Repost from the great crash 0f 08
I have heard this since I was a very young Christian. It seemed somewhat reasonable as it was explained to me by pastors in sermons and by Christians as they explained the seriousness of sin. Their theology goes something like this:
All sin is so bad that even the smallest of sins deserves eternal punishment in hell. It does not matter if it is losing your temper at a lousy referee, not sharing your Icee, or speeding 36 in a 35, every sin deserves eternal torment in Hell. Why? Although it may seem unreasonable to us (as depraved as we are), it is fitting for a perfectly holy God who cannot be in the sight of sin, no matter how insignificant this sin might seem to us. In fact, there is no sin that is insignificant to God. Because He is infinitely holy, beyond our understanding, all sin is infinitely offensive to Him. Therefore, the punishment for all sin must be infinite.
I have to be very careful here since I am going against what has become the popular evangelical way to present the Gospel, but I don’t believe this is true. Not only do I not buy it, I think this, like the idea that all sins are equal in the sight of God, is damaging to the character of God, the significance of the cross, and I believe it trivializes sin. Let me explain.
First off, I don’t know of a passage in the Bible that would suggest such a radical view. It would seem that people make this conclusion this way:
Premise 1: Hell is eternal
Premise 2: All people that go there are there for eternity
Premise 3: Not all people have committed the same number or the same degree of sins
Conclusion: All sin, no matter how small, will send someone to hell for all eternity
The fallacy here is that this syllogism is a non-sequitur (the conclusion does not follow from the premises). Could it be that people are in Hell for all eternity based upon who they are rather than what they have done?
Think about this. Many of us believe that Christ’s atonement was penal substitution. This means that it was a legal trade. God counted the sufferings of Christ and that which transpired on the Cross as payment for our sins, each and every one. Therefore, we believe that Christ took the punishment that we deserved. But there is a problem. We are saying that we deserve eternal Hell for one single sin, no matter how small. I don’t know about you, but I have committed enough sins to give me more than my share of life sentences. I have committed sins of the”insignificant” variety (I speed everyday) and significant variety (no description necessary!). So, if Christ were only to take my penalty and if I deserve thousands upon thousands of eternities in hell, why didn’t Christ spend at least one eternity in Hell? Why is it that he was off the Cross in six hours, payment made in full? Combine my sentence with your sentence. Then combine ours with the cumulative sentences of all believers of all time. Yet Christ only suffers for a short time? How do we explain this?
You may say to me that I cannot imagine the intensity of suffering that Christ endured while he was on the cross. You may say that the mysterious transaction that took place was worse than eternity in Hell. I would give you the first, but I will have to motivate you to reconsider the second. Think about it. Do you really believe that the person who has been in hell for 27 billion years with 27 billion more times infinity would not look to the sufferings of Christ and say, “You know what? Christ’s six hours of suffering was bad. It is indeed legendary. But I would trade what I am going through any day for six hours, no matter how horrifying it would be.” You see, what makes hell so bad is not simply the intensity of suffering, but the duration. Christ did not suffer eternally, so there must be something more to this substitution idea and there must be something more to sin.
I believe that Christ did pay our penalty. I believe that hell is eternal. But I don’t believe that one sin sends people to hell for eternity. Sin is trivialized in our day. Sin is first something that we do, not something that we are. In other words, people think of God sitting on the throne becoming enraged (in a holy sort of way) each time that someone breaks the speed limit. It is only the cross of Christ that makes Him look past the eternally damning sin and forgive us. Don’t think that I am undermining the severity of sin, but I am trying to bring focus to the real problem that has infected humanity since the Garden.
The real problem is that we are at enmity with God. From the moment we are born, we inherit the traits of our father Adam. This infectious disease is called sin. This disease issues forth into a disposition toward God that causes us to begin life with our fist in the air, not recognizing His love for us or authority over us. It is rebellion. While this rebellion does act according to its nature, the problem is in the disposition, not so much the acts. When we sin, we are just acting according to the dictates of our corrupt nature. But the worst of it—the worst sin of all—is that we will never lower our fist to God. We are “by nature, children of wrath” (Eph. 2:3) and as a leopard cannot change his spots, so we cannot change our rebellious disposition toward our Creator (Jer. 13:23).
This disposition is that of a fierce enemy that cannot do anything but fight against its foe. Paul describes this:
Romans 8:7-8 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
We are of the “flesh,” therefore we commit deeds according to the flesh. Does this mean that the person in this state does no good at all? Well, it depends on what you mean by “good.” Can an enemy of God love his neighbor? Of course. Enemies of God can and do all sorts of acts that the Bible would consider virtuous. But from the standpoint of their relationship with God, they cannot do any good at all (Rom. 3:12). Giving a drink to someone who is thirsty with the left hand while having your right hand in a fist clinched toward heaven does not count as “good” before God. Why? Because we are in rebellion against Him. This is our problem.
This I propose is the only sin that keeps people in Hell for all eternity.
It is important to understand that hell not is filled with people who are crying out for God’s mercy, constantly hoping for a second chance. People are in hell because they have the same disposition toward God that they had while they were walking the earth. They do not suddenly, upon entrance into Hell, change their nature and become sanctified. They still hate God. People are in hell for all eternity, not because they floated a stop sign, but because their fists are still clinched toward God. They are not calling on His mercy. They are not pleading for a second chance. They are in hell for all eternity because that is where they would rather be. It is their nature. As C.S. Lewis once said, “The doors of hell are locked from the inside.”
