Theology for the Masses

You know, I think I am going to join Driscoll’s new denomination, the “New Calvinism.”  I think Calvin and his writings should be revered the same way that Protestants think Catholics revere Mary.  Lets forget all that blood staining Geneva’s streets. [1]

I am now, and actually have always been, a “New Calvinist.”  Now, I am off to put a woman in the kitchen and punch an Arminian. However, in the interests of being “balanced,” I am going to supplement my adherence to the “New Calvinism” denomination by attending the New Dimensions Worship Center.

;)

1. In all honesty, the violence against dissenters in Calvin’s Geneva does not delegitimize any of Calvin’s, or his later followers’ points.  However, I’d like to see people wrestle with this, rather than white-wash him and his city.  The violence done in the name of God needs to be reflected upon and guarded against by anyone that is guided by Calvin or the tradition that bears his name. [↩]

Or, lack thereof.  This post is an adaptation of a comment from Reading Reflections – Cain, God, and Sin.  I have also moved Hank’s reply to this comment here as well, since both of them were so far off topic.  Here is the comment:

Total depravity defies my real wold experience. I see people every day who want to do what is right, Christian and peregrini alike. I see people who seek out god, both those that end up Christian and those who dont.

How does reformed theology deal with the fact that the whole of it goes against everyday experince? Are we all douped; does none of our experice matter?

I’d like to direct you all to this article from the New York Times Magazine about Mark Driscoll and the “new Calvinism.” It’s really interesting, and definitely highlights some important issues surrounding both Driscoll and the (relatively) recent Calvinism resurgence.

I find this quote, from the final page of the article, especially interesting:

Nowhere is the connection between Driscoll’s hypermasculinity and his Calvinist theology clearer than in his refusal to tolerate opposition at Mars Hill. The Reformed tradition’s resistance to compromise and emphasis on the purity of the worshipping community has always contained the seeds of authoritarianism: John Calvin had heretics burned at the stake and made a man who casually criticized him at a dinner party march through the streets of Geneva, kneeling at every intersection to beg forgiveness. Mars Hill is not 16th-century Geneva, but Driscoll has little patience for dissent. In 2007, two elders protested a plan to reorganize the church that, according to critics, consolidated power in the hands of Driscoll and his closest aides. Driscoll told the congregation that he asked advice on how to handle stubborn subordinates from a “mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighter, good guy” who attends Mars Hill. “His answer was brilliant,” Driscoll reported. “He said, ‘I break their nose.’ ” When one of the renegade elders refused to repent, the church leadership ordered members to shun him. One member complained on an online message board and instantly found his membership privileges suspended. “They are sinning through questioning,” Driscoll preached. John Calvin couldn’t have said it better himself.

I’m personally not a very big fan of Driscoll. I think what he’s done on the cultural front is important and interesting…but this article highlights the exact reasons why his hyper-authoritarian militaristic brand of Christianity (and the Calvinist roots behind it) scares me. Any thoughts, comments, reflections?

I have never taken up a “read through the Bible in a year ” plan until this year.  To aid in my reading, I picked up the NLT’s 24/7.  It is arranged by day so that you always know what you need read on a given day.  The daily readings are arranged in a narrative-chronological order.  Thus, I have been spending a lot of time in Genesis, with some excursions into Chronicles.

The nice thing about this product from the NLT is that there are nice margins where one can take notes.  This is actually what sold me on the product.  Accordingly, I have been writing notes and reflections in the margins of this useful little product.

I have tried to not get caught up in the details of the texts, but to focus and meditate upon the purposes of the passages at hand, to get a sense of what the writer(s) were trying to convey

Much of my notes in Genesis have been noting all of etiological moments.  This is why X is such, that is why Z came to be.  A great example of this is Genesis 10:6-20, the account of Ham and the origin of Babylon, Assyria, the Canaanites, Hittites, etcetera.

Something else that struck me, besides all of the etiology, was God’s pleading with Cain to master his sin in Genesis 4:6-7.

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

There are several things stick out in this passage.  Firstly, I like the intimate relationship the Lord has here with Cain.  In the middle of Cain’s frustration with the rejected sacrifice, God pleads with him to do the right thing.  Hope is given to Cain, that though Cain is burning with anger and jealousy, wanting the favor of another, he can still have righteousness – but only if he chooses to do so.

