The Nature of God's Election, Part I

About two days or so ago, I tackled Augustine’s remarks on what he calls “the merits of faith” in Romans 9 (Augustine was quoted by Paul Helm in his chapter of the book “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views”). I showed that faith cannot be a “merit” because it is not a work, but instead, yielding to the work of God in us (and accepting Christ’s work on the cross).

Well, I’m back to dive into Romans 10. I think this chapter is an important one to discuss—because, if the answer to salvation is the choosing of individuals, as Augustine, Calvin, and others claim, then we should see Paul discussing that in Romans 10 and Romans 11; however, what we see is Paul writing about faith as the BIBLICAL NATURE OF GOD’S ELECTION. We see Paul writing about the UNIVERSALITY of salvation—that EVERYONE has the opportunity to be saved! And, to make matters even worse for the Calvinist, Paul reveals in Romans 10 that faith has ALWAYS been the way of salvation, throughout the entire Old Testament Law!

In Romans 10, verses 1 through 3, we find that Paul reveals his distress over his own people: he wishes that they were saved (10:1). But the reason that they are not saved is because they are still trying to keep the Law: “because they…attempted to establish their own righteousness…” (v.3, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

And then comes verse 4:

For Christ is the end [b] of the law for righteousness (C) to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:4, HCSB)

The word for “end” here is “telos,” which could mean “end,” but also “goal.” The point to emphasize here, however, is that, while Christ was the goal of the Law (the Law was to point to Christ), the Law was a substitute until Christ. Read Galatians 3:
23 Before this faith (AJ) came, we were confined under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith was revealed. (AK) 24 The law, then, was our guardian [k] until Christ, (AL) so that we could be justified by faith. 25 But since that faith (AM) has come, we are no longer under a guardian, [l] 26 for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:23-26, HCSB)

When Paul writes that “the law…was our GUARDIAN until Christ,” Paul is saying that the Law was only temporary; for Christ was planned to come. This is why in Galatians Paul references “the fulfillment of time,” or “the fullness of time.” There was time that Christ was appointed to come give His life for the world. So, according to Romans 10, Christ is literally THE END of the Law for the one who believes, the one who professes faith in Him.

5 For Moses writes about the righteousness that is from the law: The one who does these things will live by them. (Romans 10:5, HCSB)

In other words, for the person who seeks to establish righteousness through the Law, that person must do EVERYTHING THE LAW REQUIRES. Imagine how tiring of a lifestyle that would be—trying to be PERFECT and keep every jot and tittle of the Law! And to break one of the laws would make you a transgressor:

For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of [breaking it] all. (James 2:10, HCSB)

When Paul writes in Romans 10:5 that “the one who does these things will live by them,” he is referring to Leviticus 18:5. As I said earlier, Paul is making his case that the Mosaic Law has ALWAYS pointed to Christ and that keeping the Law itself was impossible. The impossibility of perfection before the Law was spoken even back as early as the book of Leviticus! As Leon Morris quotes in his commentary on Romans:

"Paul insists that his view of justification by faith is SCRIPTURAL. It is important for him that it is not some new-fangled idea, but that God has always accepted people on this basis. So now he assembles a group of passages from Scripture to show that GOD HAS ALWAYS ACCEPTED PEOPLE THROUGH GRACE. ALL THAT HAS BEEN REQUIRED ON THEIR PART IS FAITH" (Leon Morris, "The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Epistle to the Romans." Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988, page 381, emphasis mine).

6 But the righteousness that comes from faith (G) speaks like this: Do not say in your heart, "Who will go up to heaven?" (H) (I) that is, to bring Christ down 7 or, "Who will go down into the abyss?" (J) (K) that is, to bring Christ up from the dead.(Romans 10:6-7, HCSB)

The righteousness of the Law requires (as verse 5 tells us) that a person keep EVERY JOT AND TITTLE, every single commandment; but the righteousness by faith doesn’t require DOING any work! It is here that Paul quotes “Do not say in your heart, ‘who will go up to heaven?’ that is, TO BRING CHRIST DOWN or, ‘who will go down into the abyss?’ that is, TO BRING CHRIST UP FROM THE DEAD.” The reference here about taking Christ down or bringing Christ up from the dead is from Deuteronomy 30:11-14—

11 "This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach. 12 It is not in heaven, so that you have to ask, 'Who will go up to heaven, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?' 13 And it is not across the sea, so that you have to ask, 'Who will cross the sea, get it for us, and proclaim it to us so that we may follow it?' 14 But the message is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, so that you may follow it. (Deuteronomy 30:11-14, HCSB)

In the context of Deuteronomy 30, Moses is giving his speech to the children of Israel before they cross over into the Promised Land. He has spent the last 29 chapters reminding them of God’s goodness and exhorting them to remain in God’s kindness and walk right before Him. But in verse 11, he tells the congregation that no one has to go to Heaven to bring down the Law, or go across the sea to get the Law; but, instead, the Law is near, God’s Word is near—“in your mouth and in your heart, SO THAT YOU MAY FOLLOW IT.”

