at my children’s school and pulled me aside. She started crying, saying she was afraid for her children. She knew she was dying. I told her Abby’s story . I told her that God enters the lives of our children even when we do not realize that he has done so. I told her that I would pray that Jesus would comfort her children with His peace. And we could rest that He loves them and understands them even more than we do.
She grabbed me and we both started bawling. Some other mothers came running by she waved them away. I attended her funeral shortly thereafter and I must admit that I cried a lot thinking of that day.
numo wrote:
I agree. I had a poster in college that speaks to this general situation about believing people. “Just because I am paranoid, doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get me.”
If I have told this story before, bear with me. When my brother told me this, I laughed all day. In fact, I am laughing as I think about it now.
My brother is a boarded Internist. He is also boarded in Substance Abuse and Geriatrics. He lives in the Boston area and has one of the funniest sense of humor of anyone i know.
Anyway, he admitted a woman with polysubstance abuse to a detox floor. He ordered the routine set of meds to get her through the ordeal. Shortly after, he received a call from a nurse claiming the patient was saying a naked man was in her bedroom. She checked and didn’t see anything but the patient was agitated. So he upped her meds for better control.
Shortly after that he got another call from the nurse claiming the patient was hysterical and screaming about a naked man. This is not uncommon with delirium tremors, btw. My brother became concerned since he had maxed out her doses of meds. He wondered if she had taken something she hadn’t told him about.
He got to the hospital and ran up to the room. The patient was hysterical-claimed the naked man was bothering her. So, he tried to calm her down by saying he would stay until she fell asleep. He then went through the routine of looking under the bed. He told her that it was clear. He opened the bathroom, looked in the shower. He told her that was clear. He opened the closet door.
My brother was so startled he actually let out a bit of a scream Darned if there wasn’t a naked man in the closet who obviously needed adjustment on his drugs.
The lesson is obvious.
@ dee:
That is hysterical.
@ dee:
that poor woman! i know what is is to tell the truth and not have anyone believe you, but what she went through is pretty frightening, from my pov.
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
You and Muff are the nicest apostates that I know!
@ numo:
Of course it was frightening for her. However, she got so many meds, she didn’t remember what happened.
@ numo:
BTW, I am meeting with someone next week who’s been through a hard time at a church. He will be visiting in the area, he told me he needs to talk with someone who believes him. I told him I would believe him and set his mind at ease.
@ dee:
I hear his concerns, believe me!
As for the woman, so long as she was feeling no pain….
@ Godith:
btw, Os wrote a long piece laying out his grievances a number of years back in Books & Culture. So I am not making up what I said about him. He really does seem to think that he should have inherited the L’Abri mantle, and that’s sad in and of itself. It’s also pretty pathetic, the way he ripped into Frank and his father in that piece.
I don’t have much respect left for Os as a result.
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
I agree with this. I had problems with the Calvinist God, but I also eventually had problems with the concept of free will in general. The concept of free will was helpful to my theology up to a point (which was not Calvinist) when I still believed, but it didn’t square with my observations about human behavior in the long run. I wouldn’t say I know we don’t have free will, but if we do, it seems limited. I think neuropsych research is starting to present some serious challenges to the idea, but the field is still young and we’ll see where it goes.
John wrote:
Good conclusion! Thank you for sharing your reality and the steadfast hope in His Kingdom!
Albuquerque Blue wrote:
Agreed, they have perfect linearization, so long as discrete points in the domain of Scripture are considered and the points that don’t fit are tap-danced around or made to fit the discrete points with circular reasoning.
@ dee:
Great lesson!
@ lydia:
But yet evangelism and teaching was there. Calvin was a teacher, wrote many books, preached etc. His life was in danger for doing so.
As for our responsibility, the best example I have seen is Joseph and his brothers. Joseph’s brother’s sold him into slavery. They meant it for evil. God however turned it into good and yes God was glorified. “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” Genesis 50:20.
@ dee:
Here is another story along that line, about some people we know. Their child was desperately ill with nephritis, and was in the hospital either at chapel hill or duke. He was about five years old at the time. His condition was not improving and mention had been made to them that they might lose him. When the went back to the hospital one morning he was sitting up in bed and he told them that he was going to be okay. He said an angel had visited him during the night and told him that he was going to be okay. He already felt better, and within days he was well enough to be discharged. The condition completely cleared and never returned. He is in his fifties now. The family did not know what to make of it all, but they were inclined to believe him because he described the angel as male, which is how angels are described in scripture, so they thought maybe it did happen and was not just something he picked up from some children’s book.
My Son in law was killed in 2008 in a motorcycle accident where a car was going the wrong way and he T boned into the car, throwing him and killing him instantly. We as a family love this young man dearly and he is the father of 3 of my grandchildren. He was 22. The man that hit him then proceeded to go that same day into a fast food place and talk about it, as if it were my son in law’s fault. It was devastating as we heard from friends what this man was saying.
I was angry at God, I was angry period. I was heartbroken and thought I would never climb out of it, especially as I watched my daughter, who was absolutely in love with this man, die inside. There was nothing her father and I could do. Did I know how God would work this out for good? No. Do I still to this day? No. But I trust God and scripture that He has and will. All of us are fine now, although my daughter will ever be affected as will his young children.
I might add, I worked my personal grief out with my wonderful SS class, who did not offer platitudes, but listened and prayed for me as well as Rashelle Burleson, who also was my greatest friend and comfort during that period.
@ Debbie Kaufman:
I am so, so sorry for your pain and loss. I pray for Gods peace.
@ Beth:
Free will is one of those concepts that the older I get the more I think “free will” is one of the harder things to narrow down about life. I certainly can exercise some free will in parts of my life. Beyond that, it’s such a big question with so many variables I just don’t know.
@ numo:
@ dee:
Thank you both for your kind words. I’ve disconnected from joining in these sort of discussions anywhere for the most part, this is about the only commentariat I follow still. It’s a rather nice place to chat. ^_^
Muff Potter wrote:
My particular exposure coincided with a huge push and focus on both a creationist viewpoint and a more then casual interest in “rapture” type focuses in my church and school environments. So I hit a bunch of conflicting beliefs and realizations at the same time. Kudos to my church, family and school religious communities though; they did instill a bone deep commitment to knowing and pursuing truth. I’ve always appreciated that.
@ Debbie Kaufman:
I not only read history differently than you concerning tyrannical behavior, but also the bible. Even read literally, I don’t see it as God forcing Joe’s brothers to do those things against their own will. That would make God the perpetrator of evil. It would mean God forces his creation to do evil against each other to get what He wants. Why not force them to do good in the first place?
Lydia wrote:
It should astonish you. Besides being a late 20th century invention of Dr. Bruce Ware, it is also pretty obviously heresy.
dee wrote:
No, you were predestined 🙂
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
The idea of functional subordination in the Trinity to mirror the (desired) functional subordination of women was first stated by Orthodox Presbyterian George Knight III in his book on biblical roles for men and women (can’t remember the exact title) in the early 1970s. It lay somewhat dormant until Jurgen Moltmann proposed his social model of the Trinity in his “The Trinity and the Kingdom” in the early 1980s. Social trinitarianism is based on a view of the Trinity (drawing from the Cappadocians of the 4th century) that the persons themselves constitute God in their relationship, and therefore their relationship is the model and prototype of all human relationships.
This is good, except social trinitarians have a tendency to map onto the Godhead their own view of what constitutes “utopia” and then map that back onto humanity as the way we ought to live. Social trinitarians tend to see the three persons as three centers of consciousness, each with his own distinct will. The oneness of God is not rooted in being (as in the Nicene formulation) but rather in a unification of wills. Radical egalitarians like Moltmann map absolute equality onto the persons, and then say that is what constitutes a perfect relationship. ESS-Comps like Bruce Ware map authority and submission (their utopia) onto the persons, and then say that eternal subordination yields female submission to the male.
Historically speaking, Ware is a bit of a late-comer to ESS, but he probably works the social trinitarianism angle the best among all the ESS proponents.
Jim G.
@ Jim G.:
I’m aware of the history; I went to the ESS seminary – Southern. However, the only flag bearer for ESS at this point seems to be the SBC and CBMW; it was Ware who tailored ESS to Baptist sensibilities.
@ Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist:
Yep. Ware brought it to Baptists. Most ESS talk these days comes out of that certain city in Kentucky.
The problem with my Southern Baptist fellows is that we are allowing Arianism to revive in the form of ESS, and the power structures so well placed keep most mouths shut.
Jim G.
The more I read articles like this about the neo-Reformed, the more I find myself comparing them to Islamic fatalism where everything comes down to “Insha Allah”.
Ken wrote:
Ken, for me, after surviving childhood sexual abuse, this question matters very much. You see, to me, which of these scenarios God chose speaks to the very heart of His character as a loving Father. if He chose to preordain everything – that would mean that He preordained my abuse. And I have had a Calvinist tell me flat out that is exactly what happened….the He had/has some purpose and it is for His glory. If that is true (I now do not believe it is, but if it were), I could not trust Him. He would be no better than a child abuser. When I countered to this Calvinit that if that was what God was like, He did not deserve to be worshipped. Feared? Absolutely! Worshipped? Sick and twisted….that Calvinist got very indignant and called me names (unregenerate, unbeliver, etc.) I think this is part of why the Calvinistas don’t do much about abuse within their ranks….It isn’t that big a deal if God ordained it. Unless, of course, it happens to you.
@ dee:
Thank you Dee.
Lydia:I believe through scripture that God rules everything, controls everything, ordains everything.John 6:65, Matthew 11:27, Ephesians 8:2&9, Jonah 2:9, 1 Peter 1: 1&2, Isaiah 46:10, Psalm 115:3, Psalm 135:6, Ephesians 1:11, 1 Corinthians 8:6 are scriptures I cannot get past any other way than to believe in my above statement.
God is not the author of evil, but He does allow it for His own purposes. I am saying this having been through some horrible experiences myself. Such was the case of Joseph and his brothers, I can’t tell you anything than I believe the scriptures are God breathed, God written, and I cannot go opposite of what I see them saying and Joseph clearly said “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.
