The One

[The following is an expanded version of a devotional I wrote for a friend’s ministry newsletter]

“For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Heb 2:10)

In 1999, the blockbuster film, The Matrix sparked the imaginations of millions of people worldwide. It was the story of a world that was not all it seemed, in which something was very wrong, but in which would arise a person known as, The One, who would deliver the captives from bondage, and usher in peace and justice. The story, the conflict and all major events in the story centered around The One, and the world itself would ultimately bend to his will. While it made for interesting science fiction, the fact is, that there is The One in the real world who is far greater than what even the best storycrafters can conceive. The real One of course, is Jesus Christ. He is the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the First and the Last, and the rightful Firstborn and King of all creation. He is the focal point of history, Perfection itself become human flesh, and the theme and hope of which all the Law and Prophets in the Old Testament foretold.

The world was made by Him, the world was made for Him, but the world did not know Him, for it fell into sin. And so the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). He was the One, the Messiah, the person who delivers all from captivity and darkness.

Most all of the great or influential world leaders throughout history were either born into or achieved wealth and/or prominence in their societies. Moses was raised a prince and became leader of a nation. Muhammad was a tribal leader and successful conqueror. Guatama Buddha was a prince before seeking the path of enlightenment. Confucius rose to be a governor and prominent state minister. Joan d’Arc rose from peasantry to military leader. Jesus was a man of no prominence in His earthly life. He was born a peasant, lived a poor, traveling teacher, and died as would a convicted capital offender. There was no government fighting for the scraps of power He’d consolidated, no rich or influential patrons promoting His teachings. All that was left was a few scared fishermen and women, most as poor and obscure as He was. History remembers the great men, it barely even remembers their aides. The workmen, the peasants, the poor and meek all fade into obscurity. Surely this peasant was no different. But this peasant didn’t stay dead. In a twist so powerful that even profane Hollywood can’t resist imitating it, He rose on the third day, and by His appearance and the power of the Holy Spirit, those poor fishermen boldly preached the gospel everywhere they went!

He could have come as a super-man, the pinnacle of charm and wit, yet Isaiah 53:2 declares, “…He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.” He could have come in majesty and glory that none could deny, but instead He came in poverty and disgrace, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) With but a word He could have called legions of angels to bring the world to its knees and subjugate all to His will. Instead He chose the shame and death of the cross. Yet He rose from a death in obscurity to life everlasting, and to being the most influential person the world has ever known. His disciples went from catching fish to laying the foundation for a greater, heavenly kingdom, knowing that their risen Master is with us always.

He is eternal, He is unchanging. All the wars, triumphs, empires, monuments, and the great men they honor will fade into the mists of time, till their names are little more than foreign syllables uttered by grudging schoolchildren. But Christ is eternal, He is forever exalted, and of His kingdom there will be no end. Near the end of his life, former Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte wrote,

“Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne and myself founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon sheer force. Jesus Christ alone founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men will die for Him. In every other existence but that of Christ how many imperfections!”

While fiction can be fun, the true One is no work of a writer’s imagination, He’s here among us now. To a friend in doubt, Jesus let His actions speak, “…the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:22b), proclaiming to the ends of the world that we need wait for no other: He is the One.

The Cancer in Calvinism

From the outset I want to make it clear that I’m not asserting that Calvinism is heresy, as I consider most Calvinists to be genuine brothers and sisters. This post is rather about a serious error that has subtly crept up in the teachings of many Reformed Theology proponents and teachers. It is not one of the five points of Calvinism itself, but is no less integral to the theology of many Calvinists.

 

The First Warning Signs

Many Calvinists I’ve spoken to over the years have been great to talk to. Some just seem to be evangelicals with a stronger emphasis on predestination than most. For others, something just seemed…off. Very off. I started noticing a troubling tendency with some of the things they said: much stock was put into unconditional election and predestination, so much so as to mitigate the need for faith altogether. I would hear the occasional Calvinist friend talk about being “saved before they were born,” but I also knew that many Reformed preachers taught salvation by grace through faith, so I initially wrote it off as people misunderstanding their tradition’s theology. Little did I know….

 

A Tumorous Trilemma

I’ve come to believe that the real issue has been hiding in plain sight for a long time. In his ponderous polemic, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, Puritan theologian John Owen poses the following trilemma to we who believe Christ tasted death for everyone (per Heb 2:9).

To which I may add this dilemma to our Universalists:– God imposed his wrath due unto, and Christ underwent the pains of hell for,
either all the sins of all men,
or all the sins of some men,
or some sins of all men.
If the last, some sins of all men, then have all men some sins to answer for, and so shall no man be saved; for if God enter into judgment with us, though it were with all mankind for one sin, no flesh should be justified in his sight: “If the Lord should mark iniquities, who should stand?” Ps. cxxx. 3. We might all go to cast all that we have “to the moles and to the bats, to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty,” Isa. ii. 20, 21.
If the second, that is it which we affirm, that Christ in their stead and room suffered for all the sins of all the elect in the world.
If the first, why, then, are not all freed from the punishment of all their sins?
You will say, “Because of their unbelief; they will not believe.”
But this unbelief, is it a sin or not? If not, why should they be punished for it?
If it be, then Christ underwent the punishment due to it, or not.
If so, then why must that hinder them more than their other sins for which he died from partaking of the fruit of his death?
If he did not, then did he not die for all their sins.
Let them choose which part they will.

