Consider the Calvinists, What They Know

First Things ^ | 10/1/2013 | B. D. McClay

[Alex Murphy]

Calvinists get a bad rap, but how many of the critics really understand him? James R. Rogers points out how few of us read the Institutes or bother to think seriously about Calvin in today’s On the Square. Instead, we rely on easy stereotypes:

Some of the answer certainly derives from misunderstandings of Calvinism. I recall in elementary school my teacher instructing the class that when the Puritans sailed to America on ships, if someone fell off the ship into the water, the others would not attempt to save him, because they believed that God had predestined that person to drown. In trying to save that person from drowning, she said, the Puritans thought they would be opposing God’s will.

Read the rest here. Searching for some kind of definitive statement on this “letting people drown” business, I uncovered a Puritans subreddit. So, Puritan enthusiasts, there’s your link for the day. (Dorothy Bradford fell off the Mayflower and drowned, but so far I have not encountered an account of her fellow Puritans standing around and shrugging. The search continues.)

Sometimes, of course, people aren’t really reading Calvin even when they’re reading Calvin. Once in a seminar on the Institutes, I heard someone assert that Calvin’s thinking was based in a hatred of life. Calvin, he thought, wanted us to stew in self-hatred until we died. In response, someone read him this passage from “Of Christian Liberty”:

Certainly ivory and gold, and riches, are the good creatures of God, permitted, nay destined, by divine providence for the use of man; nor was it ever forbidden to laugh, or to be full, or to add new to old and hereditary possessions, or to be delighted with music, or to drink wine.

“Well,” said the critic, after a moment’s thought, “there’s just no way he could possibly mean that.”

[SeaHawkFan]

Never said all five point Calvinists were hyper, but Spurgeon and Johnson state that they exist and are a danger to the speading of the Gospel.

I stand with Johnson and Spurgeon.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“I stand with Johnson and Spurgeon”

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Pfffft, you keep telling yourself that. What things men delude themselves with is none of my concern.

[PieterCasparzen]

5 point Calvinism denies the reality of choice and Armenianism denies the sovereignty of God. The real truth is that one of the proofs (somewhat paradoxically)of Christianity is that it can’t be explained. While the concepts of predestination are clearly taught in the Bible so is the doctrine that our choices, our prayers and actions actually matter. The only two religions that share this quandary are Christianity and Judaism....

Both Christians and Jews say “Yes God is in absolute control but yes it matters what we do and how we live and your choices matter.” The two are mutually exclusive of each other but both are true. It is something that Christians can spiritually see and experience at a very basic level but cannot be explained. The error of both Calvinism and Armenianism is looking at only one side of the coin.

While we can't know the mind of God...

consider this from the human perspective then consider from God's perspective.

My "sinking ship" example: You're a passenger on a sinking ship, and the crew says that it's hopeless, no other ships in sight, not enough lifeboats, will sink in 30 minutes. Do you give up and go down with the ship ? No, everyone tries to get in a lifeboat or find something floating to cling to. Ship sinks. You wait, floating on something. Do you give up trying to survive ? No, there could be rescue coming over the horizon in minutes - at any time.

We as humans don't know what God has in store for us, but God knows what he has in store for us. We can't make it so that a ship comes over the horizon and saves us, but God can; there may have been a ship coming all along that the crew did not know about.

We can't think of God's perspective being the same as our perspective if we are to understand.

The Bible tells us that men are "without excuse" (Rom. 1:20). How can we be without excuse if we have no free will ? Thus we have a source of confusion when jointly considering both God's sovereignty and our responsibility.

Such confusion reveals a basic misunderstanding of the whole counsel of God.

Scripture contains multiple concepts relating to man's responsibility and God's sovereignty that come to bear all at once; one concept cannot be considered without the rest and yield an honest understanding. What we say and do is our "fruit"; if we are saved, God's Holy Spirit dwells within us, thus we can't boast of our good works, as they are the fruit of the Spirit. Absent the indwelling, a man's works are the fruit of his sinful self (i.e., doctrine of original sin). Jesus' parables speaking about "fruit" teach on this subject.

Christ commands our obedience (John 14:15), the true believer finds themselves desiring to be obedient to God's Word (Heb 5:9, Rom 6, Matt 7). Meanwhile, the children of disobedience (Eph 2:2, Eph 5:6, Col 3:6) do as they will.