I should clarify, I certainly would not accuse anyone here of not believing the scriptures to be inspired by God. I am simply explaining why I believe as I do. I certainly have room in my life for those who disagree and believe to be Christians. Being a Christian is belief in Christ. Period. Everything else just dictates how we will live I think.
Bridget wrote:
You know, this is exactly what happened with at least one of my kids. We were in a hard core Neo-Cal church for several years, when she was 10-13, then a slightly “nicer” version for two year after that. Her dad, in the meantime, was an extremely successful, subtle, narcissistic abuser.
Fast forward to today, and she still struggles with trusting God, with the whole notion of a God who is so insecure that he needs our constant glorification – even though we haven’t lived with my almost-ex-husband for over a year now.
It’s tremendously damaging. I’m just deeply grateful that she isn’t afraid to wrestle with God, and still has a faith.
Forgive my irreverence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foplgPT96H4
Also, off subject, but was pondering the Trinity this morning after the sermon I heard at church on the crucifixion of Christ. Christ is the God-man. Fully God, fully man. How then does Christ cry out on the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I guess I will never comprehend the Trinity.
Thanks for sharing your story about your daughter Abby, Dee.
It has really touched and encouraged me.
I too have heard similar stories of Jesus or angels appearing or visions being granted to children. They are so much more open than adults. On a sadder note, years ago, a friend’s daughter died tragically aged 7. A week before she died, the little girl had told her grandmother about a dream she had. In the dream she was invited to go through a gate into a beautiful garden, but she knew that she was going to go through it alone, leaving her family behind.
I feel sorry for the lady who wrote the piece for Desiring God.
She honestly believes that God wants her to be weary, exhausted, at her wits’ end. She thinks that’s his plan for her
Extrapolating here, but I imagine she may be a stay at home mum, getting up several times in the night with babies/ young children, while her husband with his ‘different role’ gets a full night’s sleep. If that is the case, it is NOT God’s good design. God’s good design is that husband and wife work in full, equal partnership in family life (and in other domains).
At the bottom of her article, I feel, is a kind of self-loathing. She’s worthless. She should thank the Lord that he condescended to save a worthless wretch like her. And, to remind her of this, God wants her to be exhausted.
This self-loathing is something I’ve picked up on before with these Neo-Cals.
Todd Wilhelm wrote:
This is a quote from the beginning of Psalm 22. There are several ideas out there as to why he was quoting that psalm, was it a solitary quote or more like ‘referencing’ the psalm? How much of the psalm did he intend to reference if that is what it was? Some say he said it ‘that the scripture might be fulfilled’ and he wanted people to see his death as the fulfillment of scripture. Some say it was merely a description of his own despair at the time, not of any reality of changes in his relationship with the father. Others say that the father had indeed abandoned him since christ ‘became sin for us’ and god cannot look at sin. Other say that in that psalm there is a lot more than that-prophetic statements which were actually fulfilled for example. Perhaps he was making people see the prophetic fulfillment of the crucifixion in the other statements in the psalm. If you read to the end of the psalm it ends on a triumphant note of vindication for the sufferer, which indeed happened at the resurrection. Perhaps part of what he was saying was like, ‘it ain’t over ’till its over, and just wait until you see what comes next” based on how the psalm ends.
Here is the thing that I am saying, though. Some people swear by one understanding of this and some by another, even though a more or less argument can be made for each idea. Why do people do that? Why do some tenaciously and dogmatically cling to one understanding and not another and how do the choose which understanding to believe? Same way with theories about the atonement. There is more than one way to look at the atonement, and some individuals and groups narrow it down to one way and make that one understanding one more hill on which to die. Again, why do they choose what they choose?
I think people choose to believe what they choose to believe for personal reasons, be they good or bad personal reasons, and there is much that we can come to know about ourselves if we take a good objective look at (a) what were the options and (b) which option did I choose to align myself with and ( c) what does this say about me? And do I need to change something about myself in light of what I now see about me? That approach does not answer some theological question but it sure does grow the individual.
We lost power a bit after 9 last night so we decided to go to sleep and woke up to flooding and even school delays. Wish we could send this to California.
This has been such an interesting comment stream. I love comment streams that make us think!
I do remember ESS had made some headway into some Presbyterian groups. What I never followed up on was whether this was in the form of what they called “Sonship” or not. Anyone know?
As to Ware (because of his book) he was given carte blanche to promote ESS from SBTS and on the road. I do know that Denny Burk, Dean of Boyce at SBTS, is a big proponent of ESS and promoted it quite a bit on the road.
I know there was some fall out with this in some aspects of the typical YRR follower such as: Who do we pray to, believing their version of Phil 2 that presented a Jesus following orders, etc, etc.
It spread beyond hierarchy into some mass confusion on several fronts basically turning Jesus into a lesser god and ignoring the Holy Spirit. I saw it as the single most insidious damaging doctrine out there at the time. People believed it but did not even know what it was called or its provenance. But to believe differently was to be a heretic. I was even banned from a certain survivor blog for not supporting that Jesus was eternally subordinate when I thought it was a very irenic convo. A few there deemed me a heretic.
But very few in the SBC academic community were saying a word about this coming out of SBTS. They were not even actively debating it. To this day, I don’t get it.
@ Nancy:
Great comment.
@ Persephone:
I am so sorry and will pray for her. The one thing that concerns me about kids in these sorts of churches is they tend to get their view of God from the leaders and their own fathers because of how they map hierarchy and creation order to everything from church governance to marriage. It can really play havoc with how kids grow up viewing the Triune God and themselves. It can especially play head games with girls who are taught they are limited in “roles”.
Jim G. wrote:
One of the angles I saw was to suggest those who do not agree with ESS as “Oneness” types which they declared as heretical. What is that called? Modalism or something like that?
@ May:
Great comment, May! I feel bad for her because of what she believes about God and herself means she is missing out one of the most important reasons for the Body of Christ. To come along side each other and bear each other’s burdens. Instead, she finds comfort in this God that “wants” her to suffer and it brings her piety to do so. (Believe me, I hear this all the time in my ground zero YRR world. And for one thing, it is fatalistic to so many teens whose youth pastors seem to always be zealot seminarians from SBTS. It is a culture of death and I always tell folks to get their kids out of there)
Suffering in this world is inevitable. But as believers we are to help alleviate as much of it as we can in our little corners of the world. The last thing we should do is tell them that God orchestrated it for His own purpose to bring good. Why would a good God use an innocent child to suffer in order to bring good?
@ Lydia:
Sonship is about not living our Christian lives like orphans (without a Father who loves us) because we are adopted into God’s family when we trust in Christ.
@ Nancy:
I like what Leon Morris (Anglican) wrote about the atonement. There are about 5 “theories” and every one of them shows a different angle on it. All are in Scripture. That is why a chuckle when J.I.Packer says one of them must be “the central” one. I’m with you–I think people focus on an element in theology that meets some personal need or reflects our personality. I think Packer is notorious for seeing the glass half empty. In Knowing God he refers to the Bible as a book of God’s wrath! Really, I thought it was a book of God’s redemption of people and eventually the whole creation.
Lydia wrote:
True. And that sounds medieval Catholic to me.
@ Lydia:
I really think that baptists do not tend to be trinitarians like some other groups do. Just based on my own years in baptistdom and my own perceptions from that, this idea of ignoring the Holy Spirit is deeply ingrained in that line of thinking. To now take up with ESS fits right into that. And that tendency has been there, or at least the culture in which that idea could take root, has been there at least as long as I have been alive and who knows how much before that. They are more comfortable with a strictly defined and understandable idea of one god as a solitary person and one holy book divinely revealed. Like Islam. And only comfortable with that one god being one who mostly gives commands and makes judgments (decisions) and is approachable only through a mediator (in their case the bible.)
How many baptist prayers thank god for ‘sending your son to die for us’ but never approach praising the son for setting his face to jerusalem to do just that and then doing it. It is all about how the father dumped that job on jesus, even though the scripture shows in Jesus’ own prayer and statement that he had the option to refuse. That statement from Jesus about let this cup pass, but not my will but yours be done can be seen as saying more than one thing. Some say it was clear evidence that Jesus was basically being dragged to his death by the father’s will and agains his own will. Can’t be. The decision of ‘not my will’ negates the idea that Jesus did not will to do it-at some level. Another way to see that statement is this: I want to accomplish this thing but my own will alone will not carry me through the horror and the shame (‘he despised the shame’) and the despair and the dying, so I must deny that in me which cannot do this alone (not my will) and rely on your will, father, to get me through this. And then, at that moment of utter despair on the cross he quotes scripture, and those standing by note that he quotes scripture. But you did not hear this from a baptist, you note.
And the Holy Spirit? Other than in the trinitarian baptismal formula I actually never heard the word until some other kid told me (a pentecostal kid) at some revival meeting that my father had dragged the family to, and I was a pre-teen at the time. It was not that I had not been paying attention; I have always been ‘serious minded.’ So there we were. They told me about sex (though sex was a secret which some parents tried to keep from some kids) but they did not tell me the really secret secret of all secrets-about the Holy Spirit. And we were at church every time the doors opened and my dad was a lay bible teacher. This was not some accident. These people have not been traditional trinitarians at all over the years compared to some other groups, like catholics and pentecostals and everything in between.
So now they articulate ESS? Of course they do. You reap what you sow, later than you sowed it, in greater abundance than you sowed it, but the same kind of thing which you sowed. I am saying that this was sown a long time ago and is coming to harvest.
Godith wrote:
Exactly. Great example.
@ May:
I have a friend who finally pulled his teens out of a youth group where this was being taught over and over. His wake up call was the daughter tried to commit suicide. She has a very abusive mother and was basically being taught that it was all part of God’s plan. What is a 15 year old to do with that?
There are serious consequences for this sort of teaching especially with kids who come from very bad situations.