Christ, on the other hand, was the second Adam. He did not identify with the first either in disposition or choice. He gained the right to be called the second Adam who would represent His people (Rom. 5:12ff). He is not spending eternity in Hell because he was never infected with the sinful nature which caused him to be at enmity with God. His fist was never clinched toward the heavens.
Will one white-lie send someone to Hell for all eternity? No! To say otherwise trivializes sin and makes God an overly sensitive cosmic torture monger. Sin does send people to Hell. People will be punished for their sins accordingly. But the sin that keeps people in Hell for all eternity is the sin of perpetual rebellion.
462 replies to ""One White Lie Will Send You to Hell For All Eternity" . . . and other stupid statments"
Jugulum, I’ve long since realised that people, especially theologians, can affirm a doctrine and yet deny it’s implications so no, I don’t expect my argument to knock down any towers of thought. It’s just nonsense that God cannot forgive without blood is all.
Jugulum, regarding Hebrews, I find it a difficult passage because I cannot see any rational correspondence between animal sacrifice and forgivenes. Surely the intended audience had no problem but that was because they were Jews.
Nevertheless, I don’t see the need to re-interpret the Bible in terms of an isolated passage. If I did that I could choose Rom 3:20 over Rom 2:13 (or Deut 27:26) depending on my whim.
You say Heb 10:12-15 does not hint at the ineffectiveness of Christ’s sacrifice. Well, it certainly does not affirm it (unless you equate “made perfect” with “obtained forgiveness”). Shockingly it does affirm that animal sacrifice is INeffective which is hard to square with the Pentateuch. The whole point of Levitical sacrifice is it’s cleansing effect, it’s there in the Bible that it removes sins. Here’s the dilemma: why do Jews think levitical sacrifices are effective only to be told by the author that they’re not. Did they confuse the sign for the means?
And are we not facing the same dilemma: we think Christ’s blood necessarily and sufficiently cleansed us but we’re in for a Great Shock. The God who desires mercy not sacrifice, repentance not atonement before whom all will stand and give answer (2 Cor 5:10) and who “will give to each person according to what he has done” (Rom 2:6).
You write:
Interesting that evangelicals don’t treat them together… First comes forgiveness and justification then the long process of sanctification and perfection. The only solution is to spiritualise these things and say: before God, i.e. in the heavenly realms, we are perfect. You also have to see Christ’s atonement working backwards in history. The whole construction hangs on too many irrational assumptions and ad hoc axioms.
God expects us to forgive freely without the offending party either repenting to us or making an sort of reparation for the wrong.
If God can expect that of us, surely it is legitmate for us to ask whether God can, does, or should forgive us without demanding some sort of payment for our sin.
Indeed, if payment is made, what is there left to forgive?
Here is an interesting comment made by Brian McLaren when he was interviewed by Leif Hansen:
“Brian McLaren: Yeah. And I heard one well-known Christian leader, who—I won’t mention his name, just to protect his reputation. Cause some people would use this against him. But I heard him say it like this: The traditional understanding says that God asks of us something that God is incapable of Himself. God asks us to forgive people. But God is incapable of forgiving. God can’t forgive unless He punishes somebody in place of the person He was going to forgive. God doesn’t say things to you—Forgive your wife, and then go kick the dog to vent your anger. God asks you to actually forgive…. And there’s a certain sense that, a common understanding of the atonement presents a God who is incapable of forgiving. Unless He kicks somebody else.”
On the other hand, N.T. Wright, in his Romans commentary:
“No clearer statement is found in Paul, or indeed anywhere else in all early Christian literature, of the early Christian belief that what happened on the cross was the judicial punishment of sin. Taken in conjunction with 8:1 and the whole argument of the passage, not to mention the partial parallels in 2 Cor 5:21 and Gal 3:13, it is clear that Paul intends to say that in Jesus’ death the damnation that sin deserved was meted out fully and finally, so that sinners over whose heads that condemnation had hung might be liberated from this threat once and for all.”
[…] Michael Patton dispels that myth here. The real problem is that people trivialize sin. Sin isn’t first what we do. Sin is first who […]
Where does God say any of that? If it’s true, why do you think God put all that stuff about restitution in the Law — and why did David seem to think that meditating on the Law would reveal truths about God’s character? For that matter, why should we go to our brother when he has something against us (Matt 5:23) — why shouldn’t we just keep doing what we were, and let our brother freely forgive us?
I think “God expects us to forgive without repentance or reparation” is simply an error without basis.
-Wm
I agree with Calvin’s exegesis on this point; but whether one agrees or not, CMP isn’t obviously disagreeing with Calvin. In fact, I think any person willing to agree with Calvin must in fact agree with Michael at least on this point: that nobody goes to hell or stays in hell without preferring it to the alternative. The alternative is to think that the Bible teaches fatalism: that God dooms people to hell or heaven regardless of their desires. No, God condemned us all to hell because of our desires, not against them. When by the blood of His Son He raised some of us to glory He does so by giving us a new heart, so that He can save us from hell in accordance with the desires of that new heart.
But this is all in accordance with our desires — except for that gracious act in which He makes us alive from the dead.
-Wm
This sort of thing can only be said by a person who has never been deeply wronged — and a person who’s forgotten most of history, including the horrendous massacres of the last century.
-Wm
Can you reconcile that reading with Paul’s words in 2 Cor 5:10? I can: Paul was talking about the work of Christ while He was on the earth. Elsewhere, Christ has a different work.
Unless you want Paul to contradict Paul, you have to read this in context: “all” refers to the peoples — Jews, Greeks, other nationalities. It doesn’t refer to individuals. This is the pattern throughout Rom 11.
None of that is what David says.
