Theological Ramblings

This has been a long time in the making! Remember last time I talked about what I don’t believe regarding Calvinism? I said that it appears people think I believe that when someone comes to Christ, God must first make sure they are on the “Election List” before accepting their faith/repentance. I refuted this saying it’s not what I believe. Anyone who comes to Christ truly will be saved. This is not to say that everyone who comes is saved, for Christ Himself said there will be those who call on Him in vain. No, only those who come to Him truly will be saved.

So the question, then remains, what do I believe? If God does indeed save anyone who comes to Him, why do I believe Calvinism? Doesn’t Calvin teach that only those whom God has chosen will be saved? If you’re asking these questions, then good. I think you are starting to discover the nature of the problem. Many people reject Calvin on these grounds, and they do so to their detriment because they reflect misunderstandings about what Calvinism is. The short answer to the question is that nobody who is not already on the “Election List” will come to Christ. They cannot, for they are not elect.

So what is Calvinism? I shall start broadly and then drill down. Eventually I’m going to get to where I’ll discuss each TULIP point more in depth (in fact each one will probably be its own post) but right now I just want to talk about this thing called “election” first.

Many people think that Election is synonymous with Predestination, and I can see how they might make that error, but it is indeed an error. I hope to show this as I discuss Ephesians 1 and Romans 8.

Now it would, of course, be a fairly daunting task to discuss the entirety of these two chapters in this post, for they are both very rich chapters full of many deep Theological Truths. So I’ve decided to narrow in on the parts that most influence our discussion.

I begin with Ephesians 1:3

[3] Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
[4] even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
[5] he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,
[6] to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.
[7] In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
[8] which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
[9] making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ
[10] as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
[11] In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
[12] so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
[13] In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
[14] who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Yes, this is rather long, but you get a bit of a flow from it. Paul’s sort of listing the things God in his grace has done for us. The very first thing He mentions is that God “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” This right here is unavoidable and was the very first Scriptural quotation that made me consider Calvinism. If this is true, it has to be something at least similar to what Calvin calls “election”. Notice three things:

1) God chose us. How? What exactly does this mean? I don’t think anyone knows for sure. All we can do is guestimate, but we do know that in some way or form God chose us. I think I’ll explain a little more later, if you can get some sort of idea.

2) This choice happened before the foundation of the world. Now, we of course know that God exists outside of time and remains unbound by it, but for the purposes of understanding our perspective, God’s choice of us was performed before creation!

3) This choice happens before verse 5, in which we see God’s action in predestination - which is why I believe God’s election is truly separate from predestination.

So, in order to understand this a little better, I decided to go over to Romans 8:29-30.

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Now, this passage is often used as a defeat of Reformed Calvinism in favor of the Evangelical (or four point) Calvinism. They use it to say that, “Yes there is this thing called election, but it happens that God looked forward to see who would choose Him, and then chose them in turn”. I shall offer two arguments as to why I believe this to be nonsense.

The first is found in the Greek. The Greek word for “foreknowledge” here is “proginosko“. That is to say “pro” - before and “ginosko” knowledge, but there are two kinds of knowledge in Greek. There is the ginosko we have here and there is eiko. English falls far short in explaining this to us because we have one verb for knowledge “to know” and we must use it to translate both, so we have to do some explaining.

Eiko is a sort of observed knowledge. It’s the knowledge of seeing. It’s is similar to saber in Spanish or savoir in French. This is the kind of knowledge one has of a fact, which comes from observation. In French, if I said, “Je sais mathematique,” I am saying that I know Math. However it would not make sense for me to say, “Je sais ma femme”. I don’t know my wife in that way because she is not a fact for me to comprehend or understand. She is a person for me to experience. And that right there is probably the best direct translation for ginosko - experience.

Ginosko is experiential knowledge. It’s similar to conocer in Spanish and connaître in French. It’s the kind of knowledge gained not from observation but from relationship. I don’t savoir my wife, I connaître her. This kind of knowledge can only come through action, it’s almost kinesthetic. Thus we can see a very large flaw in the Evangelical argument.

