Justin Taylor yesterday at The Gospel Coalition offered some comments about the issue of “angry Calvinists.” It may be due to the fact that I am not plugged in with any particular inner circle of blogs or online ministries or what have you but quite frankly I was not aware that there exists an issue of angry Calvinists. Either that or the term “angry” may be less than accurate, such that the issue is more about Calvinists who are aggressive or insensitive in their passion for the doctrines of grace—in which case the stereotype as such is an inaccurate caricature. And I think that Taylor could probably agree that it is more about being aggressive or insensitive than it is about being angry, for he invokes terms like “mocking, rude, sarcastic, and nasty,” which is not necessarily from anger but is certainly aggressive and insensitive.

Now, he suggests that one will see this sort of attitude from people of varying traditions in the posts and comments area of blogs that discuss issues of theological significance or “ultimate things”—and we have certainly witnessed that here—but he almost seems to imply that this is a tempting excuse, a feeble tu quoque fallacy, and spends the rest of the article offering suggestions for how Calvinists can not only own up to this problem but also how to be self-conscious about it and correct it. I am particularly drawn to the thoughts shared by Joe Thorn in his interview with Ed Stetzer on that point.

And I am certainly not denying that this perception exists out there, nor even the reality that the inaccurate caricature draws upon. Just last week several of us from church met at the beach for fellowship late Sunday afternoon and joining us were some people from another local Baptist church, including their new pastor. Someone pointed to the book that I had with me—James White, The Sovereign Grace of God—and asked that pastor what he thought of the author. (A strange question when removed from its original context but it was relevant to preexisting conversation.) He said that although he really appreciates the doctrines that White firmly believes and defends he did not really care for the aggressive and combative personality White has. And that is something I have heard more than once so I cannot deny that this perception exists.

But I have to go back to Taylor’s implication that this problem is not at all unique to Calvinists—as anyone who is a Calvinist can invariably attest! There are so many examples I could draw upon to make this point, but what better example could I use than my own self? When I was converted to Christianity it was upon hearing for the first time the gospel of Christ presented to me by a gentleman whose anti-Calvinism would later rub off on me. Through our doctrinal studies he had me convinced that Calvinism was practically blasphemous, and for years I had that attitude. And in those rare occasions when I would confront a Calvinist I was very harsh about the teaching. Aggressive, insensitive, nasty; these words were applicable. That is how I treated Calvinists and their doctrines for many years. So I can well attest that this problem is by no means unique to Calvinists. And even now, holding to Reformed theology as I do, I get confronted by people who have the same attitude I once did, getting called all sorts of rather unpleasant things (to put it lightly).

I do agree that Calvinists need to own up to their failings and strive to be self-conscious about them and work to correct them—but it is not just Calvinists, as those people who are rigorously anti-Calvinist routinely demonstrate, just as I once did too. This is a problem that anyone who is part of the family of God needs to address in their own lives, if and where applicable. I think Thorn’s final remarks bear repeating, and with a note that it should apply to all Christians:

Anger is sometimes very appropriate. We see that in the prophets and Apostles, and even in Jesus. But when dealing with brothers and sisters in Christ it’s important to do more than “set the record straight,” or prove one wrong and point to the truth. We need to do that, but we need to do it in a way that bears fruit, and biblically that means doing such work carefully. Sometimes it does mean we need to drop bombs, but more often it means we need to sit down with a brother (literally or figuratively) and reason with him. … [There are people who] need some counsel on being more gracious, humble, and gentle. We all do. At the very least, we all need to learn to be better teachers and physicians of the soul when it comes to correcting each other.

———-

• Justin Taylor, “The problem of ‘angry Calvinists,” The Gospel Coalition (2011, September 16).
  http://thegospelcoalition.org
• Ed Stetzer, “Joe Thorn and angry (fake) Calvinists,” The LifeWay Research Blog (2011, September 14).
  http://www.edstetzer.com
• John Piper, “Why are Calvinists so negative?” DesiringGod (2008, May 21).
  http://www.desiringgod.org

In the comments section of Fisher’s post John Calvin on Fatalism, the conversation seemed to have found its way to 1 Tim 2:4. And since this verse seems to generate a lot of debate these days, at least from my perspective, I thought it would be a good idea to explore 1 Tim 2:4 a little bit more thoroughly.

