This is, in most part, a response to a question by Blake:
“What is your opinion on the New Perspective on Paul?”
I am, admittedly, Wrightian (as in NT Wright) in my understanding of Paul and will draw on his understanding of this controversial topic.*
In Calvinism, there is the explanation of the two wills of God - passive and decreed - in order to explain why “God can save everyone but doesn’t” in order to reconcile their view of God predestining salvation according to their view of deterministic salvation. Both Hebrew and Christian testaments refer to God as one who does not “take pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 18:23) and “desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4). Working in the Calvinist framework of the illusion of free will and predestining God, we know that not everyone, according to God’s will, ends up within the pearly gates. In this view, “God’s love for His elect is an intensive love that has Him actually doing something about their lost condition instead of simply sitting by wishing that they would in turn love Him”. This creates several issues within the Calvinist framework:
“This is not a theology issue, but rather a love issue. The ivory tower of Neo-Calvinism has reached so high, I’m not sure what the point is anymore. Calvinist bloggers only stimulate other Calvinist bloggers. Neo-Calvinism has become the ghetto of the ghetto of the Christian subculture. Somehow the sincere search for deeper doctrine has led to arrogance, inhouse fighting, a ridiculously isolated blogosphere, and 20 year olds condescending to everyone. Doctrine-nerds are yelling “heresy” and “blasphemy” without a clue how serious those charges are, and also without a single gesture of brotherly love or empathy. Disagreements do not mean nuclear war. How Jesus would grieve over these New Pharisees.”
I share these feelings JS Park has about the online community of Neo-Calvinism (though I’m sure Park and I probably differ on some theological issues). Most “Neo-Calvinists” have rarely ever engaged or read other theologies on their own turf - most of what they know of Arminianism, Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox and varying other theologies are from, gasp, Reformed people. Caricatures abound. Just because someone you enjoy listening to says something is “biblical”, doesn’t mean it actually is. I’ve encountered a decent amount of “be wary of this guy” about my blog because I don’t agree with the pillars of Calvinism. Encountering these people reminds me of the Stoop Kid episode from Hey Arnold. The Stoop Kid is afraid to leave his stoop, so he terrorizes anyone that comes near. In actuality, their world is limited to this little place amongst the bigger neighborhood of theology.
That’s not to say all Calvinists are remotely like this. One of my great friends is Calvinist, but she’s not a jerk (I think I’m more of a jerk to her sometimes…). We constantly talk about theology and we acknowledge that we don’t agree. But we both still love Jesus and want to see the Kingdom of God manifest on earth. And that’s what ultimately counts.
In [Part 1] of this series, we saw John Calvin’s understanding of Predestination. When taking Calvin’s (and Reformed theology’s) statement to its logical conclusion, we see in this school of thought that the belief is that “All events are willed/determined by God.” What is our “role” in a predetermined universe and “why does God punish human beings, incapable of choice, for sin, when He has predestined these things to happen?” Today, we will explore the idea of double predestination and what it entails for us.
Let’s explore the idea of Reformed Predestination, determinism and our role within this view. First, let’s get some definitions down. Predestination, as largely understood in reformed Christian tradition, is “the doctrine that all events have been willed by God. John Calvin interpreted predestination to mean that God willed eternal damnation for some people and salvation for others.”[1] Determinism is defined as “the philosophical doctrine that all events including human actions and choices are fully determined by preceding events and states of affairs.”[2] In the definition of ‘determinism’, we can change ‘by preceding events and states of affairs’ to ‘God’ and have theological determinism - “all events including human actions and choices are fully determined by God”. Theological determinism and the reformed understanding of predestination are interchangeable: “All events are willed/determined by God.” So where does this leave us?
