Theological Ramblings

Preemptive Disambiguation

Having looked more in depth at these doctrines over the last year and a half or so, I’ve been surprised by how much variance there is in opinions. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but it appears that there is a great amount of equivocation on all sides. We each seem to have a different definition of what each term means. So in order to make it plain what I’m talking about, I will define what I mean by Unconditional Election:

In my estimation, the doctrine of Unconditional Election states that God, for no other reason than his own sovereign choice, has chosen who among the race of Adam would be saved.

I’ve decided to tackle this one in Thomistic style:

Objection 1

It is not possible for God to elect unconditionally for that would violate the will of man. This is not so much to say that when man chooses on thing, God ignores that choice, but rather that the choice of God makes is so that man doesn’t have a free will at all. But we know that part of being made in the image of God is that man does have a free will. The Calvinist must believe that man has no free will if he would believe that God elects unconditionally.

Objection 2

If God elects some to salvation, he is at the same time electing some to non-salvation, or reprobation, by the very fact that he did not elect them to salvation. This implies that God does not in fact love everyone. In passages such as John 3:16, we are told that God does love everyone, therefore he cannot elect anyone to reprobation for it is an unloving act

Objection 3

If God elects unconditionally, then he must have two wills, for the apostle Paul says to Timothy, ‘(God) desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.’ Either this is his one will or this is one of his wills along with his will of election/reprobation. 1 Timothy 2:4 (quoted above) accords with 2 Peter 3:8-9 and Ezekiel 18:23 in stating God’s will for all men to be saved.

But the prophet Malachi says, “…I the LORD do not change…” For God to have two wills implies that he does change, so God cannot elect unconditionally.

On the contrary

The apostle Paul states in Romans 9:11ff:

[11] though (Jacob and Esau) were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad - in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls -
[12] (Rebecca) was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

I answer that…

Paul makes a clear argument in Romans 9 for the unconditional election of God, even stating at one point, ‘…it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God…’ The context is particularly helpful to our discussion, and I will try to describe it briefly.

In Romans 8, Paul talks about the benefits of being in Christ, and the fact that nothing could separate us from His love. When he gets to Romans 9, he reveals an aching he has in his heart for his ‘kinsmen according to the flesh’ who are ‘accursed and cut off from Christ’. He goes on to explain his angst, which arises from the fact that so many Israelites (his kinsmen) have rejected their Messiah. Indeed the entire corporate entity of Israel seemed to have rejected the Christ - as they still do to this day. Paul was in deep distress over this for a couple reasons.

1. He most likely had relationships with many of the people who are included in this group and wished that these individuals whom he loved would come to Christ
2. More directly from the text, the situation makes it appear that God’s word of promise to Israel had failed!

So to answer the dilemma, Paul shows us two Old Testament examples of when the promise of God was given to someone based on the choice of God rather than on any merit in the person. So Paul makes two points.

1. Isaac and Ishmael. God promised Abraham that he would be made a great nation and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars, but this promise was not fulfilled through Abraham’s first son (Ishmael), but rather through the one who God chose - Isaac.
2. Jacob and Esau. Because one might point out several differences between Isaac and Ishmael that would make Isaac a more desirable heir of the promise than Ishmael, Paul further explains himself by using the example of Jacob and Esau, who had no such distinctions between them. God simply chose Jacob over Esau.

Paul uses these illustrations to show that throughout the entire course of redemptive history, God has always been the one to choose who would receive the benefit of the covenant. God has always been the initiator, the actor, and the one who chose who would be given the promise. I have heard it said that God went around to all the nations of the world in the ancient times offering to make them his people, but nobody accepted until he got to Abram. Aside from this being blatant eisegesis (there are exactly 0 verses talking about this in the Bible), it simply is not true that when God got to Abram that Abram was so responsive. Yes Abram is commended for his faith, but if you go back and read the story, God really had to wake Abram up to get him to follow. God told him to pick up and leave, and he kinda did, but you find out later that Abram is still living with his father’s people - not exactly the get up and go type. You see Abrams lack of faith come out when he goes to Egypt, and later when he sleeps with Hagar (how horrible!1). So we don’t really see the kind of behavior in Abram that we would expect if my opponents are correct in this regard. (can you tell it’s an election year and I’ve been listening to talk radio?)