Nancy wrote:
How strange. My experience was just the opposite in Baptistdom. I heard about the Holy Spirit all the time growing up. In fact, we were taught to seek the guidance of the HS in all things. It seemed to be part and parcel of the “soul competency/priesthood of believer” focus. I grew up in many Baptist churches because of my mom’s music ministry and it was pretty across the board in that respect.
I saw that understanding of the Holy Spirit as one of the reasons that so many red flags came up when I heard some of the ESS teachings. It just did not fit.
May wrote:
Yes, but and also. In medieval times there was not as much that could be done about suffering as we can now. So, for example, if you don’t have the options of antibiotics, surgery and pain killers perhaps it would make it all easier to bear if you thought that somehow some good would at least come from it and that God would see that it did. Hopelessness is a terrible thing, maybe this helped avoid hopelessness. And then, of course, some people saw how to use this against the very people it might have helped. But maybe it did not start out as a bad thing at all. Maybe it helped them bear their burdens.
@ Nancy:
Thanks for the insight Nancy! There sure are a lot of brilliant people following this blog.
@ Lydia:
Interesting, because we are from the same geographic area but not the same generation. It would be interesting to plot the waxing and waning perhaps of ideas. Plot it on some graph and track what is at work here. I did not hear anything at all about “soul competency” and I am still not too sure what that means in practice . Priesthood of the believe, yes. Holy Spirit no, ‘the bible says’ yes. In my day and in that location the baptists were very anti-catholic but ignored the pentecostals pretty much. But there were a lot of catholics to ‘worry’ about and very few pentecostals. Maybe there was some shift in that thinking which played into this. Maybe when the pentecostals gained more recognition the baptists modified their ideas a bit? I don’t know, but I do think we are both accurately telling the story but from very different angles (different generations is the key I am thinking.)
Nancy wrote:
I agree! Good insight, Nancy. God’s Word becomes a very personal guide for living and reveals the nature of God that should be encouraging and comforting in an individual’s life.
What is ESS, please?
It is valuable to recognize a diversity of opinion regarding the will of God as espoused by TGC group. While this article on determinism, which I find absurd, is one view, DeYoung wrote a book(which I really enjoy) called, “Just Do Something”. To paraphrase his point…it doesn’t matter what you choose to do in life, but whatever you do, do it to honor God and you can feel confident that you are acting in accordance to God’s “will”.
He wrote it to respond to so many young people who act like they are at a stand still in making life decisions because they don’t want to act unless they are completely sure it is the right decision(marriage, job, etc) This would appear to be in direct contradiction to the idea that we don’t really make choices. His view(and mine) on God’s sovereignty is that God works through all things for His purposes….aka, his overall plan/work isn’t “thwarted” by our decisions, but that he instead uses even our bad decisions to work towards his purposes, not that we should just make bad choices on purpose obviously…..
Personally I find this sort of determinism stated in this particular article distasteful and unsustainable as a practical life application. On the otherhand, I find comfort in the picture of a sovereign God who doesn’t give up working in me and through me because I just screwed it up to badly for Him to still be working all things out for my good.
OnlyEleven wrote:
I believe it is an acronym for the Eternal Subordination of The Son
Adam Borsay wrote:
Agree. And I think scripture confirms this truth…unless, of course, it’s taken out of context in an effort to promote a desired agenda.
@ Adam Borsay:
I have heard the following preached, and maybe this is a part of the problem you are talking about.
You need to find God’s will for your life, because if you do not, then God will just get somebody else to do whatever it was he called you to do and you will get cut out of the picture. As in, ‘miss out on God’s best for you’ and/or ‘lose your reward.’ Because make no mistake, God’s purposes are not thwarted, and this is about you as to whether you want to be obedient or not.
This of course presupposes that divine and detailed personal revelation can be had for the asking.
@ Lydia
This kind of thing was preached, but the word ‘Holy Spirit’ was never used in my experience to explain this phenomenon of divine guidance. Maybe that is a clue as to why our experiences were different.
May wrote:
I agree that this self-loathing is there, at least in verbal form, but I find it hard to really believe in as those who believe in God’s exhaustive sovereignty are also among the smuggest self-satisfied zealots I’ve ever read – their ‘ability’ to deal with ‘the hard truths of Scripture’ & say a big amen to whatever horror they think God is doing without any question as to whether it makes moral sense, seems in their opinion to set them apart as the only true christians & lovers of the Bible. The rest of us are uppity second class citizens because we feel that if God has created millions of people to suffer eternal wrath for the glory of his justice -when that justice has already been shown perfectly on the cross- then God may not be all that ‘good’, in the normal & usual Biblical sense of the word. They are able to swallow any amount of other people’s suffering with a smile on their face.
Everyone here knows what I think about this, & how hard it has been for me to even keep my head in the game, Christian-wise while a single uncertainty exists that God may actually be like this.
@ Janice McKenzie:
I think we share a ‘temperament’, as do many here. I think its name is compassion.
This conversation brings back memories. One of the last things that I remember being discussed in Sunday School, while I was on my way to Catholicism was this. One of the men made the statement”Everything I do good is because God did it. Everything bad is only me” I was the only person to try to argue that you can’t have that. Either you have the ability to choose to do good and bad or you don’t.
That said, I am always both grateful and amazed when God steps in to my daily working life. I was trying this new dye at work, and chose to test it in the wax that we would be using it in. It worked very, very well, but when we tried to using our standard QC tests on it, it was a very different, and wrong color. We would have rejected it, but we know it works. (and also now what we need to do to make it work). I am still both humbled and consider myself blessed because of that.
Dee mentioned praying the Stations of the Cross. May I recommend two devotional books that might be helpful. “The Way to Eternal Life” by Br. Francis de Sales Wagner,OSB and “Stations of the Cross” by Timothy Radcliffe.
Both have wondrous illustrations to go with each station.
May all the readers here and their families have a Blessed Easter.
Nancy wrote:
Some of what follows was made in comments many months ago. I think it can usefully be repeated. Perhaps it will provide some insight into how I think.
The 1978 Nobel Physics Prize (Penzias & Wilson) was for experimental evidence, the 3 degree Kelvin background cosmic microwave radiation, confirming the Big Bang, the birth of our universe. The actual observations were made in the early 1960s. The 2011 Nobel Physics (Perlmutter, Schmidt & Riess) was for astronomical observations indicating the expansion of universe is accelerating, not decelerating. Thus our universe had a moment of creation but does not appear to have a built-in end. In particular there is no support for either a steady state cosmology existing in its present form for all time or an infinitely repeating cycle of universe creations and deaths. The universe is a single unique event. This suggests there is something “outside” of the observable universe as the cause. Rationally what might it be? Given the pedigree of the references this is about as good experimental evidence that science can provide. Definitely strong empirical evidence. I think it is only in question to the extent that science is never finished and there may be some new physics discovered. If the YEC community would get over their infatuation with the Jewish calendar they might realize there is significant scientific support for a created universe.
The present outstanding questions in cosmology concern the nature of dark matter and dark energy. Whether understanding these topics will lead to a substantial revision of cosmology is unknown. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, first published in 1915 on its 100th birthday remains the best description of the large scale structure of the universe. Cosmologists are searching for ever more extreme examples of astronomical events that might show a deviation from GR thus provide a hint towards a more general theory of gravitation than GR
Creation is only one place where God’s intervention appears to be required. Even a single living cell that can reproduce itself is enormously complicated. How to get to this point is seriously debated. Another major step is to multicell organisms, which apparently didn’t occur until after billions of years of single cell life. Other major and much more recent steps are the development of natural language and a sense of morality by a single species. However, open questions in science should not automatically be answered by “God of the gaps” theories..
My personal beliefs are that God created an an autonomous and morally neutral universe but can intervene in it whenever He pleases. From the bible there is given a moral code that we are to accept and be governed by. The rest of creation appears free from the burdens created by morality given to humans.
But as I wrote in my first comment under this post He expects us to follow His moral code to the best of our ability, will judge us accordingly and fortunately has indicated there will be grace shown.
Nancy wrote:
Thank you. That is how I feel as well. I have been delving into the liturgical Protestant churches over the last few months. I am currently attending one as well. I love to listen to the differences. They enrich me and cause me to think.
Persephone wrote:
I will pray for you both. She is blessed to have you as her mother.
@ Lydia:
Great comment.
Godith wrote:
Love it.
Lydia wrote:
This makes me sick.
TW wrote:
And one really smart “guy from Dubai.”
OnlyEleven wrote:
Here is a link to Wade Burleson’s blog in which he covered it.
http://www.wadeburleson.org/2008/09/growing-semi-arianism-in-sbc-and.html
You can also do a search on our blog.
Here is my opinion: It is a doctrine dreamed up to prove that women are in a subordinate position to me.
@ oldJohnJ:
I need to put you in touch with my friend who told em almost the exact same thing. He has a phD in mathematics.
dee wrote:
I would appreciate if you would cite your source which supports the statement,
“African Americans were thought of as humans, but barely. In fact they were viewed as something like 1/3 the worth of a white man.” I’m unable to find any such source for your claim.
oldJohnJ wrote:
Yes, that is what it looks like to me. I mean your conclusions that I have referenced above. I do think, as you have said, that there do seem to be two different sets of ‘rules’ and this is problematic. The moral sphere and the amoral/neutral sphere.
This impacts the discussion of some current issues. If it is natural, then is it necessarily moral? If not, why not and how do we know for sure?
The other thing is that some people look at the material universe including what we call creation and think that either it sprang up of itself with no god, as something separate from whatever it is that humans are, or else that it is the product of a different god-that there is more than one god. Else how did it get to be that there are these two different spheres so to speak?
I don’t have a good answer for that other than that people just have to choose a theory and move on.
OnlyEleven wrote:
The idea of the functional subordination of the son looks to me like the red-headed step child of some variant of semi-arianism. And how handy to think this up just now when the proponents of the idea can apply it to the subjugating of women. All of this for the glory of God, of course. And of course for socio-politial reasons, and don’t forget ‘success’ and ‘leadership.’