(John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, Book 1, ch 3; emphasis and spacing mine)

 

A Premalignant Presupposition

Read the bolded portion of the argument carefully. Closer observation reveals a far graver issue. Parsing out what Owen is saying,

But this unbelief, is it a sin or not? If [unbelief is] not [a sin], why should [unbelievers] be punished for it? … If [Christ did die for the sin of unbelief], then why [would the sin of unbelief] hinder [the unbelievers from being saved any] more than their other sins for which [Christ died]?

The answer to the trilemma is fairly trivial: While refusal to believe is indeed a sin, the reason it keeps one from salvation is not due to it being a sin, but because unbelief, by definition, precludes belief in Christ, without which no one can be saved (Heb 11:6). As with all sins Christ died for, forgiveness for unbelief is only obtained through subsequent belief in Him.

While Owen’s argument is trifling at best, his sophomoric reasoning isn’t the biggest problem here. While unstated, there is a premise both insidious and heretical that one must hold to make this argument without duplicity or cognitive dissonance: If one is seriously arguing that unbelief would not stop a person from being forgiven any more than any other sin, that is effectively saying that Christ’s death brings about salvation whether or not one believes. Or to put it succinctly,

If Christ died for one’s sins, then faith isn’t necessary for salvation.

Note that he is not arguing that all for whom Christ died must eventually believe and be saved, no, he is saying they would be saved despite not believing! Any Bible-believing Christian should be horrified by such a godless and contra-scriptural idea. That faith is absolutely necessary to be saved is all over the New Testament (in John 3:16, Acts 13:39, Romans 3:22, 5:1, 10:9, Galatians 2:16, 3:22, to give a few references). How in the world can an allegedly Christian theologian be arguing that lack of faith wouldn’t stop someone from receiving forgiveness?

If such a premise were true, it would entail that whether one believes has no bearing on whether he obtains salvation.

And if having faith has no bearing on obtaining salvation, then one can only conclude that salvation is not by faith.

While Owen’s trilemma and the similar arguments derived from it may seem superficially persuasive if one doesn’t spot their weakness, examination of their underlying ideas reveals more than was intended. One who argues that the atonement would save even those who never believe necessarily (except for reason of ignorance or sheer cognitive dissonance) holds a view of redemption that not only lacks scriptural support, but violates one of the central tenets of Christianity in denying salvation by faith altogether.

 

The Cancer Spreads

If the mutation was confined to just a small band of loonies in a corner, it would be of little concern. Sadly, a great many Christians of the Reformed theological persuasion have fallen for this unscriptural line of reasoning. Owen isn’t some isolated edge-case Calvinist predicting the timing of the second coming on the radio or protesting funerals. To the contrary, he’s widely regarded among Calvinists, and the book his trilemma was written in is considered one of their finest classical defenses of Limited Atonement.

It is to those who share this readiness that Owen’s treatise is now offered, in the belief that it will help us in one of the most urgent tasks facing evangelical Christendom today – the recovery of the gospel. (J.I. Packer, introduction to the 1958 reprint)

The trilemma itself is widely referenced and quoted by many prominent Calvinists:

James Montgomery Boice & Philip Graham Ryken (The Doctrines of Grace: Rediscovering the Evangelical Gospel)
Steve Lawson (Foundations of Grace)
Robert Reymond (Ten Lines of Evidence for the Doctrine of Particular Redemption, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith: 2nd Edition)
Dr. Christopher David Bass (That You May Know: Assurance of Salvation in 1 John)
Jonathan D. Moore (The Extent of the Atonement)
Dr. Manuel Kuhs (British Reformed Journal, Issue 59)
Phillip G. Kayser (Ransom Paid: Does the Bible Limit the Atonement?)
Joseph R. Holder (Romans: Theological Masterpiece [Volume 1])
Sam Storms (For Whom Did Christ Die?)
Curtis I. Crenshaw, Th. M. (How to Handle So-Called Problem Passages on the Extent of the Atonement)
Dr. C. Matthew McMahon
Dr. Joel Beeke (Problems with Arminian Universal Redemption)
Dr. Gary D. Long (Definite Atonement)
Dr. Roger Nicole Th.D., Ph.D. (The Case for Definite Atonement)
James White (Was Anyone Saved at the Cross?)
Dr. Joseph R. Nally, Jr., of Third Millennium Ministries
The Reformed Presbyterian Church (Covenanted) 
Erik Raymond of The Gospel Coalition

And it’s not people just mindlessly parroting Owen without realizing what he’s saying. Many of the authors make the argument in their own words, laden with the same repulsive premise:

The Arminian will answer: “because they refused to believe in Jesus Christ. They are guilty of unbelief.“ But this unbelief, is it a sin or is it not a sin? If unbelief is not a sin, then why should anyone by punished for it? If unbelief is a sin, then Christ was punished for it in His death. If Christ paid for this sin as all others, then why must this sin stop anyone from entering heaven more than any of the other sins (e.g., murder, adultery, homosexuality, etc.). Furthermore, if Christ did not die for the sin of unbelief, then one cannot say that He died for all the sins of all men. The Arminian cannot escape from the horns of this theological dilemma. (Brian Schwertley, Limited Atonement)

Belief in an unlimited atonement, on the other hand, presents many logical and biblical problems. First of all, if the atonement was truly unlimited, then every person would be saved as all of their sins, including the sin of unbelief, would have been paid for by Christ on the cross. (S. Michael Houdmann of GotQuestions.org)

If God propitiated His wrath towards me in a truly substitutionary and penal sacrifice, how can He still be angry at me? Did God in Christ actually redeem, reconcile, and propitiate His anger against us on the cross? Then I cannot and will not ever experience that anger. (Sam Waldron, The Biblical Confirmation of Particular Redemption)