This doesn’t say that the children were murdered; it says they are in the land of the enemy. In verses 2 and 7 it specifies that this prophecy is for those who survived the hand of the enemy, not for the dead.
This is the last verse you give, and it’s the only one that you even pretend speaks to your point of some kind of judgment by proclamation. The problem is that there’s no way it means what you want it to.
First, it doesn’t say people are ONLY condemned by their words; rather it says that their words prove what sort of being they are, good or bad. The metaphor given is the fruit of a tree: good fruit or bad fruit proves good tree or bad tree. This supports CMP’s claim here, by the way: we will be condemned not for a petty sin (or an idle word), but for who we are.
Second, it doesn’t say that people will be judged by a positive proclamation in which they assert a proposition about God’s existence; rather, it says that they will be judged by every idle word. This doesn’t rule out God’s ability to judge by other means, but it certainly utterly rules out your claim that only the strongest verbal assertion is enough to condemn a person.
-Wm
Marc,
I’m trying to make sense of what your saying and I can partially see where your coming from and at other times I’m having difficulty. I can see where your having problems with the subtitutionary view, but I’m not sure how the exemplary view works with scripture.
For instance (I’m sure this has been quoted before) 1 Corinthians 15.3 states the following
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures”
To me this passage seems pretty black and white in rejecting the concept of a purely exemplary death on the Cross (not saying their aren’t exemplary elements to the Cross). The weight of the words indicates some type of transaction is going on. Now this doesn’t necessarily indicate that the penal substitutionary view is correct. Certainly the Classical Substitutionary, Moral Government, Ransom/Christus Victor models would wholly affirm this verse. I wonder if you’ve ever done any reading on the Christus Victor/Ransom view of this issue. This was the view of the Early Church and I think it has a lot to offer, though I don’t think it should be taught exclusive of substitution personally.
First of all, producing fruit, good or bad is all about us, and what we do, not about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. If we are going to have Calvinism as our only standard,, let’s stick to that, otherwise we are being double minded when we are challenged to prove our faith is workable and open to everyone. If is only about Calvinism, and nothing else, why bother doing as Jesus said, and spreading the gospel to all nations?
How can it be, as Wm Tanklesy says, that it is all in accordance with our desires and stiil be about God’s grace first?
As a person who is not is not a Calvinist, I have wonder at that obvious duplicity.
Michael, I’m going to sign off this discussion with a word and a an article I wrote. The word is, Bring me any verse which supports what I admit is Orthodox Evangelical belief and I’ll bring you 2 which deny it and need to be twisted into the Reformed mould.
Here’s my big question for the week: Is Protestant Christianity Biblical and Faithful to Jesus?.
Marc, sorry to hear you go.
What you’re describing is the tactic of scripture-storming, where one ignores all the exegeses your opponent brings in favor of slapping down “prooftexts” that appear to say something related to the topic. It’s easy to just assume a verse supports you and slap it down, then claim your opponent is “twisting” it when they carefully analyze what it’s actually saying. Meanwhile, you’re slapping down a few more “prooftexts” and not responding to their analysis.
But this is irresponsible and lazy. It completely disregards the authority of scripture to speak on its own terms and on its own subjects, and places the arguer as the editor. Truly respecting the scriptures means wrestling with the meaning by diving deep into each passage, allowing questions to be asked and answered — not throwing passages at each other as though our current context fully defined each passage.
-Wm
Do you know what you’re accusing me of? Look up the definition, please. (I’m not offended because I suspect you meant to use a different word.)
-Wm
Are you serious? Christianity is all about Christ, His sacrifice on the cross, and God’s acceptance of that sacrifice through the resurrection. If it were about us, what significance would the resurrection have — wouldn’t Christ’s example in life be sufficient?
The Bible repeats this point many times over: it is not up to the one who runs, but to God who has mercy; we are ordered to show fruit of our salvation not because we are good, but because “it is God who works within us both to will and to do His good pleasure.” We’re told that the one who doesn’t have specific fruits (for example, love or obedience) doesn’t know God at all, while everyone who has them, has them because of God.
I admit one thing: producing fruit IS about us, because it shows truly what we’re all about. But when it shows what we’re all about, it’ll show one of two things: either we’re all about us, or we’re all about God.
-Wm
“I admit one thing: producing fruit IS about us, because it shows truly what we’re all about. But when it shows what we’re all about, it’ll show one of two things: either we’re all about us, or we’re all about God.”
That is not true at all.
We as Christians are a mixed bag.
We are sinners and saints.
“We walk by faith abd not by sight.” The flesh (what we do) is of no avail.
The Holy Spirit produces the fruit in us. It IS NOT about us.
This fruit-producing, spiritual navel-gazing project is what produces self-righteous Pharisees.
We ought concentrate what Christ has done for us and the freedom that God has to forgive sinners.
If we insist on being fruit inspectors, we ought inspect ourselves first and stop there. We won’t like what we find, I will guarantee that.
What is that supposed to mean? What do you mean by “Calvinism” there? Is there some cult you’re picturing in your mind that venerates the Institutes? Do you imagine that all “Calvinists” belong to it? I think you’re referring to the group of people who accept what some Reformed scholars call “the doctrines of free grace”; we commonly call that “Calvinism”, but we aren’t called Calvinists because we worship Calvin’s works, but because Calvin stated that particular position well, and exegeted it thoroughly, so that his name became associated with it. I’d like to refer to myself by another name, honestly, but if I told you I’m not a Calvinist you’d quite reasonably see that as dodging your accusation, because the term has become a cultural shorthand for this set of beliefs.
Surely it’s important that the almighty, holy, and righteous God commanded it.
