This series will go back and forth between Roger Olson’s Against Calvinism and Michael Horton’s For Calvinism. Today I want to look at Michael Horton’s chp called “Of Regents and Rebels: The Human Condition,” which is a good sketch of Calvinism’s “T,” or total depravity.
Horton importantly begins on a note that might jar many who are suspicious of Calvinism: “no theological system has been more affirming of this world and human nature” and that “Calvinism teaches that humans beings are basically good in their intrinsic nature, endowed with free will, beauty of body and soul, reason, and moral excellence” (35). You might want to tweet that! Most don’t look at Calvinism that way, but Horton makes this clear: by nature, these things are true. In other words, as originally created.
But once the Fall happened, this all changes. As created, humans are good; as fallen, humans are comprehensively affected by sin in all areas of life.
Humans, after the fall, are bound to their sin nature. They are “bent toward unbelief and sin.” Humans have “lost this freedom for righteousness before God.” We are a “race of rebels” — having been designed to be “regents.” All of this is consistent in Calvin, the Canons of the Synod of Dort, the Belgic Confession and the Westminster tradition.
Depravity then is not inherent but something that happens to human nature. And this sinful nature incurs God’s judgment and it imprisons the whole person. Total means extensiveness not intensiveness. Comprehensively, humans are fallen (cracked Eikons). The image of God remains but humans are in a fallen condition. Humans are not deprived of will but soundness of will.
Which leads to a big question: Do Calvinists believe humans can do good of their own free will?
Horton contends for two major ideas: we need to distinguish between our natural and moral ability. We by nature can choose what is good but we have lost the moral ability to choose redemption. We cannot use those natural gifts in a way that pleases God. Humans are bound by sin until grace restores. Sin is a condition of humanity.
And we need to distinguish between freedom in relation to God and freedom in relation to other fallen human beings. His emphasis here that whatever we do is stained by sin so we can never be pleasing to God.
God is not the author of evil; here Horton is milder than some Calvinists (Olson sketched this theme in one of our recent posts).
In true Calvinist fashion (or should I say Augustinian/Calvinist fashion?), Horton sees humans as naturally Pelagian and that Pelagianism is the problem of the gospel and the church. Sin, he wants to re-affirm, is a condition: we are sinners. He thinks the contemporary church is worse than the medieval church. And he wants to re-affirm that humans are bound together into the covenant of works in solidarity with Adam. This is about all of being totally corrupted. And finally he re-affirms the elect are in Christ and therefore not condemned (the covenant of grace).
Interesting. I almost lean toward what could I guess be called irreparable depravity; humans can do good of their own free will, but not good enough, or good all the time.
“We cannot use those natural gifts in a way that pleases God.”
So presumably this leads to the idea that we need “Christian” alternatives to the arts, as anything that a person not covered by grace creates is not acceptable to God?
As I understand them, Calvinists take it that unbelieving humanity has real choice making capacities that can be used toward true albeit limited good ends.
– humanity has freedom and the ability to make choices but there are certain limitations on that freedom
– humanity can do good things (at least as seen from certain vantage points) but those things do not carry soteric import.
The devil, if there is one, is in the details.
One of the tricky spots, it seems to me, is the idea sometimes given that unless a particular act is absolutely perfect it cannot be pleasing to God in any way. The logic seems to be (with some):
–God demands perfection
– anything less than perfection is sin
– God is not pleased with sin as it is an egregious evil
– every act of an unbeliever will be less than perfect and thus sin
– God is therefore not pleased with actions of unbelieving humanity.
Hope I did not misrepresent any of the Calvinist out there.
@ Paul W: As a Calvinist who would be more than happy to be persuaded otherwise, I would not articulate the above points in the way they are laid out. “Anything less than perfection,” implies that if I make a mistake while playing guitar, I have sinned. Neither of us would agree to that.
Total depravity is so deeply dualistic in its approach that it is corrupt from the beginning. It places the decidedly Hellenistic view of things above being good vs things on the earth being bad and this is not the Christian perspective.
It could equally be Total Ugliness, the only beauty in us is given by god. Or total stink, we always smell bad and the only reason we do not smell it is because we are too used to it. Or how about total shortness. We may feel we are tall but we will never be as tall as god.
It seems silly to me. What’s the point?
If we define god as being the best of everything, then of course we are not going to compare. Is that the real point? That god is better than anything?
@ Daren: Didn’t mean to implicate all Calvinists. Would you agree that some seem to talk like this? Or am I out to lunch on this?
