Truth Unites - Calvinism Isn't Crazy

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

In this second installment in my series on theological triage, I offer three appeals for peace and mutual understanding between Calvinists and non-Calvinists (Arminians, Molinists, etc.). See my previous video introducing theological triage: https://youtu.be/B2Dy85m9rUU Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

I'm doing a series of videos on theological triage. The first one was kind of a framework for why this is so important right now. I'll put a link to that in the description. Over the next several months, I'm going to go through a bunch of case studies. Just going to work through different issues. I just have the feeling this could be helpful right now, especially with all the fracturing and disunity that our culture is going through in the way that affects the church. So we're going to talk about complementarian versus egalitarian views of gender in the church,

spiritual gifts, continuationism versus cessationism, end times issues, preterism, partial preterism, futurism, those kinds of issues, maybe something on the millennium too. Now, if you don't know any of those terms, that's fine. Excuse me, we'll just define those when we get to each video. But what I want to be clear about is the goal of these videos is not to decide the truth of these different issues. It's more just to try to kind of inculcate a sense of humility and proportion in the way we deal with them, neither discarding them as though they're unimportant. We want to contend for the truth. But at the same time, they're not all equally important. They're not, they're certainly not, you know, the gospel. So we're trying to figure out what are the hills to die on? And then

how do we have kind of a range of different postures when it comes to different issues? I just think this issue is really huge right now because we just can't afford to fight unnecessary battles. We've got to die on the right hills, but we also don't want to pivot so in the other direction that we're not maintaining truth as best we can. So it's important to work through specific issues and try to set the dials right for each issue. So this video is going to be on Calvinism, not reformed theology wholesale, but just specifically a Calvinist soteriology or doctrine of salvation. And again, I just want to be clear. The point here is not to argue for or against Calvinism. I won't be getting into the most sophisticated objections to it or the best arguments for it.

This is a more basic video really responding to street-level sort of instinctive reactions. I just have the feeling we need to do this because there's a lot of people. I just see these comments. Well, I guess I could say it in both directions. Among Calvinists, there is often pride and condescension toward non-Calvinists. Calvinists. People are often shocked that I'm a Calvinist, and I'm so grieved at the fact that Calvinists have a reputation for being mean-spirited and arrogant, and I think, quite frankly, it's often well-deserved. In the other direction, I think a lot of people just do not understand Calvinism,

especially at the people who are not deeply involved in the discussions, but they've just heard something, and they don't really get it. I mean, I have people asking me questions like, well, how can you be a Calvinist and a Baptist as though those things were at odds with each other. But of course, there's a whole stream called being a reformed Baptist. That's very common. And I also just have this feeling that a lot of people don't have any sympathetic understanding. The mentality is, how could anybody be a Calvinist? It's seen as this bizarre, alien kind of thing.

And so I just want to make a video that will give three appeals, basically just kind of trying to help people understand it. not necessarily agree with it. But just, you know, I guess I could summarize the goal as mutual understanding and peace amidst Calvinists and non-Calvinists of various kinds, whether Armenian or Molinist or whatever. And I just see this attitudinal level as kind of a helpful preliminary point before we decide what's right and wrong. Because for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is not helped when there's tons of pride and condescension between these different camps.

And I would love it if we moved a bit more from the mentality of, I don't agree with that view and how could anybody believe that? To, I don't agree with that view, but I've really tried to understand where it's coming from at its best and how someone might believe that. So that's the goal of this video. Three appeals. Number one, this is somewhat definitional. Think both and when you think about Calvert.

Calvinism. Think both and. What mainstream historic Calvin, there is hyper Calvinism, which I'll mention, but what mainstream historic Calvinism teaches is that God is absolutely sovereign over all things. Everything happens by his sovereign decree, including creaturely decisions and including the creaturely decisions that pertain to salvation. And rational creatures like angels and human beings are morally responsible. and make meaningful decisions. So Calvin himself and most Calvinists would assert that human beings, for example, have free will in the sense that their actions are not coerced by some external agent. They're meaningful.

In other words, we're not robots, we're not puppets. We're trying to say it's a both-hand. God's sovereignty and human responsibility, both 100%. The term for this is compatibilism. I'll stay away for most of the technical terms in this video, but just this one's too important. Compatibilism is the idea that free will and exhaustive divine sovereignty are mutually compatible, and you can believe in both without a logical contradiction. Now, someone, if you don't like that, here's the point, is that what you can do then is say,

no, it's not a both-hand. You can't have it as both-and. That's incoherent. You can say that. Rather than slicing off the human responsibility side of the equation and criticizing it as though Calvinists were saying just the divine sovereignty side of the equation. You see what I'm getting at here? So let me give an example for the both and thinking here because historically what Calvinists would say is not only are they compatible, but God's sovereignty is actually the ground of human responsibility.

