UNCONDITIONAL ELECTION/ REPROBATION EXPLAINED
Arguably, the most important and foundational distinctives of Reformed Theology are to be found in the Calvinist doctrines of sovereignty and predestination. I say this because it is sovereignty and predestination as defined by Calvin and Calvinists that the non-Calvinist community takes issue with. Sovereignty and predestination, defined in a way that corresponds to what Scripture says, pose no real problem for the non-Calvinist Evangelical. Chapter Twelve was written to specifically address these very important scriptural truths. For now, it should be understood that these concepts, as defined in Calvinism, serve as the theological and philosophical basis and justification for the Calvinist doctrines of unconditional election and reprobation.
HYPER-CALVINISM VERSUS HYPO-CALVINISM For this discussion, it is essential to understand that regarding salvation and damnation there are basically two kinds of Calvinists. Don’t let the technical sounding nature of these terms trouble you. The concepts and positions they represent are not all that difficult to understand. A majority of Calvinists are what can be called hypo-Calvinists.87Webster’s Dictionary defines hypo as “less than normal.” The dictionary also makes it clear that this term is often used as a pejorative and says that it refers to something that is “denoting a lack or deficiency.” The Greek form of this word is hupo. A hypo-Calvinist is accused (by hyper-Calvinists) of stopping short of totally embracing the implications of the teachings of John Calvin. A lesser, but significant, number of Calvinists are what can be called hyper-Calvinists.88Webster’s defines “hyper” as “more than normal; excessive.” It is made up of two Latin words, hax and par. Hax is the word for
“more,” while par is the word for “normal.” Hence, when hyper is affixed to a word, as in hyperactive, hypersensitive, or hypercritical, it means that a person so labeled is more active, more sensitive, or more critical than what is normal. The Greek form of the word is huper. A hyper-Calvinist is accused (by hypo-Calvinists) of going beyond the explicit teachings of John Calvin.
According to the widely read and highly respected Church Historian (who also happens to be a Calvinist) Phillip Schaff:
Calvinism . starts with a double decree of predestination, which antedates and is the divine program of human history. This program includes the successive stages of the creation of man, a universal fall and condemnation of the human race, a partial redemption and salvation: all for the glory of God and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice. History is only the execution of the original design. . The beginning and the end, God’s immutable plan and the issue of the world’s history, must correspond.89 Schaff shines a light on the dark side of Calvinism by asking the questions:
What will become of the immense majority of human beings who live and die without God and without hope in the world? Is this terrible fact due to the eternal counsel of God, or to the free agency of man?90 He then explains: The Calvinistic system involves a positive truth: the election to eternal life by free grace, and the negative inference: the reprobation to eternal death by arbitrary justice.91 Is “arbitrary justice” an oxymoron? Is it possible to speak rationally of a justice that is arbitrary? A thoughtful reflection on the meaning of these terms suggests that they cannot go together without a serious redefinition of at least one of them. Arbitrary justice is the equivalent of “dry water” or an “innocent criminal.” Most Calvinists would object to the use ofthe word arbitrary in this context, but Schaff is only pointing out a built-in contradiction of Calvinism that should be evident to all Calvinists and admitted by all Calvinists.
PREDESTINATION AS ELECTION/REPROBATION
Often when a Calvinist uses the term “predestination,” with which Calvinism is most closely identified, he has in mind the so-called second point of Calvinism, which logically must include reprobation, which results in eternal damnation. In his advocacy of Calvinism, Sproul says: Our study focuses on predestination in the narrow sense, restricting it to the ultimate question of predestined salvation or damnation, what we call election and reprobation.92 The reason Sproul limits his discussion of predestination to “election and reprobation” is because together these are the most important examples of predestination in Reformed Theology. According to Calvinism, election and reprobation are simply the outworking of sovereignty and predestination as they are brought to bear on the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate. This equation of predestination with election and reprobation is stated plainly by Calvin as follows: By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death.93 In a discussion of how Calvin and the early Calvinist reformers used the term predestination, the hyper-Calvinist scholar Herman Hoeksema says: By predestination was meant God’s decree concerning the eternal destiny of His rational, moral creatures. And this counsel of predestination was distinguished again according to the different objects as election and reprobation.94
What Hoeksema says here is not only strikingly similar to what Calvin said, but also essentially the same as what the hypo-Calvinist Loraine Boettner says about election and reprobation. According to Boettner: The doctrine of absolute Predestination of course logically holds that some are foreordained to death as truly as others are foreordained to life. The very terms “elect” and “election” imply the terms “non-elect” and “reprobation.” When some are chosen out others are left not chosen. The high privileges and glorious destiny f the former are not shared with the latter. This, too, is of God.
We believe that from all eternity God has intended to leave some of Adam’s posterity in their sins, and that the decisive factor in the life of each is to be found only in God’s will.95
Despite the fact that many hypo-Calvinists prefer to sharply distinguish between an election that is to salvation and a reprobation that is to damnation, such distinctions are not compatible with a consistent Reformed Theology. Many just do not want to face or admit the dark side of their theological system. Those included in the two castes of Calvinism are simply chosen for two very different destinies. The former are elect to salvation and the latter are, in a manner of speaking, elect to damnation. Notice that Boettner says that: “some are foreordained to death as truly as others are foreordained to life.” If foreordination to life is an election to salvation, it follows that foreordination to reprobation is an election to damnation. From a reading of popular Christian literature, however, it is obvious that many Evangelicals are either confused, or they are in denial, about the meaning and implication of unconditional election and its flip side, unconditional reprobation. The Westminster Confession of Faith says: By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life; and others are foreordained to everlasting death. (III) These angels and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished. (IV) As will be considered in more detail later, it is not what a man is, was, or will do that moves God to accept (elect) him or reject (reprobate) him. For as The Westminster Confession of Faith also says:
God, from all eternity, did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. ... (I) Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he fore-saw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions. (II) Not long ago, an article on Calvinism was published in the popular Evangelical magazine Christianity Today. The article focused on a possible split among Southern Baptists over Calvinism. Drawing the greater Christian community’s attention to this matter is a very good thing. Rather than help the reader understand the reasons for this possible split, however, the author only contributed to the already serious misunderstanding behind the controversy. He did so by equating the doctrine of unconditional election to the scriptural truth that “salvation is without merit.” It is, of course, true that Calvinists believe that “salvation is without merit,” but so do all Evangelicals. Many non-Calvinist Evangelicals just as strongly believe and contend that salvation in the biblical sense is without merit. This does not necessarily entail, however, a belief that God saves and damns unconditionally. “Salvation without merit” belongs in the category of doctrines that are held in common by all Evangelical believers and not just Calvinists.
Calvinists should take partial responsibility for this confusion because they suggest that only Calvinists embrace a salvation without merit. Many non-Calvinist Evangelicals, however, should also take some responsibility for not paying closer attention to how Calvinists explain what they mean by unconditional election. One does not have to be theologically sophisticated to see the rather substantial difference between the Calvinist view of election and reprobation and what Scripture teaches on the topic of salvation and damnation. Before we take a closer look at the Reformed doctrine of election and reprobation, it should be understood that a rejection of this Calvinist distinctive does not mean that we should deny that Scripture teaches a doctrine of election. As Boettner says:
Every Christian must believe in some kind of election; for while the Scriptures leave unexplained many things about the doctrine of Election, they make very plain the FACT that there has been an election.96 In fact, as most Calvinists would agree, Scripture uses the word “election” and related forms of this same word in more than one way. With the distinctively Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election in mind, the Reformed scholar and hyper-Calvinist Herman Hanko explains:
... it is certain that the truth of unconditional election stands at the foundation. ... This truth is the touchstone of the Reformed faith.