I’m not sure how representative they are but I’ve meet some self-identified Calvinist who think, at least for the unbeliever, that one must act perfectly. From their perspective the lack of utter and complete obedience to God’s law is seen as “THE POBLEM” from which the unbeliever needs to be rescued and Jesus’ sinless obedience is “THE ANSWER” to the problem. And so the complete obedience thing must be meet before any action can please God as I have understood them.
Would you say that is more or less common?
Total depravity – whether Calvinist or Arminian – turns scripture’s contention that we DO NOT choose good into we CANNOT do good.
Scot, can you clarify something? Horton would say that we know we are depraved because of the fall instead of knowing we are depraved because Jesus went to the cross, right? Adam, not Jesus, is the point of reference for human fallenness?
Alan, if you are asking an epistemological question it would the Spirit via Scripture. Since so it would seem he knows this from Adam.
The Calvinist system of beliefs seems so convoluted to me; I truly can’t make sense of God, the world, or myself through its viewpoint.
Can humans do good of their own free will? From a Calvinist POV, as I have understood it, the answer is “no.” If good is done, it is a result of God’s sovereign will / grace.
If one considers him/herself included in the elect, then is his or her condition as totally depraved lifted, or are the elect still subject to clouded judgment due to the “T” factor?
I tend to believe that goodness and beauty in the world is attributable to God’s spirit actively moving. I also believe that God bestows His grace whenever, wherever, and upon whomever He chooses — elect or reject. Who are we to systematize God’s movements? My brain can grasp the concept of “common grace” and “prevenient grace” more than the Calvinist “doctrines of grace.” Of course then I personally believe that in a moment of grace-facilitated clarity, we humans then have a choice whether to act upon that knowledge and capability for good.
Surely God Himself would know how much grace He had extended to anyone, and therefore, would not hold that person totally accountable for their good vs. evil actions based on free will, if in fact, they had not been entirely free in the sense of having enough knowledge and clarity to make a well-informed decision. Do you think maybe God holds us individually accountable based on the measure of grace He has extended, and responding with commensurate mercy or judgment?
When my son was 3 (true story) he said “dad, I wish it was christmas every day”. The next day he came back to me and said “dad, if it was christmas everyday there would be no christmas at all” The calvinists could learn from him. If god is behind everything, then he is behind nothing.
@DRT: So God working all things together according to the counsel of his will (Eph 1:11) really means he works nothing together? That line of reasoning is nonsensical…
While your son was onto something about the way we perceive things (i.e. Christmas wouldn’t *feel* special), which is very impressive for a 3 year old, it’s not actually true (i.e. if it’s Christmas every day, then it is what it is apart from how we feel about it).
This summary leaves me wondering what we mean by “doing good” vs. “pleasing God.” Where Calvinists get in trouble, it seems to me, is by saying that only Christians do any “good” in the world at all, or, on the other hand, that doing good doesn’t matter at all. While we can’t earn anything with God, and while none of us does good consistently, and all of us stand in violation of God’s law, it doesn’t follow that Christians are the only ones that do any good or that doing good doesn’t matter.
Jeremy, I think the logic holds. To say that humans cannot do good and anytime good is done it is by god inherently means that there is no good at all. For we will not be able to tell if something is good.
I am not saying that in reality god would not be doing anything anymore, just like my son is not saying that the days will not be called christmas and celebrated as christmas, just that it won’t seem like god is doing anything anymore because we won’t be able to tell that good is happening. Presumably, if we are unable to chose good we cannot recognize good. How would we know that good was done?
…and to continue, then every time we assert good is being done we are likely wrong, since we are depraved. So therefore, it is the people least qualified to declare that good is done who end up declaring it. That’s how the Calvinists strike me. They end up believing in themselves instead of god by tricking themselves into thinking their will is the will of god. It is convoluted.
It is striking how much this conversation seems to assume a soterian perspective. Questions of our ability to please God are within the shadow of personal salvation.
How might a discussion about total depravity look centered around Jesus the King?
To what extent is the whole Calvinist system dependent on the Augustinian conception of a “Fall” from an original state of perfection?
As we learn more about human history and ancestry, that conception of the Fall becomes more difficult to reconcile with the evidence. Does that mean that Calvinism is more threatened than other theologies by the physical descent of humans from other primates?
Is that one reason why Al Mohler (for example) is so vehemently anti-evolution?