If that’s not enough for you, please note that God works through means; He punished David through the actions of his son, He brought about the resurrection through the specifically prophesied betrayal of Judas, and He brings about salvation to each of us through our hearing someone else speak the gospel. If we obey God and speak the Gospel, God will glorify himself through us; if we disobey him someone else will have the privilege.
You don’t have to be a Calvinist to see the importance of this.
-Wm
Re my posts 70 & 97 and Tanksley’s post 106
Tanksley wrote, “The alternative is to think that the Bible teaches fatalism: that God dooms people to hell or heaven regardless of their desires. No, God condemned us all to hell because of our desires, not against them.”
Well, yes and no, and irrelevant. True, those that go to hell do not have the desire for Jesus or salvation. However, (1) they had their desires from before birth (depravity), (2) God ordained the desires they would, did, do and will have, and (3) God chose not to regenerate them and give them the desire for Jesus and salvation (he did not elect them). Our desires are irrelevant to our destination because God ordained our desires from before the creation of the universe. People can only go to heaven if they are elect, and of all the people God created, He only chose a few.
So, because God ordains all desires and ordained the fall He is the effective cause of someone’s going to hell. There is no possibility that it could be otherwise for the person going to hell. People do not have the capacity to change what God ordained, and cannot change their inherent, before birth rejection of salvation.
The Calvinist view, by its nature, is fatalistic, in the sense that God has foreordained everything that will every happen and nothing can change what He has foreordained. Nevertheless, Calvinism does seek to make sense of human moral responsibility through a theory of combatibility between God’s ordaining things but holding us responsible. It’s theory of compatibilistic “free” will for humans is not, however, the same thing as libertarian “free” will; they are completely different concepts.
Regards,
#John
“IF WE”
Sounds like quid pro quo.
“What is it to do the work of the Father”, they asked Jesus.
“Believe in the one who He has sent”
He’s after faith.
Our obedience is the problem…not the answer to the problem.
That’s the most gracious thing about our salvation: it’s not in the one who works or the one who desires, but in God who shows mercy. God did not save us because there was something inherent to us that was good; no Christian will look on the unsaved at the last day and say “I was better than you, because I chose God.” We will praise God for His mercy in reaching out to us with His active salvation, the salvation that starts by replacing our hearts of stone with living hearts that desire the living God.
There are a lot of people who just presume the Catholic definition of “grace”, as this kind of “stuff” that God pours all over us that somehow saves us. But that’s not what grace means in Greek; it means “kindness”, “favor”, and “something that brings joy”; it doesn’t refer to a substance, which means that “by grace” doesn’t mean that this thing we can only call “grace” acts on us to save us. When God saves us “by grace” it means that God saves us because He is kind; it doesn’t mean God pours something called “charis” on us that mixes with our faith to form salvation.
This is why the doctrine of salvation by God’s grace brings glory to God — because it’s all about the kindness/gift/favor credited exclusively to God. The grace that God shows to us doesn’t become our grace; grace is not the sort of thing that a dead saint can store up for living saints. It’s all God’s kindness/gift/favor/grace.
Whenever we see the word “grace”, we should ask what gift God’s actually given us that shows His kindness/grace. In Eph 2 the gift is making us alive although we’re children of wrath. In 1 Cor 15:10 it’s a transformation in character that allows Paul to “work harder than them all”. In Eph 3:8 it’s enlightenment as to the nature of salvation.
Rom 11:6 supports this by pointing out that grace wouldn’t be grace if salvation was by works — this doesn’t make sense if grace were a thing in itself, but it makes complete sense if you know that grace is *kindness*.
In this case, the reason that it’s in accordance with our desires and all about grace is that it’s merely the kindness/grace of God that we desire Him. If not for His unilateral action, we’d still desire hell far more than Him.
-Wm
Re evangelism and mbaker’s post 110 and Tanksley’s post 116
Calvinism does entail the belief that nothing we do will change the number of the elect. So mbaker’s comment that evangelism is pointless does make sense, because it’s true. However, Calvinism also includes the belief that God ordains the means of salvation and has ordained that we should preach the gospel. Calvinism brings all scriptures into play, and since some scriptures state that we are commanded to preach the gospel and evangelise we must therefore be obedient and do that.
Hyper Calvinism is usually thought of as pursuing on the logic of TULIP without integrating other scriptures. On the basis of TULIP alone, evangelism is pointless and a hyperCalvinist would not evangelise. However, when other scriptures commanding evangelism are included, a Calvinist would evangelise even though the number and identity of the elect was determined before creation.
Note that preaching the gospel is irrelevant to salvation, though. Both the unelect and elect will hear the same gospel preached, but only the elect will be saved. The difference is that God regenerates the elect so that they will respond. And God has foreordained that those whom He will elect will hear the gospel.
Of course, if one went through one’s entire life never ever sharing the gospel, that would be because God ordained / foreordained that. Nevertheless, even though that was ordained by God, God will still hold responsible the person that never shares the gospel. The word covering this belief (God ordains and we are still responsible) is compatibilism.
Regards,
#John1453
Marc,
Your probably aware of this, but some of your comments are dangerously close to Pelagianism. Maybe I’m misreading you, but you seem to be saying that salvation, justification, and sanctification are all about us and that no help from God is needed. The idea that humans could come to God with no help or intervention from God was declared heresy very early in church history during the schism between Augustine and Pelagius. Even an Arminian like myself who believes that people can freely accept or reject God believes that we have the ability to do those only because of God’s enabling grace.