1 Tim 2:3-4 “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth”

The key part is “who will have all men to be saved” (KJV). Other versions state it as “who desires all men to be saved” (NASB) and “who wants all men to be saved” (NIV) but it essentially means the same thing.

The first thing we need to do is look at the context of this verse. According to John MacArthur (from whom I’m getting this explanation), this verse falls in the middle of a section of scripture addressing Evangelistic Prayer (verses 1 through 8). So given the context of this section, we should remember that Paul is addressing how we, as believers, should be praying for the lost to be saved as this lines up with Gods desire. It is Gods desire that all be saved so therefore it should also be our desire that all be saved.

The full explanation can be found here, but I just want to look at the words will, desire and want as used in verse 4 of the various english translations. In each case we find it has been translated from the Greek word “thelo” into will, desire, or want. Now, working back to the Greek from will (KJV). There are two basic Greek words for will and they are “thelo” and “boulomai”. So what does each of these words mean? “Thelo” reflects the will of desire springing from feeling and inclination while “boulomai” speaks of a will that comes from precise determination.

So the will/desire/want used in 1 Tim 2:4 is not the will/desire/want in the “boulomai” sense; that God has precisely determined the salvation of all men. It is not a sovereignly ordained fact that everyone is going to be saved. 1 Tim 2:4 is not talking about that kind of will but that of “thelo” which is the word used in the original Greek text.

It’s not simply a “What God wants he gets” in some sort of universalistic salvation or that we have some sort of impotent God who is unable to fulfil His will. There’s a distinction between God’s sovereign will and His moral will.

To put it another way, we would all agree without equivocation that God does not desire people to sin. Could we agree with that? We do not believe that God desires people to do evil, to sin, to be disobedient, to be unholy, to fail to give Him glory. No, we would all agree with that. In fact the spectrum of evangelical theology would agree to that. We know God desires men not to sin. We do not for a moment advocate anything different than that. So turn the table a bit. Would we would all agree then that God desires all men to be holy? No one would argue against that, right? God desires all men to be righteous. God desires all men to be sinless. God desires all men to give Him glory and give Him honour and give Him respect. God desires all men to be obedient. I mean, He commands men over and over and over and over to be obedient. He calls for righteousness. He calls for holiness. He calls for sinlessness. He calls for everyone on the face of the earth to give Him honour and give Him glory. He calls for all men everywhere to repent. Nobody debates that. We all know God wants men to be holy.

Therefore, we conclude that people sin though God does not want them to. That’s obvious. People are unholy though God does not want them that way. People do not give God glory though God does not want them not to give Him glory. Then why is it such a hard thing for some people to realise that people also go to hell though God does not want them to? God wants all men to be saved. That is the desire of God.

Men sin and they go to hell, not because it is God’s express sovereign purpose for them. They go to hell because they denied God’s moral will for their life. He calls them to repent. He calls them to be saved. If anyone goes to hell, they go there not because of the predetermined choice of God, but because of the rejection of Jesus Christ. That’s what He’s saying. He wants all men saved.

In the exact words of John MacArthur;

I believe in the sovereignty of God, I believe in election, I believe in predestination, beloved, I also believe that God wills men to be saved and by their choice they are not saved and that is their responsibility not God’s. And if you ask me how those two things harmonize, I say I’ll tell you our first day in heaven, I’ll explain the whole thing. But I know this, God has a broken heart because He desires salvation from the ends of the earth, why else would Jesus weep over Jerusalem. “O how often I would, I willed to gather you together but you would not.” He said that. You wouldn’t do it. Why will you die? Why will you reject?

So in tying this with the challenge in the comments of Fishers post, I believe the will of God espoused by John Calvin, Ryft and Fisher with regard to the issue of choice, election and predestination is the will of “boulomai.” It is not the will of “thelo” that we find in 1 Tim 2:4.