Here's how it's put in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Very early on, you've got the first chapter on scripture, the second chapter on God, starting off the third chapter right out of the gate. here's what it says, God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. Yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. So this is a really important point where of this, I know this is very basic. This is, I mean, for, this is entry level, you know, for people who are giving the best arguments against Calvinism, this is not really touching those.

I'm just trying to help people get into the, again, sympathetically understanding what the other side is saying. So because I do, and I think this is important, because you do hear these ideas out there, um, alarmingly often where people are saying things like, well, if Calvinism is true, then you may be damned or saved and you have no way of knowing, right? It's like, no, it's not saying that you couldn't have assurance of salvation or that we can't know. If you repent of your sins and trust in Jesus Christ, you can know that you will be saved. Or people will say, well, if Calvinism is true, you may be damned, you may be among the reprobate, and no matter how much you repent, nothing will change it. It's like, no, no, no. If you're repenting, you're not among the reprobate.

You know, again, it's slicing off the human responsibility side of the equation. So if you want to try to picture this, think of it like this. All causation at the creaturely level is totally valid, totally affirmed, but we're just adding on underneath in this mysterious kind of relationship to that level, God's sovereignty also working all things out. And it is mysterious. So there's no room among Calvinists for triumphalism about our view. The only thing it should do is drive us to our knees in fear and trembling.

One way if you want to try to picture this is think of, the way God's sovereignty works out toward other kinds of secondary causes other than the wills of rational creatures. So, for example, Proverbs 1633 says the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord. So when the scripture says it's every decision is from the Lord, it doesn't mean that God is manipulating gravity or it's the dice in Oceans 13 that are tricked dice that changed the last minute. It's not negating anything at the level of of creaturely causes, okay, physical causes within our world. It's affirming all of that.

It's just saying underneath that, there's also God sovereignty. Is God a sovereign over all things? What the Calvinist is saying is a both-and is that is also true, not just for the dice, but for the will of the creature. It's a both-and. And we just think there's enough in scripture that seems to indicate that, whether you're talking about Romans 9, for me is the text, I just cannot get around. And then you've got lots that just looks like there is this both and with respect to God and other secondary causes, including the sinful acts of human beings.

Acts 23 or 223, the crucifixion of Christ came about by the plan of God. But that came about through sinful actions. Genesis 50-20, it's a dual causation. You meant it for evil, God meant it for good. God is mysteriously working through sinful activities of human beings. I don't know how to get around that biblically. And so that's some of the background to this. But the way I would say that this, some people will say this both and thing is just totally

incoherent. But the reason I think that actually makes a lot of sense is God relates to our world in a way that is qualitatively different than any other agent within our world. He's God. He's the creator. So the way his will works out is going to be different than any creature will, creaturely will within the story. So think of it, I like to think of it in terms of my favorite theological metaphor, the metaphor of an author and a story for God and creation.

So think of Tolkien writing the Lord of the Rings. He's going to relate, his will, Tolkien's will for the story is going to relate to the characters differently than their wills will relate to each other. So if Gandalf or Frodo were to will Sauron into existence, that would be one thing. for Tolkien to will Sauron into existence, that's different. You might say they're both wrong, but they're at least pretty different from each other. And that's one reason why we find the idea of compatibilism, not a crazy idea, because of the absolute uniqueness of God. Here's a passage from C.S. Lewis's Perilondra that has really helped me.

This is after the character Ransom. It's a really cool book if you've never read it. The character Ransom has agonized his way through this decision-making to come to a difficult moral choice where he's decided to obey. And it says, the whole struggle was over, and yet there seemed to have been no moment of victory. You might say, if you liked, that the power of choice had simply been set aside, and an inflexible destiny substituted for it. On the other hand, you might say that he had been delivered from the rhetoric of his passions

and had emerged in unassailable freedom. Ransom could not, for the life of him, see any difference between those two statements. Predestination and freedom were apparently identical. He could no longer see any meaning in the many arguments he had heard on the subject. So even for those who will disagree, hopefully that at least will help the nature of the disagreement move towards mutual understanding and peace. By the way, peace is not compromise. Living peaceably with people amidst disagreements is not compromise.