Anyway, all of this is to make Paul’s point that though we may think we know who the heirs of God’s promise is (Romans 9: ethnic Israel), it is ultimately up to God’s choice.

Romans 9:15-16
[15] For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
[16] So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

Now the reason I believe this to be neither simply a hypothetical, nor an example of God electing nations to historical tasks rather than individuals to salvation, is because neither gives any answer to Paul’s original question. Paul is concerned with specific, real, individual, eternal salvation. An answer about general, hypothetical, corporate, historical roles does nothing to deal with his problem. Now at this point, I reach the end of my ability to fully explain this, but if you want more information consult John Piper’s book, The Justification of God, which examines this exact question from this exact passage and considers the historical hermeneutical approach, as well as the context & language of the passage itself. Allow me just to give you an exerpt:

It is a remarkable and telling phenomenon that those who find no individual predestination to eternal life in Romans 9:6-13 cannot successfully explain the thread of Paul’s argument as it begins in Romans 9:1-5 and continues through the chapter. One looks in vain, for example, among these commentators for a cogent statement of how the corporate election of two peoples (Israel and Edom) in Romans 9:12,13 fits together in Paul’s argument with the statement, ‘Not all those from Israel are Israel’ (9:6b). One also looks in vain for an explanation of how the pressing problem of eternally condemned Israelites in Rom 9:3 is ameliorated by Rom 9:6-13 if these verses refer ‘not to salvation but to position and historical task.’

As generally seems to be the case, I find Piper’s argument here quite compelling. (Are you ready to label me a Piperite?)

Response to Objection 1

For the sake of this point I’m going to make an analogy. You can argue with me on the validity of this analogy later, but for the sake of my point at least humor me. The United States of America is a “free nation”. Founding father Patrick Henry is quoted as saying, “Give me liberty or give me death!”2, expressing his desire for the new nation they were forging to be a free land. Because of their efforts, citizens of the USA enjoy freedom. The Bill of Rights which make up the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution lay out certain freedoms that are guaranteed to the citizens of the land.

But despite the fact that a citizen of the States enjoys this freedom, he is not free to walk down the street, break in a window and take a television that does not belong to him. He certainly possess the physical capacity to perform the action, but he would not be well advised to appear before the judge with his chief defense being, “But this is a free country!” unless he wants the bailiff to have trouble containing his laughter as he cuffs him and takes him to prison.

My point is this. It is the natural state of man to be ruled by another who is sovereign over him. Even within this context of rule, he is likely to be given freedom, but it is always subject to the sovereignty of his lord. Man in general as a race is subject to God, his Lord, regardless of whether the individual human lives in rebellion or submission to this rule. So God’s sovereign choice in no wise precludes our having a free will, but it shows a way in which our free will comes under subjection to God’s rule.

Is this a flawed analogy? I don’t know. Certainly it is flawed in regard to the fact that the United States is a government, ‘of the people, by the people and for the people,’ whereas God is the King who is of himself, by himself and for himself, so if anything, the freedoms of an American citizen are less restricted by the government, than man’s freedom is limited by God.

I do not contend as many ‘hardcore’ or ‘hyper’ Calvinists do (and supposedly Calvin himself) that man does not have free will. I simply deny that this free will is unbound by the sovereignty of God. I do not see this as a contradiction. There are certain things that are not given to us to be free and sovereign over. I plan to write an article on here (could be my next one) on man’s free will. What is it? How did we get it? Why do we have it? What is its extent/nature? For now, I point out that God is free and sovereign, and I offer the following two Piper quotes3 as a description of this freedom and sovereignty:

God is self-sufficient. He doesn’t have any needs so he can’t be bribed. He doesn’t have any flaws, and so he can’t be blackmailed. He doesn’t have any weaknesses so he can’t be coerced. You can’t get his arm behind is back and make him to do a thing he doesn’t want to do. He is free! “Our God is in the heavens, he does whatever he pleases.” Psalm 115:3

If God does not elect unconditionally, then he would not be free, he would not be sovereign and he would not be glorious. Not free because then men in their own self determining power would determine their own election and he would be eternally bound by their choice; not sovereign because he would be thwarted over and over again by these self determining creatures and not glorious because his divine freedom and sovereignty is the essence of his glory and grace.