Wm T,
I was merely asking you a question about the Calvinistic point of view, which John#1453 caught, and has answered. I am glad to know you believe evangelism isn’t pointless, and Christianity is about Christ, not just a certain point of view.
I probably fall more in the compatibilism category, as far as believing that God enables people to find Him, but I do not buy the TULIP theory because I believe it makes Christianity nothing more than an exclusive club. One thing I cannot understand from that point of view is why Christ had to die on the cross, if everyone who is going to heaven is already predetermined by election, and not by folks doing as the Bible instructs (John 3:16) and simply believing in Christ as their Lord and Savior.
To tie this in with the subject of the post, for me this creates another ‘stupid statement’, to use CMP’s words, that I am constantly having to grapple with, which from the impression I get here those who don’t believe as Calvinists do, may not be part of the elect. These are real questions people ask when they hear such things about predestination and limited atonement. They know that we are all sinners, and think because of that they may not be chosen after all, even if they accept Christ, confess their sins and repent of them.
Do you understand the reason for my question now? What if someone has faith, but isn’t chosen for heaven?
Heh. It’s a pleasure to agree with you, steve. Please keep in mind, however, that my statements have context. You just yanked a comment from the middle of a post in which I expressed how salvation is NOT about us.
But salvation does, contrary to what you imply, involve us. If it did not, either CMP would be wrong because our “petty” sins WOULD condemn us, or God would just let us into heaven in spite of sins and without any change in us.
This is incoherent: fruit-producing is the opposite of navel-gazing. Christ cursed the fig tree for a lack of fruit.
Concentrating on Christ’s finished work that produces salvation is not exclusive with concentrating on working out our salvation.
-Wm
William,
He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion.
He causes the good fruit, not our efforts.
The scriptures are replete with this language as well.
I choose to trust in Him to do in and through me what He wills.
So many doers will hear “depart from me I never knew you.”
Maybe because they will be so focused on what ‘they ought be doing’, and not trusting completely in what the Lord has done, is doing, and will yet do.
Just a thought.
Thanks, William.
John, I think you understand Calvinism very well; but you’re ignoring the meaning of the word “fatalism” — or at least the meaning I choose to give it — when you contradict my post above. (I’m smiling when I say that!)
Fatalism implies not merely that a higher power than us determines the ultimate outcomes; it also implies a resignation that we should all feel because what we want truly doesn’t matter.
But this is antibiblical. What we want truly will matter. It will not matter to the elimination of God’s sovereignty; rather it will matter because of God’s sovereignty over what we want.
Piper comes in for a lot of criticism, but he does a good job of explaining why our desire, for God or against Him, matters so much (at least once you get past the controversialist title of “Christian hedonism”).
When “the lot is cast into the lap, but every decision is from the LORD,” God does not need to suspend the laws of aerodynamics, gravity, and semielastic collisions in order to get the decision He wants from the dice. Nor does he have to suspend the randomness of quantum fluctuation. He created them, He rules them, and He works through them.
While I’m on this topic, let me quote a different message, in which you say: “Note that preaching the gospel is irrelevant to salvation, though.” Again, this is antibiblical: the Bible specifically says that preaching the Gospel is relevant to, and in fact necessary for, salvation. You can’t have one without the other. The fact that God is sovereign over salvation doesn’t mean that salvation doesn’t utterly depend on preaching the gospel — because God is sovereign over the preaching of the gospel.
-Wm
I just really and truly wish someone, anyone, could explain to me how our desires and choices can really matter when God has already determined what they are going to be????
He says from eternity that you or I are going to be a specific type of person, destined either for heaven or hell according to the Calvinist view under discussion. Since he has determined what kind of a person we are going to be, he has also determined what we are going to do and how we are going to respond. So….He is sovereign and there is no way that we can do other than what He has determined we are going to do. How in the world then can our choices be our own when he made them ahead of time for us and we have no say in the matter?? How can we possibly do anything else other than what he has determined? And if He has determined what we will do and that some of us will go to heaven and some to hell, how in the world can you say that it is not our decision or have anything to do with us if we are elected to heaven but has everything to do with us if we are reprobated to hell??? There is a total lack of logic and consistency there.
Another question–Am I maybe confusing two strains of Calvinism in my last question? As I was looking back over some past comments here, I am wondering if that may be the case.
Re Tanksley’s post 125 on fatalism and Calvinism
Fatalism may lead to people feeling resigned to their fate, but resignation is not part of the definition or scope of fatalism. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines “fatalism” as follows:
“Fatalism is the view that we are powerless to do anything other than what we actually do. It may be argued for in various ways: by appeal to logical laws and metaphysical necessities; by appeal to the existence and nature of God; by appeal to causal determinism. When argued for in the first way, it is commonly called “Logical fatalism” (or, in some cases, “Metaphysical fatalism”); when argued for in the second way, it is commonly called “Theological fatalism”. When argued for in the third way it is not now commonly referred to as “fatalism” at all, and such arguments will not be discussed here.”
According to Calvinism, God foreordains everything that comes to pass, down to the hairs on our head, the falling of sparrows, the lifting of our pinky, and what we get dressed in each morning. There is nothing that we can do to change what God has foreordained not only before we existed but even before the universe existed.
If we could never choose and do other than we chose and did, how can we be responsible for out actions? Calvinism’s answer is twofold: (1) compatibilism, and (2) we have to live with the contradiction because God’s ways are higher than ours and we will never understand it (at least this side of heaven, if ever).
Of course, Arminians and others answer the question of responsibility for our actions (moral and otherwise) via the concept of libertarian free will (which Calvinists reject).
