Cork Free Presbyterian Church, 10 Briarscourt
(Annex) Shanakiel, Cork, Ireland
Pastor: Colin Maxwell. Email: colin.maxwell@fpcmission.org
MORE QUESTIONS FROM NON CALVINISTS ANSWERED BY A CALVINIST
The questions below are taken from this website:
The original question is in black. My replies, as ever, in (bracketed red)
1. It is often said by
Calvinists that dead men can't respond. As you say, "you are dead in
your trespasses & sins." Eph. 2:1. In Romans 6, it says that "in
the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ
Jesus." If being dead in sin means one can't respond to God then does
being dead to sin mean that the Christian cannot respond to sin?
(Calvinists do not say that
spiritually dead men (Ephesians 2:1) cannot respond to God. Dead men do
respond to God all the time. The only problem is that their response is
sinfully negative. Unless regenerated by the Spirit of God, they will
not cease from their rebelling. Being dead to something in the Bible
doesn't mean that there is no response whatsoever. The analogy drawn
above then doesn't really fit since it is built on the thought that
people who are either dead or reckoned dead cannot respond, which is
incorrect. Christians obviously do respond to sin - either resisting it
or falling into it.)
2. Even though God does
perfectly know all human thoughts, can man have thoughts that have
never been thought before (i.e. ex-nihilo thoughts)? If these thoughts
are not free (e.g., they are determined) then has God caused all
thoughts, including evil ones, which would make God the author of sin
and evil and man not responsible?
(The Calvinist position is that
while God has ordained all events that take place (Ephesians 1:11) yet
He never coerces any to work against their will. He leaves men to
follow the dictates of their own will. Those hands, for instance, which
crucified the Lord of Glory did so according to the foreknowledge and
determinate counsel of God yet they are condemned as being wicked
hands (Acts 2:23) God can draw straight lines with crooked rulers. He
ordains all events for His glory - men willingly supply themselves as
free agents with their own agenda.)
If, on the other hand,
these thoughts are free, then how can God remain sovereign according to
the Calvinist definition of sovereignty?
(As above. The will of man is free
to follow the dictates of his own heart while God is still in full
control. There is no contradiction. Certainly Judas didn't think so
when he went the way that had been determined (Luke 22:22) His
complaint was that he had betrayed the innocent blood (Matthew 27:4)
i.e. he consistently took the blame himself.)
3. The Bible says in 1 Timothy
2:4, "God our Saviour wants all men to be saved and come to a knowledge
of the truth." It also states that God wants all men to be saved in 2
Peter 3:9, Matthew 23:37 and in Ezekiel 33:11 and 18:30. Obviously not
all men are saved. How does Calvinism explain this? Does the God of
Calvinism have two wills that are in direct contradiction and hence
have a multiple personality disorder?
(No, God cannot deny or contradict
Himself (2 Timothy 2:13) The will of God is one. However to accommodate
our weak and finite understanding - for who has known the mind of the
Lord? (Romans 11:34) - it is revealed to us as if it were two. God
reveals Himself as One who is willing to save sinners and yet those
some of those sinners are not saved. Evidently He has not willed with a
purpose to save them, for when God purposes, it is done. For
the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his
hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? (Isaiah 14:27)
Obviously there are matters here that would need to be revealed further
to us for our complete understanding. God has not done so. We are only
reconciling what has been revealed. It really doesn't achieve any thing
to suggest that the Lord has "a multiple personality disorder.")
4. Calvinism excludes individual faith from the salvation process, classifying such faith as a work.
(This is untrue. Calvinists
believe, in common with all evangelical Christians, that we are saved
by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) To exclude individual faith from
the salvation process would be to exclude the sinner from being saved.
The questioner should produce authoritative evidence from prominent
Calvinists or those widely held Calvinistic Confessions e.g. the Westminster Confession of Faith etc., to back up his allegation.)
How can Calvinists classify faith as a work when Paul specifically excludes faith from works in Romans 3:27-28 and 4:5?
(Faith is not a work, as Romans
3:27-28 and 4:5 rightly points out. Faith is the channel that brings
salvation to us. We do not trust in our faith to save us but in the One
in whom our individual faith is put i.e. Christ. However, if we were to
promote faith from being the channel and make it the source or the
merit of our salvation, then it would rightly viewed as a work.
Calvinists view faith as a gift from God. Many non Calvinists
effectively believe that all men possess it and that it just needs
stirred up and pointed in the right direction.)
5. Jonah 2:8 says that "those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."
(I prefer the AV rendering: They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.)
If, as Calvinism teaches, God
determined before time began who would be reprobates, and therefore
does not extend the grace to them by which they could be saved, how
logically can we understand this verse's statement that these
reprobates, "forfeited the grace that could be theirs?"
(It is vital when trying to
understand Calvinism that we believe that men are damned because of
their sin. Many fail to understand this and make all kinds of foolish
statements. Men are lost because when God offered them mercy - and the
offer of mercy is indiscriminate - reprobates refused it. It was
genuinely offered to them but they preferred instead their sin. They
therefore can be said to have forsook their own mercy. The damned souls
in hell are not cursing the righteous decree of God that decided to
leave them in their guilt, but their own folly in obeying not the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ - 2 Thessalonians 1:8)
6. The Bible says in
John 6:44, "no one can come to me unless the Father who sent Me draws
him." The same word "draw" is used in John 12:32 which says, "But I,
when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto myself."
Matthew 23:37 says that men can resist God's will. How do you answer
this problem in Calvinism?