The Four-Point position on this is that God looks into His crystal ball and asks it to show Him those who will believe one day so He can chose them. However, that would be a savoir kind of foreknowledge. He would be observing a factual list of people who will be saved, and the verb here would be proeiko. But the verb here is not proeiko. It is proginosko, which suggests that God did not choose people who were on a list He observed, but instead God participated in some form of relationship with this person and the result of that relationship is the mark that God has chosen some of us.

What is this relationship? I believe it is when God created us - not physically, but spiritually. It is when God wrote that DNA He made for us. The exact moment that God designed who we were was when He chose us according to His electing purpose.

Now, there may be a question swimming through your mind. That’s this: “Didn’t God create everyone? And if He did, didn’t He have equal opportunity to chose each one? And if He did, wouldn’t His passing over those He did not choose be a deliberate choice not to choose them?” In short your question is, “Are you saying you believe in reprobation?”

Now before I answer, I believe this question to be a trap. It’s meant to be some sort of last ditch appeal to our human sensibilities. After all we can’t conceive of a God that would be so cold-hearted as to do a thing called reprobation. That would make Him inhumane! But there lies the rub! God is not humane, for He is not human! This whole argument or question rises out of the logical fallacy of trying to define God by our own terms.

So the answer to your question is yes. I believe it impossible to believe in election without also believing in reprobation for they are logical foils. You cannot have one without the other. It’s like trying to believe in a concept of good without a concept of bad. And since I believe election to be taught in the Bible, I must believe in reprobation as it logically follows, and any human revolt to it must be tempered by Job-like silence. Let us not speak to soon!

My second argument against the Evangelical understanding of foreknowledge - the crystal ball approach, is quite simply that if God’s choice of us was compelled by our choice of Him, then His choice would in no way be a choice! The very idea of the word choose involves freedom.

Now of course I see the objections coming! “By Mike, don’t we have free will?” Yes! Of course we have free will. But I ask you, who’s will and who’s freedom is more important? Ours or God’s? You see in my thinking on this issue it comes down to a transaction between two parties and one party is influencing in some degree the others decision - though both have at least some measure of freedom in the transaction. But which makes more sense: for man do be so strong willed as to influence God’s decision, or for God to be strong willed enough to influence man’s decision?

Besides, what’s the need of predestination (step two of this process, which I believe I have yet to define) if we are strong willed enough to choose God on our own? Predestination is that act of God in which He sets up the dominoes, so to speak, so that they fall in such a way that they provide us the means, opportunity and motive to be saved. But again, this is a paradox if God is looking into the future as though He didn’t already know what was going to happen.

It’s like Kasparov - a Russian chess player who is considered by many to be the best in the world, and by some even the best ever. When playing against Kasparov, one finds himself completely at the will of him. He can anticipate every move you make, and force you into corners, or into making bad moves. This does not mean that he literally takes your pieces or moves them for you. Nor does he say “Move this piece now-” neither as a means of deception “-trust me it’ll work” nor by coercion “-or else”. He simply plays his pieces in such a way that you in your free will make the moves he intends you to make. Now this happens because Kasparov is such a more powerful chess player than you. You may think yourself great, but upon meeting him, you realize how much of a schlep you really are. Did he compromise your free will in the game at all? Not one bit! But did he get you to do what he wanted you to do? Of course!

I see it somewhat like this. Not necessarily that God is trying to compete against us or beat us at a game… but then again maybe He is. C.S. Lewis describes the state of man as being a rebel soldier. So using that imagery, God is fighting against us. And again, Lewis describes repentance as the point at which we lay down our arms, admit to being on the wrong side and change. So in this sense, God is warring against our rebellious nature, attempting to get us to lay down our arms. Now for those whom He has chosen to do so, He possesses so much more power than Kasparov to maneuver us into such a corner that it will be obvious to us that we should - in our free will - choose to lay down our arms.

So I ask you, who’s the better chess player - you or God?

Now, for a preview of my next post, I’m going to try to explain what I believe are the chief maneuvers in God’s chess match against our rebellious nature. The crux will be found in 2 Corinthians 4:1-7 if you would like to study ahead, and think upon the doctrine of “Enlightenment”. Here’s a question you can answer: “How much am I able to know of God and understand about Him and His ways apart from His assistance?”

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