If somebody wants fame and money in religion all they have to do is check out the list of christian heresies on Wikipedia, see which one can be tweaked a tad to fit some current idea in progress, then write about it. Copyrighted of course. Then the people who can use the idea will take it up and the originator can run with it (all the way to the bank.)
If God is the god of Spurgeon, Taylor and Piper, I’ll go to hell first before worshiping such a being.
Joe2 wrote:
The 3/5ths Compromise.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
Basically, when it came to apportioning representation under the US Constitution, slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a free person in the census. This held until the 13th Amendment, which made slavery illegal.
@ Joe2:
If you are really interested in the idea of racial supremacy and want to understand how supremacist arguments go, you can Google Bible Defence of Slavery by Josiah Priest. If you want to see the exalted and much celebrated logical reasoning of R.L. Dabney on this matter, you can Google Dabney’s “Defense of Virginia.” Both can be read online for free. Prepare to be horrified.
Nancy wrote:
I think that is what is happening. The idea of the indwelling Holy Spirit was taught in my Baptist churches along with the priesthood of every believer. I don’t specifically remember the term “soul competency” but if it is in Hobbs’ book, then it was taught. However, I do believe there was a reluctance to emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit lest Baptists be confused with the Pentecostals and later the Charismatic Renewal enthusiasts, a few of whom introduced problems into some Baptist churches.
This takes me way back, remembering when Baptists did not have to tow the Party line and obey our Spiritual Authorities. When we could take the quarterlies from Nashville as starting points. Or ignore them entirely.
Joe2 wrote:
I don’t know if we can specify a percentage of worth in white American attitudes towards African Americans before slavery was abolished, but the overall point is correct.
Here are a couple of references.
The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be citizens. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote that the Founding Fathers considered African Americans to be “beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”
Robert Dabney, a Presbyterian theologian wrote in his book In Defense of Virginia, “while we believe that God made of one blood all nations of men to dwell under the whole heavens, we know that the African has become, according to a well-known law of natural history, by the manifold influences of the ages, a different, fixed species of the race, separate from the white man by traits bodily, mental, and moral almost ss rigid as those of genus.”
oldJohnJ wrote:
My sentiments too oldJohnJ. In my opinion one of the drawbacks of post Enlightenment thought was the rise of a kind of uber-rationalism which wants to dismiss the supernatural as nothing more than quaint superstition. Everything must have a rational explanation apart from an Almighty creator. Kepler and Newton had no such qualms. Many of us out here in the post-modern world have no such qualms either.
mirele wrote:
I’ll be seeing you there. Let’s go cause some trouble first 🙂
Joe2 wrote:
I am sorry. I was in a bit of hurry when I wrote this. i wrote about this a long time ago.
However, the exact amount was 3/5 of a human. (The brain withers)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise
mirele wrote:
Thank you for having my back on this.
@ Gram3:
You were missed by many! I am so glad to hear from you!
@ Todd Wilhelm:
You are right that you will never understand the Trinity. If you could understand him, why would you worship him? The Trinity is more of a truth to be lived than one to be understood (in the Enlightenment sense of understanding as intellectual conquest).
As for “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”, Nancy also said this, but I think Jesus was both referencing Psalm 22, allowing the first line of the psalm to stand for the whole (much like “Oh, say, can you see?” stands for the entire Star Spangled Banner), and experiencing what God-forsaken-ness feels like (though he was, as the beloved and eternal Son, never forsaken by the Father or the Spirit). He willingly entered into the depths of human estrangement from God and healed it from within. To truly be our sin-bearer, he endured the depths of our fall and shame, experiencing the exact same feelings of God-forsaken-ness we feel. It is unthinkable, though, that he was truly forsaken, because he is the Son of the Father’s love. If the Father could forsake the Son on the cross, we’re sunk! It would also imply that God’s “wrath”/”justice” is more powerful than his eternal love for the Beloved. We don’t want to go there, because all assurance just flies out the window.
Jim G.
@ dee:
Thank you, Dee. You have certainly provoked some good discussions recently.
@ Joe2:
The fraction is off, but I would refer you to the Constitution of the US, for a start.
@ Beakerj:
I’m coming along, too.
@ Jim G.:
Thanks Jim. Your comment was helpful.
Beakerj wrote:
Mind if I join you guys* there? After hearing about how James Dobson flogged his little dog with a belt, I can no longer align myself with their god either, my conscience and moral compass within will not allow it.
*the word ‘guys’ is now a genderless appellation.
Jim G. wrote:
Totally agree!
This is one reason I just cannot deal with Penal Substitutionary Atonement.
@ Gram3:
Yes some great discussions! And it is great to read you here again.
LMuff Potter wrote:
Oh the more the merrier… I’m only 50 miles from Heathrow & there’s a great pub a stone’s throw from here with gorgeous food, weird wines, exposed beams & low ceilings. We can wait it out there 🙂
That includes you Numes, your bunny will love England.
Jim G. wrote:
That’s an interesting way of explaining it, Jim, I appreciate that. Is that where the nontrinitarian Christians split off from the Trinitarians as well?
Beakerj wrote:
Ooo! I’m coming for that!! 😀
@ Lydia:
The idea of penal substitution (as we have it now) comes to us from Luther and Calvin who modified Anselm’s satisfaction model. Just as Anselm relied heavily on the feudal world in which he lived to construct his model, the reformers used an abstract, and somewhat impersonal view of (Roman) crime and punishment to construct theirs. While there is certainly a legal component to sin, it is neither fully legal nor is it the kind of legal as seen by the reformers. The “law” broken in sin is not the blind-lady-holding-the-scales-outside-the-courthouse kind, but a deeply personal break in the relational fabric between humanity and God that results in human death. In the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, sin and death bite the dust together.
By the way, Jesus did not suffer the punishment of God on the cross. He suffered at the hands of men while he took on our estrangement from God to live it in our place, finally nailing it to the tree in his death. He who is the eternally Beloved became what we were, drinking to the dregs the cup of our alienation, shame, pain, delusion, and finally death. When he rose, he did so as a glorified man, showing what we will be.
Jim G.
@ Albuquerque Blue:
That’s a hard question. There are so many different kinds of non-trinitarians. The more recent non-trinitarian groups to form (deists, unitarians, Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, United Pentecostals, etc.) all have an element of Enlightenment rationalism to them, and that probably pushed some of them to become non-trinitarian.
Ancient non-trinitarians (modalists, Arians, tri-theists, etc.) got hung up on either the deity of or real personhood of Christ, and to a lesser extent the Spirit. Their hangup was likely a really good shot of Greek metaphysical dualism (matter vs. spirit).
Jim G.
@ Jim G.:
Jim G: I would disagree with this. Christ took our place. He took the punishment meant for us. The Old Testament is full of examples. The story of Abraham and Isaac, when in the end God provided a ram to take Isaac’s place on the altar.
Christ was our substitution, in this Calvin was absolutely correct. It is in the Bible.
2 Cor. 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Rom. 4:25, “He who was delivered up because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”
Beakerj wrote:
Dee has great hopes of communing with you in the hereafter. However, I will join you in raising a ruckus in the here and now.
@ Jim G.:
Beautiful comment! I agree.
@ Beakerj:
I’m coming and shall grab your hands on the way up… Is it up??? Through???
@ Albuquerque Blue:
If one assumes we are dealing with a God who is beyond time and created the universe. one must be prepared that some concepts will not be able to be figured out in this lifetime or maybe never. In heaven , we shall still be the created ones and I bet there will be limits to our understanding.
@ Debbie Kaufman:
I would imagine that most Christians are well aware of those verses. Yet Jim brings up a worthy point for discussion.There have been differences in the views it through the millennia. And why is this? Because there are verses and big pictures to the act of Jesus on the Cross. All of us are saved through His death and resurrection. However, there are many valid questions as to what this act encompassed and achieved.
Recently, a pastor was discussing divorce and remarriage. He said the “Word of God” says a woman who was abused by her her husband cannot remarry but she can separate. He could quote the verses but I do not believe he captured the essence.
@ dee:
Yes ma/am and indeedy so. I am of the opinion that the question of what did Jesus accomplish by his death/resurrection cannot be answered totally by just saying that God is angry and Jesus dealt with that by providing an escape hatch from condemnation for some people. It looks to me like there is more to it than that. And certainly the issue has been dealt with over the centuries as more to it than just that.
The calvinists in limiting the meaning/results of the death of Jesus to just appeasing an angry god may leave themselves with a bent to see life from the aspect that not only is god sovereign but basically angry, and limit Jesus to fire-escape theology. I just don’t see that limitation in scripture.
2 Cor. 5:21, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Just thinking on this verse. Wondering how Jesus was the sinless/perfect sacrifice if God also made him ‘to be’ sin at the cross on our behalf? That’s a bit confusing.
Also, if believers “might become” the righteousness of God in Christ, then why do most Christians say and teach that we are only covered by Christ or Christ’s blood?
Maybe an original language study would shed some needed light.
I feel there may more to the support of determinism than just theology. If my behavior is completely predetermined, thus out of my control, then I can’t be held responsible for what I have done (various types of abuse in church settings) or not done (report it to civil authorities).
mirele wrote:
dee wrote:
Thanks for the responses. When I wrote my comment I was aware of the 3/5ths compromise, but this compromise had nothing to do with assessing the intrinsic value or worth of an individual. It had to do with representation. Since slaves did not vote, the slave holding states wanted to include slaves in their population count which would result in greater representation for those who did vote. The non-slave holding states wanted to exclude all slaves from the population count. Actually the 3/5ths compromise tipped the scales in favor of the slave holding states.
Think of it this way. Church A and Church B are both sending delegates to a denominational convention for the purpose of discussing some issue, say gay marriage. The number of delegates is based on the average Sunday church attendance. Church A and Church B have the same Sunday church attendance and each sends the same number of delegates to represent their views. This may seem like a fair representation, but if Church A attendance consists of 100 adults while Church B attendance consists of 50 adults and 50 children, then Church B views are over represented.