Calvinists also assert that we should not be resigned to our fates because (1) God commands us otherwise (e.g., evangelise even though the elect are predetermined), and (2) we cannot know what our fate is. That is, if I knew I was fated to die tomorrow in a car accident, I might feel and act resigned ot my fate. However, if God has predetermined / foreordained that I will die tomorrow in a car accident, but I do not know that, then I can feel and live without resignation.
As for whether what we want matters, Calvinism’s response is that they matter (1) because God gave them to us, and (2) we possess them personally as part of our physical and spiritual being. Of course one may respond that those desires cannot really be mine in any significant way if I am not the first or prime mover in the creation of my desires (i.e., if they are not the result of libertarian free choices). Calvinism replies, “get over that, that’s not how the world operates”.
Tanksley sneeks in the word “random” in “randomness of quantum fluctuation”, but there is nothing random at all, ever, in the Calvinist world. Things may appear random to us, from our perspective, but not to God. The God who controls the fall of a sparrow also controls the quantum fluctuations.
Well, no matter how many times Calvinism says, “get over that, that’s not how the world operates,” to say that I am responsible for the choice of how I lift my little finger today if God foreordained it before the universe existed and there is nothing that I can do to change it, that makes us puppets of God’s as far as I can tell. There is no way that I can be said to really make a choice to lift my pinky today when God said millenia ago that is exactly what I would do today at whatever hour, minute, and second that he determined it would happen and that there is nothing at all I can do to change that action. Sure, He is God and is sovereign and I guess if He chooses to make me responsible for what He has determined I will do, no questions asked, He can do that. But that certainly has nothing of any kind of fairness or justice to it that can be understood by human beings in any way, shape, or form we are used to defining those terms.
And yes, in the end, as far as I can tell, it makes God ultimately responsible for each and every wrong and sinful act that is ever committed on this earth if He has said that they will happen and no one can do anything other than what He has decreed.
Cheryl, that is exactly the problem I have with Calvinism. If everything is preordained by God then does that mean God has created folks to sin, and deliberately go to hell? I cannot wrap my mind around the concept that Christianity simply is a rigged deck, in which the sinner’s fate is predetermined without mercy or chance of repentance. And why would we be called to repentance, if there were no chance of that being accepted?
These are the same folks who argued on another thread that God can’t sin, so if He can’t sin, and scripture says He is a holy and just God, why would He deliberately create sinners with no chance of regeneration? Seems to me that would not be saving grace at all but a cruel chess game, and we would be the pawns.
mbaker,
“…..a cruel chess game, and we would be the pawns.”
The same analogy was in my mind this p.m. A chess game indeed where the pawns that have been deliberately caused to be the losers of the game are then gathered up by the maker and player of the game and thrown into a fireplace that burns forever!
This just isn’t at all the picture of God I see in most of the Bible and is not the picture of Jesus I see while He was on earth. I think there simply has to be a better way of trying to make sense of the verses that speak this way in the Bible to make them harmonize better with the rest of the Word than the explanation Calvinism puts forth.
Wm, sorry to edge in here again, late for the parade but the resurrection is surely not God’s acceptance of the sacrifice but his vindication of Jesus Messianic (and more) claim. If it is that it is without precedent – can you think of a single example of a dead animal being raised to life as proof that God accepted the sacrifice?
In eschatological terms, the resurrection is far more effective than the cross, it’s the ultimate sign that God’s Yes to the World is more powerful than His No. Grace over Justice, Love over Hate. Life over Death.
It is because of the resurrection that our faith has value, not because of the cross. If Christianity was all about Atonement, Cross plus some ghostly ascension would have sufficed. Or is God a God who likes neat tricks?
We tend to preach “if Christ has not been crucified, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” but Paul said “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins”.
God and rolling the dice and moral responsibility
Tanksley stated, “God does not need to suspend the laws of aerodynamics, gravity, and semielastic collisions in order to get the decision He wants from the dice.” (his post 125)
Yes and no. Since God knows and ordains the movement of each atom, and ordains all of the physical laws of the universe, He can control the dice by the physical conditions he sets at creation. He can set things up initially so that He gets the rolls he wants–that is, He can create the universe in which, without His further intervention, you roll the dice on June 11th and get snake eyes, or he can create a universe in which you roll the dice on June 11th and get a “1” and a “5”.
On the other hand, He can also create a universe in which you would roll a “1” and “5” without His intervention, but He does intervene so that the dice roll out as a “2” and “4”. Of course, He would have planned to intervene in that universe.
When most people look at the world, or read the Bible, or engage in introspection, it appears that people do indeed have libertarian free will, and that such libertarian free will is necessary to a “real” life, to responsibility for actions, and to moral responsibility. Thus, for example, when one reads in Deuteronomy that God commanded the Israelites as follows: “30:19 Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live!”, one would think that the Israelites have a real libertarian free choice of life or death. So what do we make of Genesis 31 where God tells Moses that he knows that the Israelites will sin?
A Calvinist says “no, God has ordained their choice from before the creation of the universe”. Indeed, Calvin himself wrote, “When, therefore, they perish in their corruption, they but pay the penalties of that misery in which Adam fell by the predestination of God, and dragged his posterity headlong after him. Is he not, then, unjust who so cruelly deludes his creatures? Of course, I admit that in this miserable condition wherein men are now bound, all of Adam’s children have fallen by God’s will. And this is what I said to begin with, that we must always at last return to the sole decision of God’s will, the cause of which is hidden in him.” (Calvin’s Institutes, 3:23.4)
In contrast, an Arminian or Libertarian would answer that God knows the future without determining /ordaining it.
