"God is not a respecter of persons" and Calvinism

[Guest]

You had mentioned that my view is hard to swallow. I have been there. But I would much rather drink the cup my Father gives me, than the cup that another sinner or chance or probability forces on me.




David, I guess this could go on indefinitely , for example although Jesus did drink the cup his Father gave him he first asked IF there could be another way. No one knows the Father better then Jesus yet he asked IF there could be another way.
Why ask if everything is preordained? That's the issue with me at least, all these IF'S in the bible.

[Guest]

Steve7150,

One thing I have noticed in our conversation (which I have enjoyed) is that you will often respond to my posts with more questions. I was hoping that you would have interacted with what I wrote rather than bring up another passage. That may help our dialogue from meandering quite so much.

If your argument is that Jesus prayed to the Father to ask Him for a plan B, or some other way out, I do not think I could accept that, since Jesus had told his disciples of His impending and necessary death prior to His death. For example, in Matthew 16:21 it says "From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised."

Also, after His resurrection, Jesus told two disciples in Luke 24:25-27" O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

I do not think Jesus had any doubts that He was going to die, since He told people of this fact and how it was according to God's plan both prior to and after His crucifixion. Therefore, I do not think that Jesus was actually asking God for some other way out. I do think that Jesus, in His human nature, was understandably nervous, or down-right scared, about being tortured and killed in a heinous fashion. I think His prayer is a good example of the difference between two different kinds of willing. Jesus did not want to die, in one very real sense, but He did in another, in that sense to fulfill what was necessary to redeem a people to God. I think this demonstrates that God's will is not simplistic, in the sense that He either wants something or He doesn't, in a dichotomous or on/off fashion. He can want something on one level, but desire something else even more, just as we do. This, to my mind, explains how Jesus could weep over Jerusalem in Matthew 23 and yet prior to this event He spoke to the crowd in parables to hide the kingdom from their eyes.

Again, though we may disagree, I do not think that this is a problem for the Calvinist.

[Guest]

Ephesians 1:11 refers to "the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will."

Special note should be taken of the expression "all things." Nothing is excluded from this generalization, as I see it. Blessed and providential events are covered -- rainfall, clothing provisions, deliverance from sickness, winning the big game. Difficult and unhappy events are covered -- floods, starvation, cancer, divorce and heartache. "All things" have been worked or caused by God in His sovereign plan for human life and history.



OK David, To be honest i felt a pang of guilt because i see you find deep meaning in the belief that God micromanages all things and i didn't want to try to dissuade you from something so important to you.
Certainly God works all things , the issue we have is the method He uses. For example you are quick to point out verses like Eph 1.11 and take them at face value and believe He causes the sparrow to fall rather then just being aware of it, yet other Calvinistic verses like
"because we trust in the living God , who IS the Savior of ALL men , ESPECIALLY of those who believe" I Tim 4.10
"who desires ALL MEN to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth ." 1 Tim 2.4
I'm assuming you're a traditional Calvinist and will apply a different standard to these two verses even though they tell us what God's will /desire is and there are many more verses like these. Therefore i can not see how Calvinism could lead anywhere but Christian Universalism , which is OK with me BTW.
Regarding your answer to the use of "Father" as a response to answering prayer , Jesus could have said that God answers prayers like a father but he went beyond that, he expressly encouraged us to think of God AS our Father at all times, he never limited it to only answered prayers. And like i said, a good human father intervenes as needed.
And ultimately i believe God's will is going to be realized through the lake of fire as opposed to this life here which is why Jesus prayed for his Father's will, TO BE DONE on earth as it is in heaven.
Please note that Jesus prayed for his Father's will to be done as opposed to thanking Him that it has been done.

[Guest]

Steve7150,

I was hoping you would have provided your own explanation of Eph. 1:11, or your view of what I mentioned in the other verses or in Job's account. I like our dialog, but I feel as if each time you respond by bringing up a new crop of verses. I would like to hear what you have to say about the verses we already discussed, since I do not think they can be so easily put aside. While I appreciate your sensitivity to me, one might get the wrong impression that you are caricaturing me as if my world would fall apart if anyone removed this wrong teaching from my head. If you are holding back, such as from interacting more thoroughly with what I have been writing, I want you to know I can handle it emotionally. None of these doctrines I hold are out of emotional necessity.