Response to Objection 2

Response 1 is as much an argument from silence as the objection itself. That is to say, the objector cannot prove that reprobation is not a loving act. Who is to say that in the case of the individuals whom God elects to reprobation it isn’t the most loving thing God can do to reprobate them? I am not the one who is willing to limit God! It will not be I who says to God, “In order for you to love man, myself included, you have to treat us in this certain way.

I feel obliged at this point to put forth my opinion regarding the love of God. Let me ask a question: who is the primary object of God’s love? My answer: it is God. God’s primary love is himself. So whatever he does has to accord with his love for himself. He loves man not because man is anything special, but because God created man with his image. It is his own image in man that God loves. Is it impossible for that image to be so marred or distorted that God hates the individual for what he has done to God’s image - as a function of God’s love for himself? But isn’t this selfish on God’s part? Why of course. But God is the one being for whom self-centeredness makes sense, because for God, self-centeredness is God-centeredness.

Response 2 is to point us back to our passage in Romans 9:13 where Paul says, “As it is written, ‘Jacob I have loved, but Esau I hated.’” What does this mean if not that God hated Esau?

The obvious answer would be that it is referring to the nation of Edom, rather than Esau individually, but remember our earlier discussion on this same issue. We are still in the context of Paul talking about the individual salvation of Israelites. It doesn’t make sense for him to talk only on a national level. Does this prove that God can hate? I don’t know. Does this make it plausible? I don’t know. But it certainly pokes holes in the objection.

Of course, a second answer would be that he loved Esau less. But read Malachi 1 where God’s hatred of Esau (based not on Esau, but on God’s choice) leads him to run Esau’s nation (Edom) into the ground. Again the question remains, nation or person? I leave that one open for you to ponder. I have no idea.

Response to Objection 3

At this point I am compelled to admit that the point raised by this objection is accurate. If indeed God wills all men to be saved (1 Tim 2:4) while at the same time electing some to salvation and others to reprobation, this appears to be God having two wills. I will also grant that this very strongly implies complexity and change within God - two things that are impossible. I will attempt to show, however, that this is one of those cases where God is so far beyond us that the way we experience him appears to be one thing, when the truth is entirely different. I mean this in the same way I mean that we experience God within the context of time. We experience him sequentially, incrementally, and temporally. This seems to mean that God exists within time, which could not be further from the truth. God is asynchronous! He is not bound by time. He is not linear. He is indeed not restricted to our timeline. In fact simplicity would state that God acts once and eternally. The very term eternity, in fact, is really only one that can be use for God’s state of existence. Eternity differs from the term ‘everlasting’. Everlasting means ‘as long as time is’, while eternal means ‘not bound by time’.

At any rate, I believe this experiencing two wills of God to really be us experiencing his one will in ways that make it appear that he has two wills. Here’s how I came to this conclusion. I read John Piper’s article about this question of whether God has two wills. I didn’t read the whole thing. I only got as far as him giving examples from the Bible of when it appears God does have two wills before I came up on my answer to this problem. Keep in mind that this is still a very complex problem, and that I do not intend to fully explain it nor fully answer the objection. But I think I can at least answer the initial concern.

Of all the examples Piper gives, I will mention two. The first is the crucifixion of Christ. Obviously it was the will of God for Christ to suffer and die. But in order for this to happen, men had to commit sinful acts, which dishonored God - something contrary to his will. Here it appears that God disapproves of something that He ordains to happen! If that’s not the appearance of two wills, I don’t know what is!

The second example is Pharaoh. This is the one that I want to camp on, mostly because it actually ties back into Romans 9. Piper points out that God had Moses tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go - meaning that it was God’s will for Pharaoh to obey. It was God’s command to Pharaoh. But if we check back earlier (in Exodus 4) we notice that God tells Moses that he will harden Pharaoh’s heart. Piper says, “…God commands that Pharaoh do a thing which God himself wills not to allow.” Again, this appears very strongly to be two wills in God.

At this point I pause to emphasize this point. I grant that God is simple, and that he does not change, and therefore cannot have two wills that contradict. That being the case, this passage, the fact of the crucifixion, the fact of God’s will toward all men for salvation while also his election, and other examples Piper mentions all seem to indicate a dual will within God. This is what is called a contradiction. God is not the author of contradiction. Systematic theology is the task of taking seeming contradictions and reconciling them to figure out how they really work. So we must figure out how this works out. Because while I concede your point, you must also concede mine, that it at least appears he has two wills.