What hope, what responsibility is afforded to Cain here by God in his pleadings?

When God is talking with Cain about his anger, God couches his language in terms of Cain’s freedom of the will.  Similarly, God describes sin mastering Cain in terms of potentiality, not actuality.  The two verses end with God pleading with Cain to actively master sin and deny its power over him.

Because of my reformed friends, I constantly run my readings through a reformed filter, just as I run them through a churches of Christ filter.  I cannot imagine reading this through a reformed, TULIPed theology.  Perhaps it is possible, I just can’t conceive of it.  God just does not describe humanity and sin with total depravity and unconditional election in mind.

Anyway, these aren’t researched thoughts, just some initial impressions

Continuing in the theme of my previous posts over the last month or so (several of my more recent posts at Think Wink have dealt with this topic), I return to the reformed doctrine of particular redemption, the L in TULIP. Last night my roommate was telling me about a friend of his, who never really like to discuss theology let alone soterioly and Calvinism and TULIP, had read R. C. Sproul’s Chosen By God. She and my roommate talked about the book and she asked him where he stood in relationship to Calvinism and the TULIP acronym. He said he believed in four of the five points found in TULIP, struggling to believe the L or Limited Atonement/Particular Redemption (LA/PR). continue reading…

This post has actually taken a different route than I originally intended. [1] After examining the text, itself, I want to say that I think the Calvinist argument from this text has more legitimacy than I originally thought. However, I cannot affirm the implications of their arguments. I believe Calvinists and Arminians can both affirm the Calvinist reading to some degree, but I believe the implications of said reading is where we will part ways – necessarily.

The text is clear that God intended to ultimately bring about the salvation of Jacob’s house through the selling of Joseph into slavery. This is little different than God using the evil actions of Pilate to bring about the crucifixion of Jesus. In both cases God has a plan in mind and he uses the evil actions of men to work out that plan. The goal is always determined.

However, again, this does not necessarily entail that God determines the evil actions themselves. Notice in our passage, Genesis 50:20, that God has intentions that are his own (to bring about good) and the brothers have intentions all their own (to work evil). That God fully knows their actions and intends to use them to bring about his original plan is not problematic. God intended to have Joseph be the means by which Jacob’s household was saved. And God, possibly, even made Joseph ready to be the savior through suffering. But, the evil actions of Joseph’s brothers are their own and the text never connects God’s determination with their actions.

I truly think this distinction is subtle enough that almost everyone can get on board with it. For those who can’t…

Even if we fully affirm the suggestion that this passage points to God actually ordaining/determining the actions of the brothers, here are some consequences which I think are unavoidable and undesirable.

Necessary, Yet Undesirable, Implications of a Purely Calvinistic Reading of this Text:

First, humans are not to be held responsible for their immoral actions.

Why do I say this? Because in the context of this passage, Joseph’s brothers think Joseph is going to punish them for their evil deeds. But Joseph, in light of his understanding of God’s sovereignty and ultimate purposes of salvation, affirms that they will not be punished. They are not to be held responsible precisely because God was the determiner of their deeds. The responsibility of the human agents, then, is minimized. When God acts deterministically, in this passage, the human agents through whom he acts are not held liable. As Joseph says, “So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” (vs. 21) He will not hold them accountable.

Second, in light of the first point:

If the determinist perspective is true, when a child is molested or a genocide breaks out, not only can we not hold the violators accountable for their actions, but we also must remind the victims that it was God’s action that brought this about and therefore they should not be angry at the oppressors.

These two consequences, to me, are the logical end of using this passage as a starting point for how God universally works. I say, rather, that this passage is an exception which proves the rule and should not be taken as normative.

Determination and What is Normative:

Finally, even if I’m wrong here – and Lord knows I always have the potential for that – there’s a sense in which there is still no need for this text to be normative. That is, it is hermeneutically fallacious to take a single text and make it normative for the way God must always operate. In other words, it is wrong to take a specific statement (especially a contestable one like this!) and universalize it. Both Arminians and Open Theists affirm that God does, in fact, determine certain things (such as the death of Jesus on the cross which happened before the foundation of the world!). But that these things are noted in this way suggests to me that they are not normative. Rather, God’s determinative actions are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Contextually, this means that the extraordinary act of God in saving Jacob’s family meant that He took an extraordinary amount of action in this event. He is demonstrating His providential hand in redemptive history by ensuring that Jacob’s family be saved. Therefore, as Greg Boyd notes, “Under these extraordinary circumstances it should not surprise us to find God involved in extraordinary ways. This text should therefore not be taken as a proof text of how God usually, let alone always, operates.”