@ Beakerj:
Sounds good to me!
@ Joe2:
You sound like you think that is okay, to say you can’t vote therefore we won’t count you as population, exactly?
dee wrote:
You quite genuinely just brought a tear to my eye. Big love to you.
Beakerj wrote:
And to you!
Joe2 wrote:
The compromise on the slaves is not fair whatsoever in any shape or form. They should have been able to vote and they should have been viewed as full human beings. A child cannot vote because they are to young to fully comprehend the issues. The slaves were men and women who were capable and were not children.
That 3/5 deal struck me when I was a teenager in history class. How can anyone view African Americans in such a way? This is also something that i struggle with. How could the church allow such a view of human beings? Why did it take the church a couple of millennia to condemn the diminishing of any person who was created by God?
@ oldJohnJ:
Exactly.
Jim G. wrote:
This is interesting. Not familiar with Anselm but realized that PSA had some roots from the Reformers. The idea that God must be “satisfied” so His wrath can be assuaged has always struck me as changing God’s very character from what we see as a God who constantly seeks to “rescue” all through scripture. There are many other problems with it such as making Jesus seem to be a lesser god who was commanded by the more powerful god. This fits right into ESS, btw.
So many use the Abraham story to explain this but I always understood the Abraham story as God showing how different He was than the gods the pagans worshipped who did call for child sacrifice. However, I realize there are other metaphors within that story.
One Ke2ish view of Abraham and Isaac is that Abraham actually failed the test God set for him by being willing to sacrifice Isaac. The better respone would have been complete refusal.
I like that.
@ numo:
Jewish, not whatever my keyboard added to my last post.
Jim G. wrote:
Agreed. A well-known verse…
God is Holy first and foremost. His holiness is not our idea of holiness. It goes way beyond our definitions or understanding. Our sin is what separated us from God. The Bible says even our good works are tainted with sin. This is why the OT shows what a Holy God required and why all the different laws, ceremonies, etc. But even those were nothing compared to a Holy God. This is why Christ came voluntarily, as the song says, He could have called ten thousand angels. Christ was subject to God while here on earth, for this mission to be accomplished. It ended however with Christ’s ascension into heaven. (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, The OT)
MOD Edit: Corrected Bold per request.
Christ fulfilled what we could not. This is how much God loves us, the Godhead loves us.
numo wrote:
I do too. I prefer the various Jewish Midrashim by various Rabbis. The one that resonates with me the most is the one where God is not so much interested in testing Abraham for absolute fealty as He is in wanting to find out whether or not he’ll listen to what God has already placed inside him by way of conscience and moral compass and reject the detestable practices (human sacrifice) of the tribes around him, or if he’ll capitulate in order to ‘fit in’.
@ dee:
I would answer it this way. The Bible is not a to do book. It’s not about what we can or cannot do any longer. It isn’t about performance. It’s about who we are in Christ Jesus. That is what changes us, shapes us. We are not righteous because of what we do, I still can’t live the life that God requires, and yet I am righteous. We are righteous. Because of what Christ did on the cross, in his ministry on earth.
When God sees us He sees Christ and his work, his sacrifice on the Cross. His resurrection. That is why we are righteous. Always. Forever. Righteous. Holy.
@ Muff Potter:
I like that one, too!
@ Debbie Kaufman:
Everybody has heard and has processed what you are saying, but not everybody sees that as the entire story. And I am not just talking about individuals but about whole christian traditions. As far as I know nobody preaches salvation by works alone. As far as I know nobody (even the most legalistic) preach that you can make a list of do and don’t from the bible and then if you follow that even perfectly there is no need for the whole messy cross thing. Nobody is saying that.
There are people however who take what you have said and carry it to the outer limits of the possible application of it and arrive at something that excuses anything and everything that people do as meaningless and as of no concern. And there are people who say that they do not want to hear what the orthodox or the catholics (for example) or the historians or the theologians or the scientists or anybody has to say because they have narrowed this belief system to “Jesus Saves” (and indeed he does) and they not only do not want to think any further than that nor do they want other people to think any further than that.
This latter is a problem for some of us.
This is off topic, but since it is easter sunday I want to say it. Easter is a terrible time for me for personal reasons but also for what we have done with easter.
We have rabbits and eggs time, which may be a perfectly good celebration of springtime fertility in nature, but it does not equate with the resurrection. Springtime fertility celebration is about ‘life goes on..the forest regrows after the fire” sort of thing. The resurrection is about a god who breaks all the rules of ‘nature’ and rises from the grave. Totally different concepts.
We also have a time to be culturally accurate and go spend money that is increasingly difficult to come by in this recession on clothing for the occasion which will not be worn the rest of the year. And what, the poor and the inappropriate and the non-competive among us can just stay home if they can’t conform/compete? I am staying home for several reasons, one being that the preteen at our house just cannot go face the dress up thing at church so her mom let her stay home, and one being that I totally refuse to spend money foolishly and they can’t make me, and also I refuse to conform/compete even if I could have (and I certainly could have) done so successfully.
The resurrection celebration is too important for this other nonsense. And I have been pushed too far!
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
Jesus’ ministry/life should not be an example of Holiness to us?
@ lydia:
Yes.
I Peter 1: 13-16 In the context he is obviously not talking about salvation but he is quoting leviticus about being holy as God is holy.
Maybe we sometimes think the NT is only gospels + Paul and miss out on a lot of stuff that way.
Having read this post and the comments, I considered – every particle of dust falling- while watching a tennis match. So some believe that the length of every volley back and forth, the placement of every tennis ball by the players, the decisions of the players – both skillful and in error – are determined by God? God being aware of and actively directing are very different matters. He is aware of a sparrow that falls and the number of hairs on my head, yes. He is the King of kings, absolutely. Is He a Calvanist – I am of the opinion that He is not. The label calvanism shows that those beliefs are a man’s defining of God. The lengthy writings, a weak man’s attempts to define, to me are a compulsive obsession to define the undefinable. To follow such a mind-set carries the risk of also wanting to be the one In Charge, who sets the definitions – in contrast to being the one who is defined, created. I choose to be the clay and not a potter. I will allow God to shape me into His unseen glory, rather than attempting to shape Him through my limited knowledge, by attempting to quantify, define His attributes. My encounters with Him, as with Job’s recorded encounter, have left me quieted in awe and humility. I can but proclaim what He has done and revealed thus far of His Word. Were “Institutes” a life long, (men are as a vapor) work of the wisest man, they would be nothing compared to the eternal wisdom and knowledge that are in Jesus the Christ.
@ Nancy:
I hear ya. We visited a certain CBF church this morning and were pleasantly surprised. My first impression was to give thanks there was no “big screen”. I am so done with Orwellian church.
There was a real choir who ended the service with selections from Handel that was simply a majestic way to end such a celebration as the pastor said there are no words for the resurrection and music does it better. (my mom used to say that so I am prejudiced)
His sermon was around this painting (they gave everyone a copy on glossy paper) and John 20:
http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/diglib-fulldisplay.pl?SID=20150405218505859&code=act&RC=55038&Row=7
He asked: Do we often choose power over love? He then asked: Does power conquer love? No, and Jesus’ resurrection proves it.
It struck me today ,in another way, why focusing on God’s “power” (as defined by so many as sovereignty) is the wrong focus and takes us down wrong roads with devastating results.
Nancy wrote:
I get you.Today, at a liturgical church, i was thrilled to see a young teen girl who had green highlights in her hair, blue fingernail polish and some funky sandals, light the altar candles and collect the wine cups from communion. She had the sweetest smile on her face and she made me smile as well.
Ed wrote:
Thank you for this wonderful comment. It really hit me in my heart.
oldJohnJ wrote:
We could try this one when we get picked up for driving too fast. Think they’d bite?
@ Debbie Kaufman:
We are positionally holy but functionally still sinners.
dee wrote:
No and neither would the IRS if I didn’t pay my taxes. I don’t think the calvinistas should get off any easier for such claims.
On a slightly different seasonal note I to attended a Tenebrae service Friday night. I am a choir member (a B in SATB) and find the service a very powerful leadin to Sunday’s Easter service.
@ dee:
Yeah. You said it shorter and sweeter. 🙂
@ lydia:
My point was our idea of God’s holiness falls short of actuality.Just like we do not have a clear, concise idea of what heaven is like, it is so much more, we have no idea of how Holy God is.
oldJohnJ wrote:
As did I. At the end of the service, they turned out the lights in Duke Chapel and rang the bells 33 times. Pretty powerful.
Nancy wrote:
Nancy, I’m one who has encountered lots of opposition throughout my life because I wouldn’t/couldn’t conform to traditions, trends, etc. that are important to most others. I tried to fit the mold expected but failed miserably. One has to be true to who they are. I seem to unintentionally be one who goes “up the down staircase” and have learned to be content with who I am.
Hope you and your daughter aren’t feeling pressure to conform in areas where you are comfortable avoiding them.
It’s good to see diversity and disagreement handled in a constructive way here at TWW. Not so at many other Christian sites. Some are like Shiites and Sunnis in full-on Jihad mode, and still others are like the bad old days in Northern Ireland when Protestants and Catholics were blowing each other up.
Mr. Klaatu and Gort would probably endorse TWW as an example of a conflict free zone.
__
Ed,
John Calvin in his Institutes, plays Jesus false. If you were to compare the Institutes (ICR) to the words of Jesus in the Gospel books, for instance, you’ll find many a falsehood. One should remember that false teachers do not fair well as far as Jesus’ kids and millstones are concerned.
“In All Your Ways Acknowledge Him…”
ATB
Sopy
__
Inspirational relief:
The Gospel of John – THE LIFE OF JESUS – a full movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hexhw3wWmE
🙂
—
@ Debbie Kaufman:
I understand where you are coming from but my point was that Jesus was perfect and Holy as the God-man and gave us an example of what it is like to walk in the light. He even told some of his disciples they could do greater things.