One of the most common accusation that is hurled by Arminians and other non-Calvinists against Reformed theology is that it promotes fatalism. It is not uncommon to hear an Arminian charge that we teach that God “hinders people from coming to repentance when they really want to” and that believers are “forced to love God.”[1] Of course, nobody who actually knows what the doctrines of grace entail would actually make such statements. The Bible is clear enough on how people become saved: Men are by nature sinful and in rebellion against God (Genesis 6:5, 8:21, Psalm 51:5, Jeremiah 17:9), and are rendered incapable of even desiring to come to Him because of this inclination (John 6:44, 65, Romans 3:10-12, 8:5-8), which is why it is necessary for Him to change their hearts and minds (Ezekiel 36:25-27). It is only after this change of heart takes places that a person becomes willing to come to Christ.

That being said, statements such as “whosoever will may come” are totally compatible with a Reformed understanding of salvation. In fact, John Calvin himself made a statement similar to this in his commentaries. He writes:

Therefore, forasmuch as no man is excluded from calling upon God, the gate of salvation is set open unto all men; neither is there any other thing which keepeth us back from entering in, save only our own unbelief. I speak of all unto whom God doth make himself manifest by the gospel. But like as those which call upon the name of the Lord are sure of salvation, so we must think that, without the same, we are thrice miserable and undone. And when as our salvation is placed in calling upon God, there is nothing in the mean season taken from faith, forasmuch as this invocation is grounded on faith alone.[2]

Not only this, but he refutes the very idea of fatalism. In his Institutes, he points out that the belief that people are forced by necessity to worship God is a heathenistic doctrine that has nothing to do with Christianity in any way:

To this fault they [i.e. the heathen] add a second—viz. that when they do think of God it is against their will; never approaching him without being dragged into his presence, and when there, instead of the voluntary fear flowing from reverence of the divine majesty, feeling only that forced and servile fear which divine Judgment extorts Judgment which, from the impossibility of escape, they are compelled to dread, but which, while they dread, they at the same time also hate. To impiety, and to it alone, the saying of Statius properly applies: “Fear first brought gods into the world,” (Theb. lib. 1).[3]

When one takes the time to study the writings of Reformed theologians, one will quickly find that there is nothing fatalistic about the doctrines that are being propounded. Nobody should ever accuse the doctrine of predestination with fatalism, for the simple reason that the former is accomplished according to God’s eternal purposes and takes into account the man’s will and responsibility, whereas the latter teaches that whatever men become happen simply by virtue of blind, purposeless chance, and that their wills and desires are ultimately irrelevant, if not non-existent. Loraine Boettner said it best in his section on fatalism in The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, so I shall end this note with a quote from there:

According to the doctrine of Predestination the freedom and responsibility of man are fully preserved. In the midst of certainty God has ordained human liberty. But Fatalism allows no power of choice, no self-determination. It makes the acts of man to be as utterly beyond his control as are the laws of nature. Fatalism, with its idea of irresistable, impersonal, abstract power, has no room for moral ideas, while Predestination makes these the rule of action for God and man. Fatalism has no place for and offers no incentives to religion, love, mercy, holiness, justice, or wisdom, while Predestination gives these the strongest conceivable basis. And lastly, Fatalism leads to skepticism and despair, while Predestination sets forth the glories of God and of His kingdom in all their splendor and gives an assurance which nothing can shake.[4]

End Notes

1. These are, of course, statements that I have personally heard from Arminians at some point or another, so I can personally testify that these accusations are regularly hurled against Calvinists.
2. Calvin, John. Commentary on Acts – Volume 1. 2:14-21. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom36.ix.iii.html.
3. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. I:4:4. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.iii.v.html.
4. Boettner, Loraine. The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. III:1. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/boettner/predest.v.i.html.

See Also

• Fisher – Refuting Lou Ruggiero on Calvinism

I have just recently finished my one year program at Toronto Baptist Seminary, and I’ve produced four essays for four different courses that I thought would be a good idea to publish online because of their value in Theology and Apologetics. I hope people find these articles useful in helping to better explain the issues at hand.

• The Christian Doctrine of God Explained and Defended for Muslims
• Contrasting Christian and Muslim Views on the Female Gender
• The Divine Logos: The Christology of the Gospel of John
• He Will Save His People: A Case for Particular Redemption

I just finished listening to this video of Bruce Ware laying out the problems with Arminianism’s view of libertarian free will and presenting a positive biblical case for Calvinistic Compatibilism. He argues his case with clarity and persuasion, and I think everybody should take a listen.