It is the basis of the truth of God concerning our salvation. It is the very heart and core of the gospel. It is the basis of all the comfort and assurance of the people of God in the midst of the world. It alone inspires in the hearts of the faithful the burning hope of life everlasting. No doubt it is precisely for this reason that no other single truth in all of the history of the church has been so viciously and consistently attacked as the truth of unconditional election. But no man can claim to be either Calvinistic or Reformed without a firm and abiding commitment to this precious truth.97 Hanko also says:
... if there was one reason why Calvin was hated it was because he maintained so unswervingly the truth of unconditional election.98
He then adds:
We are generally accustomed to trace this truth of unconditional election back to the Calvin Reformation. And yet it was not Calvin who was the first to develop this truth. But, just as with the truth of total depravity, so also with this truth, St. Augustine, who lived more than a millennium ago in the Fifth Century A.D., was the first to speak of it. If we consider this a moment, this is not surprising. Augustine took the position that man is totally depraved. By this he meant that man is incapable of doing any good. And, most emphatically, that man is incapable of doing anything, which would contribute to his salvation.99 He goes on to say: In answer, therefore, to the question of how men are saved, Augustine answered that the power of salvation is to be found only in the power of sovereign, unmerited grace. There is no other power of salvation but that. But immediately the question arises: if the power of salvation is the power of sovereign, unmerited grace, not dependent in any respect upon man, how is it then that some men are saved and others are not? The answer to that question Augustine found in the decree of election and reprobation.100 To Hanko and all Calvinists, a great deal hangs on an affirmation of the unconditional nature of election. He says: The fact is that unless we maintain unconditional election, there is no election at all . because then the power of sovereign grace is denied as the power by which God saves those whom He has chosen to be His own.101 This is an extremely important point in Calvinism. According to Reformed Theology, unless you affirm the unconditional aspect of an election to salvation, you must in effect deny the sovereignty and grace of God in salvation. To the Calvinist, a denial of sovereign grace is a denial of sovereignty and grace. This view which says sovereignty and grace necessitate the unconditional nature of election to salvation is a theological and logical sore spot for many hypo-Calvinists because they say or suggest that God:
Unconditionally elects some people to salvation,
And yet:
Conditionally reprobates all other people to damnation.
Using Calvinist logic, this would mean that God is only sovereign with regard to the elect but not so with regard to the reprobate. We will revisit this issue many times throughout this book. For now it is enough to stress that according to Calvinism, in order for a lost person to become a saved person, he must be among a special caste of humanity called the elect. While the caste system of Reformed Theology transcends the earthly distinctions of humanity (i.e., rich, poor, black, white, Jew, Gentile, highly cultured, lowly peasants, etc.), it is an undeniable feature of Calvinism. In fact, the eternal castes of the elect and reprobate necessarily include representatives of all temporal distinctions. James White, while focusing on the election side of the election/reprobation coin, says that:
God elects a specific people unto Himself without reference to anything they do. This means the basis of God’s choice of the elect is solely within Himself: His grace, His mercy, His will. It is not man’s actions, works, or even foreseen faith, that “draws” God’s choice. God’s election is unconditional and final.102
While White may or may not appreciate what I am going to say, logically White’s view, at the very least, implies that God reprobates a specific people away from Himself without reference to anything they do. In fact, although this is hushed up or even denied in at least some hypo-Calvinist circles, Calvinism maintains an unconditional election to damnation as much as it does an unconditional election to salvation. All Calvinists shout about their doctrine of unconditional election. Most, however, whisper when talking about unconditional reprobation, if they speak of it at all. They boast of the former while they are seemingly embarrassed about the latter.
Sproul argues that the term “unconditional election” can be very misleading. Instead he prefers to use the term “sovereign election to unconditional election.” As a leading proponent of hypo-Calvinism, and like so many of his Calvinist contemporaries, Sproul is also in a kind of theological denial of the full implications of a consistent Calvinism. While I can understand why Sproul does not want to admit to (or face) the dark side of Calvinism, I cannot understand how he can deny it. Of all people, Sproul should be the first to recognize the logical link and relationship between election and reprobation in Reformed Theology. Sproul does say:
Unconditional election ... is decided by God according to His purpose, according to His sovereign will. It is not based upon some foreseen condition that some of us meet and others fail to meet.103 The “foreseen condition” that Sproul refers to and that he claims election “is not based upon” is faith in Christ. Logically, however, it would be just as Calvinistic to say that unconditional reprobation is decided by God according to His purpose, according to His sovereign will. That is, election to salvation and election to damnation are both unconditional, according to a consistent Calvinism. A little later Sproul says: When we say that election is unconditional we mean that the original decree of God by which He chooses some people to salvation is not dependent upon some future condition in us that God foresees.104 The “future condition” that Sproul speaks of is also faith in Christ. That is, election and the salvation that some (but not all) are elected to does not require faith from the elect but results in faith for the elect, according to Reformed Theology. H. Wayne House says election is: That aspect of God’s eternal purpose whereby he certainly and eternally determines by means of unconditional and loving choice who will believe. This is not merely the intention of God to save all who may believe; rather, it determines who will believe.105
He also says:
Election is an expression of God’s sovereign will and is the cause of faith.106 House goes on to further define election as: The unconditional and love choice of God by which He determines who must believe. It is the cause of man’s faith.107 Steele and Thomas, with one theological eye open to reprobation, explain: The doctrine of election declares that God, before the foundation of the world, chose certain individuals from among the fallen members of Adam’s race to be the objects of His undeserved favor.
These, and these only, He purposed to save. . He chose to save some and exclude others. His eternal choice of particular sinners unto salvation was not based upon any foreseen act or response on the part of those selected, but was based solely on His own good pleasure and sovereign will. Thus election was not determined by, or conditioned upon, anything that men would do, but resulted entirely upon God’s self-determined purpose.108
Thus, according to Steele and Thomas, God not only “chose to save some” but He also chose to “exclude others.” This means that in Calvinism there is an election of inclusion and an election of exclusion, both unconditional in nature. According to Calvinism, God determines the destiny of both the included and the excluded without consideration of, or factoring in, faith or unbelief. While many hypo-Calvinists want to deny this fact, the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional reprobation blames God at least implicitly, if not explicitly, for the damnation of the reprobate. In Calvinism God gets as much blame for reprobation and damnation as He does credit for election and salvation. In the case of the elect, God chose to save them. In the case of the reprobate, God chose to exclude them from salvation, that is, by definition, to include them in damnation. A consistent Calvinist traces reprobation to God in the same way that he traces election to God. W. R. Godfrey, the highly respected professor of church history at Westminster Seminary in California, represents the Augustinian doctrine of predestination (from which Calvinism traces its roots) as follows: The reason that some sinners are saved and others lost must be in God. It is according to God’s sovereign purpose, His eternal decree that some sinners are rescued and others are left in their sin. The foundation of this divine decree is simply the good pleasure or will of God.109
Notice that “the reason that some sinners are ... lost must be in God.” Given the faulty premise upon which Reformed Theology is based, logically what Calvinists say about salvation in this regard must also be as true about damnation. Understandably, most Calvinists prefer to focus on election to salvation versus reprobation to damnation. The dark side of Calvinism in some Calvinist circles is just too bitter a theological pill to swallow. The following words of Steele and Thomas are typical of the way hypo-Calvinists like to represent the Calvinist doctrine of election. That is:
God’s choice of certain individuals unto salvation before the foundation of the world rested solely in His own sovereign will.110 However, a consistent Calvinist could, just as easily, logically, and theologically, say:
God’s choice of certain individuals unto damnation before the foundation of the world rested solely in His own sovereign will.
Best-selling author Jay Adams, in his booklet, Counseling and the Five Points of Calvinism, is also typical of hypo-Calvinists in remaining silent about the reprobate when he says:
God has chosen some to be saved. . The choice was unconditional . The choice was made entirely within God. . The selection of some for eternal life was made on the basis of unrevealed factors known to God alone.111 Consistency would, however, allow or even require Adams to also say:
God has chosen some to be damned. ... The choice was unconditional. ... The choice was made entirely within God. ... The selection of some for eternal death was made on the basis of unrevealed factors known to God alone.
