Paul’s answer, notwithstanding, I have a slightly different view.
First of all, it is not me who is saying that Calvinists believe that man has no free will. I’m merely pointing out the Calvinist doctrine as I have learned for fifteen years in SGM; that includes dozens of conferences, and thousands of sermons. In addition, I’m also merely parroting the points of well known and well respected Calvinists. Exhibit A, John Edwards:
“,,,for it [free will] supposes an act of the Will preceding the first act in the whole train [what I called dominoes, above] directing and determining the rest; or a free act of the Will, before the first free act of the Will. Or else we must come at last to an act of the Will, determining the consequent acts, wherein the Will is not self-determined, and so is not a free act, in this notion of freedom: but if the first act in the train, determining and fixing the rest, be not free [as Edward’s is arguing…that it indeed is NOT free, and is really. as I said, God pushing the first domino] none of them can be free; as is manifest at first view, but shall be demonstrated presently.”
— John Edwards, “A Careful and Strict Inquiry Into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of Will, Which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame”
Let me summarize: Man has no free will. Since the first act of the will was of God, all subsequent acts of the will are of God, because they all build upon, and could never come to pass without the first act, which is THE determining factor in the choice and outcome of ALL the rest. Thus, as I said, man does not have free will according to your own doctrine. It is an illusion. Jeff, you cannot argue this point. If man has no say in his eternal destiny, then all choice is moot…all is an illusion. You cannot argue your way around this. It is impossible. Man either chooses or God chooses. There can BE NO middle ground. Even Edwards understood this. This is why Calvinists never concede any Armininan premise. It is foolishness to claim paradox or mystery.
Now, onto my answer to your question concerning sin. Here is my own “careful and strict examination”.
My answer is simply that there is no sin and there is no good, so your question is perfectly and categorically irrelevant. All morality is an illusion…thus, sin, as it were, is moot, it is non-existent. If all that man does or thinks or says can have no bearing on his eternal destiny, as your own doctrine of election presupposes, then his place in either is utterly arbitrary. There is NO standard which man is living up to, or not, or choosing (such as Christ and His sacrifice) or not. Man is born where he is going; thus, man cannot commit any sin any more than he can commit any good; indeed, his very life is meaningless, and if sin is real and good is real, then it cannot be meaningless. Thus, for sin and good to be real, free will must reign. If it does not, then all supposed morality is inert.
Again, trying to argue for the actual reality of “sin” or “righteousness” presumes FREE WILL. If free will does not exist, then neither does sin.
And chew on this: the very existence of the Word of God presumes free will of man. For the word of God can have no practical purpose otherwise. .
Thanks for reading that for me. I realize now that it might not have been clear. That was my first attempt at making the theory cohesive. I’m in the process of really fleshing it out, adding in issues relating to proving the folly of Calvinist “election”, and proving that all of Scripture and our relationship to our Father presumes man’s free will, and that without free will, morality, sin, good, the cross/atonement can’t really exist, period.
That is, the Calvinists would say that “election” is founded upon: that we can recognize good (Christ’s sacrifice), define it, and yet can never, ever choose it because of our depravity. So, in our depravity, somehow we can rightly judge Christ’s sacrifice and define it correctly, but never, ever desire or choose it. Er…what? That makes absolutely no sense.