There is nothing at all about being a Calvinist that would logically necessitate me being a Universalist. In fact, I do not actually know of any Reformed theologians who are, although I have heard of a few Arminian theologians who are. I assume you suggest this because you think if I belive that God's will is always done, and He says He desires all men to be saved, then everybody is going to heaven. But that assumes that I look at God's will as a simplicity, meaning that He either wants something or He doesn't want something. But I believe that God can have desires on different levels. For example, did Jesus want to dies on the cross? The answer is Yes and No. No, as evidenced by the prayer that He prayed, and Yes, because even more than his understandable desire to avoid the pain of death, He wanted to fulfill the will of God and save His people from their sins. So believing that God ordains all things does not imply that everything will necessarily allign with God's precepts, since apparently there is something else that God is working in our world. In short, I think God is showing off to all those in heaven and earth His grace in saving the unworthy and His justice and holiness in punishing the worthy wicked.

I read an article from the Westminster Journal on I Tim 4:10 that I will heavily borrow from to answer your question on this verse:

There are various ways that we can exegete Paul's statement as relating
to eternal salvation and still maintain that the atonement is confined particularly to God's elect. However, I believe it can be shown that this passage does not, in fact, relate to the atonement directly, or even to eternal salvation, but to God's gracious benefactions to all of humanity, i.e., his common grace. This is not a new understanding of 1 Tim 4:10 among Calvinists. Assuming that the word "Savior," in 1 Tim 4:10 relates to eternal salvation, we could still raise some objections to the Arminian/Amyraldian interpretation. The most obvious objection is that, strictly speaking, the atonement is not mentioned by Paul in this verse or its context. One must make several theological connections to move from God being a Savior to Christ providing an atonement for all people. I do not wish to pursue this line of argument, but I simply point out that the connection between God being a Savior and Christ's universal atonement is not as direct as proponents of universal atonement may assert.

Even if we were to take "Savior" in 1 Tim 4:10 in the sense of "one who
saves eternally," we might further object to a universal understanding of
the passage because of the phrase "especially of believers." What does it
mean that God is "one who saves eternally" all people, i.e., both believers
who will enjoy eternal life and nonbelievers who will suffer eternal damna-
tion, but he especially is "one who saves believers eternally"?

The Arminian position teaches that Christ's atonement was made for all of mankind, but only those who exercise their free volition to receive it are actually forgiven and saved. This is like a lifeguard who throws life rings to two drowning men. One man takes the life ring and is saved, the other refuses the life ring and drowns. In what sense is the lifeguard the savior of both men, but especially of the one who lived? How is the lifeguard the "savior" of the drowned man? The notion of a potential, universal atonement is introduced by the Arminian theologian at this point. God is (potentially) Savior of all people, because Christ's atonement was accomplished for the sake of all individuals. But the notion of a potential application of the atonement is at the very least not clearly implicit in the passage as it stands.

One could further argue the Arminian case that "Savior" is a title of God here and is therefore true regardless of the people who reject his salvation. The lifeguard is still called "lifeguard" if someone drowns in his
pool. But this argument fails to note that the noun "anarthrous" in 1 Tim 4:10, implying that this is not a title of God, but a description of his actions. He is "a Savior" of all people, because he acts as a Savior toward all. Again, I am no Greek scholar, but this is what I have read.

A Calvinist might take another tack in countering the Arminian interpretation of "Savior of all people." The adjective "all" here could be used with its common meaning, "a totality of kinds or sorts—every kind of, all sorts of or "a variety of" as is the clear meaning in 1 Tim 6:10—"all
kinds of evil"— adopted by most translations. This does not solve the problem, though, because we still must ask whether the "all kinds of people" to whom God is Savior are the elect or not. The answer is apparently not, since Paul refers to them as a different group than the believers for whom God is "especially" their Savior.

1 Tim 4:10 does not relate directly to the issue of the extent of the
atonement, nor even to God's eternal salvation, but rather to God's care for all of humanity during our time upon earth. This is called God's common grace among Reformed theologians. Other Scriptures clearly show that God "sends his rain upon the just and the unjust" (Matt 5:45; cf. Acts 14:16-.17; Ps 145:9; et al.), and he is beneficent even to "vessels of wrath" (Rom 9:22). Other Reformed theologians have agreed with this interpretation of the Timothy passage. For example, Calvin interprets the teaching here as relating to the "commodities in this world," the "protection," and the care during afflictions which God provides especially to believers.