T (#14),
Horton has an extensive quote from Calvin on page 42 affirming that fallen man still can do good in civic order, philosophy, logic, medicine, and math. Our fallenness means we are polluted, which can vary even as water can be more or less impure.
The theological problem at issue is the relationship between “nature” and “grace.” Historic Christianity agrees that fallen human nature is incapable of knowing God, and that knowledge of God requires God’s gracious initiative to us. There is enormous disagreement, however, on the remaining innate capability of fallen humans to know something of God.
I find almost nothing to disagree with in the sketch in this post, even though I am not a Calvinist. It’s entirely consistent, for example, with both Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teaching on the human condition, even though historic Calvinism diverges sharply from those traditions (and they diverge from each other!) on related issues such as the power of fallen human reason and innate knowledge of the natural law. And that makes me wonder whether its moderateness is truly reflective of “Calvinism,” or what we even mean by “Calvinism.”
Scholastic Calvinism, as I understand it, held that the human reason is corrupted to such an extent that human beings can no longer (after the Fall) innately know the good or know of God at all. There is no place here for any notion of natural law or natural reason. The epistemology that results tilts towards fideism, the theological ethics that result tend towards voluntarism, and the theological tradition from which all this derives arguably (I believe, convincingly) is nominalism.
Personally, I think all the implications noted above with respect to scholastic Calvinism are deeply problematic and that they do not capture the more nuanced history of the Christian tradition with respect to the relationship between “nature” and “grace.” As you hint, Scot, even Augustine was far more nuanced about this than scholastic Calvinism, and perhaps Horton is trying to recapture that nuance.
I tend towards what seems to me more of the consensus of the Fathers — the “very good” of created human nature, including human reason and will, was tainted, but not obliterated, by the Fall. Human beings cannot know God — cannot truly participate in God’s life and cannot truly pursue the good — without God’s initiative of grace. But the innate goodness of human will and reason is not utterly obliterated by the Fall of Adam. Indeed, this is the real pathos of the fallen human condition: we know what is good, we know God exists, but left to ourselves we inevitably suppress that knowledge and choose violence and death.
AHH (#18) — I would give a longer answer if I had time, but, from my perspective, the answer to your questions is “yes.”
Bill (#19) — but the distinction between genuine good and civic good in classical Calvinism I think is more stark than you’re suggesting here. Civic good, in this system, is not really a pursuit of “the good.” It is a sort of shadow, kind of like how even a rat trapped in a maze will find its way to food.
dopderbeck, you end with an equally overstated sentance “we know what is good, we know God exists, but left to ourselves we inevitably suppress that knowledge and choose violence and death.”
Come on. I am only partially depraved (is that any better?). I don’t always supress knowledge of good. This mode of dualism is not helping anything.
AHH,
Indeed, I suspect that is the main reason why Dr. Mohler is so concerned.
However, Calvinists (and Augustinians in general) do not believe that we fell from an original state of perfection. Rather, we fell from a state of innocence in which we were able not to sin. There are three latin phrases that make sense of this: posse non peccare (able not to sin) was our original state: we could either have not succumbed to temptation and thus would have progressed to the stage of non posse peccare (not able to sin), or we could have succumbed (we did) to temptation and gone on into the state we are now in, that of non posse non peccare (not able not to sin).
continuing, if you believe that then you are indeed incapable of recognizing god, even when god intervenes with grace. Therefore it is irrelevant that god does anything. Even worse, we will confuse our depravity for his goodness and we are left with no ability to recognize god again.
What am I missing?
DRT — it’s not “dualism,” it’s basic historic Christianity. All the streams of historic Christianity — Catholic, Orthodox, and Magesterial Protestant (Catholic and Lutheran) — agree, and have always agreed, on this truth. This is the long-standing and basic response of the Church to Pelagianism (the notion that, at least theoretically, a person in his or her natural state can gain salvation without any need for God’s grace).
Now, you are over-reading me if you think I’m saying that a person in his or her natural state never, ever, in any instance, chooses to do something that is genuinely good. That, I think, is an extreme view and is one of the distortions of scholastic Calvinism. When a non-Christian, say, takes care of a baby, I think that person is doing something genuinely good, not just a “civic” good.
But, in the run of things, our natural fallen human tendency is towards evil, violence, and death, not good. And I do agree with many Calvinists that even the good we might naturally be inclined to do is tainted with the stain of sin. Without God’s grace, the human race embodies death — a truth I think history has born out again and again.
And, without opening up too much of a rabbit trail, I would also agree with some Calvinists that what we think of as “natural” goods — things like taking care of babies — are also products of grace. I like Abraham Kuyper’s statement that “to every rational creature grace is the air he breathes.”