I think these words are interesting. Moses says that the people cannot claim ignorance in regards to the Law, because the Law is in them, so that they are able to follow it. They have access to it, so that they are now responsible for obeying God’s commands. Paul, in the context of Romans 10, is not talking about “the Law” of Deuteronomy 30, for he has just stated that Leviticus asserts the impossibility of human perfection before the Law. Instead, he is referring to a different message altogether, which he will reveal a little further along in the text.

Deuteronomy 30 mentions going up to heaven and traveling across the sea as the human effort to retrieve the Law; in Romans 10, Paul uses going to Heaven to bring Christ down and going to the “abyss” to raise Christ from the dead. Paul says that the righteousness that is of faith does not ask these questions—in other words, the righteousness that comes by faith DOES NOT ASK, “WHAT HUMAN WORK MUST I PERFORM TO BECOME RIGHTEOUS?”. What does it do, then?

8 On the contrary, what does it say? The message is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. (M) (N) This is the message of faith that we proclaim: 9 if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," (O) and believe in your heart (P) that God raised Him from the dead, (Q) you will be saved. (Romans 10:8-9, HCSB)

Now, back in verses 6 and 7, the Old Testament reveals that no HUMAN MERIT can earn the righteousness of God. In verses 8 and 9, we see the question asked to receive the righteousness of faith: “The message is NEAR YOU, in your mouth and in your heart.” For the Jew who wonders how to receive the righteousness of faith, Paul stands as a “New Testament Moses”. He tells the Jew that the message they are to receive is “in your mouth and in your heart.” In other words, like the Israelites of Deuteronomy 30, they have the “law” [that being the law of Christ] near them so that they can obey it. The “message” they are to receive is “the message of faith that we proclaim.” Paul tells them that the message to receive is what he and others have been preaching all the time: “if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him [Jesus] from the dead, you will be saved.”

So the message is not like that of the children of Israel (to keep the Mosaic Law), but instead, to obey the law of Christ—to confess that Jesus is Lord, and believe that God raised this Christ, the Son of God, from the dead back to life. FAITH, then, is how salvation is applied to each and every individual!

Since faith is the way of salvation, Calvinists find themselves in another rut. For all their emphasis on faith being a “merit,” Paul didn’t think so; for him, faith was the ONLY way to have the righteousness of God imparted to our lives.

Verse 10 tells us that faith in Christ results in the impartation of righteousness; and that with confession, salvation comes. It is easy to believe in the Lord with an “emotional” assent; but until one voices their belief, AFFIRMS God’s Lordship in their lives, that belief remains hidden. Only by OPEN CONFESSION can a person demonstrate his or her conversion decision.

I will discuss more of Romans 10-11 in posts to come. Stay tuned for more on the nature of God's election.

Systematic Theology and Philosophical Theology

It seems today that there are people in theological schools all over the country, who have this agenda to separate Philosophy from theology. I believe that in order to do theology in a proper way philosophy has to be involved. To make this point clear I want to show three ways that Philosophy plays in the doing of Theology. First, it supplies the content for theology, second, Philosophy is used to defend or establish theology's truth. Finally Philosophy scrutinizes it arguments and concepts. In other words, if you have a dad Philosophical understanding of things, then it is safe to say that your theology will also be bad. Later in our discussion we will look at some of the major Philosophical preconditions that have to be in place for any theological discussion can take place. This discussion will be expounded on when when we talk about the philosophical precondition to theology.

Calvin's Response to the Problem of Evil

I spent some significant time this morning reading through more of John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” I found myself in Book 2, chapter 2, titled “Man Now Deprived of Freedom of Will, and Miserably Enslaved.” Once I finished reading that, I traveled to chapter 4, regarding “How God Works in the Hearts of Men.” Calvin claimed in the chapter that he had proven how God causes evil in Book One, so I went there next. I read Book 1, Chapter 18, titled “The Instrumentality of the Wicked Employed by God, While He Continues Free from Every Taint.”

It is in this chapter that Calvin tackles the problem of evil. After his discussion of various texts involving God using evil, Calvin writes:

“In the same way is solved, or rather spontaneously vanishes, another objection, i.e., IF GOD NOT ONLY USES THE AGENCY OF THE WICKED, BUT ALSO GOVERNS THEIR COUNSELS AND AFFECTIONS, HE IS THE AUTHOR OF ALL THEIR SINS; and therefore men, in executing what God has decreed, are UNJUSTLY CONDEMNED, because they are obeying his will” (Book I, Chap. 18, sec. IV, pg. 139).

This is the response of many people to the idea of labeling God as the primary cause or reason of evil. But Calvin writes to calm those who disagree:

“Here [above] ‘will’ is improperly confounded with precept, though it is obvious, from innumerable examples, that there is the greatest difference between them. When Absalom defiled his father’s bed, though God was pleased thus to avenge the adultery of David, he did not therefore enjoin an abandoned son to commit incest, unless, perhaps, in respect of David, as David himself says of Shimei’s curses. For, while he confesses that Shimei acts by the order of God, he by no means commends the obedience, as if that petulant dog had been yielding obedience to a divine command; but, recognizing in his tongue the scourge of God, he submits patiently to be chastised. Thus we must hold, that while by no means of the wicked God performs what he had SECRETLY DECREED, THEY ARE NOT EXCUSABLE AS IF THEY WERE OBEYING HIS PRECEPT, which of set purpose they violate according to their lust” (139).