That is, it is impossible to TRULY and properly define something as good or bad and yet never either desire it or not desire it. Recognizing truth is contingent upon an ability to desire (thus choose) something that is good, or reject something that is bad. This is a fact. Thus, rebelling against the good that you know for a fact is good (what I would say is true sin) implies FREE volition, and thus can be utterly sinful. If you can never choose something…it is contrary to your very powers of perception and description, then that means that you cannot ever define it as it TRULY IS. Thus, EVERYTHING MUST become sin to us (ever heard that? Sure you have…if you’ve been to your local Calvinist church). Well…everything cannot be “sin” if there is no recognizable and definable good that you can see as good and thus freely desire. The OPPOSITE of something cannot exist apart from…well, the opposite. Light cannot exist without dark, up cannot exist without down, right cannot exist without wrong, salvation cannot exist without damnation, and so forth. The existence of one presumes the existence of the other. Thus, you can’t say EVERYTHING is sin…everything means everything…because that makes sin moot, that is nonexistent. The very fact that God’s word declares right and this wrong means that man MUST be able to define it. And if man must be able to truly define the GOOD that God is telling us to do (e.g. accept Christ as your Lord and Savior) then we must be able to DESIRE it (will it), and thus choose it. That is why I say that the mere existence of the Bible presumes that free will must be man’s default position: reason, consciousness, abstract though, etc., etc. If predestination is true, then all of Christianity is folly, for their can be no sin and therefore no salvation. Now, I understand that no matter what we do, it can never meet the standard of a righteous God. But what can? Christ’s atonement. Thus, we desire Him because He can do something that we cannot. But first we MUST recognize it as GOOD, and desire it…that is, salvation. If we can freely and properly define Christ, which is a necessary prerequisite, then we must be able to freely choose Him.
Take Randy’s example of “I would never choose to eat garbage”. He proves my point. RIGHT! Because he can properly and objectively define eating garbage (apart from theoretical circumstances in which one might desire to eat garbage…such as, if I could eat garbage, then I’d never starve) as making one sick and thus being BAD. Conversely, he can choose to eat cake because cake can essentially objectively be defined as (insofar as flavor I mean) being good. So all he is saying is that he can define what is truly bad and decide to never choose it and, conversely, the implication is that he can define what is truly good and decide TO choose it. If he goes against what he KNOWS for whatever reason, and decides to eat garbage, then he can properly be declared a fool and held culpable for his trip to the emergency room. Similarly, if people reject Christ because they love the pleasure of sin more, they can properly be declared fools and culpable for their trip to hell.
What Randy means, and what his example fails to convey, is that Christ, to man, IS as a big pile of garbage that we’d never want to eat. God has to choose Him FOR us, again, because He’s garbage to us…we’d never choose Him because we can never DEFINE Him.. But if we cannot ever choose Christ because we cannot properly define Him–and indeed, the Calvinist position is that ALL good is really seen as garbage, which is why all your good deeds are “shot through with sin” (thanks Ceej!!)–how can man be accountable? He cannot even define it! It has nothing to do with his sinful nature in which he is choosing evil to good, even though he can define both, and thus is utterly rebellious and in need of a Savior. No..it’s NOT nature, it’s merely man’s senses…his perception; his ability to create the proper abstract concept based on what his eyes or ears tell him. It’s not sinful nature, it’s biology. To man, Christ is PERCEIVED as garbage to avoid…and if this is what man really sees and thus bases his judgements upon, how can he be faulted for avoiding something that his very senses tell him is bad any more than we’d fault Randy for avoiding garbage? And thus, if all good is sin, and all our sin is sin, then there really is no sin and no good, for there cannot be one without the other. And there then can be no salvation or damnation, because the very reasons of both, righteousness and sin in the world, are are non-existant, So yes, Calvinism is essentially active (as opposed to passive) nihilism with a gnostic polity I guess you could say.
The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to see how Calvinism just might be one of the most insidious heresies ever perpetrated upon the earth.
Thanks for your answer. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a few more, concentrating on one verse, Gen. 50:20:
“You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.”
Would you say that Calvinists would say that 1) “Planned” is meaningless, since man has no power of free choice, and, therefore, can not plan anything; 2) “Evil” is meaningless. Since man can not freely choose, morality is meaningless; not only that, it’s an illusion. 3) You say that either man or God chooses, according to Calvinists. What would follow logically is that, since man did not plan “evil,” God did. But “evil” doesn’t exist because man has no free will, so even God cannot choose something that does not exist. So even God can not choose “good” or “evil” because they don’t exist if man has no free will.
Is this an accurate account of what you believe that Calvinists believe, even if they won’t admit that this is what they really believe? Or, at least, this is the logical result of their premises?
One other question: Do you think that, rightly interpreted, this verse could support both God’s sovereignty and human free will?
Paul –
Thanks for your comment. I’ll have to do some thinking and studying on it.
Still reading “Truth About NC.” I’m a slow reader. There are definitely some disturbing things in it, and you’ve pointed out some things that bothered me but that I never really investigated.