Neo-Calvinist Kuyperian evangelicals often want to call this “common grace” and distinguish it from saving grace, in order to preserve a Calvinistic ordo salutis. But, it seems to me, and I think it is woven into the tradition, that “grace” is “grace.” When a person takes care of a baby, he is both doing a natural good and participating in God’s gift of grace. The question with respect to the relation between grace and final eschatological salvation, it seems to me, is a further inquiry into what it means finally to participate fully in grace or to approach the “impossible possibility” of rejecting grace. Obviously, I find Karl Barth helpful here.
“In true Calvinist fashion (or should I say Augustinian/Calvinist fashion?) . . .”
There ya go. The more modern Calvinists look to Augustine and less to Turretin, the better off we’ll be—in my opinion, of course. If ever we find our way back to Rome, it’ll be through Augustine’s door (if not Aquinas).
DRT (#25) — what you are missing is the difference between having some knowledge of God and knowing God.
In Thomas Aquinas, for example, there is a distinction between some degree of rational knowledge that there is a God and about what God is like, and the experiential contemplation of God that comprises salvation. For Aquinas, and for Catholic theology today, the culmination of eschatological salvation is the “beautific vision” — the direct contemplation of and participatory knowledge in God’s being. For many of the Fathers, and for Eastern Orthodox theology today, the culmination of eschatological salvation is “theosis” — becoming divinized, a participating in God’s own being. In either system, natural knowledge and natural goodness cannot obtain the beautific vision or theosis.
Using the Biblical metaphor of “knowledge” for physical intimacy, think of it this way: there is an enormous difference between some knowledge that my wife is a desirable being and experiencing intimate union with her. I only “know” my wife sexually when we are joined in a way that transcends a kind of knowledge at a distance. And I can only know true sexual union with my wife if she invites me to participate in that union with her — it is in this respect a gift that I cannot just obtain for myself.
thanks dopderbeck.
I still think it puts us in a worse position than we would be without it since we will be unable to declare something good since we cannot tell if it is or is not a result of our depravity. We are then left with the religious establishment commanding power over the people through their declarations of good/bad, the will of god. Its not surprising that the religious systems would want it that way. That’s how the clergy abuse their positions.
Christianity is about the people themselves being able to follow Jesus. I contend it is vital to our relationship to be able to make the choice and recognize Jesus. His sheep will know his voice.
I guess I am still missing something here.
Sorry, I have not read your 28 yet..
Thanks dopderbeck,
If that is what is meant by total depravity (we are incomplete and cannot know pure goodness, only with god and in god) then I can buy that. But then we need to change the phrase total depravity to Only God is Totally Good or something like that.
ISTM we are nuancing the words so much that it is no longer what it means.
I think most Arminians would agree that human beings are incapable in their flesh to please God. Isn’t the more important issue whether or not depraved individuals can respond to the Gospel by their own will?
This brings us back to the monergism/synergism question, but I think the difference between an Arminian understanding of depravity and a Calvinist one is that an Arminian believes that there is something left after the fall, so that when God calls us through the Gospel we have the freedom to respond with/in faith. A monergist Calvinist would say that you cannot respond to the Gospel without God’s grace “making” you respond.
I think that comes close to nailing down the problem I have with it. Instead of us making an affirmation of god, or about god (he alone is totally good etc), it tries to make a statement about us that is incorrect.
Back to the article, it may not say anywhere in its nuancing that we are totally unable to choose good or recognize good, but it also does not say that we can. The phrase *total depravity* has a plain meaning that would say we cannot choose or recognize good. And he is certainly using that phrase.
I can’t buy that.
Sorry for talking more, but:
If we cannot choose god or recognize good then when someone thinks god is calling them then the most likely thing would be that they are being depraved, not being called by god. I still contend that this allows the clergy to assume that they understand god’s will, which is the very thing they assert the mere layperson cannot. It sounds evil to me.
DRT (#31) — some prefer “total inability” to “total depravity” to capture that nuance. Even in Calvinism, “total depravity” doesn’t mean all people are necessarily as evil as they possibly could be. But also, it’s not just that we’re “incomplete.” We’re affirmatively messed up, twisted, corrupted, depraved. Without grace, we ultimately and inevitably affirmatively reject God and the good.
Matt #32-
“an Arminian believes that there is something left after the fall, so that when God calls us through the Gospel we have the freedom to respond with/in faith.”