Proving Their Point: What Calvinists Need to Textually Demonstrate the Superiority of Their Answer:

In the end, however, I would agree with anyone who says that I did not prove Arminianism from this passage! I have no problem with such a critique. As I said, the Calvinist reading is possible and even likely (on a restricted, localized level). But I believe they are imparting a larger theological/philosophical reading onto this text to come to the conclusion they have. For my part, I think the “text says nothing nearly precise enough to support a particular theory of sovereignty and human freedom to the exclusion of all other competing accounts.” [2]

If Calvinists want to prove their position from this text, to the exclusion of others, they need to provide the following evidence:

They need to provide a text which says explicitly that God caused Joseph’s brothers to have feelings of jealousy (or at least motivated their hearts to have those feelings – i.e. similar to the claims they make about Pharaoh in Exodus).

They need to provide a text which connects the God-determined jealousy with their actions of selling Joseph into slavery.

Demonstrate more clearly the hermeneutical leap from this localized event to a universalized truth

Demonstrate clearly how universalizing this specific story’s truth won’t lead to a lack of accountability for evil actions perpetuated by humans. (I know these Calvinists believe humans are accountable, but I want to know how they get around the lack of accountability in this, their classical text.)

Conclusion:

I actually don’t find the Calvinist reading here all that exegetically wrong. I think their implications from their exegesis, however, are where their errors lie. Did God sovereignly act in the events of Joseph’s brothers? Yes! He intended to bring good out of them. However, this in no way entails 1. That God determined their actions or the evil of their actions, or 2. That, even if he did determine their evil actions, God’s actions here are normative and universal. These are inferences that the text simply does not support. To me, these conclusions come about because of a larger philo-theological framework guiding their interpretation. Indeed, if they took their inferences to the logical conclusion, they end up with no human responsibility – which is exactly what Arminians/Open Theists have been complaining about for years.

In the end, I agree with self-proclaimed Calvinist Walter Brueggemann concerning this text, “This phrase has been endlessly problematic in theological interpretation, as it has lent itself to all kinds of scholastic notions of a blueprint for determinism…[yet] the Old Testament includes no notion of a plan in such a specific and rigid sense.” [3]   In other words, it’s not necessarily that the Calvinist’s exegesis here is lacking, but more that they read too much into this text – whether it be through reading their notions of soft-determinism onto a text which simply can’t bare that weight OR through universalizing a very localized incident.

1. I want to thank Hank over at Think Wink for his helpful response to my original post. I hope here to find some common ground, though, of course, there will always be some disagreement. Hopefully it will become smaller and smaller, though, as we analyze the text. [↩]
2. Walls, Dongell, 150. [↩]
3. Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament. 355. I say self-identified b/c Brueggemann has called himself a Calvinist, but I’m not so sure most Calvinists will identify with him. [↩]

Introduction
In another post on God seeking his own glory, Tom and I had a wonderful discussion on some different texts that really had this issue at heart. One text that came up was Genesis 50:20 which reads,

As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day. (NET)

To give his take, Tom has written a two-post reply (the second post has yet to be put up as I write this). This is my response to what he wrote. My response is in two areas: a.) textual and b.) theological. I am going to put both responses here in this one post so forgive the length if it gets long. continue reading…

This was originally supposed to be one post, but it got so long I needed to break it into two. My best arguments, I think, are in part 2, but part 1 is necessary foreground, especially for the uninitiated.

A Brief Statement of the Issue:

Certain Calvinists, [1] with their emphasis on the ultimate sovereignty of God, conclude from various biblical passages that Yahweh is the author and determiner of evil. That is, because Yahweh is sovereign, He must have control over both good and evil. [2]   My intention in this post is to wrestle with one of those passages – Genesis 50:20, where Joseph, after looking back on all the evil actions of his brothers, says, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”

Some Hermeneutical Humility:

Let me be honest here (and hopefully have a bit of humility in an argument that all too often becomes about ego) and suggest that it is certainly possible to read this text the way Calvinists do – that God determined this particular evil in order to bring about good. It is possible, but not necessary, and maybe not even desirable. The logic of which will lead to dangerous places, which I will discuss further toward the end of this post.