On page 105, you give an endnote no. that has “links to videos…describing Christians as, for all practical purposes, unregenerate.” If Mahaney was talking about believers, then, yes, he was saying that Christians hate God, but there’s no context to tell us whether he was or not. The Piper one is a parody, and the Chandler one makes a distinction between regenerate and unregenerate. If you know of one that says that believers are unregenerate or spiritually dead or dead in their sins, or hate God, etc., I’d like to know of it. Thanks.
Yes…you are now getting to the very crux of the matter. To deny the existence of free desire/choice is to deny man’s very consciousness; from which all of his abstract thought stems, and from which comes man’s ability to obey God from His very first command “rule and subdue”, followed by “choose this day whom you will serve”, all the way to “take up your cross and follow Me”. Without this consciousness man cannot have any relevance whatsoever, because he has no mind. Man is an utterly redundant entity from the start. The whole of his existence is an exercise in circular logic; ending up at the EXACT place he started. Like I’ve said before, if man is born right where he stays forever (e.g. you are born damned; you are born saved) then all life is a circular existence which means nothing. The worst part is that this makes the Bible and the Cross redundant and meaningless as well; for how can the Bible have any relevance to a man who lacks the very ability it takes to effectually respond to it? The same is said for the cross. Thus, all morality is a myth. We can talk until we are blue in the face about good and evil, but at the end of the day, if you accept the Calvinist doctrine election, good and evil have zero bearing on us. We all just stay right where we are born. So morality is a farce. If man cannot effect his eternal existence, then he can do nothing that is either right or wrong.
From this, the logical extension is that God Himself is meaningless. So, I submit that if free desire/will do not exist, then neither does God. For no God as we define Him could ever possibly make Himself both known and utterly irrelevant at the same time. I submit that such a God simply cannot exist. If election is true, then man’s life is only in service to God proving His own power to Himself. This, for me, equals a God whose sum of Himself is zero. All he does is in service to Himself. I’m not talking about His glory..that is, finding glory and satisfaction in Himself; He’s God, finding glory in Himself is necessary, for to find glory in anything else means He’s not perfect. No, rather I’m talking about all creation existing for the sole purpose of providing God a means to know Himself. This would make God nothing more than a mutually exclusive exercise…a contradiction the sum of which, again, is zero.
In response to your third question (I think I’ve answered the first two already), I would simply say that the premise of your question is false. Like I’ve argued, if man has no free desire/choice, then there is no “evil” to be planned by anyone; you, me, or God. Evil cannot exist in the absence of Good. Good cannot exist in the absence of evil. If all man’s choices are preordained, then how on earth can there by ANY good or evil? If all man’s life is merely a falling of dominoes, then what is this talk of good or evil? Good or evil implies an objective standard! A standard involves recognizing a plumb line, and then understanding what “things” either measure up to it or not. Recognition involves seeing and defining TRUTH! Seeing and defining TRUTH means a consciousness capable of abstract thought. A consciousness such as this implies free desire/will. So the equation is:
TRUTH = the cognitive faculty with the inherent capability of defining TRUTH = man’s consciousness = free will/desire = free TO desire, or free NOT to desire = moral culpability to the standard = a JUST and meaningful Creator of the standard who upholds the standard by being one with the standard (that is, God, by definition, is the “first cause” of EVERYTHING).
No, I did not say that the Calvinists say that either God chooses or man chooses. I am the one saying that. I am saying that it cannot be both; which IS the Calvinist doctrine. They want the Bible to be relevant; they want to say that man is fully culpable for his sin, and yet, they want to preach election. They want to say that man can choose; that he has free will, but he can only will one way, which is like Henry Ford saying “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” I’m saying this is a farce, and makes Calvinism a heretical, gnostic false doctrine at it’s core. God is reduced to a contradiction in terms, and Christianity reduced to nihilism by definition. God becomes Man in effect. This is a blasphemy of blasphemies.