How do I reconcile this? Please note that at this point, I’m not talking about Piper’s article. I have no idea what he said after stating the fact of Pharaoh’s hardened heart. The rest of this response is my own thought process, so if you check out the Piper article and he said something different, don’t think that I’m misquoting him. But what do I do with this? How can God be simple and have two wills? How? Romans 9:17

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, ‘For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’

In other words, what Paul is saying here is that the ‘very purpose’ (singular; one will) that God had in all of his dealings with Pharaoh (where it appears he had two wills) was to show his own power. I use this as my prototype for all other of these situations to say that they are simply our experience of a simple God within our complex circumstances. It’s like when the eternal God relates to us within time even though he exists outside of time.

So what could possibly be his purpose behind willing all to be saved, and yet also only electing some to salvation and others to reprobation? At this point I am forced to speculate for it is my only recourse. God has chosen not to reveal details of this purpose. I do know that it is ‘his purpose of election’ (whatever that means). I also know that it could likely be, ‘that I might show my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’? That sounds good enough to me. But how that works out; Why that is just; why it is simple? The details escape me.

I like to think of it this way. God must be known for who he is. So he must be known as merciful and forgiving, while at the same time being known as just and vengeful. So he cannot leave it open for all men to actually be saved - though he is certainly compassionate toward all men. He elects some to salvation in order to show his mercy and forgiveness and some to reprobation in order that he might show his justice and vengeance. For God fulfills his promises, and if no one were ever reprobate, then God’s promises to punish wrongdoers (all throughout the Psalms) would be worthless hogwash. The purpose behind all of this - the one will - is his ‘purpose of election’ (or ‘purpose that accords with election’) which is that his power might be shown and his name proclaimed throughout the earth.

Is that the right answer? You tell me. I haven’t the foggiest idea. It’s probably wrong in at least one way. I’m just a blind guy groping at an elephant. But at least it makes some sense to me. I think its as far as God has permitted me to go for now. It may be that I will mature in my thinking one day so that I can understand this better. Until then I simply accept what the Word of God says on faith.

The bottom line is: any time it appears that God has two wills - especially when they are contradictory - we have our focus in the wrong place. There’s got to be something deeper behind it that motivates his action so that within our finite context it appears that he has two wills, but he really is doing both things in order to carry out his greater will. I guess it’s sort of Machiavellian? But that’s the best I can explain it right now.

Conclusion

God does elect unconditionally. And it’s a great thing too. I’m thoroughly glad that my salvation is not up to my own will, because even now after having begun my life of faith, my will still wars against God. If salvation were up to my will, I’d be hopeless - as would everyone else. I am eternally thankful that God elected me, and I’m humbled by the fact that it has nothing to do with me at all, but that it was his choice. After all he created me.

What about evangelism? If God has already elected unconditionally who would be saved, why should we evangelize? After all our efforts to evangelize the reprobate would be foolish, wouldn’t it? No! Of course not!

The first reason is that God’s word does not return void. Now many evangelicals take this to mean that if you preach the gospel to someone they will one day be saved because they heard God’s word. I tend to disagree with this. I think that promise simply means that God never fails to successfully use his word for his purpose: whether this is for regeneration or hardening.

The second reason is that we don’t know who the elect are! How do I know if the guy next to me is elect or not? I have no clue! So why not try to witness to him. After all even if election weren’t true, I still wouldn’t know if he would be willing to accept. It’s the same excuse both ways. That’s what it is: an excuse

The third reason is that we evangelize primarily out of obedience and service to Christ - not as a means to notch our belt with converts! God has chosen to use us as his vessels to show his gospel to the world. As his vessels we need to fulfill our duty to take the word out. It’s a matter of obedience.

Notes:

1. I sincerely apologize for the despicable pun. If you know me well at all, you know that I simply could not possibly resist.
2. …and sometimes misquoted, “Give me ambiguity or give me something else”
3. from his sermons The Pleasures of God in Election and Unconditional Election and the Invincible Purpose of God, respectively. The versions I have posted here are paraphrases of how they were spoken by him in the mp3 podcasts of the sermons. The transcript you will find at the website is worded differently, no doubt because he wrote it as his notes for the sermon. Anyone who has done this knows that what you wrote and what you said are rarely the same thing.