The Calvinist Philosophical Assumptions:

Calvinist’s have philosophical assumptions guiding their interpretation of this text. Contrary to their claim that Arminians are the ones with philosophical commitments hindering a true reading of the text, Calvinists here attempt to preserve the innocence of God in this matter by saying that Joseph’s brothers freely chose to commit this evil, but their decision was determined by God. By making a “free choice” they say that Joseph’s brothers are morally responsible and God is not accountable. Yet, to make such an assertion they have to appeal to a Compatibilistic sense of freedom. A sense of freedom, that I will argue later, is destroyed by this text.

Contextual Observations

As of yet, my complaints in this post are from a larger theological, philosophical, and maybe even ethical framework. But the true question, for any good Protestant (though I’m not always sure I’m really a good one), is what the text says. Does the text say that God intended (purposed, determined) Joseph’s brothers to commit these evil actions so that His saving purposes (and, might John Piper add, his ultimate glorification) might be revealed and worked out?

Lets begin with the context:

God knew, all the way back with Joseph’s dreams and his Technicolor Dream-Coat, that his brothers were going to be jealous of him. The text nowhere indicates that God determined their jealousy! This is important for Calvinism b/c in Calvinism God doesn’t just determine people’s actions, He actually determines their desires!  [3] But nowhere, in any of this, does the text attribute the evil desires of Joseph’s brothers to Yahweh. The actions J’s brothers participate in are solely and completely of their own doing. We have no textual evidence that God determined their actions. Only that God took free actions and determined to make something good out of them. We cannot pull this isolated text out of the larger context and think it has settled the matter.

But here’s the thing, and let me give Calvinism some props here - I actually think this verse does suggest that God sovereignly acts in this localized event, that He is active in the way things played out. While the text does not say that God gave them their desires or determined their actions, it does affirm that he was sovereignly and actively involved in some way.

Arminian/Open Theistic Determination

But does God’s sovereign action in this instance prove Arminianism/Open Theism wrong? No, actually, both of these positions also hold that God can and does determine certain things to happen. In the words of Jerry Walls concerning this text, “God foresaw the good that would eventually come out of this and (after considering all possible creatable worlds) he chose the world in which these circumstances and choices took place, and he allowed them for the sake of the good that would follow. This way of reading the story makes perfect sense of Joseph’s claim that the brothers meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” [4]

In other words, God’s intentions/determination [5] to work salvation out of evil actions is seen here, but without any recourse to his determination of Joseph’s brothers evil desires. The text never connects the determination of God with the actions of Joseph’s brothers. It is never says that He determines their actions on a primary or secondary level. Yet, it does maintain that God sovereignly decided that this would be the best course of action to bring about the salvation of Jacob’s family.

1. John Piper and DA Carson are the two most popular. [↩]
2. I am no longer convinced that this is Classical Calvinism. I think this is John Piper’s aberrant Calvinism, most likely. Though, he is not the only one who believes this. However, John Calvin, himself, more believed that God allowed sin, but did not determine it. See his Institutes, 3.23.8. [↩]
3. For more on this see my previous entry, “I Do Not Permit a Calvinist to Use “Permit” Language.” It got raving reviews even from Calvinists!!! (Just kidding) [↩]
4. Jerry Walls & Joe Dongell, Why I’m Not a Calvinist, 151. [↩]
5. Also, I might note here that for the Arminian and the Open Theist, what God intends is not the same thing as what God determines. God may intend things that do not come to pass. The Calvinists do not have this same assumption. They maintain that what God intends must necessarily be determined as well. Because of this, our disagreement is not exegetical. Our disagreement is a theological one that must be settled with other texts which connect intention and determination and explicates their differences/similarities. This text does not provide such an explanation. [↩]

Is Al Mohler a deterministic Calvinist? It does not seem so: So . . . Why Did I Write This? The Delusion of Determinism where he is responding to Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain.

As a matter of fact, this capacity and accountability is rooted in the biblical concept of the imago Dei — the image of God.   Our Creator made us as moral creatures and planted within us the capacity of conscience.  All this refutes the concept of moral determinism.