For some reason He did not tell the Jews during His time here that they could not keep from sinning or that they did not have the ability. I can see where some of the NT scriptures hint at this but I believe they are misunderstood in context. That they could not help doing wrong to others. To me, this suggests that imputed guilt is a horrible and misleading understanding of scripture.
I do think that Jesus raised the bar in this understanding/thinking from simply keeping the law as our sin starts in our thoughts (heart) and gives birth to wrong actions. Therefore “lust” can lead to adultery and so on. We do have the “ability” to nip it in the bud there. Not saying it is easy at all. Just speaking of ‘ability’.
I fear the worst thing we have done is to focus on a syllabus Jesus and ignore how He lived, what He said, what He did not say, who His ire was focused upon (ironically not the Roman power!) who His compassion was most focused upon and so on.
I think God is like Jesus and Jesus was like God. As we were made to be in His image this makes total sense to me.
__
Lydia,
16th century Theologian John Calvin unfortunately teaches of a different Jesus and a different God than what is illuminated from the pages of the New Testament gospels. We see there (in the gospels) that God our Father was delighted to bring His Son into the world with great supernatural fanfare and unspeakable joy; We see that Jesus came on His Father’s request to save His Jewish people from their sins; we see when His Jewish people rejected Him, Jesus raised up Saul of Tarsus to take the same message of the gospel of hope and salvation to the Gentiles , Jesus said that whosoever was to believe in His message of hope would receive forgiveness for their sins and receive also eternal life. God’s wrath for sin was thus spent on Jesus at the cross so that now people everywhere both Jew and Gentile alike, could expectantly come freely and receive grace without fear.
How exciting!
What a wonderful God we serve!
ATB
Sopy
—
Did God ordain me finally getting utterly sick of sleeplessness, & finally getting my daughter a sleep study? I think the answer is yes. 😉 I’m just saying….!
@ Lydia:
I agree Lydia, Christ did raise the bar, but not because we could do better, but to show our need of a Savior. It’s why He came. The Bible from Genesis to Revelation points to Christ, not works. John 3:16 is put there for a reason. Do we change, do we grow? Yes, I believe so, but are we sinless can we be sinless? No, not until heaven.
Christ was Holy and 100% God, 100% human. He faced some of the same struggles we do as a human but at the same time because He was God, could not sin.
It’s all about what Christ has done, not what we do or don’t do.
Sopwith wrote:
And yet the Reformed folks make the claim that this is what the Bible teaches, just as passionately as those who are not Reformed insist that the Bible teaches no such thing. How can this be if the Bible is supposed to be as perspicuous as claimed by the opposing sides?
@ Debbie Kaufman:
I take it that you are not in the free will (or free won’t) crowd?
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
Then when the bible says that he was tempted even as we are but yet without sin, that would not be quite correct. How could he be tempted to sin if it was impossible for him to do so? What kind of temptation would that be?
Nancy: To know how we feel. Christ was 100% God and 100% human. Both at the same time. He couldn’t sin, otherwise He could not be the perfect sacrifice that a Holy God required.
__
“The Way, The Truth, The Life?”
hmmm…
Muff ,
Muff, you said: “And yet the Reformed folks make the claim that this is what the Bible teaches, just as passionately as those who are not Reformed insist that the Bible teaches no such thing. How can this be if the Bible is supposed to be as perspicuous as claimed by the opposing sides?”
—
Muff,
I am very ‘concerned’ for anyone that contradicts what Jesus had to say.
John Calvin aparrently did not believe man was capable of doing what Jesus asks each of us, that is to : “Repent and Believe the Gospel.”
Jesus said:
…”Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son…”
Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be full…
Theologians like John Calvin have called Jesus a lier long enough.
ATB
Sopy
—
@ Sopwith:
Sopy, I know a Calvinist who is a kind and good man, and who treats others the way he would like to be treated. I don’t care if he believes in a flying spaghetti monster who insists that you can only use Ragu and not Prego.
__
Muff,
@ Muff ,
If this religious leader (John Calvin) can call Jesus, God’s Son, a lier, what will his followers do?
(sadface)
Sopy
—
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
The point was the He did not sin, not that He could not sin.
As Nancy pointed out (paraphrasing and adding to her thought), if He could not sin, then he was really just a robotic extension of God. He became fully human. If He could not sin, He would not have been fully human. This was one of the remarkable things about Him – noted often by the apostles – that He did not sin.
My two cents, anyway. 😉
@ Jeannette Altes:
Exactly. Preach it!
Jeanette: I would disagree. Christ would not sin and he could not sin. He was God. He was human. If he could sin, then he was not who he said he was.
@ Debbie Kaufman:
By that same reasoning if he was god then he could not sin and if he was human then he could sin, and those two statements are incompatible. So by that reasoning he could not have been both god and man.
Unless we were to say that god cannot be tempted (and that is in scripture) but man can, hence the temptation of Jesus by satan after his baptism. But if we say that unfallen man (Adam) could have chosen to not sin in the first place, and say that Jesus was a second adam human not besmirched by the fall (original sin) then that human (Jesus ) could choose not to sin just as adam could have chosen not to sin. But of course then we would have to say what is original sin, and we would have to get into mariology–why the virgin birth for instance. What was the point in all that? These areas have not been strong points with protestantism, including calvinism.
The early christological arguments and divisions were huge around this divine/human issue and how on earth could that be and what would that mean. Church councils issued statements as we all know, and that solved the issue but only officially of course.
One sub-question would be/was did the divine nature override and nullify the human nature of Christ? That sounds like what you are saying. That was debated. It is all very interesting.
Sopwith wrote:
“If footmen tire you, what will horsemen do?”
dee wrote:
The 3/5 deal was all about representation in Congress. In the House, representation is by population; the more people in the state, the more Congressmen in Congress. And at the time, the 800-lb gorilla of the Thirteen States was the slave state of Virginia, largest and oldest of them all (seniority as well as size).
The slavery-dependent southern states pressured for population counts for Congressional apportionment to include slaves in the population; again, the bigger the numbers, the bigger the clout. And counting slaves meant the southern slave states could dominate Congress and the new USA.
The northern states pressured to NOT count slaves as people; this would reduce the counted populations of the slave states so the northern states could dominate.
And the fight was on. Counting slaves are 3/5 of a free man for Congressional reapportionment meant neither North or South could dominate Congress and the new government, but more important the Other Guy couldn’t. And this balancing act continued with each new state until 1861, when everything finally blew sky-high.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
Also remember, Dee. Back then, hierarchy (nobles/commoners, masters/slaves) was The Way We’ve Always Done Things. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were pushing the envelope of “That’s Crazy Talk”.
And one of the hierarchies was colonist/native, white/black with whites on top. Before the African Slave Trade got rolling, black Africans were considered “funny-looking foreigners” in European art & storytelling. Emphasis on FOREIGN.
But after the Slave Trade became REALLY big-money, THAT’s black Africans became subhumans, nothing more than bipedal work animals. Eases the slaveowners’ conscience, especially when their Plantation system is so dependent on it.
As a result, White Supremacy (whether cosmically justified by Divine Right/Curse of Ham or post-Darwin Scientific Racism) became as fundamental a Law of Nature as Gravity clear into the 20th Century.
Nancy wrote:
I’d like to see a historical study on that subject. Whether Calvinism had anything to do with current Fundyism and Salvation as only Fire Insurance.
Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:
I sure don’t know. But the angry god thing is more protestant than catholic. I read Andrew Greeley’s book about the catholic imagination vs the protestant imagination, and actually they found less difference statistically than I think I saw comparing the “feel” of the brand of protestantism I grew up in on the one hand and what I “perceived” during my bit of time with the catholics. I thought there was a world of difference in that particular aspect, actually.
@ Nancy:
Nancy: He was a human without sin. He could feel what we feel, he could go through what we go through, but he had no desire to sin. He was not born in sin as we are. He was 100% God and 100% human. I stress this point because it is so important. He was God and God is holy with no sin, no desire to sin, can’t sin.
@ Nancy:
Otoh, plenty of Catholics who grew up prior to Vaticsn II were tsught “angry god” stuff. Which is one of msny reasons that people trnded to drift awsy from the RCC. I suspect a ehole new generation of them is growing up now, given the way thelast 2 popes tried to turn things back to pre-Vatican II practice, plus thd tremendous ripple effects of the child sexual abuse exposes and trials. Poor Francis has a *lot* on his plate.
If Jesus couldn’t sin, was the temptation in the wilderness in any sense a real test?
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
It’s His human nature that seems to be in question; not His divine nature. According to Albert Barnes commentary on Hebrews 4:15:
He was tempted – in the literal sense; he was persecuted; he was poor; he was despised; he suffered physical pain; he endured the sorrows of a lingering and most cruel death.
The gospels indicate He felt compassion, anger, joy, grief, etc. He wept, called the Pharisees names and chided them, experienced loneliness, and despair.
The full range of humanity is recorded so He could identify with our weaknesses.
@ numo:
You might find Greeley’s book interesting. It was not talking about ‘catholic guilt’ as it was about how people view God. It was an actual sociological study to determine what percentage of c and p folks thought/imagined God in certain ways. At that time there had been discussion about the idea of ‘the catholic imagination’ and so they thought they would do a study on it. I am not going to get into it, but I found it interesting. It was not about the church, or whether people were happy with the church or such. It was about how people thought about God himself at some emotional level. One question for example may have been something like this: if Jesus can be seen as both elder brother and also as judge, which way do you more often think of him. A number of parameters were looked at and the statistics compared. Interesting study, I thought.
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
The question of peccability/impeccability is an interesting one. I’m not sure that the desire to sin is exactly the point in dispute but rather whether Jesus’ human nature included the ability to sin. If we can draw a conclusion from the First Adam/Second Adam analogy on this point, perhaps he, like Adam, had the ability to sin but unlike Adam he chose not to yield to the temptation to sin. ISTM that explanation accounts for the reality of the many temptations he faced, including the ultimate one in Gethsemane.
Gram3 wrote:
This has been my perspective.
