Imperishable Inheritance

I’ve grown very weary of read­ing polem­i­cal books, espe­cially in regards to sote­ri­o­log­i­cal debates (i.e. the Calvinist/Arminian debate). The same argu­ments are uti­lized over and over and over again. The Armin­ian says, “The Calvin­ist denies moral respon­si­bil­ity,” the Calvin­ist says, “the Armin­ian uses the lib­er­tar­ian account of the will as a fil­ter for all their doctrines.”

The worst part is read­ing books with using loaded words and phrases such as, “sov­er­eignty, free will, omni­science, deprav­ity,” and on and on and on. No one really knows what these terms mean any­more, because they have become so con­vo­luted in polem­i­cal debates. The Armin­ian says, “you Calvin­ists over-emphasize God’s wrath in expense of His love;” and the Calvin­ist says, “you Armini­ans over-emphasize God’s love in expense of His wrath.” But no one any­more knows what “love” and “wrath” mean. When I read a bumper sticker that says, “God loves you” I cringe (wouldn’t it be inter­est­ing to see a bumper sticker that read, “God’s wrath is upon you”).

I love, and feel very hon­ored, when some­one finds the trust in me to come ask deep the­o­log­i­cal ques­tions. I had many an oppor­tu­nity where some­one would come and say some­thing like, “what does Calvin­ism and Armini­an­ism mean? Why do they dis­agree?” The frus­tra­tion comes out when some­one asks, “Chris, is it pre­des­ti­na­tion or free will?” Now, this is his­tor­i­cally an Armin­ian car­i­ca­ture that they love to empha­size, but the plain truth is that nei­ther side (in the­o­log­i­cal par­lance at least) denies either (this is espe­cially inter­est­ing because the Greek word “proori­zoÌ?” trans­lated “pre­des­tined” is men­tioned six times lit­er­ally in the New Tes­ta­ment). In Armini­an­ism it’s con­di­tional pre­des­ti­na­tion with lib­er­tar­ian free­dom, and in Calvin­ism it’s uncon­di­tional pre­des­ti­na­tion with com­pat­i­bilis­tic free­dom. So that ques­tion is use­less, but the hard part is explain­ing why it is.

I’ve grown weary of Calvin­is­tic writ­ings recently. I’ve been read­ing much on compatibilism/incompatibilism for my debate with Simon, and I don’t really know what the Calvin­is­tic posi­tion is any­more. They use terms like “God’s decree” and “ordain,” but they mean noth­ing in a debate with a Molin­ist for exam­ple (which would deny nei­ther). The major­ity of Calvin­is­tic writ­ings I’ve read are shal­low in how they han­dle the phi­los­o­phy of God’s decree as man­i­fested through deter­min­ism (or “soft deter­min­ism”). They shy away from the philo­soph­i­cal under­stand­ing of the word, and most to avoid the tra­di­tional char­ac­ter­i­za­tions, but it leads to a shal­low search for knowl­edge for those who are search­ing even deeper. I feel as though to many Calvin­ists are shy­ing away from say­ing what they really mean.