Calvin writes here that God uses the wicked to perform His “secret decree,” but what secret decree is Calvin discussing? I don’t read anywhere in God’s word of a secret decree for the wicked, and a public decree for the righteous!

Look at the case of David’s son Absalom; God decrees that one of David’s sons would commit incest because of David’s “secret” sin with Bathsheba (because David did not respect the marriage of his soldier, Uriah the Hittite). In this case, however, God decrees this to be because of His righteousness. In His just character, the Lord CANNOT allow sin to go unpunished.

So what does the Lord do in righteous judgment? He punishes sin by pronouncing tragedies of His own. But God here is not “causing” sin by pronouncing judgment: He is simply allowing the free will choice of the person (choice of sin) to have its proper effect—the person who “caused” the sin has to experience its effects, which are negative in nature.

This is the same with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, God pronounced judgment. For Adam, the punishments were intensive work and physical death (“you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” Gen.3). In addition, the ground was cursed because of Adam’s sin. The Lord allowed Adam and Eve’s sin to stand, for only sin comes from sin. Sin cannot lead to righteousness, and righteousness cannot lead to sin. But if sin is caused by human agents, then the only result is sin.

Because Adam and Eve chose sin, the only effects that could come from their sin were SINFUL in nature. The only good that came out of the Fall was the promise of God regarding His Son in Genesis 3:

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman,
and between your seed and her seed.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15, Holman Christian Standard Bible)

This has been called “protoevangelium,” meaning “the first Gospel.” The seed of the woman (from the line of Eve would come forth the Messiah) would “strike” the head of the serpent (the serpent being called “The Devil” in Revelation 20:2—
2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the Devil and Satan…” (Rev. 20:2, HCSB)

We see the protoevangelium reappear with Paul’s words to the Romans at the end of his letter:

19 The report of your obedience has reached everyone. (U) Therefore I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good, yet innocent about what is evil.20 The God of peace (W) will soon crush Satan (X) under your feet. (Romans 16:19-20a, HCSB)

Notice that in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman would strike the head of the serpent; in Romans 16, “The God of peace” would crush “Satan.” We see the connection here between Genesis 3 and Romans 16. Out of all the tragedy that day in the Garden, would come forth the Lord Jesus, who would come to save the world from their sins (John 3:16).

Now, back to Calvin’s thought: God used tragedy in response to the evil choice of Adam and Eve; however, this was a fitting punishment: the punishment FIT the crime! So God cannot be said to “cause” evil here; if anyone is responsible for God wreaking havoc, it is those who choose to sin despite God’s warning. Since the crime has been done, God is acting as the Just Judge when He gives the sentence.

Calvin then gives the example of Shimei cursing David; and David tells his men to leave Shimei alone—because the LORD told Shimei to do it. I’ll publish the text of 2 Samuel 16 here:

5 When King David got to Bahurim, a man belonging to the family of the house of Saul was just coming out. His name was Shimei son of Gera, (C) and he was yelling curses as he approached. 6 He threw stones at David and at all the royal [c] servants, the people and the warriors on David's right and left. 7 Shimei said as he cursed: "Get out, get out, you worthless murderer! 8 The LORD has paid you back for all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you rule, and the LORD has handed the kingdom over to your son Absalom. Look, you are in trouble because you're a murderer!" 9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, "Why should this dead dog (D) curse my lord the king? (E) Let me go over and cut his head off!" 10 The king replied, "Sons of Zeruiah, do we agree on anything? (F) He curses (G) [me] this way because the LORD [d] told him, 'Curse David!' Therefore, who can say, 'Why did you do that?' " 11 Then David said to Abishai and all his servants, "Look, my own son, my own flesh and blood, [e] intends to take my life (H) —how much more now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse [me]; the LORD has told him to. 12 Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction [f] and restore goodness to me instead of Shimei's curses today." (2 Samuel 16:5-12, HCSB)

Now, first off, notice what Shimei is doing: he is cursing and throwing stones at David and his men. Notice that Shimei does this of his own free will; he is not forced to do it. However, let’s now look at what Shimei says:

“Get out, get out, you worthless MURDERER! THE LORD HAS PAID YOU BACK FOR ALL THE BLOOD OF THE HOUSE OF SAUL IN WHOSE PLACE YOU RULE, AND THE LORD HAS HANDED THE KINGDOM OVER TO YOUR SON ABSALOM. Look, you are in trouble because you’re a murderer!”

In other words, Shimei stated that David was suffering because he was a man who committed murder—someone who took the lives of others, innocent others. His slaughtering was the reason (according to Shimei) that he was suffering. David refuses to react because he knew it was true—and that truth comes from the Lord, REGARDLESS of what mouth (whether of a good or evil person) the truth comes from. Although the words are coming from the mouth of someone who is utterly disrespectful to the king (his authority) and shames him publicly, David realized that the Lord was declaring truth through this “wicked” vessel. Now, this does not absolve Shimei of his guilt: he still was wrong for cursing. However, David realized that God was using Shimei to “send him a message.” This is why David responded, “PERHAPS the Lord will see my affliction and RESTORE GOODNESS TO ME instead of Shimei’s curses today.”
With Shimei, the Lord operates according to Shimei’s will. We find him cursing, so we imagine that his character is not all that decent (cursing has NEVER been deemed a good thing!). However, the Lord doesn’t change Shimei’s disposition: Shimei is cursing because HE CHOOSES TO! Yet and still, God brings forth WORDS OF TRUTH (the Lord being “true”) from Shimei’s mouth.