For Arminians, at least classic Arminians, grace from God is still required to even be able to respond.
BTW, from a sort of moderate Calvinist/Barthian perspective, Donald Bloesch’s “Essentials of Evangelical Theology” contains a good summary of all this.
dopderbeck and DRT: My understanding of total depravity is that it’s not just about our sin and our inability to make good choices but also about our motives. In other words, the good that we do outside of God’s grace is done with the wrong motives (e.g., pride, selfishness) and is therefore itself sin. It is this notion that leads to (if not requires) unconditional election and irresistable grace.
See, for example, the second paragraph of the following Piper article: http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/piper/depravity.html
Per the wiki
I guess I agree with the Catholics mainly because the implications of TD are untenable.
Joe (#38) — yes, exactly. Or, more subtly, “civic” good is always done with at best mixed motives — and true goodness or holiness requires that there be no such mixture.
DRT (#39) — this issue, and the reference there to the Council of Trent (where the Catholic Church’s condemnation is expressly found) is at the crux of the historic debate / schism of the Reformation. The interesting thing to me is that both Catholic and Protestant theology in many quarters has steadily been moving towards more of a moderate consensus on issues like this.
Personally, that’s the sort of movement that interests me: getting past the impasses of the Reformation with respect to nature and grace by getting back to earlier sources that evidenced more subtle approaches not caught up in the intellectual baggage and polemics of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
This is why I like Scot’s phrase of Cracked Eikons. We can be cracked, but not depraved.
What Horton says is consistent with Arminian Theology. The problem with Calvinism is that they teach that God rendered the fall certain. Adam could not have done otherwise because it is part of Gods pre determined plan. I don’t know how calvinists can get off the hook of God being the author of sin.
They say that compatablist freedom removes God from the sinful actions we choose. But he does it in a way where he determines events in such a way that they could not choose otherwise.
But then where did Adam get the first inclination to sin? Did God create that?
@ Matt Edwards:
When you say:
“I think most Arminians would agree that human beings are incapable in their flesh to please God.”
ALL true classical Arminians affirm total depravity (though they might not call it that), and the third article of the Remonstrance (TULIP was a response to the five articles of the Remonstrance) makes this explicit when it says:
“That man could not obtain saving faith of himself or by the strength of his own free will, but stood in need of God’s grace through Christ to be renewed in thought and will.”
This, of course, brings us to your next line:
“…I think the difference between an Arminian understanding of depravity and a Calvinist one is that an Arminian believes that there is something left after the fall.”
Well, no – Arminians, like Calvinists affirm total depravity. The difference is the Arminian belief in universal, prevenient grace, that enables the will to respond to God. Roger Olson makes this clear in one of his earlier books, “Arminian Theology.”
Aaron #42: And also to the same point: how did Adam’s sin get transferred to subsequent generations? Did God manipulate Adam’s DNA? This gets us back to the point that AHH made in #18: based on what we know about genetics and evolution, can we really blame the Fall for everything? Even looking at Genesis 3 by itself, there is little evidence to connect the Fall to the kind of depravity that Calvinists propose. Adam was supposed to die for his sin, but instead got kicked out of the Garden and had to work for a living. Where did the rest of the depravity come from? The tree?
In my view, verses that support total depravity are simply observations about the way man responds (or not) to God, not quantitative statements about the depth of depravity, nor theological statements about the source of the depravity.
It’s interesting to read the Decrees of the Council of Trent on Justification (http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html) in the context of this contemporary debate among evangelicals about Calvinism and Arminianism.
When you look at the anathemas of Trent, some of them address positions that would seem pretty extreme to most evangelicals today. For example, Canon VII: “If any one saith, that all works done before Justification, in whatsoever way they be done, are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.”
I doubt there are many evangelical Calvinists or Arminians today, aside perhaps from a few of the most dogmatic, who would argue that, say, Bill Gates’ donations for AIDS research are entirely and purely sinful. We might say that Gates undoubtedly isn’t perfect in his motives for charity, but not that his donations are unreservedly sinful.
So I come back to wondering whether it’s just time to move beyond the polemics that characterized the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the fights between Calvinists and other Protestants. These are really fine distinctions when it comes down to it.
Thx for the research dop.
Sort of to your point, I have total angst about everything that claims totality (
). It seems that the Calvinist TD is inherently discriminatory and quite fallen in its approach. It is the claim that they are the ones that know god and are therefore chosen while everyone else is depraved and unable. These people make up rules to elevate themselves and are the epitome of boasting. I find that deeply troubling.