Oftentimes that will take greater integrity and is absolutely necessary for us to advance God's kingdom as his people. Okay, second appeal. The basic intuition behind Calvinism has a lot of historical backing. The basic idea that God is sovereign over human decisions, even decisions respecting salvation, while human beings are also morally responsible. That has a lot of historical backing. So if you take the L in the acronym Tulip that's often used to summarize a Calvinist satirology, actually not the L. sorry, the you. The you means unconditional election. This is the idea that God elects for salvation people unconditionally, so not based upon any qualities in them as creatures. This is the opposite would be, well, one of the alternatives would be conditional election, that God elects for salvation

those based upon some kind of condition, like he foreknows their choice of faith or something like that. And then there's mullinism. That's kind of another animal here too. But unconditional election, in some ways you might see that as at the heart of the Calvinist system. That's been taught by arguably the two greatest and most significant theologians in all of church history, St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Now, some people won't like that I reference them as the two great, especially our Eastern Orthodox friends. All I can say is I love many Eastern theologians as well, but I can't deny it. the genius and significance of Augustine and Thomas. They're pretty, they're not to be dismissed lightly, is kind of my point here. And I know many Catholics will not like me appealing to them

in a video that's talking about Calvinism, but I want to clarify, I'm not saying they affirmed Calvinism wholesale. I'm saying they affirmed the U of Tulip, and that's the heart of it. So forget the other letters, forget all the nuances, but the basic intuition here that God sovereignly elects some for salvation based upon his own goodness, his own will, not based upon anything that he foresaw in them. That's pretty strongly attested through our church history. There's some major thinkers who've thought that, and I'll put up one quote from each, I'll restrict myself to one quote from each at the risk of people accusing me of taking these out of context.

I am always amazed at how people, many of whom have no scholarly credentials themselves, will uncharitably imply that I'm being kind of slip shot in my scholarship. And I don't ever think they have any basis for doing so, except that they don't like what I'm saying. So I promise you, I don't take quotes out of, any quote you ever see in a video, I've read the context. Okay. I always read the context.

So here's, and these quotes are not, these quotes are representative. They're not, and I really don't think most people working in this area would find what I'm saying right now really crazy, especially with Augustine. But here's a quote from the Summa Theologica. I'll start with Thomas. In part one, again, fairly early on, he's talking about providence and predestination, chapters, excuse me, questions, 22, and 23. And he gives a very robust account of both of them.

In question 23, Article 5, he's addressing whether the cause of predestination is foreknowledge of the merits of men. And he says no. and then he that's basically unconditional election and then he addresses this question of does this make God unjust and he says the reason for the predestination of some and the reprobation of others must be sought for in the goodness of God let us consider the whole of the human race as we consider the whole universe God wills to manifest his goodness in men in respect to those whom he predestines by means of his mercy as sparing them and in respect of others

whom he reprobates by means of his justice in punishing them. This is the reason why God elects some and rejects others. And then he proceeds to quote Romans 9. He's quoting St. Augustine. It's a very bracing affirmation of unconditional election. Augustine also held to a pretty unflinching doctrine of unconditional election. He's had a lot to say about predestination. I don't think this is generally disputed either,

even among those who wish Augustine didn't say this, especially if you're looking at the mature Augustine after his disputes with Pelagius. So I'll just give one example here commenting on John 1516, where Jesus says to the disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you. And he's just explicitly arguing at great length that God's predestination is not based on any foreknowledge of any kind of goodness in us. He's saying, no, it totally lies on God's side. He says, listen thou ungrateful one.

Listen, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you. not that thou mayest say I am chosen because I already believed. Not that thou mayest say, before I believed I was already doing good works, and therefore I was chosen. For what good work can be prior to faith, when the apostle says, Whatsoever is not a faith is sin? What then are we to say on hearing such words, ye have not chosen me, but that we were evil and were chosen in order that we might be good through the grace of him who chose us? for it is not by grace if merit proceeded, but it is of grace, and therefore that grace did not find,

but affected the merit. None of that proves that the U of Tulip is correct, that unconditional election is correct. It certainly doesn't prove Calvinism as a whole. What I'm saying is it's another reason for inducing a sense of, okay, this is not something to be dismissed. This might further peace and mutual understanding to realize some of the greatest minds in all of church history have affirmed the basic core concept that Calvinism is trying to protect and affirm. Third appeal, whatever view you take on this issue, there is no easy, non-mysterious answer. If you don't like Calvinism, you have to provide some other answer to this mysterious

question of, is God sovereign, and if so, in what sense? And does that sovereignty extend to creaturely wills, or does it only extend to things like the die being cast, but not creaturely wills? And, you know, any of you take on this, I would just say, we've all got room for trembling and humility here. Any view you take on this, it has difficulties. For the classical Armenian, for example, you think that God forenows that people will reject him, and yet he still chooses to create them. Now, and so full well-knowing that this person will be damned, and so full well-knowing that this person will be damned, he still chooses to create them. Now, that is not the same problem, but it's still not an easy option to embrace. There's still questions that arise. If you take other

options like there, you know, there's mullinism, or even if someone is an open theist, you know, you could argue that God doesn't know what's going to happen, but still it does not seem like God is decisively intervening. You can think someone's looking like they're heading for damnation and God is not decisively intervening in this person's life saying, hey, repent, repent, you're going to hell, you know. So on, on no view are all the questions of how is it that God has created a world and is governing this world in such a way that people will end up in eternal damnation. On no view that I can see are all of the questions about that taken off the table. If you say, yeah, but the problems are less severe when it's foreknowledge rather than sovereign decree,