There is just no way to avoid the fact that a consistent view of unconditional election also logically leads to an unconditional view of reprobation. This is a serious bone of contention between hyper-Calvinists and hypo Calvinists. Although this point is both denied and affirmed in a variety of ways by many, if not most hypo-Calvinists, it is clearly the flip side of unconditional election. Nevertheless and understandably, much more is said about election than reprobation in books by Calvinists promoting Calvinism. People don’t mind getting something for nothing (election). It is being punished for nothing (reprobation) that they find difficult to accept. It is enough, many believe, to zero in on the unconditional aspect of election. If one is really willing to turn the coin over, however, it is not difficult to see reprobation as plainly as election to salvation can be seen on the other side. In TULIP, the acronym for the five points of Calvinism, Calvinist Duane Spencer says: The Apostle Paul declares that the ground of election is in God Himself, which is to say in His will and purpose, and not in an act of faith or some “condition.” ... Election is unconditional.112 A consistent Calvinist could also say: The ground of reprobation is in God Himself, which is to say in His will and purpose, and not in an act of sin or some “condition.” ... Reprobation is unconditional.
Some hypo-Calvinists go to great lengths to suggest that you can believe in unconditional election without believing in unconditional reprobation. That is, however, like saying you can believe in unconditional election and not in limited atonement. This is logically impossible. Steele and Thomas are representative of Calvinism when they say that God’s:
... choice of particular sinners was not based on any foreseen response or obedience on their part, such as faith, repentance, etc. On the contrary, God gives faith and repentance to each individual whom He selected. These acts are the result, not the cause of God’s choice. ... Thus, God’s choice of the sinner, not the sinner’s choice of Christ, is the ultimate cause of salvation.113 Logically, a consistent Calvinist would also have to say that God’s:
... rejection of particular sinners was not based on any foreseen response on their part, such as unbelief, a refusal to repent, etc. On the contrary, God withheld faith and repentance from each individual He rejected. These are the result, not the cause of God’s choice to reject. ... Thus, God’s rejection of the sinner, and not the sinner’s rejection of Christ, is the ultimate cause of damnation.
Sproul claims that only a hyper-Calvinist could say such a thing. He equates hyper-Calvinism with unorthodox, anti,—or even sub-Calvinism. We will consider the legitimacy of this charge a little later.
Even though Calvin and Calvinism plead ignorance as to why God chooses to save some or why He chooses to damn others, or even why this pleases God, Calvin believed that regardless of the reason behind God’s decision to damn the reprobate, it must be their fault. In other words, God’s choice is completely within Himself and not because of the individual, and yet, contradictorily, the “fault” continues to lie not with God, but with the individual. Thus, Calvin could say that although mankind’s:
... perdition depends on the predestination of God, the cause and matter of it is in themselves.114
Such a proposition is double talk. I mean Calvin no disrespect, but he is speaking here from both sides of his mouth, and it is hard to imagine that such a brilliant man did not realize what he was doing. In the Calvinist scheme of things, the human cause that leads to damnation is only secondary to the divine cause that ultimately is the cause of sin in the sinner. According to Calvin and a consistent Calvinism, whatever is in man, God put there in the first place. However, unwittingly, Reformed Theology makes God the primary cause of that which leads to sin and the damnation that follows for all but the elect. This is where the Calvinist, especially the hypo-Calvinist, accuses me of misunderstanding Calvin and Calvinism. My key witness in this contention, however, is Calvin himself. Nevertheless, in saying that man is to be blamed for his own doom, Calvin was making it clear that he did not believe that God was being unjust in His treatment of those He doomed.
Some will say that the reason the reprobate can be unconditionally “passed over” or even unconditionally “hardened,” as Reformed Theology teaches, without calling into question the justice of God is because they are sinners who deserve what they are going to get. Although Calvin clearly believed that reprobates are sinners deserving divine retribution, this is not the reason that Calvin believed God condemns them. Calvin simply never explained how God could be just in damning the lost and admitted that this was “incomprehensible” to him.
If God did reject the reprobate for this reason (i.e., their sinfulness), how can we explain why God chose the elect? Certainly the elect, before conversion, are just as sinful and just as deserving of divine retribution as their reprobate counterparts. To identify sinfulness or even unbelief as the cause of reprobation would create insurmountable problems for Calvin’s view of salvation by grace in general, and of Calvin’s views of sovereignty and predestination in particular. While Calvin may have talked a lot about the depravity of man and how undeserving man is, he could not use these factors when trying to explain non-election, reprobation, or damnation.
Some Calvinists say God elects some to salvation because He chose to love them. But that only begs the question, why some and not others? Certainly the elect are no more lovable before regeneration than the reprobate. Note carefully what Calvin said on this very point:
Predestination is nothing else than a dispensation of divine justice, secret indeed, but unblamable, because it is certain that those predestined to that condition were not unworthy of it, it is equally certain, that the destruction consequent upon predestination is also most just.115 To Calvin, the justice in damnation is certain, but it was certainly not evident to him. That is what Calvin meant by “secret indeed.” Whatever the reason the reprobate will be punished for all eternity, Calvin believed it was the result of, or at least in accordance with, “divine justice.” For His part, God is “unblamable.” The reprobate man was “not unworthy of it.” “The destruction” of the reprobate is “just.” If it had anything to do with the sin or sinfulness of the reprobate, it would not be a “secret,” and it would apply to the elect as well. The closest Calvin got to what some might consider an explanation of why God chooses to unconditionally condemn some and unconditionally save others equally deserving of damnation is when he says that God has the right and desire to show His mercy and His judgment in whatever way He wants.
According to Reformed Theology, someone has to be saved for God to show how merciful He can be and someone has to be condemned to show how severe He can be. Since all the people God has to choose from are equally undeserving of His mercy, anyone He chooses not to be merciful to is only getting what he deserves. Calvin also made it clear that although the reprobate is deserving of hell, that is not the reason for his ultimate rejection by God. Rather, he who ends up in hell is there because this is what pleases God and where He unconditionally sends him. The sinfulness of the reprobate, as a result of the fall of the first man, is not only not a reason for ultimate punishment, but is itself the result of a “just” decision of God, according to Calvin. How it is that a man could be deserving of something that ultimately lands him in hell without regard to anything he did or was going to do—or that God caused him to do—is just another one of the many mysteries in Reformed Theology. Immediately after the above admission, Calvin went on to say: The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should: why he deemed it meet, we do not know now, it was certain, however that it was just ...116
It is evident, therefore, that Calvin believed that both the fall and the consequences of the fall are just punishments from God. Human sin, in this scenario, is not so much the root of the problem but the fruit of the problem. The underlying problem itself is totally unknown, except that this is the way God wanted it to be. If the theological chicken is God’s decree to damn and the theological egg is man’s sin, what would Calvin say to the question, “Which came first (causally speaking), the chicken or the egg?” In effect, Calvin said both are first, depending upon your vantage point. From the human perspective, sin is what leads to damnation and therefore it is man’s fault if he goes to hell. From the divine perspective, man originally sinned and even continues to sin because God decreed that he would and should. Clearly, Calvin turns the fall of man into a push from God.
