Pastor’s Page: Recently I have found myself in several conversations around issues of Divine Sovereignty and Predestination – more than I have commonly experienced in other churches I have served. My theory is this has happened because Portage has a unique religious face for a city in Wisconsin. Rather than the usual Lutheran and Catholic predominance, I count 6 different Baptist churches in town. One of the characteristics of many Baptist Conventions (a Baptist Convention is roughly equivalent to a Lutheran Synod, and distinguishes one group of Baptists from another) is adherence to Calvinism. Calvinism is a Systematic Theology developed by the reformer John Calvin (1509-1564). It is a system of thought which is foundational in the Presbyterian Church and the Swiss and Dutch Reformed Churches, and as I mentioned, is often also part of Baptist theology. Its most notable doctrine is Predestination – the doctrine that God preselects those who are to be saved. So, as members of our congregation interact with (Baptist) members of other congregations, they hear Calvinist ideas expressed. But, since United Methodists are never Calvinists (United Methodists hold a free-will position called Arminianism), it is not surprising to me when puzzled members ask me about these things. When I was a Baptist, my Convention was not strictly Calvinist, but had room for multiple viewpoints on the subject. But, I did learn the basics of Calvinist theology. I am going to describe them to you, and offer some general rebuttals of that theology. Now, full disclosure – my explanation of Calvinism will inevitably be influenced by my opposition to the system as a whole and several key points in particular. I will inevitably explain Calvinism in a manner which anticipates and exposes the areas I intend to refute. And, I will inevitably describe Calvinism in a manner which is far less nuanced and intricate than the manner in which a good Calvinist theologian would describe it. Having made this disclaimer, here goes... There is a helpful memory device for summarizing Calvinist theology, it is the anagram TULIP . Each letter represents a Calvinist doctrine ( T otal depravity, U nmerited favor, L imited atonement, I rresistible Grace, P erseverance of the saints), but these are not sequential, they are interdependent. So, even though I will use the anagram in describing this way of thinking, I have to slightly change the order of the I and the L for clarity (but TUILP just isn’t a word). Total Depravity is a doctrinal position which states that we human beings are entirely reprobate. We have sinned, and that sin has obliterated goodness in us, obliterated beauty in us, obliterated value in us, and made us entirely deserving of hell. Unmerited Favor is a doctrinal position which states that there is nothing we can to do to earn or gain God’s love, favor, devotion, or aid. We are entirely helpless, so helpless that we are incapable of even saying yes to an offer of love and salvation from God. So, if God is to save us, God must do everything, and must do it motivated solely by God’s own interior sense of what is Divinely appropriate for God to do, and not because we are in any way worthy or deserving of saving. Irresistible Grace is a doctrinal position which states that, since God’s Will can never be thwarted, if God decides to save us, helpless and worthless, wicked and reprobate, vile and corrupt as we are, it must be impossible for us to say no to that saving (or, to put it positively, it is inevitable that we will say yes). When God extends grace to us, there is no choice in the matter. And this means that if someone is saved, it is because God has chosen to save them and has applied the saving Grace upon them. And, likewise, if someone is not saved, then God has not chosen to save them. And this is specifically what Predestination is all about. Limited Atonement is a doctrinal position which states that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save only those among us who have been chosen for salvation. And, it must be this way because if Jesus died for everyone (“for the sins of the whole world”) then God’s saving grace would be extended to the whole world. And since God’s grace is irresistible, then everyone must become saved and no one can end up in hell or under judgment. This, by the way, leads to a different kind of calvinism [small “c”] called Universalism. Universalists agree that God’s grace is irresistible, but disagree on limited atonement. Believing instead, that Jesus died for all, and therefore, all are chosen, Universalists hold that, in the end, everyone must be saved. Perseverance of the Saints is a doctrinal position which states that a person who is chosen by God to be saved cannot fall away from the faith. Originally, this was a way of reconciling the doctrine of Irresistible Grace, with the human observation that people sometimes lost their religion. Simply put, if we walk away from our faith it means we never really had it. Technically, this means that the only way to discover if one is saved our not is to believe until death and be received into heaven, since it is only those who endure to the end who are shown to be saved. However, in some contemporary Calvinisms, Perseverance of the Saints means “once saved, always saved.” This modern idea goes something like this: I am saved by God’s grace alone, by the blood of Jesus. It wasn’t dependent upon my actions prior to my conversion, therefore it cannot be dependent upon my actions after my conversion. So, once I have repented and received Jesus I have the absolute guarantee of eternal life in heaven. Even if I later recant my faith, go on a spree of burning down churches, and die with a curse against God on my lips, when I stand in judgment God will only see the saving blood of Jesus imposed upon my sinful and worthless self. Let me restate again that a classical Calvinist would never say this, but rather, would say that the truly saved are incapable of recanting their repentance. If this description of Calvinist theology seems reasonable to you, if you find yourself “kind of” agreeing with it, or at least wondering what fault I could find, it means two things. First, that I have made an honest effort to describe Calvinist theology, and second, that Calvinist theology has been very influential in the development of American theology. But, I do not agree with the Calvinist position on many points (too many for this brief space). But I will share a few, starting with the doctrine of Total Depravity. I agree that we have sinned, and that we have become helpless before God. But, the idea of Total Depravity means that there is nothing good, beautiful, valuable, or precious left in us because of the ravages of sin. But, since God created us in God’s own image, that would mean that we had obliterated the image of God in us, making us stronger than God. Instead, I would say, it is the fact that we are pronounced good by God at creation that makes sin so terrible. When Michelangelo's statue of David was splattered with red paint, the whole world was dismayed and outraged. But, if someone spray-paints the old shoe factory, no one much notices. It