Consequently, the “white lie” issue does not even make sense from a Calvinist viewpoint. God preordained that Adam would fall, and preordained that all people, everyone, would fall with him and be in sin destined for hell. This was ordained before creation, so of what relevance is a single white lie? The question does not even make sense from an Arminian viewpoint. The question only makes sense if one is a Pelagian.
But suppose you tell what seems to be a very, very small lie or deception … which has huge consequences?
Suppose you, on a bad day, dishonestly deny health care to a poor person … who otherwise would have invented the vaccine that would have saved the world from two billion deaths?
Therefore, we were urged to be faithful in small things.
Sin is known through the Law, and the Law given through Moses was not given to the world at large, except perhaps by proxy thorugh Israel. Even so, Romans says that the world at large still has a conscience and retains some knowledge of right and wrong, so nobody really has an excuse. But when Jesus said He came to fulfill the Law, I believe He meant more than just living a sinless life on earth. I think He meant that His sacrifice on the cross would satisfy all of the requirements of the Law that we cannot possibly fulfill. Yes, He is our penal substitution, but even better, He fulfilled the “writings contrary to us”, so that it was nailed to the cross with Him. Now, praise God, we live not by the Law, but by Grace!
Sin is hitting wide of the mark – when Adam and Eve became accountable for knowing right and wrong, they were responsible for hitting the mark each and every time. The Law shows us just how impossible that is without God’s help.
Remember God is love. Try to understand what forgiveness really is!
Also, even though Jesus warned people not to sin, He also made it clear that our hearts are corrupt from the inside out, regardless of how perfect we are in ceremonial obsevations, etc.
I think the point is that “sin”, taken as a whole body of failure, is the sad legacy from Adam and Jesus wanted us to see how hoplessly lost we are without Him. The argument of “one little sin” sending us to Hell is incongruent with the knowledge that we are all immersed in it from birth; reductio ad absurdum, I think.
C. Barton.
Amen!
People ought not be so concerned about the ‘worst’ that they do, but rather they ought be more concerned about the ‘best’ that they do.
For that is not good enough, either.
Sure! Imagine you have a young son, and he tries to emulate you, but he just doesn’t “get it” all the time. As long as he keeps his eye on you, he will learn more and do better. That’s kind of what I think it is like.
Paul said that we should put sin behind us – do ya think God is a little excited about our eternity with Him? Yay!
As for Islam, well, many who traced the roots of this religion tell us that Allah is the name of an old pagan moon god, which is why the crescent moon is its symbol. It’s better to look beyond the ceremonial observances, however pious they seem, and get to the core: Jesus said that anyone trying to get into the Kingdom of Heaven without Him is just a thief. Jesus is truly the only way, and let us remember Col. 2:9 which reveals that God (the TRUE God!) was fully in Jesus while He walked the earth. So, you have to take Jhwh and Jesus together, or not at all.
Further thoughts on agreeing and disagreeing with CMP
The “white lie” concept that CMP is reacting to is a Pelagian concept, which is not surprising given the pelagian content of much of the preaching in North America.
In Pelagian thought the sin of Adam belongs to him alone and does not belong to humankind in general, as an essential aspect of its post-Adam nature. In this view a first (temporally) sin exists but an original sin does not exist. We are born innocent and have a moral existence in which our sin-guilt is not a natural event (i.e., the result of being born a descendent of Adam), but must be an event of freedom. Everybody must commit their own sin in order to be a sinner. Descent from Adam doesn’t make one a sinner.
In this Pelagian view, no one is going to hell unless one commits a sin, and Christ, who lived a sinless life, is the paradigmatic example of the possibility before each of us of living a sinless life.
Consequently, in the pelagian view, one white lie would be sufficient to send one to hell (and so CMP is wrong).
But CMP is correct in identifying the pelagian falsity of the white lie view (though he does not identify it as such). The falsity lies not in the concept of one sin sending us to hell (which is true from the Pelagian perspective), but in the falsity of the Pelagian perspective itself.
If we all have a sin nature, and sinfulness, inherited naturally from Adam (by way of inherited flesh or spirit or both), then we are doomed to hell from the get go. And here is where CMP goes off the rails a bit, at least from a reformed perspective (whether Calvinist or Arminian, because both adhere to total depravity). The rebelliousness of which CMP writes is not an individual sin so much as it is a state of being, a kind of nature. Though one could say that the sin of rebellion is repeated every second that we live unsaved, it would be more accurate to say that it is our very nature that is separated from and in opposition to God.
Furthermore, and apart from and in addition to any conscious rebellion we are doomed to hell before we ever commit any individual sin. The depraved nature that each of us inherits from Adam dooms us to hell before any overt acts of rebellion.
Thus, it is incorrect to state that there is any specific sin that sends us to hell; and hence incorrect to even point to the sin of rebellion. One white lie will not make a difference: we’re going to hell anyway.
Finally, from a Calvinist perspective we’re in hell not because we want to be there, but because we are not elect. Hell is the default position for all of us.
Regards,
John
#John,
Please clarify something for me if you would. Very recently on another thread on this site, you argued against the Calvinist position and stated that you rejected it. Now on this thread, you sound like you are arguing for the Calvinist position and that you are supporting it. Have you changed your thoughts on this matter?
Certainly we know the wages of sin is death, but it must also be pointed out here that if the Calvinist point of view is correct, it wouldn’t matter anyway. If we are doomed not be chosen for heaven before we are born, and that stands no matter what we do, then it would seem that we are not condemned to hell by simply being born with an inherited sin nature, or for telling a lie, but because we were not chsoen as part of the elect in the first place.