The Arminian belief in universal, prevenient grace (per Joshua Wooden in 43) may be true, but then it makes it irrelevant. If all have it then it could also be that god put a certain bump on our brains that allows us to come to him.
I hope Scot does not delete this because I think it is a valid indictment of Calvinism.
Let’s put together a theology that does the absolute most to elevate us. Right? What would be the first block. Hmmm, how about everyone but us is not able to think right? OK, that sounds great. What next? Hmmm, how about deflecting the argument that there may be some who are not us becase they don’t know. I know, let’s make it that if you heard about us and did not join that you are depraved. Call it something like unconditional election. OK, now what about if someone sides with us, but then changes his mind? Oh, we have to make a rule that if you are truly with us, you are with us forever, anyone who changes his mind was not with us at the beginning.
I could go on, but folks, this is why Christianity has a bad name. This must be changed.
@DRT — re: prevenient grace — yes, that “irrelevance” argument is one some people make. I think it’s a response you often hear from Eastern Orthodox folks assessing this whole Calvinist-Arminian debate. They would agree more with the Arminians, but they would still scratch their heads a bit. And, you could say the same thing about the Kuyper / Neo-Calvinist notion of “common grace,” which seems to me really to be a weak form of universal prevenient grace.
But, I still find the concept of prevenient grace useful because it makes us focus on the truth that any genuine good that we as human beings know or do is utterly a gift of God. On this question, there are times when I feel more inclined towards an Eastern Orthodox understanding of all this, and times when I’m more of an existential Barthian-Augustinian, and times when I’m more Wesleyan-Arminian, but the beauty behind it all is that anything good is all from God and all gift. There is beauty and peace and freedom in the gratuitous goodness of gift and in the movement of worship away from myself and towards God the giver.
DRT (#47) — maybe, but again I think it’s important to go back to the Reformation itself and to the reasons for the polemics that first informed these debates. Luther, Calvin et al. were breaking from the hegemonic power of Rome.
It’s hard for us today to imagine the degree of power and control Rome had over all of Western civilization from around the time of Constantine and the later East-West schism and prior to the various crises that preceded the Reformation. You have to read Luther’s “Bondage of the Will” together with his “On the Freedom of a Christian” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/luther-freedomchristian.asp). The doctrines of total depravity and election and certainty of salvation, as the Magesterial Reformers developed them (not always consistently with each other, of course), were declarations of independence from Rome. In their understanding, these were key pillars in the effort to free the average Christian from the tyranny of having to obtain remissions and indulgences and other judicial remedies from the Roman hierarchy, without any assurance that any of this would truly be effective in their salvation.
Looking back on how scholastic Calvinism and Lutheranism developed, and as evangelicals also being heirs to the radical reformation, and living in a completely different world, it’s easy to take our possible differences with Calvin or Luther as signs that they were just tyrants. But really, they were radicals in their time. (The effort by some Very Reformed folks today to make like the 17th Century Puritan movement was the apogee of Christian history is another problem altogether…)
dopderbeck#48, while I have the criticism of “irrelevance” argument of prevenient grace, that does not mean that it is not true. I too think it is a very useful concept, largely for the relational views you shared, loved it.
I am not an academe on this issue as are most of those who have posted here. However, as someone understanding only the broad-brush tenets of Calvinism, it’s important to consider how Calvinism is being received by/portrayed to “the masses” (like myself), which can at times result in disastrous interpretations. These interpretations may or may not be in keeping with “true” Calvinist theology, but understanding the effects of said theology on the faith/actions of an “average” believer is important because the majority of Christians could not follow and have not studied the nuances discussed here. I’m aware that other theologies can also yield disastrous interpretations, but those are not the subject of this article/discussion!
While most of this discussion has centered on the issue of total depravity (which I’ll get back to), I’d like to re-print a portion of Scot’s earlier article re: whether Calvinism, taken to it’s logical end, implicates God as the author of evil:
Begin Scot: Big point: “Calvinists affirm God’s perfect goodness and love, but their belief in meticulous providence and absolute, all-determining sovereignty (determinism) undermines what they say.” In other words, this “makes God the author of sin, evil and innocent suffering…”. Of course, mere Calvinists deny this by nuancing what “author” means, but in the end Olson is convinced (so am I) that the emphasis on sovereignty implicates God in evil. That is, what “goodness” means when applied to God loses its shape to what we know to be true about goodness, and we knows this from the Incarnation itself.