God is Sovereign PRECISELY BECAUSE of man’s free will. If God has to “elect”, then this implies that, by definition, He cannot be Sovereign. Sovereignty implies that God’s will is done regardless of who is with Him or against Him. THAT is being Sovereign. The “elect” way is merely control. To use a human example: Are you exercising control or sovereignty when you steer your car where you want it to go? Are you exercising control or sovereignty over your life when you effect outcomes of your personal goals and objectives despite all of life’s challenges and struggles?
Actually, I think the formula is better stated this way:
The existence of TRUTH (remembering that God IS TRUTH) INEVITABLY means:
A cognitive faculty with the inherent capability of defining said TRUTH = man’s consciousness = limitless free will/desire = limitless freedom to choose or not choose as a cognitive process = freedom to ACT insofar as it is either mentally or physically possible; and this also means theoretically = moral culpability to a divine moral standard= a JUST and meaningful Creator of the standard who upholds the standard by being one with the standard (that is, God, by definition, is the “first cause” of EVERYTHING).
Thanks for your extensive answers. Yes, I was incorrect when I said that Calvinists believe that either God or man chooses.
I think I used your premises in my third question. At any rate, you answered it.
I now understand what you mean when you say that God is sovereign precisely because man has free will.
I wonder if you would answer my last question: “Do you think that, rightly interpreted, this verse [Gen. 50:20] could support both God’s sovereignty and human free will?” Maybe it would be put better if the question is: Do you see this verse as genuinely demonstrating God’s sovereignty and human free will, and how they can be compatible?
Well…I would say yes, understanding that I’ve not gone back and read the verse in context; though, of course I’m familiar with the story. But I would say that the entirety of the Bible is one huge, canonical example of the compatibility between God’s sovereignty and man’s free consciousness (meaning, will/desire, and choice…when I use the term “free will” I mean all three of those things; I guess a better term is “free consciousness”). But, in my second to last post up there, what I was trying to demonstrate is that really, for God to be truly sovereign, man has to have free consciousness. Otherwise, it isn’t sovereignty so much as it is merely control. One might say this is mere semantics, however, if you look at the definition of “sovereign” nowhere is the word “control” used; and nowhere is DIRECT POSSESSION of another one’s consciousness of even remotely implied. The idea of sovereign, like I said, is that God’s will and authority are absolute, not by limiting free consciousness, or “electing” outside of man’s free choice, but in SPITE of them. That is why God is all powerful…not because he has to force, possess, or compel against a will to do the “right” thing (e.g. choose Christ, in our example), but because God’s will is done on earth and heaven despite all who may freely oppose Him.
Like I’ve said in previous posts, the mere existence of the Bible should really be proof enough that man has the rational, free faculties to grasp it’s meaning. I also submit that before Augustine and Plato’s philosophy was merged with Christianity, and Christianity the state, no one ever considered the Calvinist doctrine of “election”…I firmly believe that if you’d brought this idea to Paul, he wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about. Anyway… if God’s Word can truly be acknowledged as good and true, then it follows that it must be able to be freely be desired. Some would argue that man cannot understand God’s word unless God opens his eyes to it…okay, maybe, but then that would imply that man, now that he can understand it can freely desire it, and with that, the implication is that he may not desire it. If man cannot help but desire it once it’s been revealed, then there is no true revelation, it’s just God essentially thinking FOR man and forcing him to believe something against any free choice. This makes God’s Bible redundant and unnecessary because, of course, God doesn’t need to believe in His own Word. Man does. And man cannot truly understand unless he is given the freedom to CHOOSE/DESIRE it, or not. I submit that the ability to rightly define truth cannot be separate from the free ability to desire/choose it. I further submit that this ability is inherent in every human being because it is a product of his or her rational consciousness. The will stems from man’s ability to abstract. Thus, man’s very existence implies that free will must reign If not, then EVERYTHING, including God, is pointless.
Like I said, there is no God, by anyone’s definition, that would make Himself both known in TRUTH, and utterly irrelevant to the one He is revealing Himself to at the same time; which is exactly what He is if one holds to the Calvinist interpretation of “election”.
Um, is it just me, or does 2Peter 2:1 pose a problem for limited atonement?
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Hi JeffB,
Paul’s answer, notwithstanding, I have a slightly different view.