But God is angry at men for their unbelief,

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” (Rom 1:18)

If, however, Jesus died to make atonement for generic guilt, for human guilt in general, then culpable unbelief is covered by the atonement. So I don’t see how a qualitative paradigm circumvents the force of Owen’s dilemma. If refusing to believe in Jesus is culpable, and Jesus paid the penalty for human guilt, then culpable unbelief is included in the atonement. The category of guilt includes all instances thereof. (Steve Hays)

But you really need to qualify what you mean when you say that “He laid down His life for all of humanity.” Such a statement is unnecessary and may be misunderstood. I could say, “so why aren’t they all saved then?” “If he already paid for their sins then there should be no condemnation.” But unbelief is one of the sins He died for. (John Hendryx, Monergism.com)

No condemnation for people who have no faith? John writes,

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:18)

Yet a heartbreaking number of Calvinists all but flatly deny that very truth.

If ALL the sins of ALL men were laid upon Christ, then the sin of unbelief was too. That unbelief is a sin is clear from the fact that in 1 John 3:23 we read, “And this is His commandment, That we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ.” Refusal to believe in Christ is, therefore, an act of flagrant disobedience, rebellion against the Most High. But if all the sins of all men were laid upon Christ (as it is now asserted), then He also endured the penalty for the Christ-rejector’s unbelief. … For if unbelief is a sin and Christ did not suffer the penalty of it, then all sin was not laid upon Christ. Thus there are only two alternatives: a strictly limited Atonement, availing only for believers; or an unlimited Atonement which effectually secures the salvation of the entire human race. (A.W. Pink, The Atonement)

Again; if Christ died for all; then he made expiation for all their sins. He therefore must have made atonement for the sins of unbelief and final impenitence; which prevent man from applying to himself the redemption provided for him: and thus they will no longer stand in the way of such an application: for on the supposition of satisfaction having been made for them; they must be pardoned. (Francis Turretin, The Extent of the Atonement)

However, if the sins of every individual are actually taken away, then why do any go to hell? After all, aren’t all the sins taken away? “Ah,” but you say, “they are taken away only if that person believes.” The only problem with that is that Jesus’ blood is sufficient to cleanse of all sin, even the sin of unbelief. Therefore, even that sin is covered. Remember, it says that the sins were taken away by the cross of Christ, not made possible to be taken away. (Matt Slick)

If Christ died for all of the sins of all people, that must include the sin of unbelief. If God’s justice is totally satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross, then it would follow that God would be unjust in punishing the unrepentant sinner for his unbelief and impenitence because those sins were already paid for by Christ.” (R.C. Sproul, Biblical Scholasticism)

“If Christ died for all of the sins of all people, that must include the sin of unbelief. If God’s justice is totally satisfied by Christ’s work on the cross, then it would follow that God would be unjust in punishing the unrepentant sinner for his unbelief and impenitence because those sins were already paid for by Christ.” (R.C. Sproul, The Design and Scope of the Atonement)

Paul speaks of our fallen state apart from life in Christ,

“…among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Eph 2:3)

If, as Sproul argues, it would be unjust for God to punish us solely due to what Christ did, then would it not also be unjust for Him to hold us under His wrath (and thus under the sentence of condemnation) to begin with?

The third statement is what the Arminians would say. Christ died for all the sins of all men. But then why are not all saved? They answer, Because some do not believe. But is this unbelief not one of the sins for which Christ died? If they say yes, then why is it not covered by the blood of Jesus and all unbelievers saved? If they say no (unbelief is not a sin that Christ has died for) then they must say that men can be saved without having all their sins atoned for by Jesus, or they must join us in affirming statement number two: Christ died for all the sins of some men. That is, he died for the unbelief of the elect so that God’s punitive wrath is appeased toward them and his grace is free to draw them irresistibly out of darkness into his marvelous light. (John Piper, For Whom Did Christ Die?)

How do they reconcile these mutually-exclusive ideas? Salvation can’t be obtained both by faith and apart from faith, yet many of these authors claim to believe in salvation by faith while making an argument that effectively denies it. Do they truly not understand the implications of what they’re saying? Are they surreptitiously redefining “salvation by faith” to mean something else (e.g. “You were always saved, you just realize you’re saved by faith”)? I cannot judge, I can only say that such a premise is diametrically opposed to the gospel and destructive. It’s not going to take the next bright young generation of Calvinists long to understand where these arguments must eventually lead and go full-on cultic.

 

Hope for Remission?

Thankfully some Calvinists have shown discernment enough to see past this heresy.

Owen is right to think Christ’s work atones for all sin, unbelief included. But he is mistaken in thinking that if Christ’s work atones for all human sin, including the sin of unbelief, there is no impediment to the salvation of all human sinners. Faith is a condition of the application of the redemption accomplished by Christ. This, as Davenant and Dabney make clear, is a perfectly just arrangement; in which case, even if UA obtains, there is not doctrine of double payment to answer. (Oliver Crisp, Deviant Calvinism: Broadening Reformed Theology, p. 233)

Tony Byrne at Theological Meditations posted a series that quoted several authors refuting such an error. A sample quote from Dabney,

Nor would we attach any force to the argument, that if Christ made penal satisfaction for the sins of all, justice would forbid any to be punished. To urge this argument surrenders virtually the very ground on which the first Socinian objection was refuted, and is incompatible with the facts that God chastises justified believers, and holds elect unbelievers subject to wrath till they believe. Christ’s satisfaction is not a pecuniary equivalent, but only such a one as enables the Father, consistently with His attributes, to pardon, if in His mercy He sees fit. The whole avails of the satisfaction to a given man is suspended on His belief. There would be no injustice to the man, if he remaining an unbeliever, his guilt were punished twice over, first in his Savior, and then in Him. See A. A. Hodge on Atonement, page 369. (R.L. Dabney)