I’ve heard that rhetoric before, yet doesn’t Calvinism subscribe to moral determinism? [1]

Update: Tom corrected me on Calvinists describing themselves as (hard) determinists.  They subscribe to compatibilist soft determinism.  For more on this, see parableman’s posts on this topic:

1. Determinism and Fatalism

2. Arguments for Determinism

3. Arguments for Free Will

4. Freedom and Determinism: Possible Views

5. Libertarian Freedom and Incompatibilism

6. Problems with Libertarian Freedom

7. Arguments for Compatibilism

8. Compatibilist Freedom

9. Moral Luck: The Cases

10. Moral Luck: Responses

I myself subscribe to incompatibilist libertarianism, which Jeremy (and I assume Calvinists in general) rejects in favor of compatibilist soft determinism. 

1. This is where I get the Calvinists to do my homework for me. [↩]

Once upon a time, there were two men who were similar in many ways. Both were powerful and creative. Both were kind and loving. Both were well-respected in their towns. Both were fathers. And both were exceptional artists. In fact, the artistic community argued all the time as to which was the greatest, and the general consensus was that their crafts surpassed mere human judgment.

The first man announced an art show to be held in his private gallery at his home. He invited all the most prominent artists and art critics in the world, and promised that the revelation of his latest work would surpass all he’d done before. The night of the show arrived, and the artist’s home was truly a who’s who of the art world – everyone who was anyone was there. As the evening progressed, everyone agreed that these pieces were truly astounding, that they far surpassed the artist’s previous works. Frequently, guests were found weeping as they viewed various pieces, so moving was his mastery of his craft.

Several hours into the evening, the gallery door swung open and the artist’s young son came running into the gallery, clutching a piece of paper in his hand and saying, “Daddy! Daddy!” The artist was in front of the central display piece of his show, and when the son ran up, he excused himself from his conversation and bent down to his son.

“Yes, my boy,” he said softly, “what is it?” The boy excitedly waved his paper in front of his father.

“Look, Daddy! I did it just like you!” The artist took the piece of paper and turned it over. On it was a finger-painting, clearly crafted with all the patience and skill of a five-year-old.

“This is very nice, son. You did a good job,” the artist said, with the patronizing kindness unique to parents. “Why don’t you go show it to Mommy?”

“Put it on the wall, daddy! Put it by yours!” the boy begged.

“Son, this is a serious art show,” the artist replied. “Your daddy is a very important person, and he makes art that is beautiful and praiseworthy. You’ve just done a finger-painting. It wouldn’t be right for me to hang it in here, with all these glorious pieces of art that I’ve created. To display anything you’ve created in here would demean and devalue all of the glorious things I’ve done. I’ll hang this in my office.”

Dejected, the child left, finger-painting now crumpled in his small, unskilled fingers. As he shuffled out of the gallery, the crowd – which had been silently observing – began to whisper their approval. It would be a shame, they agreed, to tarnish the obvious brilliance of this room with such amateurish work. It was clear that the boy would never be half the artist his father was.

Shortly thereafter, the other artist also announced an opening, and he too promised work to surpass all that he’d done before. And once again, the cream of the art community crop gathered in a home gallery to experience an opening of epic proportions. And, as promised, the pieces were brilliant… each more beautiful and breathtaking than the last. And the final piece, the grandest of them all, the pinnacle of the opening surpassed everyone’s hopes. It was quite clearly one of the greatest masterpieces ever committed to canvas.

And once more, several hours into the opening, the door to the gallery cracked open, and this artist’s young daughter ran in, also with a painting in hand. “Daddy, Daddy!” she cried, “Look! I did just like you!”

The father swept his daughter up in his arms and with a growing smile looked down at his daughter’s crude, unskilled finger-painting. “It’s beautiful, honey. Simply beautiful. I know just where I’m going to hang it.”

With that, he set her down and handed the painting back to her. Then he walked over to his masterpiece, the central exhibit of his opening. As he approached it, the whispers in the room – which until now had been muted – grew into a low hum. The father grasped his painting and pulled it down off the wall and cast it to the floor, then turned to his daughter. “Honey,” he called, “may I have your painting?” The child brought her paper over to him and handed it up. The father took it and mounted it in the place where his crowning achievement had once stood. As he did so, the murmering grew to a dull roar, the outrage of the guests clear as they eyed the abandoned masterpiece.