My personal example: I was the sole “Arminian” in a Bible Study of Calvinists who believed that God was the AUTHOR of all suffering because of their Calvinist viewpoint. They believed He designed what one of them called “lists of sufferings” for each of us (I called them torture lists). They had very convincing scriptures to support their beliefs, so much so that I nearly walked away from the Christian faith. I have no issue with suffering, understanding it as the result of the fall. But to me, Christianity in its entirety pitches and pivots on whether God CAUSES (is the author of) evil and suffering as these women believed. I cannot worship a God, cannot call such a God good, if he is also the author of evil. Though strict Calvinist theology may not be saying as much, many are interpreting it through that lens.
Back to total depravity, I take comfort in knowing that C.S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian minds of the last century, staunchly opposed the idea of total depravity. Leanne Payne (Lewis scholar) on Lewis: “Lewis saw into the depths of his being the diabolic selves contending with his human self. Yet, along with the hell and bondage of the fallen self, in the human heart he also found ‘radiant things, delights and inspirations.’This among other things is why Lewis disbelieved the doctrine of total depravity.”
Lewis: “I disbelieve this doctrine, partly on the logical ground that if our depravity were total we should not know ourselves to be depraved, and partly because experience shows us much goodness in human nature.”
I hope my humble offering on the subject is worth reading, given the strictly academic commentary to this point.
dopderbeck #49, Scot too told me I need to read more of that. OK, I opened it and am reading it but that will take time.
But, regardless of the hindsight efficacy of their approach (and I am a fan of overstating positions to make change, I applaud them), they are no longer the right approach.
And as much as I am a fan of their approach for its impact and needed change at the time, I feel we should be equally forceful in the rejection of some of the tenets for the same reason as they were, perhaps, overstated in their argument. We need to make a change.
The counter argument is no longer whether man thinks we can buy our way into heaven. We are no longer feeling that we are gods on the par with the gods that be (with caveats). We are in a place where we say no one is god. We do not need to undercut our subservience, we need to establish that there is someone to whom we should be subservient. We need to establish that we are not merely being self servant in our delusion of this god and a prime illustration of that dellusion is our insistance that we are somehow special as a result of our belief. This must change.
Sorry, stream of consciousness typing here so sorry if it is not coherent….
LJ (#51) — you are by no means the only one to have these qualms. See, e.g., Canon VI of the Council of Trent: “If any one saith, that it is not in man’s power to make his ways evil, but that the works that are evil God worketh as well as those that are good, not permissively only, but properly, and of Himself, in such wise that the treason of Judas is no less His own proper work than the vocation of Paul; let him be anathema.” And isn’t it interesting how C.S. Lewis so often has already laid middle paths on these questions!
DRT (#52) — maybe, but then you also have to realize that “Calvinism” and “Lutheranism” and “Wesleyanism” all have undergone huge transformations since the 15th-18th centuries. As I alluded to, there are “traditionalists” in all of these groups that want to go back to the time of their founding, or to 17th Century Puritanism, or whatever — and these often are groups connected with some form of very conservative evangelicalism.
But from the 18th century to today you also have the dramatic developments of the First, Second and Third Great Awakenings, Protestant “liberal” theology, the rise of Fundamentalist dispensationalism, the post-War missions movement, Karl Barth and his response to liberalism, the ecumenical movement and the growing convergence of Protestantism and Catholicism after Vatican II, neo-Calvinism, the huge influence of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, feminist and liberationist theologies, post-liberalism and postmodern missional theologies, the growing influence of the New Perspective on Paul in Anglo-Saxon Protestant theology, and more….. all intertwined with the triumph of Modernity and the liberal democratic ideal in the West, secularization, globalization, and the telecomm revolution….
In other words, all theologies are historically situated.
Hi all. Coming late to this interesting debate but think I should nail my colours to the mast first: former Roman Catholic now Charismatic/Calvinist Presbyterian pastor. I wouldn’t have described myself as Calvinist 10 years ago, but have gradually come to realise through my studies, that what I had long believed about the bible was in fact Calvinism.
I just wanted to pick up something mentioned by LJDowns regarding God being the author of evil, if Calvinism is taken to it’s logical conclusion.