Why God would push man into sin, and how this can be without making God the author (or cause) of sin, is evidently a part of the same mystery that Calvinists so often appeal to and even hide behind. Calvin leaves us with hopeless contradictions that Calvinists call mysteries. Even the logically minded R. C. Sproul says:
God wills all things that come to pass. . God desired for man to fall into sin. I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin.117
If this is what the mainstream Calvinist really believes, then there is not much room to differentiate between the extreme and the mainstream. I would love to hear Sproul explain how God could create sin without being the cause or author of sin, and therefore a sinner. If God is the creator of sin and no one or nothing caused God to create sin, then God is the cause of sin. If He is the cause of sin, He must also be responsible for the sin He caused. The hypo-Calvinist Edwin Palmer represents Calvin and Calvinism as making God and His predestination the cause of:
... the moving of a finger, the beating of a heart, the laughter of a girl, the mistake of a typist—even sin.118
Calvinists articulate a view which not only calls into question the indiscriminate love of God, but the justice and character of God as well. As nonCalvinists, we are not even supposed to ask how this can be squared with Scripture. To do so, says the Calvinist, is to challenge God Himself. In fact, when it suits Calvin, he seems to make ignorance of these matters a virtue. It is, however, Calvin who creates the theological system that makes God out to be guilty of wrongdoing. When we question that system, he conveniently turns the table on us. Calvin clearly understood his detractors’ objections to the extreme and seemingly illogical position he had taken. Consider the questions they were asking, as reported to us by Calvin himself:
Why should God blame men for things the necessity of which he has imposed by his own predestination? What could they do? Could they struggle with his decrees? . It is not just . to punish them for things the principal cause of which is in the predestination of God.119
Assuming Calvin is right to consider the divine decree as the ultimate and primary cause of all that is and will be, these are perfectly reasonable questions, reflecting perfectly justified concerns. Instead of acknowledging the logic of such questions or attempting a reasonable answer to them, Calvin simply charges that: This ... is the scoffing language which profane tongues employ.120
Calvin’s answer is theological intimidation and is destitute of scriptural illumination. Herein lies a serious problem. Calvin and Calvinists say so much more about predestination than Scripture does, and even contradict what Scripture says about predestination. Yet we are supposed to unquestioningly accept what they say, no matter how much it impugns the love, justice, and character of God. It is Calvin who introduced so many foreign and scripturally incompatible doctrines while calling them biblical truths. Calvin is the pot calling the kettle black. He is the one who does what he chides others for doing. In Reformed Theology, the concepts of election and reprobation are so bound together that whenever you try to give a reason for one thing, such as why God condemns the reprobate, it backfires on the doctrine of Calvinism. For as soon as you say “because,” you are trapped. That is, if whatever you say about the reprobate is also true of the elect—sinners, undeserving of salvation, deserving of hell, etc.—then those things cannot be factors. Allow me to illustrate with an excerpt from my primer on the five points of Calvinism:
Suppose you are offered some chocolates from a box of chocolates.
While gazing into the box, you decide there is nothing in any of the chocolates to make you want to pick one chocolate over another. Nevertheless, you choose some of the chocolates and some of the chocolates you do not choose. You may have a reason for picking some and not others, but the reason has nothing to do with the individual chocolates themselves. It stands to reason then, if there is nothing in the chocolates that affected your decision to pick one piece of chocolate over the others, there is also nothing in the ones you do not pick to affect your decision to not pick them.121
After reading this analogy in my earlier book, some Calvinists protested that it was a total misrepresentation of what Calvin said or implied. Calvin, however, used exactly the same logic when he said in reference to Romans Chapter Nine:
If we cannot assign any reason for his bestowing mercy on his people, but just that it so pleases him, neither can he have any reason for his reprobating others but his will. When God is said to visit in mercy or harden whom he will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond his will.122 With this same portion of Scripture in mind, Calvin said:
... hardening is not less under the immediate hand of God than mercy.123
He also said:
... the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardening.124 The “not to seek for any cause beyond his will” phrase rules out the fall, sin, depravity, unbelief, or anything else true of man after the fall. Hanko explains:
First of all (and negatively) this means that in the decrees of election God chose not according to anything found in man. He did not base His choice on man in any way. Not on man’s goodness, works, faith, holiness; not on man’s faithfulness to the gospel. There could not be found in man any good thing. It was a free choice, a sovereign choice of God. He made it without any consideration of man whatsoever.125 The hyper-Calvinists are more likely to acknowledge the flip side to this point than their hypo-Calvinist counterparts. That is, they seem more inclined than most hypo-Calvinists to accept the implication of Calvinism which says that the choice for damnation is “made . without any consideration of man whatsoever.” Logically, this is an inescapable conclusion in Calvinism, which also creates insurmountable problems for the notion of divine justice and human culpability. For if the reason a man is damned has nothing to do with that man, then whatever is hidden in the mystery cannot point to the man. To blame the man, as Calvinists do, for what Calvinism implicitly says God is really responsible for doing does not get God off the moral hook that Calvinists put Him on. Many Calvinists of the hypo-variety seemingly cannot accept what Calvinism implies about the ultimate reason for the damnation of the reprobate or the reprobation of the damned. This is why Spurgeon contradicts a consistent Calvinism and says:
It is the uniform doctrine of Calvinism, that God creates all for his own glory; that he is infinitely righteous and benignant [without malice], and that where men perish it is only for their sins.126
Calvinists can say these kinds of things. A consistent Calvinism, however, cannot allow it. While Calvin did not care (or perhaps was unable) to resolve the many logical, theological, and scriptural problems his teaching created, he was not unaware of the “dreadful” implications of his views concerning reprobation. Nevertheless, his commitment to a particular and unscriptural view of sovereignty and predestination left him no other option. The doctrinal and logical dilemma in which Calvin put himself (and all consistent Calvinists) can be discerned when he says:
I ... ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God? . The decree, I admit, is, dreadful; and yet it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because He had so ordained by his decree. . God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, and in him the ruin of his posterity; but also at his own pleasure arranged it.127
Calvin believed and taught that the fall and ruin of Adam and his posterity, including the hopeless (i.e., “without remedy”) and dreadful fact that infant children are unconditionally doomed to eternal death, was according to God’s own decree. For Calvin, this is also to say it was God’s doing. Can God arrange something at His own pleasure and then not be responsible for what He arranges? Logically, He cannot. Yet this is what the hypo-Calvinist, at least by implication, wants us to believe. Calvin and many, if not most, of his followers try to have it both ways. Calvin repeatedly said that the fall was caused by God’s decree. Then Calvin would also say that it is a man’s own fault and according to justice when a man ends up unconditionally in hell. Calvin is not the only one to face, or refuse to face, the logical problems posed by Reformed Theology. Sproul puts the best possible spin on the Calvinist doctrine of reprobation. Upon close inspection, it is still just spin. In Chosen by God, Sproul initially appears to want to lay it all out on the table. For example, he explains:
Though there is strong sentiment to speak of single predestination only, and to avoid any discussion of double predestination, we must still face the questions on the table. Unless we conclude that every human being is predestined to salvation, we must face the flip side of election. If there is such a thing as predestination at all, and if that predestination does include all people, we must not shrink from the necessary inference that there are two sides to predestination. It is not enough to talk about Jacob; we must also consider Esau.128 Elsewhere Sproul says:
Every coin has a flip side. There is a flip side to the doctrine of election. Election only refers to one aspect of the broader question of predestination. The other side of the coin is the question of reprobation.129
I would have applauded Sproul’s willingness to face the flip side had he actually done so. What he did, however, was distance himself from the flip side of election as far as his genius and command of the English language would allow. It is the Calvinist understanding of God’s view of Esau that creates so many headaches for them and is so offensive to the rest of us. Remember that according to Calvinism, single predestination refers to the Calvinist doctrine that says God unconditionally elects some to salvation but does not unconditionally condemn others to damnation. This is the view of men like Charles Spurgeon as well as a lot of new converts to Calvinism. It is not, however, a fully developed or consistent view of Reformed Theology. It leaves the Calvinist theologically and logically stranded. The doctrine of double predestination, to which Sproul refers and at least formally agrees, affirms that God also predestines the reprobate to damnation. All those who try to be consistent Calvinists believe in and embrace double predestination (in some form or fashion) whether they call it that or not. The problem is that when many hypo-Calvinists get around to really explaining themselves in terms that can be understood, their explanation amounts to a denial of what double predestination really affirms. No amount of semantic gymnastics can, however, shield the Calvinist from the dark side of Calvinism. Sproul and many mainstream Calvinists simply do not seem to understand or accept the full implications of the dark side of Calvinist doctrine.