Still smiling, but eyeing the crowd with comprehending eyes, the Father picked his daughter back up. “My dear child,” he began, never taking his eyes off of her, but addressing the crowd with his voice, “you are my greatest creation, the crowning joy of my life. Nothing else I have ever or will ever create could compare with you.” As he continued, voice choked with love and… yes pride, tears filled the corners of his eyes. “You made something the same way I do, and you did it as well as you could. Nothing could make me happier, or bring me greater glory and fame than this beautiful, talented person you’re becoming.”

The girl never left his side for the rest of the evening. And the father never ceased to display his most glorious masterpiece.

Often when discussing Calvinism with my Reformed friends, I hear them use language like “God allowed/permitted sin.” This kind of rhetoric seems strange, though, coming from a group of people who believe, as the Westminster Confession of Faith says, that “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”

Logically consistent Calvinists recognize this problem and concede that God must have ordained and caused evil as well as good. As John Piper has said, “Everything that exists—including evil—is ordained by an infinitely holy and all-wise God to make the glory of Christ shine more brightly.” That is, God didn’t merely “permit” sin or “allow” it; He actively caused it as its Primary Cause.

John Calvin (as quoted by Piper) even goes on to chide those “inconsistent” Calvinists who want to use “permit” and “allow” language when it comes to sin, “John Calvin denies that there is any “mere permission” in God: From this it is easy to conclude how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be not by [God’s] will, but merely by his permission. Of course, so far as they are evils, which men perpetrate with their evil mind, as I shall show in greater detail shortly, I admit that they are not pleasing to God. But it is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely [= idly] permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing but the author of them.”

Now, to be fair, Calvinists believe that God ordained, indeed determined and caused, sin to come into the world without in any way morally implicating God. Essentially God is the Primary Cause of sin and human agents are the Secondary Cause. God determined before creation that humanity would Fall, but because God is only the Primary Cause and not the actual agent committing or having the desire to sin, God cannot be held culpable.

Let me loosely, if not inefficiently, illustrate this*

God Determines (Primary Cause)
↓
Humans Have the Desire (The Immediate Cause) which God has Determined**
↓
Humans Sin (Secondary Cause)

The logic of this aside (for we will concede the point just for the moment and assume that a God who punishes people for actions that they could not have in fact chosen otherwise is actually good) I think it is important to note that nowhere in this model is there room for “permission” language. God does not permit anything; He causes everything – in such a way that He is not responsible for any of the negative results (but curiously all of the positive ones).

Now, when Calvinists slip into “permit” language, not only does it violate the Compatibilistic Freedom model they cling so tightly to, but they are actually employing Libertarian Freedom language. Indeed, John Piper has made this very point, “But we should not assume, as Arminians do, that divine permission is anything less than sovereign ordination.” In other words, it is logically inconsistent and theologically misleading for a Calvinist to say that God “allowed” instead of “caused” something just so it will sound more palatable to their audience.

Of course, there are many Calvinists who do not fall into this trap – as I have just demonstrated with Piper and Calvin. But this post if for those who think is permissive to do so – If you do indeed find “determination” and “causation” language morally abhorrent when it comes to evil and sin, then you would do well to become an Arminian or Open Theist – for that is exactly their complaint! If you do not believe in a God who caused the Holocaust or little girls to get raped, then by all means, abandoned your Reformed views.

In either case, let us not continue employing Calvinistic rhetoric and “permit” language together. For if Calvinism is right, God is not being glorified by such a denial of His Sovereignty.

However, if you are Reformed and you wish to retain your right to “permit/allow” language, you should at least understand that you are falling outside traditional, classical Calvinism, and your position is logically incoherent within that system This ought to tell you something as well b/c for your classical Calvinists, like John Piper, have no problem saying, “It is not wrong to say that God causes evil and sin.”

*Calvinists, I’m trying to be fair in this illustration, so if you think something could improve it, then please let me know – I don’t want to be misleading.

**Calvinistic/Compatibilistic Freedom maintains that a person makes a free choice so long as that choice is immediately caused by an inner state (desire). The person acts according to their own desire, and is therefore making a free choice. They could not act otherwise, but they do act according to their desire, and are therefore responsible for their decision and action.

