- May 27, 2012
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I'm posting this as a sanity check for peer review from other believers. I've been meditating about this for decades now and I think it's time to put it out for some thoughtful feedback. I will start with the main insight I want your feedback on. I will then expand a bit on this insight and why it seems reasonable to me. I would truly appreciate some thoughtful consideration of this single issue and not turn this into yet another C vs A thread. I will highlight my question a couple paragraphs down. First I want to set up the background to explain what I am asking.
Close to 30 years ago, I read one of Millard Erickson's systematic theology books. He summarized the main difference between the various forms of Calvinism and various forms of Arminianism as coming down to a single main point. Who decides an individual's salvation? Calvinists say God decides; Arminians say the individual decides. Erickson's conclusion was that while there were problems on both sides, that some form of Calvinism was the most biblical. (Sorry, but this was ages ago and I don't have a copy of that version of his book to quote. I think I am representing his statements correctly or at least as I understood them at the time.)
Perhaps 5 to 10 years after reading this, my meditations on this issue were that Erickson did seem to nail it. Who decides an individual's salvation? God or the individual? I then realized that both Calvinists and Arminians had full agreement on one point. That point is this. Human logic dictates that either Calvinists have it right or Arminians have it right. Both believe that it is impossible for both to be right at the same time. This is an unquestioned assumption that both sides hold. I decided to question that assumption and ask if both sides been missing something.
The question I then started asking myself was this. Should we be treating the issue of sovereignty versus free will in the same manner as we treat the Trinity and the Humanity and Deity of Christ? This is the crux of this post. Is it the biblical position to accept sovereignty and free will on equal footing? We accept the full humanity and the full deity of Jesus Christ on the basis of scripture (and choose to reject a logic that says we must choose one or the other.) We accept the Trinity on the basis of scripture (and choose to reject a logic where we reject either the unity of God or the 3 Persons). Our biblical approach to the Trinity and the Deity/Humanity of Christ is that we fully accept the passages which teach both sides of the coin and decide to accept it as a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend in our human finiteness. Should we approach sovereignty and free will in the same manner? Should we take passages dealing with God's sovereignty at their face value as well as taking passages dealing with human free will at their face value?
The first verses which brought this to my attention were the good old Pharaoh's heart verses in Exodus. One day, I simply read them and asked myself, shouldn't I just take them all as they are written and not try to explain one set of them away? When one verse says "Pharaoh hardened his heart" and another says "God hardened Pharaoh's heart", why not say that the Bible is teaching that both are true? I had spent years trying to figure out which was the "real" teaching and which needed to be "explained" to be understood. Over the next several years on my many times through the Bible, whenever I ran into a clear sovereignty or free will passage, I simply decided to accept it at face value. My sense of things is that both are taught very clearly. It's the same way I read passages about Christ's humanity and divinity or the Trinity, I just take them at face value and accept them.
I then pulled back and started asking how this new idea stacked up against the very real history of the Church and people I've know over the years. I decided that my point of analysis would be this. If calvinists and arminians are correct and only one of them can be right (and this on a very fundamental and serious issue), I'd expect centuries of church history ought to be showing some difference of spiritual fruit. On the other hand, if neither is right, I'd expect to see very little difference in fruit over the centuries. Seriously, I could find no real difference between calvinists and arminians. I'd have expected one or the other to slowly die out and suffer spiritual malaise as the result of such an error, but I didn't see that. I've read things by both Spurgeon and Booth (who both had powerful ministries in London at about the same time) and found that they came down on completely opposite sides of the issue. I've known many good Christians and churches on both sides of this. Denominations on both sides have flourished and grown. Denominations on both sides have suffered declines. The bottom line is that I honestly cannot to any real difference with regard to spiritual health and fruit. This is what I would expect if the new idea was reasonable.
I also considered how we as Christians behave and act on a daily basis. I realized that there is really little difference between calvinists and arminians except in words and explanations. Indeed, if not for C vs A arguments of various forms and a few minor differences in words, most of us would be hard pressed on CF to figure out who fits into each camp.
With regard to scripture, I sort of had an epiphany moment when dealing with a few cult member who denied the deity of Christ. I found that what their argument basically was had 2 parts. The first was that the Bible taught Jesus was human. The second part was that logic dictated that He either had to be human or divine and since the Bible taught He was human, He couldn't be divine. The frustrating thing was they were so indoctrinated into how verses dealing with His divinity should be "explained away" it was well nigh impossible to have a dialog with them.
Frankly, I realized that diehard calvinists and arminians are much the same way. They've completely accepted and understood their verses and by logic are forced to explain away the other side's verses. Calvinists point to verses dealing with sovereignty, use logic to decide free will cannot influence God, and then explain away the arminian verses. Arminians basically do the same thing except in the opposite direction. Both sides have complete tunnel vision with regard to the other side's verses not being used correctly.