@ Ken:
I don’t believe it was any real test. No. But I guess Satan had to try. 🙂
@ numo:
I am not talking an angry God, I am talking a Just and truly righteous God. If God was an angry God he never would have sent His Son, Christ to pay the debt we could not pay.
God is also Love, and it was that love and compassion for us that God made a way through Christ Jesus to have an eternal relationship to him and become children of the King.
I have followed the comments with great interest. I have been on both sides of the Calvinist divide, and what I most dislike is the fact that Calvinists do not present their theology openly and honestly. Perhaps it is that most of then truly do not understand it, but the Sproul’s, Piper’s etc. certainly know better.
If one looks into history carefully, one will quickly find what we have long been taught is often far different than what documented sources reveal. This is true concerning politics, science and, most of all, religion, which is the crux of it all. Satan ever seeks to denounce God, and He has both corrupted and created churches to teach false and corrupted gospels. There have been and will continue to be many anti-Christs, who pervert and corrupt the genuine gospel, and many of them will be well-known and loved.
In my opinion, the institutional churches, as well as most big name preachers and teachers can be almost universally written off as false and/or corrupted. I know that is a strong statement, but I believe it can be supported by scripture. The humble and godly who spread the genuine gospel are not going to be on the top seller lists. I appeal to the many who have been turned off by such to look to the bible itself, and see its real message, which is one of love, mercy and the only reasonable explanation for evil, which is that God has granted man free, moral agency and man has chosen to do evil.
I am deeply saddened that so many have been deceived by Calvinist teachings, and all other false teachings, that blaspheme the name and character of God. Although God, by granting free will has permitted evil to come into existence, He has made it clear that it is NOT His will and that it will not go unpunished.
I defy anyone to claim that God either ordains, approves or gets glory from murder, child abuse, sexual abuse, genocide or any form of tyranny. It is not so, and all of the clever redefining of words, taking verses out of context and ignoring the greater context of the full message of scripture will not make it so.
He tarries not because He is getting so much ‘glory’ from all the evil he ordained, but because He intends to let man see that rejecting Him and His good and perfect will leads to the evil and tyranny of murder, oppression, and all other wickedness. He is allowing evil to reveal its true character, so that men will finally see and reject it for what it truly is. Could He have just compelled men to do whatever He wanted? Certainly! But to suggest that He does so, in the face of the existence of the evil we all know exists, making God the author of evil, is beyond comprehension.
Only careful grooming and avoidance of cogent logic (and believe me, I have seen that in action!) can lead otherwise decent and intelligent people to adopt and defend Calvinist determinism. Mostly, they do not know of what they speak. I have seen it up close and personal, as it nearly destroy my faith and my life. I have seen many others’ faith and family destroyed by its deceptive and destructive doctrines. I have many loved ones still deceived by its clever lies and its promise of security, no matter how one lives.
I am sorry to say that I believe it is a perversion of the gospel that has led to most of the abuse and tyranny in the modern world, with its justification of tyrannical control, usury, capitalism, and most of all, Calvin’s teachings that the ‘vessels of wrath’ were created by God for destruction and for ‘the use of the elect’. Such things cannot be tolerated kindly.
I do apologize for speaking so boldly. This is not a small issue, however. Not only is the very character of our most Holy, perfect and loving God being smeared. Even more tragic, many believe the horrible lie that God does not love all men, does not desire that all turn from wickedness and have life, but only chose to save a select few, who don’t appear to care any more than their false god that the rest be damned!
It was only after I began to dig into the true teachings, and read the writings of Calvin, Pink, Boettner and others that I recognized how greatly I had been deceived. With what glorious joy I found once again the God of my youth; the God of love who desires none to perish and provided the costly sacrifice that brings reconciliation for all who will turn from their wickedness and embrace the genuine goodness of God. I will spend the rest of my life seeking to declare His marvels.
Do not be deceived by the many false, corrupted and partial proclamations of the gospel. God is wholly good, wholly merciful and, while not determinative, most definitely sovereign. His plan of saving and restoring His creation to its original perfection, of permanently dealing with and destroying sin and evil, will most definitely succeed. And He will someday wipe away every tear from our eyes. None will then accuse Him of causing the evil He both hates and died to deliver us from. None will throw around their grandiose terms and lofty concepts that only serve to hide the simple truth of the gospel: God loves and desires only good for all men, and has and will do everything to bring it about for those who submit to His loving authority. Only those who stubbornly refuse to accept His free offer of love and grace will face the horrible consequences of refusing to part from their wickedness. Trust Him.
@ Gram3:
I agree with Debbie that this is important, I just don’t agree with her as to how it worked out. But what I want to say is that the position on could not/did not that I have said (did not) and you have said (much better than I did) and several have chimed in on can be found in a book by Bruce Ware and one commenter on a blog re this aspect of the book noted that it is the position of Wayne Grudem. I don’t align myself with Grudem in some things, and I was surprised to hear that comment, but there it was. I have not checked out either Ware or Grudem to see if the blog post or the comment are correct about who thinks what. What I have stated is just what was taught to me back when I was a baptist before the revolution. There are lots of implications to this but that is not for here and now.
Nancy wrote:
I checked Grudem’s ST, and on pages 537-539 he describes his position which is classic Grudem. Maybe someone else can check me to see if I have read him correctly.
He says that if Jesus’ human nature was discrete from his divine nature, then he could certainly have sinned just as Adam and Eve were created holy but nevertheless were able to sin. However Grudem also says that Jesus’ two natures were not discrete and that, therefore, his divine nature would have prevented him from sinning because God cannot sin. He then says that, despite James telling us that God cannot be tempted, Jesus *was* tempted, and the temptations were real. So, Jesus’ divine nature prevented him from sinning because God cannot sin but did not prevent him from being tempted even though God cannot be tempted. That is Grudemesque logic. Bottom line is e comes down on the side of impeccability.
The reason I say it is classic Grudem is that he starts off acknowledging that he is speculating but then goes on to set forth an absolute answer as if the answer exists apart from the speculation. Then, in getting to his conclusion he invokes all necessary logical fallacies.
I’ll check what I have by Ware.
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
This is an excellent comment!
Ken wrote:
This is a good question.
Gram3 wrote:
In the fictional book, Perelandra, CS Lewis imagines a world in which the human did not fall. It is quite thought provoking.
Debbie Kaufman wrote:
But, in fact, many Calvinists stress a wrathful God. It makes me sad when I see people on Neo-Calvinist websites reveling in the fact that they are the lowest of worms. Some people even play the fame of declaring themselves the “worst sinner.”
I like the way Lewis puts it in the Chronicles of Narnia
“You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content.”
Gram3 wrote:
There is a problem for me with this explanation. Jesus was able to be prevented from sinning only due to His divine nature. Yet, Adam and Eve were expected to not sin without a divine nature. Any thoughts on the matter?
@ Gram3:
I found some Grudem stuff on line. He was saying both yes and no. He said that Jesus resisted temptation by his human will but that his divine will was there as a backup (I suppose he meant backup just in case, but perhaps not.) So Jesus resisted temptation as a human but is considered impeccable because of the presence of the two wills. If that is Grudem it is pitiful. He can’t plant himself well in a firm position.
Here is from the catechism of the catholic church 475 on Christ’s human will, referencing the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681…”that Christ had two wills, and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but co-operate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had divinely decided with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. Christ’s will does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his diving and almighty will.”
This does not get into whether it could have been otherwise, but it maintains the validity of actual action of the human will of Christ in saying that he “willed humanly in obedience” to what the trinity had decided. I think that is as close as it comes, actually to a good explanation.
@ Nancy:
OK, I checked Ware’s Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and could not find where he addressed the issue of impeccability. That particular book is aimed to defend a pecking order in the Trinity, so maybe that is not so surprising. I don’t know where I have put God’s Greater Glory, so maybe he writes about it there. I believe those are the only two books I have by Ware. , but my basement may know better. Regardless, it is probably reasonably safe to assume that he and Grudem agree on this since they agree on most everything respecting the nature of the Trinity.
Nancy wrote:
Here’s the quote from Grudem’s ST:
It isn’t clear to me how Grudem determines the interaction between Jesus’ divine and human natures.
Your quote from the CCC sounds reasonable to me.
Ken wrote:
This may have been a test in the sense of believing the Word of God or satan. It could also have been a demonstration of discerning the false words of the one called the “one who deceives the whole world” in Rev. 12:9.
dee wrote:
What a great way to put it. Goes back to questioning what image of God means and where human volition comes in.
dee wrote:
Unlike Grudem, I will frankly acknowledge that I do not know how this all works. Obviously I think Grudem is being inconsistent with the way he applies the notion that Jesus’ divine nature somehow compensates for his human nature.
From the textual data we have, it appears that Adam and Eve were capable of sinning and capable of not sinning. They appear to have freedom to make a choice, and that choice was a real one and not dependent on them having a divine nature.
I’ve probably already said this, but on the original post, I think that God’s sovereignty means that he retains the right and has the power to control everything. I don’t think it necessarily follows from that that he absolutely *does* control every particle and every micro-event. ISTM that in defending this one particular view of how God exercises his sovereignty, the absolutely meticulous sovereignty defenders are actually constraining God’s freedom. They are saying that he cannot actually *be* sovereign unless he exercises his sovereignty in a particular way.
I do not think that sleepless children are designed by God to be sleepless so that their sleep-deprived mothers can claim God’s sovereignty and profess their submission to that sovereignty. Actually this view seems quite odd to me, but it strikes me as a variation on the competitive submission I’ve observed in Calvinista/Complementarian circles.
@ Gram3:
This is what the site was talking about. Bruce A. Ware, The Man Christ Jesus: Theological Questions on the Humanity of Christ (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), 81–84:
I have not read anything by Ware, but I may start with this (or not.)
@ Gram3:
The Bible doesn’t say Adam and Eve were perfect, only that they were good. (Gen. 1:27-31). Adam and Eve sinning were not a surprise to God. God is all knowing and can see the future. That is why I say that the Bible points to Christ from Genesis to Revelation. Christ and his death, resurrection etc. were not a secondary plan with God, it was His only plan from the very beginning.