It has long been my belief that when we start to use non-biblical categories to describe theological concepts, we can end up tying ourselves in knots. The idea of extrapolating a biblical concept (in this case the sovereignty of God) to it’s logical conclusion is in itself going beyond what the bible states. When Calvinists state that God is sovereign over suffering, it does not mean that we can hold God morally responsible for that suffering. For example, in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, in Acts 2:23, he says to the crowd, “..this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” This verse in conjunction with many other NT scriptures clearly states that the rejection, beating, suffering, crucifixion and death of Jesus, were all planned by God for the sake of our salvation. The OT scriptures prophesy that this was the will of God, e.g. Isaiah 53:10, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, he has put him to grief”. I think most of us would agree that Jesus’ death was within the ultimate plan and purpose of God. The other issue regarding what Peter says on the day of Pentecost is that the crowd are implicated in Jesus’ death; “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Those who crucified Jesus were morally responsible for their actions. Now I realise that some might object and point out that a God who would sanction this and allow his son to be treated in this way would be morally responsible for evil. But Psalm 92:15 tells us that “the Lord is upright; he is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in him.”
The dilemma we face then is how do we reconcile passages of the bible which on one hand seem to say that God has planned for things to happen which are in themselves evil, while at the same time indicates that the responsibility lies with human beings. Some things in the scripture are within the realm of paradox, and I have come to the conclusion that these paradoxes can only be understood with our sanity still intact, within the biblical framework of God’s ultimate sovereignty. For me the sovereignty of God has brought amazing comfort in difficult times and trials, through experience of sickness and healing. It has given me a renewed confidence in prayer, evangelism and in my preaching because I know that God’s nothing can stand in the way of God’s purposes and plan for this world.
Francis, (and I think Robin and some others), seem to me to be good examples of Calvinists that claim sovereignty, but then don’t seem to agree with many of the more well know Calvinist theologians that write about it. I agree with them. I just think that what they are describing is something other than the common understanding of Calvinist sovereignty that is currently taught. I think Horton is showing that there are Calvinists that believe this. But both Horton and Olson are arguing against a large percentage of Calvinists that say God is not just allowing suffering, but causing it.
I am fine arguing paradox. What I am not ok with is God as the root cause of suffering. But as I read Horton, I keep hearing him say, God is not the cause of Evil, not the cause of suffering (which makes me want to say I am almost Calvinist) then a few pages later he says that God is sovereign and responsible for everything. I just cannot reconcile.
For me it comes down to Olson’s different between logical incompatibility and conundrum. It is just that one person’s conundrum is another incompatibility.
Francis (#54), first let me say that “Charismatic / Calvinist / Presbyterian” strikes me as an odd combination — but no odder than the various ways I might describe myself, I guess!
Calvinists and many other kinds of Christians would distinguish God’s “perfect” will and His “permissive” will. God may allow evil within His permissive will and may even turn evil to good, but the commission of any evil act is not within His “perfect” will.
The crucifixion is a particularly interesting case here, however, because the Father clearly did will for the Son to die for us — He didn’t simply “permit” it. Yet, the actions of the Father and the Son aren’t “distinct” actions, so in fact God affirmatively offered Himself for us. It is neither the case that the Father “caused” the death of the Son nor that the Father “allowed” the death of the Son. It is rather the case that the Triune God, in the person of the incarnate Son, gave Himself for us. I think this solves the apparent conundrum concerning whether God willed the evil of the death of the Son.
But did God create the universe with a foreknowledge of the Fall and issue a double decree of election and reprobation (or with a prior double decree as in supralapsarianism?). In either the infra- or supra-lapsarian case, it seems to me, a double decree would indeed make God the author of evil. This is why I prefer a Thomistic or Arminian or Orthodox approach to God’s permissive will and human freedom over the scholastic Calvinistic approach. It’s also why I prefer Barth’s approach to the doctrine of election over Calvin’s.
in matthew 25 where jesus says that some helped Him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger or in prison he says these things were done when “for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me”. this tells me that even in our fallen state God’s image is still seen in us. so how can we be totally (comprehensively) depraved if the image of the holy One is still in us as fallen humans? that doesn’t make sense to me. i like what peter kreeft says: we are ontologically good but morally we are not. we still bear his image, however defaced. like scot says, cracked eikons.
Linda (#57) — interesting to refer to Catholic moral theologian Peter Kreeft here. I also appreciate Kreeft’s work. For me, this is a key point: can a meaningful moral theology be constructed if human beings do not in some sense have free will? I don’t think so.
Huh. Fifty-eight comments here on Calvinism and seven on the unwanted girls in India.
Wow. That pretty well shut it down, P. Amazing. And now there are 9 over there. :>)
Sorry for the flippant tone of that last comment – it was unnecessary and I apologize.