Calvin wants to maintain that the individuals themselves are responsible; but this can ONLY be true IF God uses such wicked individuals ACCORDING TO THEIR WICKEDNESS (in other words, the individuals themselves REMAIN the PRIMARY CAUSE of their sin)!
And this brings back a definition that I have posted a couple of times here on the blog—the meaning of the word “RESPONSIBLE”:

b (1) : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent.

So someone who is responsible is the primary cause, the person who INITIATED or started the action or event. Humans who commit wicked acts, then, are RESPONSIBLE for them; God, then, affirms that person’s decision and brings about His purposes THROUGH THE DECISION OF THE INDIVIDUAL!

It is God who possesses ALL POWER! Nevertheless, God in His sovereignty gave man power over his decisions (free will). But think about it: God gave man only SOME power, a small amount compared to His own; but He did not give man ALL POWER! If God were to do so, then He would no longer be God. God did, however, grant man some small amount of power in the world. If God granted it to man, then man can NEVER possess more power than God…and man can NEVER possess power of such a magnitude that he could ever make a decision that DIDN’T fit under the umbrella of God’s sovereignty. As a result, even man’s evil choices fall WITHIN the providence of God. God can (and does) use them to bring glory to Himself.

Systematic Theology and Historical Theology

I want to continue my look at Systematic Theology. In this post I will be considering the relationship between Systematic Theology and Historical Theology. I want to bring to light two major approaches to Historical Theology. The first approach is that it can be studied by schools or in a given period of time in history. In other words, this approach to theology is called the Synchronic approach.
The second approach is to trace the history of thought regarding a particular doctrine. This type of approach is called a diachronic approach. Now having these two approaches in the front of our minds we can begin to look at the need for this type of theology. As a philosopher I think Historical theology does a wonderful Job at making us aware of our own presuppositions. It has been stated by many people many times that Ideas are what move men to action. So in the context of theology it seems safe to assume that we did not get to where we are theologically by mere chance. Instead through out the history men have struggled with extrapolating a proper view of God, Christ, and man, as well as God's relationship to his creation. So in short one of the major values of Historical theology is to help us understand why we believe the way we do. The second value of historical theology is that it provides us with a grid in which to evaluate particular ideas that may arise in our time. What I mean by that is that if you hear a theology that stands in the face of Church history you better be able to show good evidence for it.
I want to give a warning here, I am not saying that tradition is the primary way of finding the truthfulness of a doctrine, but I am saying that it is part of the the grid.

Helm's Defense, Part I-D: Thomas Aquinas on Free Will

I’m still at work on Paul Helm’s defense in the book “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views.” For those of you that may not have read the other posts on Paul Helm, Paul Helm represents one of four views in the book—the Classical Calvinist view of the Doctrine of God. There are three other views that stand in opposition to Helm’s: Modified Calvinist (Bruce Ware), Classical Arminian (Roger Olson), and the Open Theist view (John Sanders).

Helm quotes Aquinas:

“God does not act on the will in the manner of one necessitating; for HE DOES NOT FORCE THE WILL BUT MERELY MOVES IT, without taking away its own proper mode, which consists in being free with respect to opposites. Consequently, EVEN THOUGH NOTHING CAN RESIST THE DIVINE WILL, OUR WILL, LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, CARRIES OUT THE DIVINE WILL ACCORDING TO ITS OWN PROPER MODE. Indeed, the divine will has given things their mode of being in order that His will be fulfilled. Therefore, some things fulfill the divine will necessarily, other things, contingently; BUT THAT WHICH GOD WILLS ALWAYS TAKE PLACE” (Paul Helm quoting Aquinas, in “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God,” page 19).

Aquinas makes some interesting statements here: first, “He [God] does not force the will but merely moves it…” I agree with Aquinas: God does not override the human will.

But Aquinas’s further statements pose problems. Notice that he states, “Our will, like everything else, carries out the divine will according to its own proper mode.” Now our will is placed alongside of “everything else,” which is the rest of creation. But the problem with this is that mankind IS NOT LIKE THE REST OF CREATION. Bardesanes on the issue of freewill and predestination, writes,

“On the contrary, men are not governed like [the plants and animals]…in matters pertaining to their minds, THEY DO WHATEVER THEY CHOOSE—AS THOSE WHO ARE FREE, ENDOWED WITH POWER, and IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD” (Bardesanes, c. 222, E, 8.726, printed in “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs,” by David W. Bercot, Editor. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008, page 288).