I had a Facebook conversation with a friend of a friend, Sylwia, a while back and I thought I would share it with you. As you can see, the conversation focused mainly on love and salvation with us coming to the conclusion at the end that we are talking about different Gods. I’ll leave it up to you to decide for yourselves who you think has a more accurate portrait of the one true God.

Ashleigh: Just saw some crazy Christian guy on a street corner, yelling at people about Jesus and sin. I understand having faith – I do too and I’m thankful that Jesus died for me and my sin, but you shouldn’t yell at people who don’t and tell them they’re going to hell. It’s not really the right way to go about it..

This guy wasn’t being gentle at all. And there were 2 guys with him, holding signs and one of them actually said God HATES drunks and homosexuals. It wasn’t getting a good response from the crowd

Sylwia: God loves drunks and homosexuals the people themselves, but not the action of sin. Makes me so annoyed that people miss the point, and then others think because of it that the message contradicts itself…. Hate doesn’t make other people love, only loving others despite their failings can do that :)

Ashleigh: That’s right! It’s not a Christian’s job to judge, so I think people like that should just shut up because they make the rest of us look bad

Sylwia: Exactly :)

Adam: I thought that’s what Jesus and his apostles did…went to various town and addressed the crowds. The language used may have been different but there was still condemnation of sinners. Jesus turned almost everyone off due to his witness to the truth. Read the rest of this entry

An associate of mine, who goes by the pseudonym Noc Nocterro, recently notified me and some others about an article he had published over at UrbanPhilosophy.net called “Love Knows No Gender.” The aim of the article was “a comprehensive analysis on the debate over the moral permissibility of homosexual behaviour,” in which he argues that homosexual activity is morally permissible when it is similar in circumstances to heterosexual activity that is morally permissible. I will leave it to Mathew Hamilton to address the sociological arguments when he returns from his sabbatical. My purpose in this response is to evaluate whether or not the arguments Nocterro presents withstand critical scrutiny. And his basic argument reasons in this way:

Premise 1: In cases where the good-making properties of a behaviour are much greater than the bad-making properties, then that behaviour is prima facie morally permissible.

Premise 2: There is a subset of homosexual sexual relationships where the good-making properties are much greater than the bad-making properties.

Premise 3: There is a subset of homosexual sexual relationships that are prima facie morally permissible.

Premise 4: If there is a prima facie support for the permissibility of some-thing, and there are no good reasons to support its impermissibility, then it should be deemed permissible.

Premise 5: There are no good reasons to suppose this subset of homosexual sexual relationships are impermissible.

Conclusion: This subset of homosexual sexual relationships is permissible.

Read the rest of this entry

For those who are not familiar with Louis Ruggiero, he runs an apologetics website called the King Messiah Project. He is quite Arminian in his theology, and has been charged by some of being a Pelagian (although he denies this charge). He is known primarily for his diatribes against Calvinism. For example, some time back, he and Matt Slick tried to set up a debate on Total Depravity, but the debate was scrapped because Lou would not stick to the topic at hand. More recently, he has published a book called The God of Calvinism: A Rebuttal of Reformed Theology. He attempts to present it as a rebuttal to Dr. White’s The Potter’s Freedom, and interestingly enough, the foreword is written by none other than Ergun M. Caner. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the book with me right now (although one of my friends who has dialogued with Ruggiero before does, and perhaps I can borrow it from him). So, until I can get my hands on the book, I will instead deal with an article he has posted on his website titled, Refuting the Tulip With the Fear of the LORD.[1]

Read the rest of this entry

On the Dalnet IRC network there is a formerly popular chat room called #ChristianDebate (whose population has really thinned out over the last five years). There are a lot of regular visitors in that room but very few have a history there quite as long as that of Father Samuel L. Bassett (a.k.a. “FrSam”). A lot of things can be said about Fr. Bassett, for he has a very polarizing personality (but I have positive and fond memories of our long history), but one of the clearest things that can be said about him, all personalities aside, is that he truly loathes Calvinism! (It should also be pointed out that Fr. Bassett is with the American Catholic Union, which is an association of independent Old Catholic priests in California.)