We know that according to Calvinist logic, sovereign election to salvation and sovereign reprobation to damnation must stand or fall together. Still, it is just too harsh an implied truth of Reformed Theology for many Calvinists to contemplate—that God damns millions merely because of His own secret pleasure, not because of anything they have done, will do, or even would do if they had the opportunity. Despite what Sproul says and what he may truly have intended to do, he does anything but face the flip side of Calvin’s doctrine of election. Instead, he compares what he purports to be a more extreme view of double predestination with his own seemingly more moderate view of double predestination, thereby making it seem as though his view is not extreme. Sproul explains:
There are different views of double predestination. One of these is so frightening that many shun the term altogether, lest their view of the doctrine be confused with the scary one. This is called the equal ultimacy view.130 Sproul then distances himself from this view by explaining:
Equal ultimacy is based on a concept of symmetry. It seeks a complete balance between election and reprobation. The key idea is this: Just as God intervenes in the lives of the elect to create faith in their hearts, so God equally intervenes in the lives of the reprobate to create or work unbelief. . Equal ultimacy is not the Reformed or Calvinist view of predestination. Some have called it “hyper-Calvinism.” I prefer to call it “sub-Calvinism” or, better yet, “anti-Calvinism.” Though Calvinism certainly has a view of double predestination, the double predestination it embraces is not one of equal ultimacy.131 Having sided with the hypo-Calvinist camp, Sproul goes on to explain: To understand the Reformed view of the matter we must pay close attention to the crucial distinction between positive and negative decrees of God. Positive has to do with God’s active intervention in the hearts of the elect. Negative has to do with God’s passing over the non-elect. The Reformed view teaches that God actively or positively intervenes in the life of the elect to insure their salvation. The rest of mankind God leaves to themselves. He does not create unbelief in their hearts. That unbelief is already there.132 Sproul also says:
God’s “hardening of hearts” is itself a just punishment for sin that is already present.133
Although Sproul fails to acknowledge how this sin came to be “already present” (it was unconditionally decreed by God according to Calvin), he calls this “hardening of hearts” “passive hardening.” He says:
Passive hardening involves a divine judgment upon sin that is already present. All that God needs to do to harden the heart of a person whose heart is already desperately wicked is “give him over to his sin.”. All that God has to do to harden people’s hearts is to remove the restraints. He gives them a longer leash. Rather than restricting their freedom, He increases it. He lets them have their own way. In a sense He gives them enough rope to hang themselves.134
It is difficult for me to believe that Sproul could have missed so much. The point is not about whether the reprobate is worthy of damnation. He most certainly is. But so is the individual God elects for salvation. In effect, Sproul gets sidetracked and changes the topic. What, may I ask, is the mystery in the justice when a man (for obvious reasons) gets what he deserves? When convenient to do so, Sproul seems to disconnect the Calvinist notion of a decree of God with what follows inevitably from that decree. Even the term “double predestination” can be misleading. Calvinists constantly hammer away at the notion that all things are sovereignly determined, decreed, and destined by God in such a manner that God is the primary and responsible cause of whatever comes to pass. If the eternal destiny of a reprobate person is included as one of the “all things” that God predestines (and it must be so) in the Calvinist sense, it stands to reason that the reprobate go to hell primarily and ultimately because of God. According to Reformed Theology, people simply do not go to hell for any reason that can be traced to them. Oliver Buswell speaks for all consistent Calvinists when he says: The decrees of God may be regarded as one complex decree, including all things.135 John Gill explains that all things pertaining to a man are:
... according to the determinate counsel and will of God.136 More narrowly focused, John Giradeau says:
Predestination includes two parts, election and reprobation, the predetermination of both the good and the wicked to their final end ...137 Ultimately, when it comes to the bottom line, even Sproul admits:
There is ... a kind of equal ultimacy. The reprobate, who are passed over by God, are ultimately doomed by God, and their damnation is as certain and sure as the ultimate salvation of the elect.138
“Kind of equal ultimacy”? Sproul should know that it is equal or it is not equal. Two things that are unequal, no matter how close to equal they may be, cannot, by definition, be “kind of equal.” Sproul the logician has to know this. Sproul the Calvinist must have forgotten it. Sproul objects to the notion that says:
God is equally responsible for election and reprobation.139
He says that this is characteristic of hyper-Calvinism. Sproul still concedes that God is responsible, albeit to a lesser degree, for the damnation of the reprobate. How can this be without making God less sovereign, according to Calvinist logic? As far as I can tell, Sproul never attempts to explain this dilemma. To make God responsible to any degree for the damnation of the reprobate is, however unwittingly, an attack on the character of God. Is God wholly, partly, or not responsible at all for the damnation of the reprobate? A hyper-Calvinist would say (or at least strongly imply) that God is as responsible for the damnation of the reprobate, as He is for the salvation of the elect. Some hypo-Calvinists, such as Spurgeon, argue that damnation is wholly of man. The implication of the position taken by Sproul and other hypo-Calvinists is that God is not as responsible for damnation as He is for salvation. That is, God is not as responsible for damnation, though He is still responsible. Another way to state this view is to say that God is not responsible for damnation to the same degree as He is for salvation.
Unless we weaken or even deny the implications of a divine decree that is in keeping with Calvinism, no matter what means is used, that which follows is necessarily linked to and ultimately caused by that decree. Even if we can distinguish between a negative and positive decree, as Sproul does, it would still be God that decrees reprobation. Reprobation is still (in the Calvinist view) primarily and ultimately the result of a divine decree. To deny that the primary and ultimate cause of anything is anyone or anything but God is to deny a fundamental tenet of a consistent Calvinism. Thus, the distinction between a negative and positive decree in Calvinism not only does not clear up the matter, it compounds the confusion. Moreover, it flies in the face of so much that Calvin and Calvinists of all kinds say. With election and reprobation in mind, Douglas Wilson also challenges us to:
Turn the coin over and look at the other side: if God chooses those who are saved, and not everyone is saved, then God also chooses not to give salvation to some—those who ultimately remain lost.
One side of the coin is called election, while the other is called hardening—the process by which God passes by those who are not elect. Coming to grips with what the Bible says about hardening is crucial if we are to understand election. ... If, as some argue, God does not harden the non-elect, then we must reject the notion of election that God chooses the elect, since hardening is simply the flip side of election.140
“God passes by,” a favorite phrase used by the Calvinist, is a cosmetic effort to distance God from damnation, and is therefore misleading. For the hardening process that leads to reprobation and ultimately damnation is, according to Calvinism, the work of God, as is the irresistible grace of God that leads to salvation for the elect. Moreover, it is God alone who hardens. Ultimately, there are no co-hardeners and co-condemners in a consistent Calvinism. All Calvinists say that it is not God with man’s help who saves the elect, but God and God alone who elects to save from all eternity to all eternity and that He does so unconditionally. It is also God and God alone who actually saves the elect in time. Further, a consistent Calvinism says that it is not God with man’s help that condemns the reprobate or that reprobates the damned. God alone unconditionally elects to condemn the reprobate, and it is God alone who ultimately brings to pass the condemnation of the reprobate.
Calvinists constantly argue that if anyone but God has a say about anything, especially in matters relating to ultimate destinies, then God is not sovereign. They imply that God and God alone is the reason some go to heaven and others end up in hell. The reason God does this, according to Calvinism, is unknown and unknowable on this side of glory. Logically, even on the other side of glory, a consistent Calvinism says that we will not be able to make the case that an eternally condemned man was the cause of his own condemnation any more than we could credit an eternally saved man with the fact that he is saved. In other words, the mystery will have to remain a mystery for all of eternity.
Wilson appears to have gone further than Sproul in “coming to grips with” the hardening process by which God passes by those who are reprobate. All Calvinists agree that God hardens those ultimately lost, but they hold to differing views as to what this means and what its implications are. To dismiss those who at least try to be consistent as sub-Calvinists or antiCalvinists, as Sproul does, will simply not do. The way Sproul uses words like “passive,” “active,” “positive,” and “negative” only serves to obscure the bottom line. Although Sproul insists that the Reformed view of hardening is only “passive,” Calvin explained: The word hardens, when applied to God in Scripture, means not only permission, (as some washy moderators would have it,) but also the operation of the wrath of God: for all those external things, which lead to the blinding of the reprobate, are the instruments of his wrath; and Satan himself, who works inwardly with great power, is so far his minister, that he acts not, but by his command.