If then, even in their unbelief, there is no debt against them, no penalty to be paid, surely they can be described as saved, and saved at Calvary. That being the case, the gospel is reduced to a cipher, a form of informing the saved of their blessed condition. (Neil Chambers)

Those for whom it was specially rendered are not justified from eternity; they are not born in a justified state; they are by nature, or birth, the children of wrath even as others. To be the children of wrath is to be justly exposed to divine wrath. They remain in this state of exposure until they believe, and should they die (unless in infancy) before they believe they would inevitably perish notwithstanding the satisfaction made for their sins. (Charles Hodge)

I would recommend any God-fearing Calvinist give his posts on the subject a read. Sadly, the Reformed believers who have seen past Owen’s smokescreen have gone largely unheeded by their peers, who have let a heretical idea in through the proverbial back door. Some may not like hearing it from a guy with more Arminian leanings, but please hear me out. We’ll always have disagreements (as all major denominations and movements do), and probably never resolve them all this side of eternity. There are things in the Bible that are less essential to the Christian faith which are often less clearly explicated, and on which some disagreement is natural. Salvation by faith is not one of those things we can disagree on. No matter what our positions on secondary issues, we must not adopt forceful or clever-sounding rhetoric that compromises the gospel. God sent His Son into the world so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish. It is no longer Christianity if that message is lost. Sine Fide is not an option.

 

 

Loraine Boettner Defending the Negative Inference Fallacy

“Furthermore, when it is said that Christ gave His life for His Church, or for His people, we find it impossible to believe that He gave Himself as much for reprobates as for those whom He intended to save. Mankind is divided into two classes and what is distinctly affirmed of one is impliedly denied of the other.” (Loraine Boettner – The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, pp. 68-69, emphasis mine)

Kind of like when Hebrews 10:30 says, “The Lord will judge his people?”

The Transfer of Nonsense Principle (Concise Version)

I wrote an article some years back on the Transfer of Necessity Principle (TNP), an idea which some have used as an argument against free will. Looking back, my only real regret writing it was that it was too long, and probably inaccessible to someone who hasn’t studied the issue. With that in mind, I purposed to write a more concise refutation of the idea. For reference, I’ll be interacting with Linda Zagzebski’s Stanford article on Foreknowledge and Free Will (also revised since my original article).

Before I get into TNP itself, I’ll let Zagzebski outline the position that many Christians have historically taken in response to objections to God’s foreknowledge of free will choices (typically called The Boethian Solution):

This solution probably originated with the 6th century philosopher Boethius, who maintained that God is not in time and has no temporal properties, so God does not have beliefs at a time. It is therefore a mistake to say God had beliefs yesterday, or has beliefs today, or will have beliefs tomorrow. It is also a mistake to say God had a belief on a certain date, such as June 1, 2004. The way Boethius describes God’s cognitive grasp of temporal reality, all temporal events are before the mind of God at once. To say “at once” or “simultaneously” is to use a temporal metaphor, but Boethius is clear that it does not make sense to think of the whole of temporal reality as being before God’s mind in a single temporal present. It is an atemporal present in which God has a single complete grasp of all events in the entire span of time.

Notice, the main point of the solution: because God is transcendent, He perceives time from the outside, and from there knows all that is within it. Keep this in mind as we look at TNP.

Transfer of Necessity Principle (TNP) Defined

The arguments for TNP (innovated by Diodorus Cronus, but used and adapted by others in recent times) tend to be overly long and ponderous. I’ve trimmed the theological fatalist version down here for easier consumption:

P1 Events in the future can’t affect events the past
P2 In the past, God infallibly knew what you will do in the future
C Therefore, anything you may do in the future can have no effect on what God infallibly knew you would do in the past

Taking the example of drinking punch on Christmas (though we could extrapolate it to pretty much anything we do), TNP would say:

Given that you drank punch on Christmas
P1 Things that happen after Christmas can’t affect things that happen before it
P2 God infallibly knew before Christmas that you would drink punch
C Therefore, there was nothing you could have done on Christmas to change what God knew
Further, since what God knows is always accurate, you had no real option but to drink punch on Christmas (i.e. no free will)

Are you sensing a problem? You should be. Premise 2 in both cases is misleading in that it frames God’s timeless knowledge much as one would an event in time. God timelessly knowing a thing, by definition, isn’t really an event in time, and it’s fallacious to treat it as such (Cronus original argument is similar, except he uses past truth propositions rather than God’s knowledge, which is equally fallacious). Temporal events can’t affect past temporal events, but there’s no reason to think that what applies to such events would identically apply to timeless properties. In fact, there’s good reason to reject this notion entirely due to the counter-example of truth.

Counter-Example: I will now affect a proposition ‘in the past’

Elvis Presley has died (shortly before I was even born, in fact). That is an event in time. There’s nothing I can do to go back and undo this event. In fact, nothing about the occurrence of the event itself could ever be influenced or affected by anything that I do. That he’s dead is “now-necessary” (and always has been for me).

What about *truth* in the past? Was it true yesterday that I would write today? Absolutely. You’re reading the evidence of it right now. Does my writing affect anything about that proposition? It does actually, because my writing today is what makes that proposition true -even in the past (ditto for the proposition of you reading this article today, you’re also making that true right now)! If it weren’t for my writing this today, such a proposition yesterday would have been groundless and false.