First of all, it is not me who is saying that Calvinists believe that man has no free will. I’m merely pointing out the Calvinist doctrine as I have learned for fifteen years in SGM; that includes dozens of conferences, and thousands of sermons. In addition, I’m also merely parroting the points of well known and well respected Calvinists. Exhibit A, John Edwards:
“,,,for it [free will] supposes an act of the Will preceding the first act in the whole train [what I called dominoes, above] directing and determining the rest; or a free act of the Will, before the first free act of the Will. Or else we must come at last to an act of the Will, determining the consequent acts, wherein the Will is not self-determined, and so is not a free act, in this notion of freedom: but if the first act in the train, determining and fixing the rest, be not free [as Edward’s is arguing…that it indeed is NOT free, and is really. as I said, God pushing the first domino] none of them can be free; as is manifest at first view, but shall be demonstrated presently.”
— John Edwards, “A Careful and Strict Inquiry Into the Modern Prevailing Notions of That Freedom of Will, Which is Supposed to be Essential to Moral Agency, Vertue and Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame”
Let me summarize: Man has no free will. Since the first act of the will was of God, all subsequent acts of the will are of God, because they all build upon, and could never come to pass without the first act, which is THE determining factor in the choice and outcome of ALL the rest. Thus, as I said, man does not have free will according to your own doctrine. It is an illusion. Jeff, you cannot argue this point. If man has no say in his eternal destiny, then all choice is moot…all is an illusion. You cannot argue your way around this. It is impossible. Man either chooses or God chooses. There can BE NO middle ground. Even Edwards understood this. This is why Calvinists never concede any Armininan premise. It is foolishness to claim paradox or mystery.
Now, onto my answer to your question concerning sin. Here is my own “careful and strict examination”.
My answer is simply that there is no sin and there is no good, so your question is perfectly and categorically irrelevant. All morality is an illusion…thus, sin, as it were, is moot, it is non-existent. If all that man does or thinks or says can have no bearing on his eternal destiny, as your own doctrine of election presupposes, then his place in either is utterly arbitrary. There is NO standard which man is living up to, or not, or choosing (such as Christ and His sacrifice) or not. Man is born where he is going; thus, man cannot commit any sin any more than he can commit any good; indeed, his very life is meaningless, and if sin is real and good is real, then it cannot be meaningless. Thus, for sin and good to be real, free will must reign. If it does not, then all supposed morality is inert.
Again, trying to argue for the actual reality of “sin” or “righteousness” presumes FREE WILL. If free will does not exist, then neither does sin.
And chew on this: the very existence of the Word of God presumes free will of man. For the word of God can have no practical purpose otherwise. .
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Hi Paul,
Thanks for reading that for me. I realize now that it might not have been clear. That was my first attempt at making the theory cohesive. I’m in the process of really fleshing it out, adding in issues relating to proving the folly of Calvinist “election”, and proving that all of Scripture and our relationship to our Father presumes man’s free will, and that without free will, morality, sin, good, the cross/atonement can’t really exist, period.
That is, the Calvinists would say that “election” is founded upon: that we can recognize good (Christ’s sacrifice), define it, and yet can never, ever choose it because of our depravity. So, in our depravity, somehow we can rightly judge Christ’s sacrifice and define it correctly, but never, ever desire or choose it. Er…what? That makes absolutely no sense.