That the Greek word for Saviour had as its most common, extra-biblical
meaning, "a generous benefactor, often a deliverer during an emergency,"
is amply documented in reference works and elsewhere.15 There simply
cannot be any doubt that this was the usual meaning of this word outside
of the NT from the hundreds of times that it is used of kings, emperors,
governors, and local patrons as either a title granted by vote of a commu-
nity or as a personal epithet given to one individual from another.

I have to got to work, but I will double back and respond to I Tim 2:4 as time allows.

[Guest]

Steve7150,

I forgot to respond to something else in your post, about the Fatherhood of God. Yes, Jesus prays that God's will be done, and He commands us to do the same (to pray in like manner, Jesus said). However, I do not see how this implies anything about the Calvinism/Arminianism debate. I can only assume you mean that if Jesus is praying that God's will be done, then it might not if we do not pray. However, Jesus does not say that here. Calvinists do not believe in a fatalism, though we are often charged with that belief. The reason we are not fatalists is that the cause-and-effect relationships that all of us recognize are not illusory, but real, and Calvinists believe that God ordains both the cause and effect to bring about His decretive will. So rather than people just waking up and deciding apart from the preaching of the gospel to be become Christians, we are told to evangelize. We are told that God will provide for us, but that would not justify quitting our jobs and not working, since that is a very common means by which God makes good on His promise to provide.

You keep asserting that a good Father does not micromanage. However, the ways in which the Bible tells us God is a good Father tells us more of His benevolence, His faithfulness, and His ability to make good on His word. I do not see any evidence that God's Fatherhood is impugned by His overseeing our affairs. I think it would be more useful to our discussion if rather than simply stating your conclusion (a good Father does not ordain all things) as true in a prima facie way, that you provide evidence of this.

[Guest]

I was hoping you would have provided your own explanation of Eph. 1:11, or your view of what I mentioned in the other verses or in Job's account. I like our

OK David, I'll respond directly to these verses tonight.

[Guest]

The conclusion I am reaching is that the Calvinist position on the sovereignty of God, the "decrees" of God, the concept of "libertarian free will" and the contrast between "monergism" and "synergism" are philosophical arguments that appeal to people of a certain philosophical persuasion, but which do not arise from any biblical text.

Steve, with all due respect, I do not know what use there is in stating that in any way shape or form.
It is like throwing a big cloud of smoke our way, hoping it will end all the argument.

I am reaching the conclusion that Non Calvinists think they are free from the very thing they charge the Calvinist, and by simply just throwing out the accusation of philosophical speculation, think to obtain the biblical higher ground.

This man, without an agenda to defend his side of any controversy, will doubtless be in the best position to understand the teaching of scripture on these matters.

Are you that man?
I never got that impression when listening to your series on Calvinism. What I heard was a man with a system or a grid, that sees the scriptures through the lens of assumed libertarian free will.
I heard a man interpret scripture from a free will foundation, therefore coming to false conclusions as such a faulty base presupposition would lead to.

When I read in scripture,

Jam 1:18 Of His own will He brought us forth with the Word of truth, for us to be a certain firstfruit of His creatures.

I do not have to run to my presupposition about “free will”, and try to make such a passage fit, no, the passage plainly tells me that God’s will was the reason I became a Christian.

Or

1Co 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Again, my beliefs come directly from scripture. And as you think us Calvinists are predisposed in some way to philosophical speculations, how on earth do you escape such an assertion yourself!

You reject “regeneration precedes faith”. How on earth can you exegete just these two scriptures without turning them on their head , without bringing in your own philosophical speculations about libertarian freedom?

Mark

[Guest]

Mark,
I'm glad you have taken the time here to state your position and the non-Calvinist position. I'd like to comment on a few of your points:

Thank you.

Quote:

The idea that man is free from constraint, especially that of God, is not taught in scripture, but is part of every philosophy there ever has been, including ancient and modern thought.


I don't think a non-Calvinist believes this. I don't believe man is free from his own constraints, not to mention God Himself. I do, however, believe that man can respond to the Gospel. Why? Because it's the power of God, conviction is through the Holy Spirit. Is man's depravity more powerful than God working through the Gospel?

At the end of the day, this amounts to one man doing something that another man did not do.

You are saying that you made a decision that your next door neighbour did not make.
The only difference between you and every unbeliever is “you” and what you did, that they did not do.

It cannot be God, for He is doing or has done everything necessary even for your next door neighbour, right?

Your will makes the difference.
Scripture does not teach that and I will prove it.