So I cannot affect or influence a past event, but I am, as I write, making a past proposition true! Is this retro-causation? Am I traveling backwards in time? Not at all. What is true isn’t an ‘event,’ but a timeless property. A timeless property can be grounded or fulfilled by what is temporal.

A Counter-Argument

Zagzebski contends that God’s knowledge being timeless doesn’t get around the issue of TNP. She presents the syllogism,

(1t) God timelessly knows T.
(2t) If E is in the timeless realm, then it is now-necessary that E.
(3t) It is now-necessary that T.

This second premise commits the same error as the one above, treating God’s timeless knowledge as a temporal event. Besides that, at least for purposes of making this argument, Zagzebski appears to discount the entire point of the Boethian solution she described above: God timelessly knows temporal contingencies because He perceives all of time. If we factor in what Boethius actually argued, premise 2t would force us to conclude that God perceiving some event happening within time is what makes it have to happen (the timeless [pun intended] “chicken or the egg?” problem). Zagzebski acknowledges the problem with treating timeless knowing like an event, but makes an equally puzzling assertion:

Perhaps it is inappropriate to say that timeless events such as God’s timeless knowing are now-necessary, yet we have no more reason to think we can do anything about God’s timeless knowing than about God’s past knowing. The timeless realm is as much out of our reach as the past.

The whole point of the Boethian solution was that God’s timeless knowledge is partially comprised of what happens within time, what is temporal in part constitutes what is timeless. Since we can plainly see from the above counter-example that current action can make something timelessly true, I would counter we have no reason to think that God couldn’t base His timeless knowledge on what occurs within time. This is not our reaching into a timeless realm to affect God, but rather He reaching into His creation with and for His understanding.

“…for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.” (1 Chronicles 28:9b)

A Fundamentally Backwards View of Reflections

TNP rests upon a flawed assumption, much like other bad philosophical pretensions throughout history. [See also: Zeno’s Paradox (physical motion is not a series of division operations), Truth Relativism (it’s absolutely true that nothing is absolutely true?), and the Bible date calculations of The Watchtower or Harold Camping (the numbers usually add up, but the Bible never supports the meaning they assign to the numbers)]

I explained TNP to my teenage daughter. Once she grasped what was being said she perked up immediately, retorting, “That’s backwards!” She caught the perhaps more fundamental problem immediately. The major fallacy with both the “true proposition” and “God’s knowledge of our choices” versions of TNP is that infallible knowledge and true propositions (as used here) are reflections of reality, not events or necessitating forces. Arguing that true propositions or God’s knowledge somehow make a thing necessary makes about as much sense as arguing that mirrors make you do things when you stand in front of them:

<SATIRE>Stand in front of the mirror, then while looking into it, take some action. You will never do differently than the mirror shows you doing, therefore we can conclude that the mirror makes your actions necessary!</SATIRE>

This is of course, blithering nonsense. The mirror doesn’t drive you to act, it gives off a reflection of what you do -just as (per Boethius) God timelessly knowing based upon what you do, or certain propositions being true because of what you do- are also reflections. Proponents of TNP and other such philosophical voodoo greatly err in putting the metaphysical cart before the figurative horse.

Conclusion

The arguments for the TNP fail because they operate under the premise that timeless properties (truth, God’s knowledge) function exactly like past events. While temporal events cannot change events of the past, they can in some ways contribute to timeless properties (such as whether a proposition about an event is true). Timeless properties such as propositions and God’s knowledge of choices are reflections of reality, not drivers.

With that Gordian Gobbledygook cut through, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to ground the other hopefully timelessly true propositions of me mending my fence and enjoying my kids playing baseball.

 

Does Arminian Theology Suggest That We Depend on Ourselves Instead of Christ for Salvation?

From the late R.C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries we find a short article “praising” limited atonement by Richard Phillips.  For the purpose of this post we will be focusing in on a section that promotes a critique of Arminianism that has been common among Calvinists for a long time and has been expressed in many different ways:

Second, if we grasp how personal in its application and how efficacious in its effects is the cross of Christ, we will find solid ground for our assurance of salvation.

There can be no assurance if the ultimate cause of our redemption is found in ourselves. The Arminian concept of a universal atonement, Packer remarks, “destroys the Scriptural ground of assurance altogether… . My salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself.”

These comments by Packer, quoted favorably by Richard Phillips, represent just one of many Calvinist talking points that relies on a total misrepresentation of Arminian theology.

Since Packer and Phillips see this as a valid critique of Arminian Theology, it is worth addressing.  Thankfully, it is so easily shown to be false that this response won’t need to be very long.

Let’s start by looking at some of the language Packer uses here.  He says that in Arminianism, salvation does not depend on Christ but on us.  It depends on what we “subsequently do” for ourselves.  Since I do not have the full quote, I can only assume he is talking about our response of faith to the provision of the atonement.  Never mind that the Bible plainly teaches that the benefits of the atonement are received by faith (Rom. 3:25), the main issue here is the claim that if it is up to us to put faith in Christ (or His “blood” as Rom. 3:25 says), then suddenly salvation “depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself.”

Really?  Putting faith in Christ and His atonement is an exercise in self-dependence?  Does he really not see how it is exactly the opposite?  Put simply, if we could save ourselves, we would not need to trust in Christ to save us.  If we could atone for our own sins, we would not need to trust in His blood to receive the benefits of His atonement.  Indeed, to say we need to trust in Christ to save us is the same as saying we need to “depend” on Him to save us.  Trusting in Jesus is an act of dependence.  That is why faith is the perfect non-meritorious condition for receiving the free, unearned and undeserved gift of salvation (cf. Rom. 4).