... Paul teaches us, that the ruin of the wicked is not only foreseen by the Lord, but also ordained by his counsel and his will . not only the destruction of the wicked is foreknown, but that the wicked themselves have been created for this very end—that they may perish.141
It is as if Calvin was looking into the future and labeling Sproul, and those who agree with him, as “washy moderators” or “weak exegetes,” as another translation renders it. Surely then, Sproul must object to Calvin when Calvin objected to: the distinction between will and permission, the object being to prove that the wicked perish only by the permission, but not by the will of God.142 Is that not what Sproul tries to do? To Calvin, whether it is passive or not:
... The will of God is necessity ...143 Calvin explained:
There is no random power, or agency, or motion in the creatures, who are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed . the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.144
Here Calvin is talking about Adam before he even had a sinful nature. Thus, the reason Adam sinned could not be blamed on the fact that he was a sinner. According to Calvin, what is true of the fall of Adam is also true of the destiny of Adam’s posterity. That is, people end up in heaven or hell because that is where God wants and ordains them to go, and for no reason or reasons that can be traced to them. This is a very disturbing thought if you happen to be one of the many reprobates (or if you care about them) God created for the very purpose of condemning to eternal torment. This is not a misrepresentation of Calvinism but the very unambiguous teaching of John Calvin himself. Remember, Calvin reasoned:
Since the arrangement of all things is in the hand of God, since to him belongs the disposal of life and death, he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction. . I, for my part, am willing to admit, that mere prescience [foreknowledge] lays no necessity on the creatures ... the dispute is superfluous since life and death are acts of the divine will rather than of prescience. If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question, how far his foreknowledge amounts to necessity; but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed that they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience, while it is clear that all events take place by his sovereign appointment.145
I did not put the words “doomed from the womb” into Calvin’s mouth. I am not responsible for the view that says God arranges for the disposal of men “at his pleasure.” I am not reading into the teachings of Calvin something he did not say. On the contrary, I am letting Calvin speak for himself. If this troubles you, then Calvinism troubles you. The point is hard to miss. God saves, God condemns. Why He does either is unknown and unknowable as far as Calvinism is concerned. I have no doubt that men, especially those as capable as Sproul, can find ways to seemingly soften what Calvin says and call the softer-sounding position “orthodox Calvinism.” They can also call what appears on the surface to be the authentic views of Calvin, “hyper.” If, however, the principle of authorial intent means anything, then the so-called sub-Calvinists of today are at least as authentically Calvinist as are their softer-sounding counterparts on this central issue. I would say that at least on this issue, the hyper-Calvinists stand theologically closer to Calvin than their hypo-Calvinist detractors. To say that “individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb” is about as hard a position as one can take. A much-respected expert on the life and teachings of John Calvin, Alister McGrath, is exactly right when he says: For Calvin, logical rigour demands that God actively chooses to redeem or to damn. God cannot be thought of as doing something by default. He is active and sovereign in His actions. Therefore God actively wills the salvation of those who will be saved and the damnation of those who will not be saved.146
Although Sproul and many other hypo-Calvinists try very hard to restate Calvinism so as to distance themselves from its dark side, A. A. Hodge, also a hypo-Calvinist, admits that:
... All the world knows that as a predestinarian [Calvin] went to the length of Supralapsarianism, from which ... the Synod of Dort, and the Assembly of Westminster, recoiled.147 Loraine Boettner explains:
Among those who call themselves Calvinists there has been some difference of opinion as to the order of events in the Divine plan. The question here is, When the decrees of election and reprobation came into existence were men considered as fallen or as unfallen? Were the objects of these decrees contemplated as members of a sinful, corrupt mass, or were they contemplated merely as men whom God would create? . According to the supralapsarian view the order of events was: (1) to elect some creatable men (that is, men who were to be created) to life and to condemn others to destruction; (2) to create; (3) to permit the fall; (4) to send Christ to redeem the elect; and (5) to send the Holy Spirit to apply this redemption to the elect. The question then is as to whether election precedes or follows the fall.148 Do not let these long words intimidate you. Supralapsarianism is different from infralapsarianism only in ways that do not really matter or make a difference. If I were to say that three times six is eighteen and you were to say that six plus six plus six is eighteen, we would be in agreement. It would seem rather silly if we argued about the differing means, such as multiplication versus addition, which led us to the same correct conclusion.
More to the point, Calvin explained as much about why reprobates are condemned as the system of theology he espoused would allow. He was, however, very critical of those Christians who could not admit the dark side of Calvinism for fear that it would subject God to an unflattering accusation. Thus, Calvin chided:
Many professing a desire to defend [God] from an invidious charge admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated.
... This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite reprobation. God is said to set apart those whom he adopts for salvation. It [is] most absurd to say, that he admits others fortuitously, or that they by their industry acquire what election alone confers on a few. Those therefore whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines to his children.149 When most Calvinists explain their doctrine of reprobation, more often than not, they try to make it sound as though reprobation is effectively the sinner hanging himself with his own sins. This is what Sproul and most other hypo-Calvinists do. But how can we reconcile such a notion with Calvin’s words?
Those . whom God passes by he reprobates, and that for no other cause but because he is pleased to exclude them .150 Remember what Calvin also said:
... each has been created for one or other of these ends, [therefore] we say that he has been predestined to life or to death.151
There was nothing, according to Calvin, in or about Adam to explain his fall. As we have seen, Calvin repeatedly asserts this while at the same time arguing the contradictory notion that Adam’s fall was Adam’s fault and not God’s. Consider Calvin’s reasoning, when referring to his detractors. He said:
They deny that it is ever said in distinct terms, God decreed that Adam should perish by his revolt. As if the same God, who is declared in Scripture to do whatsoever he pleases, could have made the noblest of his creatures without any special purpose. They say that, in accordance with free-will, he was to be the architect of his own fortune, that God had decreed nothing but to treat him according to his desert. If this frigid fiction is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which everything depends, he rules over all? But whether they will allow it or not, predestination is manifest in Adam’s posterity. It was not owing to nature that they all lost salvation by the fault of one parent. Why should they refuse to admit with regard to one man that which against their will they admit with regard to the whole human race? Why should they in caviling lose their labour? Scripture proclaims that all were, in the person of one, made liable to eternal death. As this cannot be ascribed to nature, it is plain that it is owing to the wonderful counsel of God.152 This notion that God could not have a special purpose in mind for His creatures unless He caused them in the person of Adam to sin is reiterated in a slightly modified form even by hypo-Calvinists. To be honest, I do not see the logic here. Nevertheless, this is how it breaks down:
Adam did not have a free choice to sin or not to sin.
It was not the nature of man that led to or resulted in the frst sin.
It was the decree, purpose, plan, wonderful counsel, and will of God that was the ultimate cause of Adam’s sin and the terrible consequences of the fall.
Nevertheless, it is not God’s fault.
In other words, God, by His decree, pushed man into sin by which man fell and took the entire future human race with him, and yet, somehow, it is still man’s fault, not God’s. Remember what Sproul says:
God wills all things that come to pass. . God desired for man to fall into sin. ... God created sin.153
Sproul asks:
Why does God only save some?154
He then says: The only answer I can give to this question is that I don’t know. I have no idea why God saves some but not all. ... I know that He does not choose to save all. I don’t know why.155 Very much to the point, Sproul says:
It was certainly loving of God to predestine the salvation of His people, those the Bible calls the “elect or chosen ones.” It is the non-elect that are the problem. If some people are not elected unto salvation then it would seem that God is not all that loving toward them. For them it seems that it would have been more loving of God not to have allowed them to be born. That may indeed be the case.156
“Not all that loving toward them” may be one of the greatest theological understatements of all time. According to Calvin, God created the reprobate for the very purpose of condemning them to the torments of hellfire for all eternity. That is (according to Reformed Theology) God’s “special purpose” for them. Not all that loving toward them? Imagine a science fiction story in which in a future time an advanced group of scientists learn how to create human-like creatures. Imagine that some of these creatures are created to be tortured for the pleasure of these scientists. Would we not conclude that the scientists in our fictional story were immoral, cruel, and even sadistic for doing such a thing? Has not the Calvinist painted an even worse portrait of God? WHERE IS THE LOVE?
Concerning “the words of Christ himself in John 3:16,” in which our Savior says that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,” the hyper-Calvinist John Gill explains:
All the individuals in the world are not loved by God in such a manner.157
Gill wants us to believe that God loves some individuals in the world “in such a manner,” just not all the individuals in the world. How odd that Jesus did not say anything to support such a view.