I also point out that Adam was never made Holy. Just good. Christ however was Holy.
dee wrote:
For me it is this area exactly. If Jesus is presented as perfect man, then (a) would he not have been like Adam who is also presented that way before the fall and (b) if his humanity was not perfect in the way that God created humanity to be (Adam again) which would include the freedom to choose to obey god or not then how is Jesus the perfect sacrifice for the sins of man. It seems he would have been human-but not quite exactly.
And there is something in the bible that says that Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered. Hebrews 5:8 “Though he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered” Learned? How is it learned if it is hard wired and unavoidable/inevitable?
Okay, so it is complicated. But impeccability, if it means impeccability of the human will of Jesus does not settle all the questions. If by impeccability what is meant is the divine will, and that becomes the veto vote as it were on Jesus actions, then what does that say about the cooperation of the two wills?
Wiki says the issue of the impeccability of Christ is common but not uncontested. I can live with that.
Jeannette Altes wrote:
I meant to get back to you on this earlier. I know I can only use words, but I’m sorry for both what you have gone through in the past, and that some have misused this to – in my opinion – caricature the idea of the sovereignty of God.
In my post I was mainly thinking of how God’s sovereignty is worked out in salvation, and what part human responsibilty or choice is involved. If there were a cast-iron answer to this subject, I’m sure someone would have found it by now.
It is also true that in the bible God can be severe, he can bring calamity on nations as part of his judgement, though this is always preceded by a warning and offer of time to repent and receive mercy. Noah’s flood is an example.
It is also true he came to earth and told us to pray that thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This clearly means that without ceasing to be sovereign and lose control, God does not prevent things happening by simply overriding the exercise of human will. Most people don’t want a God like that anyway, and as Christians I think it is an area where we have to trust God and believe he knows what he is doing, even though the outlook is grim and bad things happen. The evil in the world is perplexing.
I don’t think God foreordains child abuse; I cannot square the idea of God giving commands not to do something, and then foreordaining or inciting people to do the very thing he has commanded them not to do. He may judge and discipline us as sons (and daughters!) if we sin and go wrong. He allows us to reap what we sow. But I don’t believe for one single second he actively brings about child abuse, or any other abuse.
This is not something I think we will ever have a full answer for in this life.
Nancy wrote:
Definitely, and possibly not something we can know. We aren’t told how Jesus’ human nature interacts with his divine nature. We are told that he did not sin and also that he learned obedience. ISTM that we are venturing into speculative territory when we go beyond this. Now, how is it that Jesus managed to not sin? I say that is was through the power of the Spirit. But that would mean that Jesus obeyed the Spirit, and that doesn’t work within the Ware/Grudem view of the authority structures within the Trinity. On the one hand, they appeal to the immutability of God to say that the Eternal Son has always been subjected to the Father’s will because the Incarnate Son was subjected to the Father’s will. But then they say that same immutability somehow allows for the Eternal Son to be subject to the Holy Spirit while he was incarnate, while not being eternally subject to the Holy Spirit. I’m not following their reasoning when they establish the pecking order in the Trinity.
As you said, it is complicated.
@ Gram3:
Oh yeah. If they can establish hierarchy within the trinity as a dogma, then they can accomplish all they want to with the hierarchy idea in other areas, elders/laity, christians/everybody else, male/female, white race/ everybody else, married and fertile/not or not, the list goes on. How different is divine hierarchy from polytheism with lesser gods? Of course, christianity has been accused of being polytheistic and IMO that old accusation will resurface from somewhere before this is over.
dee wrote:
You might want to start with a comparison and contrast between the Jewish* vs. Augustinian notions of sin. If you’re already convinced of a particularly Christian view, that’s ok too, all I’m saying is that it’s sometimes helpful to look at other faith traditions and the coordinate systems they describe.
*it’s also important to note that Judaism is not monolithic and has its own diversity too.
@ Nancy:
I’m sure I would enjoy it. I think a lot of the Catholics I have known who grew up fearful of God’s judgement were subjected to teachers (in parochial schools) who thought that way, and who were mean and abusive to the kids. I know others who say that the gore shown in many depictions of the crucifixion and martyrdoms of saints scared them. And I can easily see how both things could happen.
One of the nuns I knew went to parochial schools and had a really nasty woman (a nun) the year she was confirmed. This woman told those little kids that if they bit the Host, even accidentally, that they would go to hell. And so on.
@ dee:
indeed.
i think it’s helpful to read the thoughts of theologians from other traditions, to balance out the fear-based thinking that seems to be inculcated in many who were raised in Calvinistic churches, or, at least, with those concepts of god.
@ dee:
err, um… Jesus chose not to sin, yes? But he could have done so, I believe.
Muff Potter wrote:
Indeed it does, and it is an older religion than ours, with many. many changes and diverging paths in its history.
@ Nancy:
@ Debbie Kaufman:
It also talks in Philippians 2 about being obedient unto death.
I believe this passage is talking about Jesus choosing to lay aside his divine nature and operate as a human. If he had not, it would have all been a bit of a sham, really.
As others have mentioned, if he were unable to sin, then how could he possibly, realistically understand what it feels like to be tempted? He wouldn’t.
This seems to be a part of the deterministic doctrine – even God cannot choose.
My thinking, right now, is that it is not so much that God cannot sin – which implies some external force restraining Him or some feature in the way He is made (implying an external force, again). I believe that he is restrained from sinning – will not sin – rather by an internal force that is a part of His character – Love. And I think that is the crux of Himself that indwells believers and helps them learn restraint, as well – by your love for one another, they will know you are mine.
Ken wrote:
Ken, thank you for the clarification.
For me, the concept that he planned beforehand to make some people with no hope of salvation is akin to a father having many children and planning ahead of time which one he will let live in the house and experience his love and which ones will be forced to live in the shed and essentially exist , but not live or know love. And he would do so having no regard for whether the individual child in question loved him or hated him – wanted him or despised him. Foreordained, done. No exceptions. That’s what this doctrine feels like to me, and I will never be able to accept that this is what God is like.
Also, just from a survivor perspective, this doctrine is one of hopelessness. It implies that those who are abused and discarded are not chosen. This reinforces what their abusers told them. It can be devastating.
Joe2 wrote:
The Constitution of the US. As originally written, slaves (who were overwhelmingly African Americans) were counted as 1/3 of a human being, for the purpose of determining representation in Washington.
It was appalling, truly appalling, but for mamy, it expressed their honest belief in the law.
Jeannette Altes wrote:
My fraction was also off, but still, this is the source.
Jeannette Altes wrote:
And well you shouldn’t. Their god has more in common with the gods of the Greeks and the Canaanites. The God of Abraham isn’t anything like that.
numo wrote:
In my cathechism, they told me “Christ knows when to put His Real Presence into the Host, and he knows when to take it out.”
numo wrote:
What’s always struck me about Judaism is its earthiness. Emphasis on the here-and-now instead of only on the Hereafter. Its concept of God saying “Keep my Commandments, but LIVE YOUR LIVES!”
dee wrote:
It’s “Race for the Bottom” combined with “Can You Top This?”
@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
NT Wright has pointed this out quite a bit. There was very little focus on the hereafter in the OT. Yes, it was: live your lives and be the light of the world.
Lydia wrote:
And then there was that little incident of the resurrection and some people made a whole religion which would self destruct without that emphasis. Probably doesn’t matter though, just mostly a bunch of gentiles I hear.
For anybody who missed that the second sentence and only the second sentence was sarcasm.
__
“A Day In The Life Of Christ, Jesus The Lord?
hmmm…
“…to be born of a virgin, to cast out of devils, to heal the sick, to restore the dead to life, to fulfill all God’s will, to rise from the dead Himself, to lead a host captive, to ascend to heaven, to give eternal life to all those who repent and believe, to direct and gather His saints, to enertain his enemies as a footstool for his feet, to declare the will of God…
Whew !
Believe today, and be saved, and find refreshment for your eternal soul from the Lord…
He is there for the asking!
ATB
Sopy
—
Lydia wrote:
And within a couple centuries, the ONLY way to be pleasing to God and get your place in the hereafter was to seal yourself away in a monastery or convent for 24/7 prayer and devotions.
@ Lydia
@ HUG
I don’t know if that is what you all are suggesting, emphasize the here and now and deemphasize eternity, but something like that was what I heard from one of the Jewish guys at our gross anatomy table while we were dissecting. I thought it was hugely short sighted considering what we were actually doing at the time.
@ Sopwith:
Sopy, know that I agree with your comments on John Calvin. I made reference to him because he is the founder of Calvanism and is the source of the beliefs of his followers, Calvanist. Though he spent his adult life revising the Institutes, they are inaccurate and out of sync with the preserved compilation of recognized scriptures, which he studied so carefully. The point is we cannot define God. Rather, He reveals Himself as He molds us into His likeness, as we in all our ways acknowledge Him.
” In the beginning God created….”
The universe is beyond human description. The Hubble telescope, and the soon to be launched James Webb space telescope (2018), will not be able to completely show or explained to us what is out there. You want God to explain why the dust mote orbits, or why you chose red and not blue? You want God to explain the science or mathematical logic of how he is going to resurrect long-dead bodies and cause them to live forever with Him? I believe God would love to tell us all these things (we are created in His image and but we are fallen), but before that, he will first have to give us new and eternal bodies – without which we will simply perish from looking into these things. Let us dwell in these most valid questions only with the expectation that it will be fully revealed to us in our future eternal state. God will let us understand how he healed people born blind and crippled. How He resurrected Lazarus. How he drove out demons from the man of Gadarene. How He turned water into wine. How he walked on water and led Peter into it. What is a spirit? As in all things genuinely Christian, the first test of faith is how we view the first 5 words of the Holy Bible. Five simple words – ” In the beginning God created’. How do you believe in these five most simple words?