Let’s just look at a simple statement that all Arminians and Calvinists should readily agree with: “We need to trust in Christ to save us.”

Not controversial, right?  Now let’s ask a simple question regarding that statement: Who does the saving in that statement?  Is it the one who trusts in Christ?  Of course not.  Christ does the saving.  Again, that is why we need to trust in Christ to save us because we cannot save ourselves.  If we could save ourselves, we would not need to trust in Christ to save us, now would we?  That we need to trust in Christ to save us proves that we are powerless to save ourselves.  It is so painfully simple and obvious it is hard to understand how Calvinists can so easily miss it.

Are we responsible to trust in Christ?  Yes.  But that in no way means we save ourselves.  It is still Christ who does all the saving.  Trusting in Christ to save is depending on Christ to save.  If we are depending on Christ to save us by trusting in Him, how can Packer not see how false it is to claim that Arminianism teaches that “salvation, on this view, depends not on what Christ did for me, but on what I subsequently do for myself”?

Arminianism in no way teaches that salvation depends on us.  It teaches that salvation depends wholly on Christ and His atoning work on the cross.  Because we are powerless to save ourselves or atone for ourselves, we must trust in Him to do what we cannot do.  Arminianism cannot be rightly charged with promoting self-salvation or salvation by works.  We fully believe in salvation by grace through faith, while rejecting the unBiblical idea that if we are not irresistibly caused to trust in Christ, that faith is somehow a work.  Paul didn’t think so, nor does logic demand such a conclusion.  So why do Calvinists persist in libeling Arminianism in such a way?

And of course, in Arminianism, we are not even able to trust in Christ in the first place without the prior intervention of God’s enabling grace to overcome our depravity and make faith possible.  Not only do we need to trust in Christ to save us (proving we are powerless to save ourselves), but we are also fully dependent on His grace to even be able to trust in Him to save us.   So the charge of Phillips and Packer against Arminianism is seen to be completely without merit.

The “ultimate cause of our redemption” is not found in us, it is found in Christ, which is why we need to trust in Christ to redeem us.  The fact that we need to trust in Christ to redeem us in no way means that we are the cause of redemption.  That is like saying that if we receive a free and unearned gift from someone, even though we could just as well have rejected the gift, that we are then somehow the “ultimate cause” of the gift.  Freely receiving a gift from someone does not mean we earned the gift.  It does not mean we bought the gift.  It does not mean we contributed to the gift.  It does not mean we caused the gift, and it certainly does not mean we gave the gift to ourselves.  All of that is plainly absurd and yet that absurdity forms the basis of this Calvinist argument against Arminianism.  Behind this argument also lies the bizarre assumption that a gift cannot truly be a gift unless it is given irresistibly or unconditionally. It is truly hard to understand how many Calvinists still find this line of reasoning compelling.

Phillips continues:

This is why assurance of salvation is a field of theology and Christian experience plowed only by the Reformed. Murray notes, “It is no wonder that the doctrine of assurance should have found its true expression in that theology which is conditioned by the thought of the divine atonement or effective redemption, the irreversibility of effectual calling, and the immutability of the gifts of grace.

It is when you realize that even your faith is the outworking of Christ’s saving death for you, by the electing will of the Father, as applied by the Spirit, that you know the solid ground on which your salvation stands. If you truly believe–and the Bible gives you tests to determine whether you do–you can rest your heart in God’s sovereign grace and begin looking forward to an eternity of glory in the kingdom that you are now called to serve.

Actually, many of the fundamental claims of Calvinism work to severely undercut Biblical salvation assurance, rather than bolster it.  For more on that see:

Perseverance of the Saints Part 13: Salvation Assurance

An Important Admission on Salvation Assurance From Prominent Calvinist C. Michael Patton

A Telling and Ironic Tweet by John Piper on “Waking up in The Morning” as a Believer 

Does Erwin Lutzer Offer False Hope to Calvinist Parents?

The Five Dilemmas of Calvinism Part 3: Who’s Really Holding the Daisy?

 

Innate vs Self-Imposed Dependencies

Does God depend upon anything in creation? Everyone agrees that God has no need of things like food, water, shelter, rest, etc. We often refer to this as God’s aseity –His independence of His creation.

So God has no innate need of these things, and is utterly self-sufficient. But can God take on a need in some sense? God the Son certainly did in a way when He walked the earth, but let’s go a little deeper than even that. Reading in Genesis and beyond, we see God making promises to people.

“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.” (Romans 4:13)

Since God cannot lie (Heb 6:18), then it follows that He must fulfill the covenants He has made. In terms of His independence, something has changed: He is no longer completely independent of creation. God cannot fail (not that He would want to anyway, but bear with me) in His good promises towards His faithful. That produces something of a two-way dependency relationship between God and creation. We have need of God to sustain us, and God needs to sustain us to be faithful to His covenants.

The idea of God depending on us in any sense may seem awkward, so I’ll illustrate by example: If God did not sustain us, we would cease to be (for He holds all things together, Col 1:17). God made a covenant with Abraham (His creation), to show him mercy and make him co-heir of all things. Having made such a covenant, He cannot go back on it. God’s faithfulness depends upon Abraham existing and inheriting eternal life. Not that God needs Abraham to feed or clothe Him, but rather, He cannot unmake Abraham or consign him to Hell; He must bless Abraham as He promised for the sake of His faithfulness. God’s faithfulness requires that Abraham live eternally.