Around the beginning of June this year I poked my head back in that room, which I do from time to time when the network I enjoy gets too quiet. During this recent visit a very brief conversation ensued over the subject of Calvinism and, in response to my seeming defense of it, Fr. Bassett directed my attention to an article he had published at his blog in 2006 entitled “Calvinism = Diabolism.” Definitely an attention-getting title, and after reading it I said that I shall have to comment on it.

And so I did. The following is the comment I submitted to the article:

Greetings, Fr. Bassett. As you posted a link to this article on IRC last night, I obliged you and gave it a read. It appears that your basic argument reduces to the following:

1. Calvinism teaches self-hate and hatred of others (“total depravity” doctrine).
2. Only the Devil symbolizes hatred of self and others.
3. Therefore, Calvinism is diabolism (influenced by or characteristic of the Devil).

If the Christian is to fight against lies with the truth (as your closing sentence encouraged), then we must be able to distinguish lies from truth. I am a little uncertain about the wording of your second premise, but I’m willing to grant it for the sake of argument because it is true enough for us to be in agreement about. So allowing that the argument is valid, the issue then would seem to focus on the first premise. Given the need to distinguish lies from truth, we need to see whether the first premise is true or not.

Can you please cite for us from any confessional standard where Calvinism teaches self-hate and hatred of others? For example, evidence in the form of a quote from the Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of the Synod of Dort, Westminster Confession of Faith, or the London Baptist Confession of Faith (any of which represent what “Calvinism teaches”).

Several weeks went by without my comment getting published. Although I would still visit the room from time to time, FrSam was never around—that is, until last night, when I was finally able to ask him about the matter. And his response speaks volumes.

Ryft: You never published my comment on your article.

FrSam: Nope. Nothing worth publishing.

Ryft: Okay.

I will let his article and his response to my submitted comment speak for the integrity of his polemic against Calvinism. And I will post here what he was unwilling to post there, and permit our readers to observe both sides. Draw your own conclusions.

Last night in #Apologetics (on IRC) I had a debate with an Atheist who claims to have been formerly a Christian of the Reformed tradition. It was overall an enjoyable debate (about whether his Problem of Evil argument succeeds), for not only myself but also for him, plus a couple of others that were following along. This afternoon he returned to #Apologetics and, at one point, turned his attention back to me again.

“What is your background?” he asked me. “Philosophy?”

“My background?” I replied. “I’m just a custom wood finisher in a small shop, whose highest completed grade was 9th. I have no real background to speak of.”

“Would you characterize yourself as Calvinist?”

“I would not,” I said. “Others might, however, and often do.” As he claims to have been formerly a Reformed Christian, I can see the common ground he is aiming for.

“As a non-denominational Christian, then?”

“No, I am confessional: 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.”

“I see.” He paused a moment. “Why?”

An odd question. “Why what?” I asked.

“Why are you what you are? Why do you believe the doctrines you do?”

I thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to answer his question in a way that is both accurate and succinct, because the question really does drive at very deep and broad theological elements. “Because by God’s grace I am convinced of and committed to the truths of Scriptures,” I replied.

“I have studied Scripture also,” he said. “But I am unconvinced. Why is that?”

I saw that one coming from a mile away. “I think my response contained the answer: ‘by God’s grace.’ One plants, another waters, but it is God who makes all things grow.”

“So then I lack God’s grace and thus cannot be convinced?”

“It’s not that you cannot, but that you will not be convinced.”

“So then have I always lacked God’s grace?”

“I don’t know. I am neither you nor God.”

He paused a moment to rephrase, to get at what he was really asking. “Is it possible for someone to be filled with the Spirit, convinced of God’s truth, and then fall away?”

“Yes,” I said. “But not permanently.”

“So you think that I will eventually come back to believing the truths of the Bible?”

“That is not something I think, but something I pray—and have been praying since last night, upon meeting you.”

“Thank you,” he replied, “for your prayers.”

And with that, he turned his attention to someone else who was asking him questions, bringing up issues that were much shinier and sparkly which atheism finds easier to sink its teeth into, alas.