A while ago Hank did a five part post series on his translation process of John 3:16. I was translating the verse again tonight and came across some questions while I was trying to knock the participle in the side to give it legs. [1] I thought I would give ole Hank’s translation another look over for some help in this department.

Here is the verse:

οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ’ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον (link to zhubert version)

Do you think the ὁ before the participle πιστεύων is indicating that the participle is in the attributive position relative to πᾶς and means that we need to translate the present active participle as a relative clause for πᾶς, clarifying everyone of what group we are talking about (Smyth 2050A) (i.e. everyone who is believing in him)?

Also, the participle is timeless, it either will denote the stage of action (here continuous because it is present) or action relative to the main verb (here at the same time as God giving and loving, because they are both in the aorist) when used in indirect discourse (Smyth 2043). I am thinking it is not in indirect discourse, but I really don’t know what indirect discourse means for Smyth. So, I think that the participle here is only indicating aspect, not time. Therefore, the participle here is indicating that everyone that is continually trusting in Jesus are the members of the world which are being given everlasting life.

I wonder how that impacts the H/C/A/O debate?

What do you all think? I am one week into the Greek participle, so I am pretty green here.

1. Sorry to everyone that is not being taught Greek by Dr. DesRosiers for the inside joke. [↩]

I felt like we were just going to go down the same path as in another post about the historicity of Adam and whether or not sin and righteousness is imputed (I would say both are imputed because that is the very parallel that Paul is drawing out in Romans 5:12-21, and thus for this parallel to work Adam must be historical and his sin must be an actual event in history) on the Myth thread. So I just went ahead and posted this so that we could devote an entire thread to OS, picking up some where Brad left off, and Adam being historical.

By my reading of Calvin’s Institutes, he would not say that there is a specific gene, like modern science would understand "genetic," that contains sin. Rather Calvin points to Romans 8:20 and says that humanity is part of the creation (ἡ κτίσις ) that was subjected to futility. He also understands original sin not to be sin itself but rather it is the corruption (cf Romans 8:21 ESV "bondage to corruption") of the imagio dei that all humans have. Thus we who are in the image of Adam bear that corrupted image as well (Notice the parallel of "futility" [ματαιότητι] in 8:20 and "bondage to corruption" [τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς] in Romans 8:21), being part of the created order. Thus it was Adam’s sin that corrupted humanity’s being the image of God and it is God’s curse that confines all of creation under that corruption. Therefore the corruption of sin rules over all of the creation, including human beings and their wills–which is precisely what (that is the human will) Calvin argues to be what makes humans the bearers of the image of God. The creation is enslaved or in bondage (Gk. δουλείας) to the corruption that is removed when the bodies of the sons of God are redeemed. I think "genetic" is too much of a caricature of the Reformed view of OS, at least from Calvin’s point of view expounded in The Institutes that is.

What I find interesting in the following logical syllogism is that the Calvinist, in order to avoid being a universalist (5), has to to deny premise 1 or redefine God’s love – which is to deny premise 2. If Calvinists were honest about this, Calvinism would die out fairly quickly in churches because the denial of 1 or 2 goes against what most church people consider God’s fundamental attribute. In other words, complete openness on this subject would be the death of Calvinism.

P1.God truly loves all persons.

P2.To truly love someone is to desire their well being and to promote their true flourishing as much as you can.

P3.The true well being and true flourishing of all persons is to be found in a right relationship with God, a saving relationship in which we love and obey him.

P4.God could determine all persons freely to accept a right relationship with himself and be saved.

5.Therefore, all will be saved.

Does God wants bond-slaves:

God does not want people to be “in love” with Him. This carnal phrase is a sick way to refer to our Lord. God desires bond-slaves who worship Him and adore Him as their sovereign Master, not who are in love with Him as one is with their lover.

or does God want “lovers?”

Yes, according to this post, God prefers slaves rather than people who are in love with Him. That would come as a surprise to Jesus, I guess, who in John 15:15 said,
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
It also misses the point of much of the Biblical narrative. It seems to me that even in the Old Testament, God was looking for people who loved them with all their hearts. When David wrote,
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
was it sickening to God? Too wishy-washy and touchy-feely?