Theology for the Masses

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. [↩]

Over a year ago I wrote a number of posts on the topic of Evangelical Feminism vs. Biblical Complementarianism. This post will further that discussion.

If Patriarchy was a Pre-Fall reality, then it would be present within the biblical text in some discernible form. I previously demonstrated that the 2^ndcreation account (in Genesis 2) does not support such a reading, but I said nothing at the time regarding the 1^st creation account in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:26-28 describes the creation of humanity “in the image of God” and after his “likeness.” There are a number of hermeneutical and theological difficulties related to these phrases - particularly what exactly it means to be created in God’s image and how that relates to the phrase about “according to our likeness.” Couple those things also with the use of plural pronouns and you’ve got a longstanding theological and exegetical argument.

What I want to demonstrate in this post is that the structure of the pericope provides us insight into the author’s intention –that is, the way he formulates the narrative gives us insight into what he means by the mysterious phrases. More to the point, though, when we see what he means, we are also given insight into the Pre-Fall relationship between the man and the woman - one which, as I will demonstrate, is one of equality not patriarchy. This argument will, in effect,support my reading of Genesis 2 and 3 which says that Patriarchy is a result of the Fall, not prior to it – contrary to the BC position which says Patriarchy is inherent in the creation.

The Hebrew text in 1:27 reads something like this…(the word order is important – often skewed by our English translations)

“Created God humanity in His image. In the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.”

Structurally, the text is a Chiasm (an inverted parallelism) followed by a straight forward Parallelism. Notice the Chiasm 1^st…

A Created humanity

B God

C man In His image

C’ In the image

B’ of God

A’ He created him

Surrounding the whole things is the Creative purposes of God. Central to the chiasm, and thus the emphasis of the writer, is the Image of God. Unfortunately, besides the fact that it is the creative act of God, no other exegetical clue is provided for us to help us discern the substance of the Image of God…that is, until the parallelism which begins with the 2^nd half of the chiasm:

A    In the Image of God B. He created C. Him

A    Male and Female B. He created C. Them

What the structuring of this narrative suggests, then, is that whatever it means to be in the image of God, it must be fully understood in the context of BOTH male and femaleness. Man is not the image of God without woman and woman is not the image of God without the man. They are both, together, the image of God. In other words – what the chiastic structure gives emphasis to (the image of God), the parallelism gives substance to (male and female).

Now notice that there is no implied subordination within this structuring. Rather, there is implied equality. Nothing within this text points to patriarchy or male headship. The Biblical Complementarian argument fails to account for the fact that this first creation account doesn’t even have a creation order for the genders. This narrative suggests that male and female are equal before God – for they both, together stand before Him and are equally created in His image – so much for the old discussions about whether women were really created in God’s image or not.

I know that BC’s generally don’t argued from Genesis 1 to support their view, but I think this structure provides the basis for understanding Genesis 2 (by means of structural particularization: a general idea occurs first, followed by the specifics of that general idea. The specifics are understood in light of the preceding general comment) and, thus, another point indicating the essential equality of men and women – both ontologically and functionally. Indeed, they are both given dominion and told to subjugate the earth. There are no inherent difference of roles within this text.

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.