The plants and animals do whatever God has laid out for them. As the Lord writes regarding creation in His speech to Job,

32 Can you bring out the constellations [i] in their season
and lead the Bear [j] and her cubs? (N)
33 Do you know the laws (O) of heaven?
Can you impose its [k] authority on earth?
34 Can you command [l] the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you? (P)
35 Can you send out lightning (Q) bolts, and they go?
Do they report to you: "Here we are"? (Job 38:32-35, HCSB)

And the Lord speaks further regarding animal life:

39 Can you hunt prey for a lioness
or satisfy the appetite of young lions (S)
40 when they crouch in their dens
and lie in wait within their lairs?
41 Who provides the raven's food (T)
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food? (Job 38:39-41, HCSB)

The Lord tells Job that He “leads the Bear and her cubs” and “hunts prey for a lioness” and “provides the raven’s food when its young cry out to God.”
But the Lord says something different about man:

36 Who put wisdom (R) in the heart [m]
or gave the mind understanding? (Job 38:36, HCSB)

What I find fascinating is that, in Job chapter 39, this is what God says of the female ostrich:

13 The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
but are her feathers and plumage like the stork's? (E) [d]
14 She abandons her eggs on the ground
and lets them be warmed in the sand.
15 She forgets that a foot may crush them
or that some wild animal may trample them.
16 She treats her young harshly, as if [they] were not her own,
with no fear that her labor may have been in vain.
17 For God has deprived her of wisdom;
He has not endowed her with understanding. (Job 39:13-17)

The ostrich takes risks because “He [God] has not endowed her with understanding.” The Lord gave wisdom and understanding to human life; but He did not give this capacity to animal life.

And, what about Psalm 8? Surely we find there that man was placed ABOVE all plant and animal life:

5 You made him little less than God [c] [d]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him lord over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet: (G) [e]
7 all the sheep and oxen,
as well as animals in the wild,
8 birds of the sky,
and fish of the sea
passing through the currents of the seas. (Psalm 8:5-8)

Man was created to be OVER the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, and everything that passes through the seas. Even in God’s endowment of blessing and responsibility upon man, God distinguished man from the rest of His creation. There is also the Genesis creation account, in which we find that, while God told the plant and animal life to bear seed and creature, what I call “The Great Council of God” came together when it was time to create man:

24 Then God said, "Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds:
livestock, creatures that crawl, and the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25 So God made the wildlife of the earth according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and creatures that crawl on the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, "Let Us (P) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. (Q) They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals, all the earth, [f] and the creatures that crawl [g] on the earth." (R) 27 So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female. (S) 28 God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, (T) and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls [h] on the earth." 29 God also said, "Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth, and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This food will be for you, (U) 30 for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it. [I have given] every green plant for food." (V) And it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. (Genesis 1:24-31, HCSB)

God’s announcement of making man in the image of God stands out from the rest of the creation account. Then notice that, in verse 28, God tells both male and female, “subdue it [earth]. RULE the fish of the sea…” In addition, God tells the human couple in verse 29, “I have given you EVER SEED BEARING PLANT ON THE SURFACE OF THE ENTIRE EARTH, and every tree whose fruit contain seed. THIS FOOD WILL BE FOR YOU.” God also gives the green plants to all of creation (including the animals), but He pronounces this to His human creation first.

And last but not least, as if it isn’t obvious, let’s not overlook the fact that God TALKS to Adam and Eve! They are so like God Himself that He engages in dialogue with them! Does He do that with the rest of creation? NO!

So, like everything else, we SHOULD obey Him; but the truth is, there are times when we go against His will and do that which is displeasing to Him. I read the section of “Irresistible Grace” in the book “The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented” by authors David N. Steele, Curtis C. Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn. While reading this section, I was hoping to find ONE VERSE that would tell me that a person CANNOT resist the will of God: but I looked in vain. The section spans TWELVE PAGES LONG, and yet, I found NO VERSE including the words “can not resist” in regards to the will of God. There are no verses regarding “not resisting” the will of God. However, Jacob Arminius had a reference for his doctrine of “Resistable Grace” in Article Four of the Remonstrance:

“That this grace of God is the commencement, progression, and completion of all good, also in so far that regenerate man cannot, apart from this prevenient or assisting, awakening, consequent and cooperating grace, think, will or do the good or resist any temptation to evil; so that all good works or activities which can be conceived must be ascribed to the grace of God in Christ. BUT WITH RESPECT TO THE MODE OF THIS GRACE, IT IS NOT IRRESISTIBLE, since it is written concerning many that they resisted the Holy Spirit. Acts 7 and elsewhere in many places.”

Acts 7:51 says, 51 "You stiff-necked (AY) people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! (AZ) You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your forefathers did, so do you.” (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

So we see that Arminius had a reference; but I find that Calvinist theologies fail to give an example of where the grace of God CANNOT be resisted.

According to Aquinas, everything that God wills happens; but, as we see, what God wills is the choice of man, not man’s evil actions. This then, proves that every little event does not go as God intended it to; however, “all things work TOGETHER” (Rom. 8:28) for good for those who love God. All events, including the evil ones, lead to the end goal, which is GOOD for those who belong to the Lord. In this way, we see that truly, God is in control.