That is, it is impossible to TRULY and properly define something as good or bad and yet never either desire it or not desire it. Recognizing truth is contingent upon an ability to desire (thus choose) something that is good, or reject something that is bad. This is a fact. Thus, rebelling against the good that you know for a fact is good (what I would say is true sin) implies FREE volition, and thus can be utterly sinful. If you can never choose something…it is contrary to your very powers of perception and description, then that means that you cannot ever define it as it TRULY IS. Thus, EVERYTHING MUST become sin to us (ever heard that? Sure you have…if you’ve been to your local Calvinist church). Well…everything cannot be “sin” if there is no recognizable and definable good that you can see as good and thus freely desire. The OPPOSITE of something cannot exist apart from…well, the opposite. Light cannot exist without dark, up cannot exist without down, right cannot exist without wrong, salvation cannot exist without damnation, and so forth. The existence of one presumes the existence of the other. Thus, you can’t say EVERYTHING is sin…everything means everything…because that makes sin moot, that is nonexistent. The very fact that God’s word declares right and this wrong means that man MUST be able to define it. And if man must be able to truly define the GOOD that God is telling us to do (e.g. accept Christ as your Lord and Savior) then we must be able to DESIRE it (will it), and thus choose it. That is why I say that the mere existence of the Bible presumes that free will must be man’s default position: reason, consciousness, abstract though, etc., etc. If predestination is true, then all of Christianity is folly, for their can be no sin and therefore no salvation. Now, I understand that no matter what we do, it can never meet the standard of a righteous God. But what can? Christ’s atonement. Thus, we desire Him because He can do something that we cannot. But first we MUST recognize it as GOOD, and desire it…that is, salvation. If we can freely and properly define Christ, which is a necessary prerequisite, then we must be able to freely choose Him.
Take Randy’s example of “I would never choose to eat garbage”. He proves my point. RIGHT! Because he can properly and objectively define eating garbage (apart from theoretical circumstances in which one might desire to eat garbage…such as, if I could eat garbage, then I’d never starve) as making one sick and thus being BAD. Conversely, he can choose to eat cake because cake can essentially objectively be defined as (insofar as flavor I mean) being good. So all he is saying is that he can define what is truly bad and decide to never choose it and, conversely, the implication is that he can define what is truly good and decide TO choose it. If he goes against what he KNOWS for whatever reason, and decides to eat garbage, then he can properly be declared a fool and held culpable for his trip to the emergency room. Similarly, if people reject Christ because they love the pleasure of sin more, they can properly be declared fools and culpable for their trip to hell.
What Randy means, and what his example fails to convey, is that Christ, to man, IS as a big pile of garbage that we’d never want to eat. God has to choose Him FOR us, again, because He’s garbage to us…we’d never choose Him because we can never DEFINE Him.. But if we cannot ever choose Christ because we cannot properly define Him–and indeed, the Calvinist position is that ALL good is really seen as garbage, which is why all your good deeds are “shot through with sin” (thanks Ceej!!)–how can man be accountable? He cannot even define it! It has nothing to do with his sinful nature in which he is choosing evil to good, even though he can define both, and thus is utterly rebellious and in need of a Savior. No..it’s NOT nature, it’s merely man’s senses…his perception; his ability to create the proper abstract concept based on what his eyes or ears tell him. It’s not sinful nature, it’s biology. To man, Christ is PERCEIVED as garbage to avoid…and if this is what man really sees and thus bases his judgements upon, how can he be faulted for avoiding something that his very senses tell him is bad any more than we’d fault Randy for avoiding garbage? And thus, if all good is sin, and all our sin is sin, then there really is no sin and no good, for there cannot be one without the other. And there then can be no salvation or damnation, because the very reasons of both, righteousness and sin in the world, are are non-existant, So yes, Calvinism is essentially active (as opposed to passive) nihilism with a gnostic polity I guess you could say.
The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to see how Calvinism just might be one of the most insidious heresies ever perpetrated upon the earth.
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Argo –
Thanks for your answer. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a few more, concentrating on one verse, Gen. 50:20:
“You planned evil against me; God planned it for good to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.”
Would you say that Calvinists would say that 1) “Planned” is meaningless, since man has no power of free choice, and, therefore, can not plan anything; 2) “Evil” is meaningless. Since man can not freely choose, morality is meaningless; not only that, it’s an illusion. 3) You say that either man or God chooses, according to Calvinists. What would follow logically is that, since man did not plan “evil,” God did. But “evil” doesn’t exist because man has no free will, so even God cannot choose something that does not exist. So even God can not choose “good” or “evil” because they don’t exist if man has no free will.
Is this an accurate account of what you believe that Calvinists believe, even if they won’t admit that this is what they really believe? Or, at least, this is the logical result of their premises?
One other question: Do you think that, rightly interpreted, this verse could support both God’s sovereignty and human free will?
Paul –
Thanks for your comment. I’ll have to do some thinking and studying on it.