(The bigger
problem is actually for the non Calvinists. John 6:44 teaches the
inability of man, of himself, to come to Christ. He is unable, not
because God has chained his legs or blinded his eyes etc., but because
sin has done these things i.e. it is a moral and self inflicted
inability. The "all men" in John 12:32 are evidently "all kinds of men"
i.e. rich and poor, Jew and Gentile etc., If we take it the other
interpretation that it means every last son of Adam, then we are left
wondering how could Pharaoh or Cain or Esau etc., be drawn to Christ
when He was lifted up and they were already in hell. Calvinists do not
deny that men can resist God's revealed will (as in Matthew 23:37) but
we deny that they can resist His decretive will as this page will show.)
7. You say that even the "good"
acts of sinners are "bad" because they come from a completely depraved
nature. Is it a "bad" act to rationally apprehend the truthfulness of
apologetics?
(No. We should go further than
rationally apprehend truth. We should buy the truth and sell it not:
Proverbs 23:23 knowing that it is the truth that sets us free: John
8:32)
If so, why has God commanded us to
practice apologetics to sinners, which causes them to do a bad act?
Doesn't that mean that God causes sinners' bad acts?
(As we have seen, it is not so. God commands us to preach the gospel in a persuasive way to sinners because they are responsible creatures. Any bad act on the part of sinners are self caused.)
If you say "yes," doesn't that make God a bad guy?
(Only if I say "yes" but I didn't. I said "no")
8. When Calvinism is
shown to have logical contradictions, Calvinists usually reply that
God's thoughts are unsearchable, and therefore the logical problems
that Calvinism has, for example divine election and human
responsibility, exhaustive sovereignty and human free will, and God's
having two contradictory wills, are solved by invoking the phrase,
"well that's a mystery." If
you can solve your logic problems by copping out with the term mystery,
why can't the Arminian types, atheists and others pull the same move?
(The preamble to the question is
loaded. Although we cannot explain where many of these issues actually
meet, yet we know that they do not contradict each other. Furthermore,
God does not have two contradictory wills. It seems that despite
Calvinistic denials of this monstrosity, you are determined to foist
this unto God, as you mentioned it before. If there is a mystery in the
word of God, then it is not a "cop out" to say so when we can offer no
Scriptural explanation. If others abuse this answer, it is no fault of
ours. God has not revealed every last thing to us. It is my belief that
the Calvinist system of theology makes the most sense out of what has
been revealed.)
9. The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 2:10 that reprobates "perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
From your Calvinistic worldview, how
can it logically be said that a reprobate refuses to love the truth and
so be saved, when your God determines that the reprobate can't love the
truth, can't be saved, and therefore doesn't refuse God at all?
(Our Calvinistic worldview says
that God leaves certain men to perish in their chosen sin. He is under
no obligation to save any sinner and therefore under no obligation to
save every sinner. The blame is always put on the sinner. Any
sinner who would argue with the doctrine of election should state
clearly whether he wants here and now to be saved from his sin. If he
does, he may freely apply by faith for this proffered mercy: Romans
10:13 If he doesn't, he can hardly blame God for not giving him what he
has just professed not to want.)
10. You have said that
nothing thwarts the will of God, and you also have said that a man's
will cannot be free or else God would not be absolutely sovereign.
(What Calvinists say is that
nothing thwarts the decretive will of God, although the preceptive or
declarative will of God is often thwarted. God says "Thou shalt not
kill" yet every day, someone, somewhere murders a fellow human being.
However, since God works all things after the counsel of His will, we
may say that His decretive will is not thwarted. Calvinists say that
man is free to follow the dictates of his will…but also that his
will is in bondage to sin i.e. total depravity. To apply the same
question to the questioner…is he saying that there are
circumstance sin which God is not absolutely sovereign? With whom does
God share His attribute of sovereignty? God and Who else sit upon the
throne?)
Doesn't this mean that God determines (or is the cause of) evil and the evil acts of men for his sovereign pleasure?
(To determine something is not the
same as being its cause. God obviously determined to allow sin to enter
into the world. We know that He could have prevented it but didn't. Is
the questioner prepared to indict God with being the cause of evil? The
problem is not exclusively a Calvinist one. If we reduce much of God's
activity to being mere foreknowledge i.e. information gotten before an
event…why did He still create a man (Adam) capable of sinning
when He had information that this liberty would be abused? Although God
ordains that certain events might take place, the sin that is present
belongs unto the sinner who willingly plays his part.)
11. In Romans 9 where God says, "I
will have mercy on whom I will have mercy" (v15) why do you
automatically assume that God does not want to have mercy on all but
only have mercy on the select few when God clearly tells us in Romans
11:32 that, "God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may
have mercy on them all?"
(This is not automatically
assumed. v18 introduces the limitation of this saving mercy, relating
how God also hardens whom He will. Judicial hardening is not an
evidence of saving mercy. In Romans 11:32 the "all" evidently relates
to "all" who have or will partake of this mercy. If God actually has
mercy on every last sinner ever born, then hell will be emptied if
indeed it was ever inhabited at all.)
If you say that all means all classes
of men, but not all men in every class, then why does it not mean all
classes of men but not all men in every class in Romans 3:23 where it
says, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God?"
(We can interpret the "all" of
Romans 3:23 in its widest sense, because other scriptures enable us to
do so, including those of the context i.e. v10-12 and verse 19 where we
read the "whole world may become guilty before God")
Does this mean some have not sinned? Perhaps, for instance, the Virgin Mary?
(Apart from
Christ, every last son and daughter of Adam have sinned including the
Virgin Mary who confessed her need of a Saviour: Luke 1:47)