Helm's Defense, Part I-C: Augustine's Inconsistency on Predestination

“There are a number of references to reprobation in this work and others. For example, ‘He saved them [the elect] for nothing. But to the rest who were blinded, as is there plainly declared it, was done in recompense. ‘All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth.’ But His ways are unsearchable. Therefore the mercy by which He freely delivers, and the truth by which He righteously judges, are equally unsearchable. Such references are understandably muted, but for Augustine reprobation is not simply inferred from predestination but grounded in the biblical data, and THE GROUNDS FOR CONDEMNING THE REPROBATE DIFFER FROM THE GROUNDS FOR BLESSING THE ELECT. All events are under God’s providential control, but the term ‘predestination’ IS RESERVED BY AUGUSTINE FOR THE DESTINING OF MEN AND WOMEN TO SALVATION. God foreknows what he himself does not (and cannot do)—that is, acts of evil. HE DOES NOT PREDESTINE SUCH ACTS, BUT THEY ARE PART OF HIS PROVIDENCE” [Paul Helm, “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God,” edited by Bruce Ware. Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2008, page 12.]

I find Paul Helm’s words regarding Augustine’s view of predestination and providence to be fascinating. Augustine believes that the word “predestination” refers to God ordaining men and women to go to Heaven, but yet, God doesn’t ordain men and women to go to Hell? So, is Augustine saying that people go to Hell because they CHOOSE to do so?

But if people are allowed to CHOOSE Hell, but are PREDESTINED for Heaven, then we now have a problem: now, there are TWO WAYS to pick TWO WAYS to go to eternity!

I’ve heard this argument before. A good of friend of mine told me that his professor espouses Augustine’s belief. But this is how the professor reconciled these two interesting assessments of eternity: those who go to Hell already chose to—IN ADAM. But those who go to Heaven are elected by Christ.

Wait a minute! How is it that one group gets chosen AFTER the Crucifixion, but the other group GETS DESERTED? What does Romans 5 tell us?

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, (S) and death through sin, (T) in this way death spread to all men, (U) because all sinned. (Romans 5:12, Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Romans 5 tells us that ALL SINNED in Adam, and so, ALL received the penalty of death. So in the beginning, EVERYONE CHOSE HELL!

But then, the Lord came; and He reconciled us back to God:

15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man's trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, (Y) Jesus Christ. 16 And the gift is not like the one man's sin, because from one sin came the judgment, (Z) resulting in condemnation, but from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification. [d] 17 Since by the one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life (AA) through the one man, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:15-17, HCSB)

Verse 17 is our important verse here: since by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much will THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE OVERFLOW OF GRACE AND THE GIFT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.”

Paul is showing us a parallel here between the first Adam (first human), and the “second Adam” (Christ). But what he states here is that “those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness” will experience eternal life.
I wonder whether or not Augustine, Calvin, or even modern-day Calvinists have read this verse. It tells us here that only those who accept Christ will receive “the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness.” This doesn’t sound like God “picking” one and abandoning another, does it?

Notice that Paul says those who receive “THE OVERFLOW OF GRACE.” If you read Calvinist interpretations of Romans 9, it seems as if God doesn’t have an overflow of grace, but an UNDERFLOW! God doesn’t have enough grace for everyone—only for a few people. But Paul tells us here that God’s grace is so ABUNDANT (that there is room for so many) that His grace overflows to all those who accept Him.

I now go back to Augustine. He tells us that those who go to Hell do so by choice (to prevent God’s name from being stained with evil). But, by so doing, Augustine, while getting rid of the problem of evil, faces another problem: how to reconcile some getting PICKED while others CHOOSE.

There can’t be two ways: either everyone chooses or everyone gets handpicked by God. No one can have it both ways. But the fact that Augustine holds this view (according to Paul Helm) just confirms what Arminians have always believed about Calvinists: when everything is exposed, Calvinists have many inconsistencies in their system. And the fact that God, in His providence, ALLOWS some to choose Hell makes a strong case for free will theism, especially when it comes from the words of someone who favors unconditional election.

Free By Birth

“You must necessarily correspond to the seed from which you sprang—if indeed it is true that the originator of our race and our sin, Adam, WILLED THE SIN which he committed.” (Tertullian, c.212, W, 4.51; from “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs,” by David W. Bercot, editor. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008, page 288).

It’s been a common belief in society that animals, people, insects, etc., are identical to their kind. Horses have a very similar anatomy (although they are different kinds); people have identical anatomy, even if they are of different ethnicity, height, hair color, eye color, broad-shouldered or thin-framed.
Tertullian uses that same reasoning here: that, since all of humanity descends from Adam, the first human, we all have been given free will like Adam. I’ll set up a syllogism here:

I. Adam was the first human.
II. Adam had free will.
III. Humanity descends from Adam.
IV. Therefore, humanity also has free will.