let's suppose that that's right, the point here is it still might reduce a little bit of the sense of how could anybody believe that over there? Because this is a difficult question for all of us. And just to reinforce that a bit, let me just show how this question of divine foreknowledge and how that relates to creaturely wills is also a pretty thorny question with reference to one of my favorite texts in all of church history, and that's Boethius's The Consolation of Philosophy. If you haven't read this book, this book alone would give you a wonderful introduction to the whole of medieval Christianity. It's so influential. I would say this was the most influential book other than the Bible in Europe throughout the medieval era.

C.S. Lewis talked about how basic, he said, to acquire a taste for the consolation of philosophy is almost to become naturalized to the Middle Ages. And it's an amazing book. He's writing, Boethius is writing from prison. He's been unjustly imprisoned and he's about to be executed in early sixth century, like 524, I think, by the Austro-Gothic king, Theodoric, the great. And he's, the whole question is providence. He's finding comfort in providence, but then that leads him to the kind of climactic question of the whole book.

And that is, how does God's providence and therefore, he reasons himself to the point point where he's saying God's providence means he foreknowes all things. So then at least the question of, well, what does that mean for human actions? How can our decisions be meaningful if they are foreknown by God? So he draws this principle from the neoplatonist philosopher Eamblicus, which says, basically saying that knowledge is determined not just by the thing known, but by the one doing the knowing. So here's how he puts it. Everything that is known is comprehended, not according to its own power, but rather according to the ability of the one knowing. And then he appeals to God's eternity, and he says, God knows as an eternal being,

and therefore his knowledge of things is simple. It's always in his own present. So it's not really for knowledge. So again, think of it as Tolkien writing the book. Tolkien doesn't really fore-nourn knowledge. Tolkien doesn't really foreknow that Sauron is going to do something evil. He sees it all in his own time. He can flip ahead in the book or flip back because the time of Oxford is different from the time of Middle Earth. And the point here is that there's this qualitative distinction between God and everything else in our world. So the way God relates to our world is going to be absolutely different than any other agent within the world. And what I've argued in my writing is you can appeal to that same principle to explain

compatibilism. You can tweak the dictum from Eamblicus, say everything that is willed is willed according not just to what is being willed, but according to the nature of the willer, the one willing. So you can put it into the metaphor again of Tolkien writing the book. You can say Tolkien is, if Tolkien wills some evil into existence, as a the author of the book, this is going to be different than if, say, one of the characters in the book willed evil into existence. Now, okay, maybe you still say that you don't buy that, or you don't think that that takes away the problem. Maybe you still think it would be wrong for Tolkien to do that

or for God to do that in our world. The point here is maybe it can reduce a bit of the sense of how could anybody believe that, because we've all got a challenge here to face. And this qualitative of distinction between God and our world obtains for all the different views. So hopefully, you know, in other words, there's enough on this question that should make us all be humble enough to say, we're in some deep waters here. And there's really not much room, I don't think, for contempt of the other options. I don't feel that. I don't feel a contempt for the non-Calvinist options in any way.

So let me conclude with two metaphors that might cement what I'm trying to do in this video from these appeals. The first is imagine that you're in training in a war. You're going to attack and there's a terrible, evil other country that you have to fight against. And there's somebody on the same side as you, in the same army as you, that you passionately disagree with about whether or not you should do an air attack first or a ground attack. And you're really, that's really important.

But when you actually get into the fighting, they're fighting on the same side as you. and you're glad they're in the foxhole with you because you have a much greater enemy. That sense of we're all on the same team, we're fighting on the same side, I think we need more of that between Calvinists and the various non-Calvinist options. Let me give an image of that from George Whitfield. George Whitfield, the Calvinist and John Wesley, Armenian, both amazing men of God. God used so much. They respected each other.

one time someone asked Whitfield if we'd see Wesley in heaven. And his answer was, I fear not, for he will be so near the eternal throne, and we at such a distance, we shall hardly get a sight of him. I think it would be a happy occasion and something productive for the kingdom of God if there was more of that mentality between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. To recognize this issue is important, we need to contend for the truth as we understand it. We can also recognize a lot of the people, on the other side are going to be way ahead of me, way closer to Jesus, way more productive for God's kingdom than I am. And if we had a little bit more of that mentality, I think that'd be productive for God's kingdom. Let me know what you think in the comments. Also, let me know if there's

other issues related to Calvinism specifically you'd like me to address or other topics in this series on theological triage that you'd like me to address that you think would be helpful. That's all I got. Thanks for watching. Have an awesome day. God bless.