1Co 2:14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

When you were yet an unbeliever, you, being an unbeliever, are a Natural man. What part of “does not receive” are you finding difficult to understand.

Furthermore,

Rom 8:7 because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can it be.

Again, as a Natural man who possessed a Carnal Mind at enmity against God, what part of “not subject nor able” are you finding difficult to understand?

Scripture affirms as does Calvinism, that the Natural man cannot in and of himself by an act of some “free will” come to Christ.
That is the biblical position.

Now if you want to hold onto your position in light of these scriptures, I would simply ask why?

There is no way you can do so on biblical grounds without turning scripture on it’s head. You do not have to do that.

Jesus taught,
Joh 6:37 All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will in no way cast out.

And

Joh 6:65 And He said, Because of this I said to you that no one can come to Me unless it was given to him from My Father.

Maybe we could discuss how you did come to Christ, but upon biblical grounds. Your "will" was certainly involved, and you certainly did come. But how does scripture reveal these matters?

Mark

[Guest]

Please note...

In my last response, I did not have to bring in any philosophical speculations, talk about decrees or Monergism v synergism or speak about anthropology.

No. I simply quoted the scripture.
Mark

[Guest]

Steve G,

I want to let you and Mark have the lions share of this dialogue, but I would like to interject one observation. I have noticed both in your posts on this forum, in your teachings on audio file, and in your letter to me, that you consider Calvinism to have sprung from an extra-Biblical philosophy. Once this philosophy is embraced, and only if it is embraced, can a person see the Bible the way Calvinists do.

I have no special training in anything, brother, except medicine, and that hardly qualifies me to be a theologian. I have to admit that I would like to learn more about logic and philosophy (and Greek and Hebrew as well), but not to put on the aire of learnedness. This would be more to strengthen my ability to defend the Christian wordlview with the "educated" people I work with who consider much if this pseudo-knowledge of worldly philosophy to be true knowledge.

I realize that in talking with me or Mark or other Calvinists that we sometimes use philosophical jargon. However, you should not mistake that to indicate that there is a system outside and above the Scriptures to us that we serve. Rather, it is our best attempt at trying to organize, systematize, and explain the information provided in the Scriptures. Since you have been around the block more than once on this issue, I do not need to remind you of the Scriptures that are convincing to Calvinists. The Calvinist is simply attempting to explain how, in his/her reading of Scripture, God is said to not author sin, and that people make real, actual choices, and yet He predestines things to happen and works all things, and language such as this.

I am not married to such terms or phrases as "libertarian will" or "metaphysically free" or "morally free" or "efficient cause" or "proximate cause". If there is better or simpler wording that will not do violence to the Biblical text, then I am all for it and I am open to hearing it. However, so far I have not found it. These terms may not be in the Bible, but as we all know from other subjects that are less controversial, using terms not written in Scripture is legitimate if the terms accurately describe what the Scriptures are teaching. Indeed, sometimes these terms help us to organize and summarize the Biblical data so that we can answer more succinctly what we believe the testimony of Scripture to be.

Even though you may not have a wall with multiple degrees hanging from nails, you are in my opinion accomplished in your degree of self-education, which to me is just as valuable a from of learning as learning from someone else. Certainly your view of other areas of theology has developed as you have learned, has it not? Things which seemed so obvious when you were younger in the Lord, such as your eschatological views, have changed over time. In your tape series on that subject, you correctly point out that the word translated "world" in Greek can mean "earth" or "land" depending on the context. When I heard that, I did not consider it to be "a stretch", but rather a legitimate point considering the difference between two languages. Why, when a Calvinist seeks to do the same thing with the same word, world, is it self-deception or vain philosophy?

No one convinced me of Calvinism by first taking me through a philosophy course. I became convinced by studying the atonement, not philosophy. Maybe I am wrong, but if my theology is in error, it is not because I am a slave to Hellenistic Greek thinking, anymore than you are an Arminian because you are humanistic.

I think the argument you are advancing, that the most natural way to see the Scripture is Arminian, is subjective. I wouldn't agree with that, but I cannot prove it. Neither can you. Only a careful and systematic study of Scripture can settle the debate. As I said in a previous post to a different Steve, what if I were to (unfairly) turn this argument on you, brother? What if I were to say "Okay, only a superficial, uneducated, under-developed theological mind comes away believing the Arminian view'? By this line of thinking, either argument is equally able to be marshalled since there is no objective way to argue which teaching strikes us as more natural.