However, this is not believed by the Calvinists. I’ve been reading the book “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God,” and I’ve noticed that our free will (according to the Calvinists) is either “compatible” to God’s causation (God being the determiner of my will) or else I only have what Bruce Ware calls “the freedom of inclination,” where I can only CHOOSE that which my nature desires to do (in other words, I can only CHOOSE TO SIN—don’t understand that one)…

We see here, though, in Tertullian’s analysis, that free will was not DESTROYED by the fall. Some time back, I talked with a friend, and her dad believes that our will still exists, but it isn’t free. To which I responded, “well, if we have a will and it isn’t free, then what is it?” It can’t be a will if it isn’t free. To will something means to “decide” on something, to choose something. If our will isn’t free, then my friend’s dad shares the view of Bruce Ware: our freedom is only a “freedom of inclination,” which means that our “free” will is “imprisoned” to sin. And if humanity is born with an imprisoned will, then we can’t be responsible for any of the choices we’ve made. As I’ve stated in earlier posts, to be “responsible” for something means that, in any situation, the person was the primary cause or mover. If the person is responsible for a choice made, then the will was free to decide in either direction. If the decision of the will was already made BEFORE the person made the decision, then that person was FORCED to make a choice; and there is no force in freedom.

According to Tertullian, we are “free by birth.” And that is indeed the case: every man, woman, boy, and girl is born with a free will, a will that can choose right from wrong, the true from the false, the godly from the ungodly. And with the Lord’s presence in our lives, we have all we need to stand against “the wiles of the devil.”

Helm's Defense, Part I-B: Augustine and the "Merits of Faith"

I’m back to continue my evaluation of Paul Helm’s chapter on the “Classical Calvinist Doctrine of God” in the book, “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views,” edited by Bruce Ware.

I will now pick up where I left off. In the last post, Augustine wrote to Simplicianus of Romans 9. He writes further:

“But the question is whether faith merits a man’s justification, whether the MERITS OF FAITH do not precede the mercy of God; OR WHETHER, in fact, FAITH ITSELF IS TO BE NUMBERED AMONG THE GIFTS OF GRACE. Notice that in this passage when he said, ‘Not of works,’ he [Paul] did not say, ‘but of FAITH it was said to her, the elder shall serve the younger.’ No, he said, ‘but of him that calleth.’ NO ONE BELIEVES WHO IS NOT CALLED. God calls in his mercy, and not as rewarding the MERITS OF FAITH. The merits of faith follow his calling rather than precede it. SO GRACE COMES BEFORE ALL MERITS. Christ died for the ungodly. The younger received the promise that the elder should serve him from him that calleth and not from any meritorious works of his own. The Scripture ‘Jacob have I loved’ is true, but it was of God who called and not of Jacob’s righteous works” (Augustine, in his letter to Simplician, from “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God,” page 10).

There is one phrase that stands out to me in Augustine’s quote above: “THE MERITS OF FAITH.” With this phrase, Augustine makes the statement that modern Calvinists make—that faith is a work. Whether it is implied or stated, modern-day Calvinists, when the Arminian says that the call involves faith, will respond with the remark I was told by a Calvinist once: but the text says “before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad.” So whether or not Calvinists will own up to their problem, in their minds at least, they label faith as a work. I have written posts here at the Center for Theological Studies that testify to the fact that Scripture distinguishes between faith and work. The two are not the same…
But Augustine says something that I think is worth examining:

“No one believes who is not called. God calls in his mercy, and not as rewarding the merits of faith. The merits of faith follow his calling rather than precede it. SO GRACE COMES BEFORE ALL MERITS.”

I wouldn’t call faith a “merit,” but I do agree that grace must come before anything. This is, in fact, what the Bible teaches:

8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9, Holman Christian Standard Bible)

It is “by grace” that we are saved; we must first have the grace of God before we can even approach the throne in faith. Without the UNMERITED FAVOR of God, our faith would do nothing.

But the next question becomes, what about grace? Is this grace given to everyone, or a select few? And this is where Calvinists and Arminians “draw the line in the sand” and take sides.

As a classical Arminian, I’m gonna say that God gives grace (as well as faith) to all.

For the grace of God has appeared, with salvation for all people… (Titus 2:11, HCSB)

Since the grace of God brings salvation, and salvation has come for “all people,” then the grace of God is for ALL PEOPLE! God’s unmerited favor has come to all people, because all people died in Adam (but can be made alive in Christ—Rom. 5).
And regarding faith, we have Romans 12:

Instead, think sensibly, as God has distributed a measure of faith (I) to each one. (Romans 12:3b, HCSB)

Everyone has a measure of faith; no one is left out. This means, that, everyone has both grace and faith. And all of salvation (both grace and faith) comes from God: “and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Not of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Augustine is right when he says that “no one believes who is not called.” Well, the Lord extends the invitation to all:

28 "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (W) 29 All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, (X) because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. (Y) 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-29, HCSB)

In the parable of the friend at the wedding banquet (Matthew 22), we find that “many” were chosen:

8 "Then he told his slaves, 'The banquet is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. (E) 9 Therefore, go to where the roads exit the city and invite everyone you find to the banquet. (F) ' 10 So those slaves went out on the roads and gathered everyone they found, both evil and good. The wedding banquet was filled with guests. (Matthew 22:8-10, HCSB)

Here, “the many” were “everyone you find,” everyone the servants could find. No one was excluded: “both evil and good” were invited to the banquet. The Lord calls EVERYONE, but not everyone responds in faith.

God does indeed call first; but there is no “merit of faith”; faith is not a work, as James 2 tells us. It is easy to see Augustine’s error: he, like modern-day Calvinists, equate faith and works. But I’ll tell you one thing: whether or not faith is a work can be debated by some; but if the Lord has told me in His Word that I HAVE TO BELIEVE, then whether faith is a work or not means nothing at all.