God having a requirement or need of some kind? Doesn’t that contradict God’s independence from creation? Not quite: Aseity is God’s innate independence from creation. God never had to create Abraham or make such promises in the first place. It says nothing against the idea of God taking on a sort of self-imposed, indirect dependency through the act of creation or making covenants. This is something that God Himself chose to do.

Objections on Omniscience

Some Calvinists have objected that such a view of aseity is deficient, especially as it pertains to God’s omniscience. That is, God creating people as free agents, and knowing what we will do based upon what we actually do (as opposed to scripting all our choices out for us); they frame this as God needing creation to be omniscient. One particularly bad objection comes from a certain cage-stage Calvinist we’ve interacted with, who insists that we must logically be denying God’s aseity because of His entering into a voluntary dependence with creation. It’s not that we haven’t alluded to the argument above before.

[Me]: That is true, God is faithful regardless of whether there is a world, just as He is omniscient. Catch is, God’s faithfulness now doesn’t just exist by itself, He is not only innately faithful, but He is now faithful to people like Abraham. God being faithful to Abraham requires that there be an Abraham. Our over-eager objector is confusing God’s immutable attributes with the relational, optional specifics encompassed by those attributes. (Calvinism’s Inconsistencies on God’s Attributes)

Problem is, he still doesn’t seem to recognize the difference between optional aspects of an attribute versus the attribute itself.

So, my dilemma of irrelevance or absurdity stands. If these examples where relevant, then God’s acts cause him to change himself…

While God’s innate attributes themselves do not change (He is always Holy, faithful, etc.), some optional aspects of them do (such as who He is faithful to). God was not in a relationship with Abraham before Abraham existed, but He is now. If we buy our objector’s hyper-Hellenized objection to God having some sort of ‘change,’ then we must also logically reject God taking on the self-imposed dependencies of having to fulfill His covenants, thus jettisoning the biblical promises of God in the process.

Calvinism Makes God Innately Dependent

The point that I brought up that these things aren’t “optional aspects” at all.

If such things as who God is faithful to aren’t optional for Him, then they can only be necessary to Him, meaning that God had no choice in the matter. Hence, my deductive proof  holds:

P1 To be truly omniscient requires that one’s beliefs match reality.

P2 Per [high] Calvinism, God innately and immutably believes that creation comes into existence (becomes a reality).

C Therefore, per Calvinism, God innately and immutably requires that creation comes into existence to be truly omniscient.

Far from establishing God’s aseity, Calvinism (at least our objector’s version) changes God’s relational dependency upon creation from a thing that’s self-imposed, into an innate need.

Objector: Now, he doesn’t grant the distinction between natural and free knowledge in this argument.

Our objector’s view of aseity entails that everything God knows about the world is essential to His being and immutable, there could be no such thing as ‘free knowledge’ by such a view.

Innate Knowledge and the Authorship of Sin

The above absurdity isn’t the only reason why God’s knowledge of the world can’t be innate to Himself. The problem of God being the author of evil also makes such a view logically impossible if we accept the testimony of scripture. As I’ve repeatedly argued without substantial challenge, the Bible is very clear that sinful things (lust, pride, etc) do not come from God (1 John 2:16), and that in fact there is no such darkness in Him at all (1 John 1:5). Our objector does his thing:

This section is about the “Authorship of Evil” objection he dragging out because his doctrine of God is so bad. He is too inept to know that this is a red herring. It has nothing to do with the fact his position doesn’t allow for aseity to be the case.

We can not only show it’s relevance, we can prove it via the rules of logical implication. If I have the implication,

P → Q (P implies Q),

then if I can show that Q is false, I also show that P is false, or,

~Q → ~P

This is called the Law of Contrapositive. It also works for multiple implications, e.g., for,

P → Q → R

then,

~R → ~Q → ~P.

So if I can deduce,

Legal American Voter → American Citizen → Human

If the subject is a Cocker Spaniel, that implies,

Not Human → Not American Citizen → Not Legal American Voter

The necessary implications of our objector’s position are,

If the High-Calvinist version of aseity is true → everything that happens finds its source in God’s mind → sinful actions find their source in God

Logically then, since the there is no such darkness in God,

Per 1 John, sinful actions do not find their source in God → not everything that happens finds its source in God’s mind → the High Calvinist view of God’s aseity is false

Bottom Line

• Divine Aseity implies God having no innate needs, it does not preclude God taking on a self-imposed relationship with some kind of dependency in creation.
• Knowledge of, and covenants with free agents that God freely chose to create would obviously be self-imposed relationships.
• Actual knowledge of a thing’s existence requires that the thing exist; so God having innate knowledge of creation’s existence (as some Calvinists argue) means that He innately needs creation to exist.
• The popular high Calvinist view of God’s aseity implies that all of man’s actions, including his wicked motives and deeds, come from God; 1 John 1 & 2 directly refute such a claim.

 

Tackling Calvinist Errors on Omniscience & Aseity (Plus a Deductive Proof)

In our last post on Calvinists who talk past the debate, we handily disposed of the fallacious arguments of a Calvinist objector insists on misrepresenting the issue. He tries to salvage his rapidly-crumbling narrative with yet more proof that he is simply talking past what is being discussed without understanding it.

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Still Missing the Point

I’ve been pretty clear since the beginning of our dialogue that God doesn’t derive His attributes from creation. Quoting previous posts:

[Me]: No one is arguing that God’s nature has changed or acquired new attributes, but as I argued, the “relational, optional specifics encompassed by those attributes” do change. When God chose to create the world, He chose to involve people as objects of certain of His attributes, and said attributes come to involve people. 