Sorry, but I fail to see much difference in that position and what you are describing as pelagianism, as far as final consequences go.
I don’t see, under those circumstances, that accepting Christ’s life, death and resurrection here on earth would make any difference at all.
Hmmm . . . could be, I guess. I like to remember that Abraham was credited for his faith, before the Law, and before Jesus’ magnificent sacrifice.
Could it be that God was redeeming people way back then?
And what about Enoch, who had the Heavenly elevator ride?
It is God who decides, and He made it clear He wants us to be with Him. Now that His gift of salvation (John 3:16) is formally announced, we all can be with Him if we choose! God’s story in the Bible is self-revelatory in nature. He did all the work to get our attention, even when we didn’t care. That sounds like all are called to grace to me. NO ONE is excluded without a free choice. Period.
Cherylu
Nope, not a Calvinist. Rather,
1. I’m trying to better understand Calvinist theology.
2. One of the best ways of arguing against Calvinism is just to expose what it actually says.
3. As one can see from the reactions to the quotes from Calvin, etc., Calvinism has a seriously deficient view of God’s relationship to us and a deficient view of love. The apostle John wrote, “God is love”, not “God is justice”, “God is glory”, “God is sovereign”, or “God is a punisher”. Before creation there was nothing to be sovereign over, no justice to dispense–but there was love. There was love among the members of the Triune God. It was out of love that God made the universe. Christ Himself said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love others as ourselves. The greatest commandment was not to glorify God. Consequently, John Piper is way off base with his glorify God schtick.
Regards,
#John
John1453:
There’s an old gag that says, “Daily beatings will continue until morale improves – The Management”. Which delightfully illustrates the need for Spirit-led love and obedience. Just another way of saying that the Law kills, but the Spirit makes alive, and as we walk in love we naturally glorify Him who made us to be like Him.
Thanks #John,
I thought that was the case. But I wanted to be sure something hadn’t changed. It can be hard having a conversation with someone when you don’t know which side of an issue they are really on! I also thought that if any one was reading this thread that hadn’t read your rejection of Calvinism on the other thread that they would probably think you were one too!
John1453,
In doing a study of what it means to love God, I found that over and over in scripture, it simply means to obey. Does that definition affect your point? Does obedience glorify God in a sort of inseparable way?
Further reflections and shifts in thinking
The white lie concept works in the context of pelagianism, wherein one is morally neutral until one commits a conscious sin, even one, such as a white lie. However, on further thought, it does not seem to me that pelagianism is at issue in North America. Rather, it seems to proceed from the revivalist preaching before and after the time of Jonathon Edwards, and from sermons like “sinners in the hands of an angry God” and from a misunderstanding of penal substitutionary atonement.
The white lie concept has been popularized in the Jack Chick tracts, where nearly every one ends with something like this ending from the tract, “The Accident”:
Dr. Carlton: Have you ever told a lie, my lord?
Lord Winthrop: Of course . . . Who hasn’t?
Dr. Carlton: Then the Word of God says you are scheduled for hell.
Narrator: All liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone . . . Rev. 21:8
Lord Winthrop: Dr. . . . I’m frightened . . . How could I possible get my soul cleaned?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0080/0080_01.asp
The white lie concept is not inherently wrong, for it is true that no one who commits a sin can be in the presence of God without Jesus Christ. The problem with the concept, however, is that is only a partial truth; it is not the whole truth.
Furthermore, anyone we talk to about Jesus will have sinned many times before our conversation with them. Sometimes the people we talk with have not or do not acknowledge their sinfulness. In such a context, it would be appropriate to use illustrations to bring home to them their sinfulness. The white lie could be such an illustration, though I doubt it would be the most effective one.
Regards,
#John
Being human is not a sin anymore than being God is a sin. If my nature is a sin, so is His. Fair is fair. If we are really born at enmity to God and he is allowing or causing this to happen, then he is as much at enmity with us by His nature than we are at enmity with Him by our nature. If we are really born at enmity to God and He is causing this to happen as his punishment of Adam’s sin, then He is as much at enmity with us by His nature as we are at enmity with Him by our nature. We both are then equally guilty, and shall not the equally guilty just mutually forgive one another if they are rational?
“That a mass murderer who repents will go to heaven, while a virtuous atheist will go to hell simply for not believing in God.” The major problem with believing in Johaninism and Paulinism rather than Synopticism. In the Synoptics (Mark’s inauthentic ending 16:9-20 not being counted) salvation is by keeping the moral commandments, as Jesus tells the rich young ruler when he asks “(Good) Master, What (good thing) must I do to inherit/obtain eternal life?” and Jesus gives him a list of six moral commandments. When those are not kept perfectly, Jesus blood and prayer for forgiveness come in according to the Synoptics, but never do we find a statement that unless you believe in Jesus you will be lost, which as far as the gospels are concerned is only in the gospel of John. The objection that Jesus told the rich young ruler he lacked something is overcome by knowing how to read, since what Jesus said was (according to Luke and Mark) “You lack on thing: Sell all your stuff and you will have treasure in heaven” and according to Matthew “If you want to be PERFECT, sell what you have and you’ll have treasure in heaven”–so what did he lack? Treasure in heaven, not eternal life. He had eternal life by keeping the moral commandments, but he was going to be poor in heaven for not having sold all his possessions. Again, when Jesus adds at the end “THEN come follow me” it is clear that Jesus is attempting to commission him as an apostle, which is why he asks him to sell everything and THEN follow him (Peter adding that “we” the apostles have done so). What he lacks is not salvation but treasure in heaven and the ability to become an apostle.