Still reading “Truth About NC.” I’m a slow reader. There are definitely some disturbing things in it, and you’ve pointed out some things that bothered me but that I never really investigated.
On page 105, you give an endnote no. that has “links to videos…describing Christians as, for all practical purposes, unregenerate.” If Mahaney was talking about believers, then, yes, he was saying that Christians hate God, but there’s no context to tell us whether he was or not. The Piper one is a parody, and the Chandler one makes a distinction between regenerate and unregenerate. If you know of one that says that believers are unregenerate or spiritually dead or dead in their sins, or hate God, etc., I’d like to know of it. Thanks.
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Hi JeffB,
Yes…you are now getting to the very crux of the matter. To deny the existence of free desire/choice is to deny man’s very consciousness; from which all of his abstract thought stems, and from which comes man’s ability to obey God from His very first command “rule and subdue”, followed by “choose this day whom you will serve”, all the way to “take up your cross and follow Me”. Without this consciousness man cannot have any relevance whatsoever, because he has no mind. Man is an utterly redundant entity from the start. The whole of his existence is an exercise in circular logic; ending up at the EXACT place he started. Like I’ve said before, if man is born right where he stays forever (e.g. you are born damned; you are born saved) then all life is a circular existence which means nothing. The worst part is that this makes the Bible and the Cross redundant and meaningless as well; for how can the Bible have any relevance to a man who lacks the very ability it takes to effectually respond to it? The same is said for the cross. Thus, all morality is a myth. We can talk until we are blue in the face about good and evil, but at the end of the day, if you accept the Calvinist doctrine election, good and evil have zero bearing on us. We all just stay right where we are born. So morality is a farce. If man cannot effect his eternal existence, then he can do nothing that is either right or wrong.
From this, the logical extension is that God Himself is meaningless. So, I submit that if free desire/will do not exist, then neither does God. For no God as we define Him could ever possibly make Himself both known and utterly irrelevant at the same time. I submit that such a God simply cannot exist. If election is true, then man’s life is only in service to God proving His own power to Himself. This, for me, equals a God whose sum of Himself is zero. All he does is in service to Himself. I’m not talking about His glory..that is, finding glory and satisfaction in Himself; He’s God, finding glory in Himself is necessary, for to find glory in anything else means He’s not perfect. No, rather I’m talking about all creation existing for the sole purpose of providing God a means to know Himself. This would make God nothing more than a mutually exclusive exercise…a contradiction the sum of which, again, is zero.
In response to your third question (I think I’ve answered the first two already), I would simply say that the premise of your question is false. Like I’ve argued, if man has no free desire/choice, then there is no “evil” to be planned by anyone; you, me, or God. Evil cannot exist in the absence of Good. Good cannot exist in the absence of evil. If all man’s choices are preordained, then how on earth can there by ANY good or evil? If all man’s life is merely a falling of dominoes, then what is this talk of good or evil? Good or evil implies an objective standard! A standard involves recognizing a plumb line, and then understanding what “things” either measure up to it or not. Recognition involves seeing and defining TRUTH! Seeing and defining TRUTH means a consciousness capable of abstract thought. A consciousness such as this implies free desire/will. So the equation is:
TRUTH = the cognitive faculty with the inherent capability of defining TRUTH = man’s consciousness = free will/desire = free TO desire, or free NOT to desire = moral culpability to the standard = a JUST and meaningful Creator of the standard who upholds the standard by being one with the standard (that is, God, by definition, is the “first cause” of EVERYTHING).
No, I did not say that the Calvinists say that either God chooses or man chooses. I am the one saying that. I am saying that it cannot be both; which IS the Calvinist doctrine. They want the Bible to be relevant; they want to say that man is fully culpable for his sin, and yet, they want to preach election. They want to say that man can choose; that he has free will, but he can only will one way, which is like Henry Ford saying “You can have any color you want as long as it’s black.” I’m saying this is a farce, and makes Calvinism a heretical, gnostic false doctrine at it’s core. God is reduced to a contradiction in terms, and Christianity reduced to nihilism by definition. God becomes Man in effect. This is a blasphemy of blasphemies.