Charles Spurgeon followed as the pastor of the same church that Gill had pastored many years earlier. Spurgeon distanced himself as much as he was able from the hyper-Calvinism of Gill.
Whereas Gill denies that God loved the whole world, Spurgeon, along with all other hypo-Calvinists, denies a saving love for the reprobate of the world. Gill insists that God only loves some and therefore only saves some. In fact, Gill and others of the same Calvinist camp argue that it was the fact that God only saves some that proves He only loves some. Spurgeon insists that God loves everyone but that He does not love everyone with an electing love. Spurgeon appeals to his listeners to see a divine love for all the lost and not just those who could, by virtue of election, become saved. Spurgeon also argues that God has a broader and non-redemptive love for everyone and a more narrowly focused, saving love for the elect. Thus Spurgeon could be heard saying:
Beloved, the benevolent love of Jesus is more extended than the lines of his electing love . That . is not the love which beams resplendently upon his chosen, but it is true love for all that.158 Spurgeon says God’s electing love: is not for all men . There is an electing, discriminating, distinguishing love, which is settled upon a chosen people . and it is this love which is the true resting place for the saint.159 In his book titled The God Who Loves, MacArthur apparently follows the lead of Spurgeon and says: An important distinction must be made: God loves believers with a particular love. . It is an eternal love that guarantees their salvation from sin and its ghastly penalty. ... We know from Scripture that this great love was the very cause of our election (Ephesians 2:4).
Such love clearly is not directed toward all of mankind indiscriminately, but is bestowed uniquely and individually on those whom God chose in eternity past.160
MacArthur perfectly illustrates how incredibly inconsistent some Calvinists can be. For example, MacArthur goes to great lengths to distance himself from those who deny the universality of God’s love and marshals a great deal of scriptural evidence against the view that says God only loves the elect. In his book, The Love of God, MacArthur explains:
One of the deep concerns that has prompted me to write this book is a growing trend I have noticed—particularly among people committed to the biblical truth of God’s sovereignty and divine election. Some of them flatly deny that God in any sense loves those whom He has not chosen for salvation. . I am troubled by the tendency of some—often young people newly infatuated with Reformed doctrine—who insist that God cannot possibly love those who never repent and believe.161 MacArthur goes on to explain that those with whom he vehemently disagrees contend:
If God loved everyone, He would have chosen everyone unto salvation. Therefore, God does not love the non-elect.162 MacArthur then reasons:
Those who hold this view often go to great lengths to argue that John 3:16 cannot really mean that God loves the whole world.163 MacArthur then rejects the view that says:
... (“For God so loved the world .”) refers to the world of believers (God’s elect), in contradistinction from “the world of the ungodly. ”164 As we will see in a subsequent chapter, MacArthur argues that the word “world” cannot be all-inclusive of everyone in the world when Scripture says Christ died for the whole world. When Scripture says that God loves the whole world, he says the world cannot be exclusive of anyone in the world. Setting this aside for now, is MacArthur’s view of a non-redemptive universal love any better or any less unscriptural than Gill’s denial of a divine love which is universal and all-inclusive? In some respects it is worse. While MacArthur affirms God’s love for everyone, he reduces that love to a non-redemptive love. It is simply not a saving love. This is the equivalent of saying Christ died for the reprobate, but not re demptively—which, by the way, MacArthur also says. If the love mentioned in John 3:16 is for everyone, as MacArthur rightly insists, then it must be a redemptive love, period! How could MacArthur have missed this? While MacArthur is worried about some in the Reformed community denying the love of God for all, he is just as troubled by those he perceives to read too much into the fact that God loves everyone. It should come as no surprise, then, that MacArthur would say:
D. L. Moody ... was undoubtedly guilty of an over emphasis on divine love.165
I would love to hear what it is that Moody said that made him “guilty of an over emphasis on divine love.” MacArthur argues that where a person ultimately ends up, whether that is heaven or hell, corresponds directly to whether or not God loves or hates him. MacArthur also argues for the contradictory view that it is not really whether or not God loves or hates you that really matters. For according to MacArthur the person in danger of hellfire is a person God both loves and hates. MacArthur explains:
I am convinced from Scripture that God’s hatred toward the wicked is not a hatred undiluted by compassion, mercy, or love. We know from human experience that love and hatred are not mutually exclusive. It is not the least bit unusual to have concurrent feelings of love and hatred directed at the same person. We often speak of people who have love-hate relationships. There is no reason to deny that in an infinitely purer and more noble sense, God’s hatred toward the wicked is accompanied by sincere, compassionate love toward them as well.166
MacArthur is not saying, as we often hear, that God hates the sin but loves the sinner or that He hates the sin because He loves the sinner. God actually hates at least some sinners, and every sinner He does not love with a special or electing love, according to MacArthur, will end up in hell. Immediately after saying that God loves and hates those He has no interest in saving and no saving love for, he goes on to say: The fact that God will send to eternal hell all sinners who persist in sin and unbelief proves His hatred toward them.167
According to MacArthur, if God loves and hates a person, that person has no hope. Whatever good may result from being loved by God, if God also hates you, the love God has for you will do you no saving good. Diluting the condemning hate God has for you with His non-saving love will be of no benefit; you will still be irredeemable. No matter how sincere and compassionate God’s love for you may be, it cannot overcome the fact that God’s hatred for you has destined you to hell forever. Is this the love of John 3:16 that Jesus says is for the world?
Recall the words of Jesus, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). MacArthur is rightly convinced that the love of John 3:16 is not restricted to the elect but is extended to everyone in the world. If this love ascribed to God for man is not a redemptive love, what would be? Why should MacArthur be so concerned to defend a non-saving, non-redemptive love? Surely, it does not ultimately matter that God loves some people for whom He has no saving love or saving interest. If the non-saving love of God for the reprobate is coupled with a hate that is responsible for sending all sinners who persist in sin and unbelief to hell, why defend it at all? As evidence of this non-redemptive love that God has for the reprobate, MacArthur argues rightly that God is sincere in His offer of eternal life in a gospel proclamation to all. He says:
God freely and indiscriminately offers mercy to all who will come to Christ.168 He then goes on to say:
Let us honestly admit that on the face of it, the universal love of God is difficult to reconcile with the [Reformed] doctrine of election.169
If we were talking about a saving love it would be impossible, not just “difficult.” This gospel offer of eternal life for all those who believe cannot by any stretch of the imagination be a sincere offer to the reprobate if MacArthur and other Calvinists are right. Let us go back to the point Sproul makes about double predestination. That is, in some sense he believes God predestines some to salvation and in some sense he believes God predestines some to damnation. As we read, however, Sproul sees another view of double predestination that is “scary and frightening.” He calls this “hyper Calvinism” and “sub-Calvinism.” Sproul also distinguishes between what he calls “equal ultimacy, symmetry, a complete balance between election and reprobation” and his view. Sproul’s view could therefore be described as the less frightening and friendlier view of unequal ultimacy, non-symmetry, and a non-balanced view between election and reprobation.
According to Sproul, however, as well as almost all Calvinists, we only know that it is God’s will that the elect are elected to salvation and that the reprobate are condemned to damnation. We do not and cannot know why this is God’s will, except that it pleases Him. Why this pleases God, we do not and cannot know. We also know, according to Reformed Theology, that for whatever reason God willed these things; we cannot point to anything in a man to explain his ultimate destiny.
Thus, the words “equal, symmetry, and balance,” insofar as what we know is concerned, do logically apply. Man simply does not enter into the equation as to why God sends him to one place or the other, according to a consistent Calvinism. And if everything works out in accordance with the predetermined will of God in the sense that the Calvinist claims and that their view of sovereignty and predestination demands:
Unbelief in the heart of the reprobate must also be the sovereign work and will of God, just as Calvinists claim that faith in the elect is the sovereign work and will of God.
