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<\/p>\nAgain with \u201cGood God\u201d and Calvinism<\/p>\n
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Throughout the years of this blog (and before and outside of it) I have wrestled with people objecting most strenuously to my contention that true, historical, consistent Calvinism undermines the goodness of God. If God foreordains some people to hell when he could save them because grace is irresistible and election is unconditional, then God is not good<\/em>. The common response is \u201cYou are imposing on God your own standard of \u2018goodness\u2019 and God is not accountable to you or any human notion of \u2018good\u2019.\u201d Underlying that assertion, of course, is the assumption that there is no natural, universal meaning of \u201cgood\u201d that applies to all beings\u2014including God. Also underlying that assertion is the assumption that whatever God does is good just because God does it<\/em>. My common response has been that, if that is so, then we do not even know what we are saying when we say \u201cGod is good\u201d other than \u201cGod is God.\u201d<\/p>\n *Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the \u201cNote to commenters\u201d at its end.*<\/em><\/p>\n Now, to move the conversation (or argument) forward a bit I will appeal to one of the new Calvinists\u2019 \u201cbig guns,\u201d their hero-theologian Jonathan Edwards. (Okay, admittedly for most of them Edwards is \u201cchanneled\u201d through John Piper, but Piper would be the first to admit that. He has very long and very often publicly admitted his indebtedness to Edwards.)<\/p>\n In Chapter VIII of Edwards book The Nature of True Virtue<\/em>, entitled \u201cIn What Respects Virtue or Moral Good Is Founded in Sentiment; and How Far It Is Founded in the Reason and Nature of Things,\u201d the New England Puritan theologian argues very stringently and cogently that words like \u201cgood\u201d and \u201cevil\u201d must<\/em> have universal, non-arbitrary meanings embedded in and arising out of the very nature of reality itself<\/em>. They cannot be meaningful and be arbitrary, arising only out of sentiment or subjectivity. Here are the last two sentences of the book itself:<\/p>\n \u201cMankind in general seem to suppose some general standard, or foundation in nature, for an universal consistence in the use of the terms whereby they express moral good and evil; which none can depart from but through error and mistake. This is evidently supposed [presupposed] in all their disputes about right and wrong; and in all endeavors used to prove that any thing is either good or evil, in a moral sense.\u201d (The Nature of True Virtue<\/em> [Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, Fourth Printing, 1969, page 107)<\/p>\n Now, leading up to that final summarizing statement are many paragraphs in which Edwards endeavors to demonstrate that when a person calls an evil act \u201cgood\u201d he contradicts himself. He gives examples of both individuals such as thieves and nations or empires that wage war for imperialistic purposes. In both cases, he argues, attempts to defend evil acts as good do not work for everyone knows and it is in the nature of reality itself that \u201cgood\u201d is that which is praiseworthy and thieves and imperialistic empires would be among the first to deny that being robbed or invaded is praiseworthy\u2014when they are themselves the robbed or invaded.<\/p>\n Edwards\u2019s point is obvious, even though his way of expressing it is typically somewhat subtle: If \u201cgood\u201d is to mean anything and language not be abused, we must suppose that it corresponds with a universal, non-arbitrary nature of things and that presupposes a God who is himself the author of the nature of things and even \u201cbeing in general.\u201d (p. 100)<\/p>\n Here it is not my purpose or intention to attempt to explain HOW Edwards could hold this view and AT THE SAME TIME believe in double predestination and even divine determinism. My one and only point here is that Edwards himself, a prototype of contemporary \u201cnew Calvinism\u201d (via Piper and others), believed very strongly that \u201cgood\u201d cannot have two different meanings\u2014one for creatures and the other for God. For both \u201cgood\u201d is \u201ctrue virtue\u201d which is \u201cbenevolence toward being.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n In this case, Edwards\u2019s theology and ethics is right. The only alternative is to escape into \u201cabuse of language,\u201d as he called any attempt to use \u201cgood\u201d subjectively or arbitrarily as if it had no real, essential correspondence with reality itself.<\/p>\n Now, just in case someone (probably a new Calvinist) thinks I am misrepresenting Edwards, I will appeal to two Calvinist authorities on Edwards\u2019s theology and ethics: Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott who, in their massive and magisterial treatise The Theology of Jonathan Edwards<\/em> (Oxford University Press, 2012), admit my point. Responding to Edwards critic Norman Fiering they say \u201cFiering was no doubt right that Edwards\u2019s God governed the world according to objective notions of the good that can be ascertained by all human beings.\u201d (545) Where they think Fiering and other critics are wrong is that \u201cEdwards insisted that these standards to which God conforms are part of God\u2019s own being.\u201d (545) (In this they are agreeing with and disagreeing with the criticism that Edwards\u2019s ethic was rationalistic.)<\/p>\n This (above the preceding paragraph) is my answer<\/em> to those Calvinists who accuse me<\/em> of using a non-biblical or non-Christian, \u201cphilosophical\u201d meaning of \u201cgood\u201d when I say that the God of TULIP Calvinism cannot be good. (Again, here I am not interested in turning Edwards\u2019s own realist, essentialist approach to \u201cgood\u201d against his Calvinism. But the implication of what I am saying is clear. He contradicted himself.) Even Edwards, in his right mind, thinking rightly, knew and argued most cogently, that \u201cgood\u201d is a word with universal, standard, non-arbitrary meaning and<\/u> he vigorously denied that God\u2019s own character is exceptional<\/em>. \u201cGood\u201d derives ultimately from God whose character is \u201cbenevolence toward being,\u201d so that when God commands it of us he is not commanding something arbitrarily but commanding what is truly, universally good in his own nature and our own in his own image and likeness.<\/p>\n So, when I argue that God predestining to eternal torment those he could save would be not good but evil<\/em> I am not<\/u> imposing an alien, philosophical concept of \u201cgood\u201d on God. I am simply following Edwards in believing that \u201cgood\u201d is self-evidently benevolence to being<\/em>\u2014even in God.<\/p>\n *Note to commenters:<\/em> This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment only to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives\/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and \u201con topic.\u201d Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger\u2019s (or guest writers\u2019) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Again with \u201cGood God\u201d and Calvinism Throughout the years of this blog (and before and outside of it) I have wrestled with people objecting most strenuously to my contention that true, historical, consistent Calvinism undermines the goodness of God. If God foreordains some people to hell when he could save them because grace is irresistible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n