Anyway, this is a brief overview of some of my meditations on this topic. I'd appreciate some feedback on this. Thank you.
Close to 30 years ago, I read one of Millard Erickson's systematic theology books. He summarized the main difference between the various forms of Calvinism and various forms of Arminianism as coming down to a single main point. Who decides an individual's salvation? Calvinists say God decides; Arminians say the individual decides. Erickson's conclusion was that while there were problems on both sides, that some form of Calvinism was the most biblical. (Sorry, but this was ages ago and I don't have a copy of that version of his book to quote. I think I am representing his statements correctly or at least as I understood them at the time.)
Perhaps 5 to 10 years after reading this, my meditations on this issue were that Erickson did seem to nail it. Who decides an individual's salvation? God or the individual? I then realized that both Calvinists and Arminians had full agreement on one point. That point is this. Human logic dictates that either Calvinists have it right or Arminians have it right. Both believe that it is impossible for both to be right at the same time. This is an unquestioned assumption that both sides hold. I decided to question that assumption and ask if both sides been missing something.
The question I then started asking myself was this. Should we be treating the issue of sovereignty versus free will in the same manner as we treat the Trinity and the Humanity and Deity of Christ? This is the crux of this post. Is it the biblical position to accept sovereignty and free will on equal footing? We accept the full humanity and the full deity of Jesus Christ on the basis of scripture (and choose to reject a logic that says we must choose one or the other.) We accept the Trinity on the basis of scripture (and choose to reject a logic where we reject either the unity of God or the 3 Persons). Our biblical approach to the Trinity and the Deity/Humanity of Christ is that we fully accept the passages which teach both sides of the coin and decide to accept it as a mystery that we cannot fully comprehend in our human finiteness. Should we approach sovereignty and free will in the same manner? Should we take passages dealing with God's sovereignty at their face value as well as taking passages dealing with human free will at their face value?
The first verses which brought this to my attention were the good old Pharaoh's heart verses in Exodus. One day, I simply read them and asked myself, shouldn't I just take them all as they are written and not try to explain one set of them away? When one verse says "Pharaoh hardened his heart" and another says "God hardened Pharaoh's heart", why not say that the Bible is teaching that both are true? I had spent years trying to figure out which was the "real" teaching and which needed to be "explained" to be understood. Over the next several years on my many times through the Bible, whenever I ran into a clear sovereignty or free will passage, I simply decided to accept it at face value. My sense of things is that both are taught very clearly. It's the same way I read passages about Christ's humanity and divinity or the Trinity, I just take them at face value and accept them.
I then pulled back and started asking how this new idea stacked up against the very real history of the Church and people I've know over the years. I decided that my point of analysis would be this. If calvinists and arminians are correct and only one of them can be right (and this on a very fundamental and serious issue), I'd expect centuries of church history ought to be showing some difference of spiritual fruit. On the other hand, if neither is right, I'd expect to see very little difference in fruit over the centuries. Seriously, I could find no real difference between calvinists and arminians. I'd have expected one or the other to slowly die out and suffer spiritual malaise as the result of such an error, but I didn't see that. I've read things by both Spurgeon and Booth (who both had powerful ministries in London at about the same time) and found that they came down on completely opposite sides of the issue. I've known many good Christians and churches on both sides of this. Denominations on both sides have flourished and grown. Denominations on both sides have suffered declines. The bottom line is that I honestly cannot to any real difference with regard to spiritual health and fruit. This is what I would expect if the new idea was reasonable.
I also considered how we as Christians behave and act on a daily basis. I realized that there is really little difference between calvinists and arminians except in words and explanations. Indeed, if not for C vs A arguments of various forms and a few minor differences in words, most of us would be hard pressed on CF to figure out who fits into each camp.
With regard to scripture, I sort of had an epiphany moment when dealing with a few cult member who denied the deity of Christ. I found that what their argument basically was had 2 parts. The first was that the Bible taught Jesus was human. The second part was that logic dictated that He either had to be human or divine and since the Bible taught He was human, He couldn't be divine. The frustrating thing was they were so indoctrinated into how verses dealing with His divinity should be "explained away" it was well nigh impossible to have a dialog with them.
Frankly, I realized that diehard calvinists and arminians are much the same way. They've completely accepted and understood their verses and by logic are forced to explain away the other side's verses. Calvinists point to verses dealing with sovereignty, use logic to decide free will cannot influence God, and then explain away the arminian verses. Arminians basically do the same thing except in the opposite direction. Both sides have complete tunnel vision with regard to the other side's verses not being used correctly.
Anyway, this is a brief overview of some of my meditations on this topic. I'd appreciate some feedback on this. Thank you.