Otherwise, God is not sovereign or not as sovereign over the heart of the reprobate, according to Calvinist logic, as He is over the heart of the elect. Calvinists have backed themselves into a theological and logical corner from which they simply cannot escape. Even if we were to say that God did something for no particular reason, a silly thing to say for sure, He would still be responsible for what He did. Not even the first sin could be a factor for reprobation according to Calvinism. For if we can point to that first sin, then:
It is not a mystery,
It involves the elect as much as the reprobate,
And,
It would base a divine decision to reprobate on a human decision to sin.
If God factors something in, such as faith or unbelief, then man is conditionally destined. If man is destined unconditionally, then he simply cannot legitimately be blamed for where he spends eternity. That is, nothing he has done or is going to do could be considered a factor. Even if you could argue that these reprobates are still only getting what they deserve, you could not argue that they are getting what they deserve because they deserve it. But even this kind of argument fails to account for the extreme and unbiblical view of sovereignty and predestination found in Calvinism. Ironically, as we have repeatedly seen, the Calvinist has to deny the sovereignty of God for the reprobate in order to affirm the sovereignty of God for the elect, if indeed a sovereign choice must be an unconditional choice. Simply hiding behind a mystery will not do. Too much is already on the table. Spurgeon argues that we know that salvation is all of God and that damnation is all of man. For example, Spurgeon says: The first thing is, THE GREAT DOCTRINE—that God “only is our rock and our salvation.” If any one should ask us what we would choose for our motto, as preachers of the gospel, we think we should reply, “God only is our salvation.” The late lamented Mr. Denham has put at the foot of his portrait, a most admirable text, “Salvation is of the Lord.”170
Now what thinking Christian could disagree with this scriptural affirmation? If that were all Calvinism was saying, no Evangelical would protest. Spurgeon and all hypo-Calvinists leave out half of what Calvinism is saying, when they say, “God only is our salvation.” The other half, the dark side, says “God only is our damnation.” Consider how Spurgeon elaborates on this same point:
Now, that is just an epitome of Calvinism; it is the sum and the substance of it. If any one should ask you what you mean by a Calvinist, you may reply, “He is one who says, salvation is of the Lord.” I cannot find in Scripture any other doctrine than this. It is the essence of the Bible. “He only is my rock and my salvation.”
Tell me anything that departs from this and it will be a heresy; tell me a heresy, and I shall find its essence here, that it has departed from this great, this fundamental, this rocky truth, “God is my rock and my salvation.”171
It is rather remarkable that Spurgeon was unable or unwilling to see that the Calvinist version of “Salvation is of the Lord” forces upon the consistent Calvinist the view that says “Damnation is also of the Lord.” Election to salvation in the Calvinist sense can be likened to a firefighters’ rescue mission that was intended to save only some of the people caught in a fire that was about to consume all of the people. Imagine one hundred people trapped in a burning building and the fire captain saying to his crew:
I know you can save all of the people trapped in this building, but I have no interest in saving them all. For reasons that I will not divulge at this time, or perhaps for reasons you cannot now understand, I want you to let seventy-five of these people perish in the flames. It is not our fault they are in this predicament, and we owe them nothing. It is their own fault that they are now about to go down in flames. But that is not why I am going to leave them to burn to death. I have chosen to express my love and show mercy only on twenty-five of them. As for the rest, let them burn.
Here is the list of the people I want you to save. Now go save them and leave the rest to perish. My choice is simply to save some and not to save others. Those I have chosen to save, I have also chosen to use in the fire department once they are rescued. Once we get them out of harm’s way, I will give them their working assignments and all the tools they will need to do the job I will give them. In some ways, the Calvinist scheme is even more sinister in that it has God setting the very fire from which He chooses, for His own pleasure, not to rescue some people. Now suppose a different rescue mission takes place at sea. Suppose a hundred people have been swept overboard in a terrible storm. Suppose they put themselves in harm’s way, by going out onto the deck when they were specifically warned not to do so. Suppose that when this perilous situation comes to the captain’s attention, with compassion and a sense of urgency in his voice, he immediately tells his rescue crew:
Make every effort to reach every person with a life preserver and to bring him or her back to safety. The captain then tells his crew:
Make no distinction between those overboard. Throw life preservers to everyone. Once they get aboard ship, I will give each person rescued an assignment on the ship with all the tools he will need to do the job I will give him to do.
Suppose the crew rises to the occasion and successfully gets a life preserver to everyone overboard. Suppose, however, that for whatever reason, some of those overboard choose not to accept the help offered to them. Suppose some want to commit suicide and others simply believe they can save themselves by some other means. In both stories, some are saved and some are lost. In the first story, however, things turn out just the way the captain wants them to. The ones he wants to save, he saves. The ones he does not want to save perish. In the second story, the captain really wants to save everyone and makes provision to do so. The only thing he does not do is force anyone to accept the help he offers. In the first story, the elect are saved because they are elect. That is, they are saved because the captain elects to save them. In the second story, the saved are elected to serve because they are saved. The captain wants to save everyone, but chooses to use all of those that are saved in accordance with the fact that they received the help offered in the saving process. While no analogy is perfect, the fire captain represents the God of Calvinism and the ship’s captain represents the God of the Bible. Of course, the hypo-Calvinist can object to the first characterization because they, as believer-evangelists, are told to preach the message of salvation contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone without distinction. The reason they are told to preach salvation or even offer salvation to everyone is, however, not because everyone can be saved, but because they do not know who (among the many) God has chosen to save. Calvinists insist that God has decreed that only some of all those in need of saving can or should be saved. John MacArthur and John Piper believe that God really wants to save the lost; He just chose not to do so. It is still God, they say, who decreed not to save them and therefore decreed to unconditionally damn them.
It can all be reduced to this: damnation is not based on any moral or spiritual failure on the part of man. The ultimate reason some go to hell is to be found in the unrevealed—and therefore hidden—will of God. It cannot, according to Reformed Theology, be found in the obvious and manifest sinful rebellion of man. It is in the glorious, divine nature of God, not the depraved human nature of man, that the Calvinist must find the answer to the question of why some will be damned. The hypo-Calvinist will not like the above fire captain analogy because it makes God seem heartless and callous toward those He chooses to condemn. The fact is, this is the shoe that fits, and Calvinism must wear it. Moreover, Calvinism makes God out to be even more heartless and callous because it portrays Him as not only unconditionally condemning so many poor, desperate people, but according to a consistent Calvinism, it is God who caused them to put themselves in harm’s way in the first place.
Some hypo-Calvinists have tried to find fault in my reasoning because they say I rely too heavily upon logic in my evaluation and refutation of Calvinism. They claim that they are just affirming what Scripture says, and if that is illogical, then so be it. Yet Calvinists constantly boast about how logical Calvinism is. They also charge all non-Reformed views as being hopelessly illogical. Calvinists should not be allowed to have it both ways. They should not be allowed to commend Calvinism as logical and then hide behind their misapplication of Scriptures such as “His thoughts are higher than our thoughts” whenever it suits their fancy or whenever they back themselves into logical and theological corners. Ironically MacArthur says:
I want to state as clearly as possible that I am in no way opposed to logic. I realize there are those who demean logic as if it were somehow contrary to spiritual truth. I do not agree; in fact, to abandon logic is to become irrational, and true Christianity is not irrational. The only way we can understand any spiritual matter is by applying careful logic to the truth that is revealed in God’s Word. . There is certainly nothing whatsoever wrong with sound logic grounded in the truth of Scripture; in fact, logic is essential to understanding.172
Once more, I find myself in agreement with these sentiments as expressed by MacArthur. I can only wish his handling of Scripture corresponded to this affirmation. It is not the case that one can be “too logical,” nor is it the case that God’s wonderful plan of redemption is illogical. Many truths are simply not of a logical nature. Just as the tools of a historian do not help in the solving of mathematical problems, so logic or logical consistency is not a factor in evaluating everything a Calvinist teaches. If Calvinism embraces doctrines which conflict with other doctrines they teach or with something taught in Scripture, then it is legitimate to reject those doctrines on that basis alone. However, even if Calvinism was logically consistent in what it teaches (which it is not), it still must pass the test of Scripture. For although an illogical statement cannot be true, a logical statement is not necessarily true. For example, there is nothing illogical about the heresy of Unitarianism, but it is, according to Scripture, a false doctrine.