…

God is both omniscient and faithful regardless of whether the world exists or not, but the specifics thereof – who He knows about and who He is faithful to, depends upon our existence.

I pointed out that the objector was drawing conclusions about my beliefs that were the polar opposite of what I wrote. He proves my analysis correct yet again in replying,

But very few people think we ground God’s characteristics via his actions. 

…

I think this is simply a denial of aseity because it is him admitting that characteristics of God are not innate to him but something he takes on.

…

If some of God’s characteristics are contingent upon the world, then wouldn’t that imply on his view the world is necessary for God to have certain qualities?   

His persistence in the exact same error indicates that he’s either being hasty and not reading, or just outright disingenuous.

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Ignorance About Omniscience

He finally clears up his ‘explanation’ objection.

It is clear that J.C. doesn’t understand what explanations are. For example, the Leibnizian cosmological argument is an argument about explanations. It asks the question about the necessary foundations of reality.  … So, we are asking the same metaphysical question about God’s being(mainly his attribute of omniscience). … It isn’t grounded or explained by God. The reason for which God knows certain things are thus grounded not in himself but in the world.

To sum up the heretofore poorly-explained objection, the objector makes the error of conflating the attribute of omniscience with the specifics of God’s knowledge. As I’ve already pointed out to him,

[Me:] God is eternally faithful whether we exist or not. God has chosen to create man and made covenants with him. God’s faithfulness has not changed, who God is faithful to has changed. God knows all that is whether He creates the world or not. God has chosen to create a world with free agents. God’s omniscience has not changed, who God knows about has changed. That is an important distinction, and the point of confusion that our dear objector is stuck on and talking past in his objections to what no one is arguing.

Looks like he’s still just as confused and lost in noobie-land as ever.

While my question still stands, is God temporally not omniscience?  

He seems to be asking, “Is God temporally not omniscient?” If the same God is both transcendent and immanent (not just one or the other), then God in His immanence (within time) would know all that He does from His also-transcendent (from outside of time) perspective. Given that, our objector’s question seems to be a category mistake.

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The Calvinist Argument Backfires!

I also made a counter-argument showing that God’s innate attributes, such as His faithfulness, are not created by people, but that some optional aspects of those attributes (such as who He is faithful to) do involve creation. The objector replies with a counter-example of his own:

The point is the same argument that he produced about Faithfulness and Omniscience can equally be made about God’s goodness.  … So, either he has missed the argument I provided, or his argument about God’s attributes has zero relevance.

Yes, I absolutely agree that the same point I made about faithfulness and omniscience can also be made for God’s goodness. In fact, I’ll make it right here:

• God is good (immutable attribute)
• If God did not create the world, there would be no human persons to be good to, but that would not detract from His being good
• God did create the world and has chosen to show His goodness to members of creation
• Said showing of goodness is an optional aspect of God’s goodness contingent upon Him creating

Just like,

• God is omniscient (immutable attribute)
• If God did not create the world, there would be no human persons to know about, but that would not detract from His omniscience
• God did create the world and knows everything about His creation
• Said knowledge of His creation is an optional aspect of God’s omniscience contingent upon Him creating

Talk about an epic backfire. That the argument could easily fit God’s goodness is fairly obvious, which shows again that our beloved cage-stage objector is simply talking past the point he fails to grasp.

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Shooting Down Miscellaneous Errors

Freewill theists wish to agree with that sentiment but are inconsistent when it comes to grounding God’s knowledge of future contingents in the random and arbitrary choice of human agents.

That’s right folks, your choices are just metaphysical dice-rolls. Fallacy sighting confirmed: The Fallacies of Calvinist Apologetics – Fallacy #3: We Choose by ‘Chance?’

I’ve presented a model where God is ‘Self-Contained’ no explanation extends beyond God himself.

When combined with the idea of God predetermining everything, the idea that all of God’s knowledge comes only from Himself makes for an unworkable mess for several reasons:

1. That there is spiritual darkness in the world is evident. Yet as I’ve pointed out when addressing the authorship of sin, John writes, “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) Likewise, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world -the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does- comes not from the Father but from the world.” (1 John 2:15-16) So if spiritual darkness, sin, etc. exist, but there is no such darkness in God or that comes from God, then from whence does it originate? The determinist ultimately has to concede that all such evil originates within God, contrary to the teaching of the apostles.
2. It contradicts the contingent statements God Himself makes, [e.g. “…through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” (Gen 22:18), and numerous other places].
3. It paradoxically contradicts God’s aseity (independence from creation), and likely His power to freely choose altogether (see the argument below).

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Deductive Proof

The question of necessitarianism becomes relevant. What kind of freedom does God possess?   

If every proposition that God knows is innate to Him and an immutable part of His being, then choices such as whether to create the world wouldn’t be choices at all. God would literally have no choice other than to carry them out. I can simplify the problem with a brief syllogism:

P1 To be truly omniscient requires that one’s beliefs match reality.

P2 Per Calvinism*, God innately and immutably believes that creation comes into existence (becomes a reality).

C Therefore, per Calvinism, God innately and immutably requires that creation comes into existence to be truly omniscient.

* That is to say, High Calvinism that holds that the specifics of God’s knowledge are an innate part of His being (many of which debate us from that standpoint). This argument would not apply to Calvinists who don’t hold that premise.

If our sovereign God is intrinsically independent of creation, then He certainly has no innate need to create us to be truly omniscient.