Thanks, Jeff
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JeffB,
God is Sovereign PRECISELY BECAUSE of man’s free will. If God has to “elect”, then this implies that, by definition, He cannot be Sovereign. Sovereignty implies that God’s will is done regardless of who is with Him or against Him. THAT is being Sovereign. The “elect” way is merely control. To use a human example: Are you exercising control or sovereignty when you steer your car where you want it to go? Are you exercising control or sovereignty over your life when you effect outcomes of your personal goals and objectives despite all of life’s challenges and struggles?
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Actually, I think the formula is better stated this way:
The existence of TRUTH (remembering that God IS TRUTH) INEVITABLY means:
A cognitive faculty with the inherent capability of defining said TRUTH = man’s consciousness = limitless free will/desire = limitless freedom to choose or not choose as a cognitive process = freedom to ACT insofar as it is either mentally or physically possible; and this also means theoretically = moral culpability to a divine moral standard= a JUST and meaningful Creator of the standard who upholds the standard by being one with the standard (that is, God, by definition, is the “first cause” of EVERYTHING).
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Argo,
Thanks for your extensive answers. Yes, I was incorrect when I said that Calvinists believe that either God or man chooses.
I think I used your premises in my third question. At any rate, you answered it.
I now understand what you mean when you say that God is sovereign precisely because man has free will.
I wonder if you would answer my last question: “Do you think that, rightly interpreted, this verse [Gen. 50:20] could support both God’s sovereignty and human free will?” Maybe it would be put better if the question is: Do you see this verse as genuinely demonstrating God’s sovereignty and human free will, and how they can be compatible?
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Hi Jeff,
Well…I would say yes, understanding that I’ve not gone back and read the verse in context; though, of course I’m familiar with the story. But I would say that the entirety of the Bible is one huge, canonical example of the compatibility between God’s sovereignty and man’s free consciousness (meaning, will/desire, and choice…when I use the term “free will” I mean all three of those things; I guess a better term is “free consciousness”). But, in my second to last post up there, what I was trying to demonstrate is that really, for God to be truly sovereign, man has to have free consciousness. Otherwise, it isn’t sovereignty so much as it is merely control. One might say this is mere semantics, however, if you look at the definition of “sovereign” nowhere is the word “control” used; and nowhere is DIRECT POSSESSION of another one’s consciousness of even remotely implied. The idea of sovereign, like I said, is that God’s will and authority are absolute, not by limiting free consciousness, or “electing” outside of man’s free choice, but in SPITE of them. That is why God is all powerful…not because he has to force, possess, or compel against a will to do the “right” thing (e.g. choose Christ, in our example), but because God’s will is done on earth and heaven despite all who may freely oppose Him.
Like I’ve said in previous posts, the mere existence of the Bible should really be proof enough that man has the rational, free faculties to grasp it’s meaning. I also submit that before Augustine and Plato’s philosophy was merged with Christianity, and Christianity the state, no one ever considered the Calvinist doctrine of “election”…I firmly believe that if you’d brought this idea to Paul, he wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about. Anyway… if God’s Word can truly be acknowledged as good and true, then it follows that it must be able to be freely be desired. Some would argue that man cannot understand God’s word unless God opens his eyes to it…okay, maybe, but then that would imply that man, now that he can understand it can freely desire it, and with that, the implication is that he may not desire it. If man cannot help but desire it once it’s been revealed, then there is no true revelation, it’s just God essentially thinking FOR man and forcing him to believe something against any free choice. This makes God’s Bible redundant and unnecessary because, of course, God doesn’t need to believe in His own Word. Man does. And man cannot truly understand unless he is given the freedom to CHOOSE/DESIRE it, or not. I submit that the ability to rightly define truth cannot be separate from the free ability to desire/choose it. I further submit that this ability is inherent in every human being because it is a product of his or her rational consciousness. The will stems from man’s ability to abstract. Thus, man’s very existence implies that free will must reign If not, then EVERYTHING, including God, is pointless.
Like I said, there is no God, by anyone’s definition, that would make Himself both known in TRUTH, and utterly irrelevant to the one He is revealing Himself to at the same time; which is exactly what He is if one holds to the Calvinist interpretation of “election”.
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