is the defacing of something unique, precious, and beautiful that merits attention, concern and the effort of restoration. This is what we are – we are each unique, precious, and beautiful creations of God. To have that damaged, demeaned, defaced and degraded is shocking and horrifying, but it doesn’t make us less precious or valuable. No matter how much we sin, or what kind of evils we perpetrate, there is something beautiful that remains. (In fact, if that beauty could be obliterated, then evil could no longer exist, because evil depends on perverting and degrading the good in order to exist at all. In contrast, goodness doesn’t need evil to exist.) So, this is how I regularly put it – God doesn’t love you because you are worthy, God loves you because you are worth it. However, sin has crippled us to the point that we are incapable of reaching God without God’s help. We can’t earn this help – we can’t worship ourselves into heaven; we can’t good-works ourselves into heaven; we can’t live-a-decent-life ourselves into heaven. We do not have the capacity. So God’s choice to extend grace to us is made, not because of anything we have done, but because God who made us beloved, counts us as beloved still. And because God holds us as beloved, God has chosen to save us by means of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. But the scriptures teach that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, and that God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). And God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (I Timothy 2:4). So, it follows that if this is what God wills, then Jesus must have died for all people – which refutes the Calvinist idea of a Limited Atonement. But if Jesus died for all people, then grace is not irresistible (or everyone would be saved). In fact, how could we call it grace if it was irresistible? How could it be grace if we could not say no? In a sense, isn’t that the experience of the addict? He or she may seem to choose to take the drug, but, in fact, once addicted, there is no free-will, the addiction chooses, not the person. But, when the addict chooses to surrender to God, enslavement by the drug can be broken. Here is another point I want to emphasize, the Calvinist understanding of predestination is that God chooses those who are going to be saved, and by not choosing others, surrenders them to eternal damnation. And this means that God could save, but does not. Rather, God crosses to the other side of the road, and passes souls battered by sin, like the priest and the Levite passing by the wounded man in the story of the good Samaritan. By what definition of love could such behavior be called loving, and how could a god who would act in this way be called a God of Love? In contrast, it is a loving thing to give someone choice. In fact, love itself must be offered as something to be freely accepted or rejected, or it is not love. Love is not diminished if it is rejected, for the possibility of rejection is the sad but necessary condition upon which love must be extended. Sometimes people give me a hard time about writing messages that require multiple readings (I deserve the teasing), but maybe this scenario will save the need for re-reading this: a group of people are standing at the crosswalk of a busy intersection in New York City. The “don’t walk” light is flashing. Among the crowd is a great physician who cautions the crowd to wait until the “walk” light goes on. But the people are anxious and self-absorbed, and choose to ignore the warning. As a group they walk into the street, thinking things like, “Why should I wait when everyone else is going;” or “I’m in a great hurry for an important meeting, and no truck would be so evil as to hit me;” or “God wouldn’t let me get hit by a truck, because God loves me;” or “No city planner gets to tell me when I can or can’t walk across a street;” or “These crosswalk rules are for the chumps down the block, not for me.” Nonetheless, they are hit by a truck and scattered, broken on the pavement. At this point, these people have no one to blame but themselves, and they are helpless to do anything for themselves because of their injuries. So, the great physician (who was wisely waiting for the light to change) steps into the road to help. In the Calvinist version, the physician says, “I have the means to help you all, but I choose to help only some of you, leaving the rest to die. In this way, those I save will see the fate that I have rescued them from, a fate they too had brought on themselves, and thus, they will be filled with gratitude and love to me for my rescue and learn a vital lesson about obedience.” In the Universalist version, the physician says, “I have the means to help you all, and I am going to save each and every one of you.” But, one of the victims says, “I am of the Christian Science faith. It is important that I not receive such medical care because it is a violation of my personal beliefs.” But the physician answers, “I don’t care what you believe. I know your beliefs to be useless under these kinds of emergency circumstances. Since there is nothing you can do to stop me, and I know better than you, and you will thank me later, I will treat you against your will.” And so, he helps them all, even though some consider his help to be a violation. In the free-will version, the physician says, “I have the means to help you all. But, by the rules of my profession, I choose to have your consent before I perform a treatment on you. So I will ask your consent first. Any who are unconscious, I will help on the presumption that they would give their assent. But, as soon as they are conscious, I will ask them to make their choice. This is how I choose to act – I choose to save those who consent to being saved.” Then, one by one, he approaches each victim and asks, “Do you want me to help you?” When a victim says yes, the doctor saves that one. If a victim says no and will not be persuaded, the doctor honors the choice, and leaves that one be. When comparing these viewpoints with the scriptures, I find that the Calvinist approach acknowledges the places where God’s choosing is evident, but ignores both the statements about the universality of Jesus’ death and the passages where human beings are required to choose to believe and serve God. The Universalist viewpoint ignores passages where human beings are required to choose to believe and serve God. Only the free will viewpoint acknowledges Divine choice, human choice and the unlimited nature of Christ’s atoning work. I should stop now, even though I could go on at length. But I will end with an observation. George Whitfield and John Wesley (founder of Methodism) were friends who disagreed fiercely on slavery and on Calvinism (John Wesley held the free will position). Despite their disagreements, each had specified that the other should preach at his funeral service. The attitude which they had is, perhaps, nicely summed up by Wesley, who famously said, “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?” Pastor Tom
PORTAGE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
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