Helm's Defense, Part I: On Augustine

About two days ago I finished reading the book “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views,” Edited by Bruce Ware. I dreaded reading Paul Helm’s argument for the “Classical Calvinist” position, but after reading the other three views, I had no other direction in which to turn my attention. So I picked up Helm’s chapter and started reading. This post, then, will start a set of posts on Helm’s defense for the Classical Calvinist position.

We will start with the first mentioned in “the tradition” (the reference to Calvinism by Helm), Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430). In 429, Augustine wrote his “On the Predestination of the Saints” in which he references some things he wrote to Simplicianus. One of these things concerned the election of Romans 9:11. Augustine writes,

“If election is by foreknowledge, and God foreknew Jacob’s faith, how do you prove that he did not elect him FOR HIS WORKS? Neither Jacob nor Esau had yet believed, because they were not yet born and had as yet done neither good nor evil. But God foresaw that Jacob would believe? He could equally well have foreseen that he would do good works…the reason for its not being of works was THAT THEY WERE NOT YET BORN, THAT APPLIES ALSO TO FAITH; for before they were born they had neither faith nor works. The apostle, therefore, DID NOT WANT US TO UNDERSTAND THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF GOD’S FOREKNOWLEDGE THAT THE YOUNGER WAS ELECTED TO BE SERVED BY THE ELDER. He wanted to show that it was not of works, and he stressed that by saying, ‘When they were not yet born and had done neither good nor evil.’ He could have said, if he wished to, that God already knew what each was going to do. We have still to inquire why that election was made. It was not of works, because being not yet born they had done no works. BUT NEITHER WAS IT OF FAITH, because they had not faith either. What, then, was the reason for it?” [Augustine, “On the Predestination of the Saints (429), published in the book “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views” by Paul Helm (Edited by Bruce Ware)].

Let me say first of all that in order to understand Jacob and Esau within Romans 9, we have to remind ourselves that the twins serves as SYMBOLS within Paul’s argument. Let’s go back to Genesis 25 to see what God says to Rebekah:

“But the children inside her [Rebekah] struggled with each other, and she said, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ So she went to inquire of the LORD. And the LORD said to her:
‘Two nations are in your womb; two people will [come] from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger’” (Genesis 25:22-23, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

All that Rebekah is told about Jacob and Esau is that the elder will serve the younger, that the oldest would bow down to the youngest. God doesn’t mention anything about seeing their faith, or their works, or anything else. Some have said that God foretells of what will happen because He sees the future. I would agree with that. I would say that, according to Psalm 139, among many, that God does know everything before it takes place (I am an advocate of exhaustive divine foreknowledge, that God knows everything before it happens). God knows what Jacob and Esau would do after their birth.

However, I would caution the reader here by saying that, while this is a very plausible commentary on the calling of Jacob, we must be careful to not read things into the text that are not there. The prophecy regarding Jacob is NOT a prophecy regarding salvation; it is NOT a prophecy of one child being saved and the other child being damned!

But if the prophecy of God regarding the twins is not one of salvation, then what is it? We are only told that Jacob inherited the blessings of the Jewish nation Israel. Esau was “no less able to be saved” than Jacob was: for God promised Abraham in His Covenant that “I will keep My covenant between Me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant TO BE YOUR GOD AND THE GOD OF YOUR OFFSPRING AFTER YOU” (Genesis 17:7, HCSB). Esau, then, by virtue of being a descendant of Abraham, was just as entitled to being a worshipper of God as Jacob was. In that, neither was favored over the other.

When we return to Romans 9, then, we must understand that Paul uses the twins as SYMBOLS OF SALVATION, not as an example of salvation! As I said earlier, God said nothing about either of them being saved, or who would do great work, or anything of the sort. To read that into the text is to “add” things that aren’t there!

Jacob and Esau, however, are SYMBOLS OF SALVATION. What is a “symbol”? Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary tells us:

2 : something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship, association, convention, or accidental resemblance; especially : a visible sign of something invisible (the lion is a symbol of courage).

A symbol is related to something else, whether by relationship or association. What this tells us is that there is a connection, in Romans 9, between Jacob and Esau and the Jews and Gentiles (Rom. 9:30); but we have to discover how strong or weak that connection is. From what we know of Genesis 25, there is not a double-bonded strong connection—in fact, there is a link, but only a simple one.

Now, let’s look back at Romans 9. We see in verse 7, with Isaac, that the “seed of the promise” is called. We know the story with Isaac: that even though he and Hagar had conceived Ishmael, and Ishmael was his OLDEST son by blood, Isaac (although the second-born) was the promised seed. Abraham even pleaded with God for Ishmael to be blessed—but God reiterated that Isaac was the promised seed (Genesis 21:12). In verse 9, we are told the promise of God to Sarah: “At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.” God decided to give Sarah a son, and that son was born, as God had promised.

In verse 10, we get to Jacob and Esau. If we follow the context of the verses earlier (with Ishmael and Isaac), we will see that the emphasis is on GOD’S PROMISE, not foreseen faith, or works, or anything else. In verse 9, God PROMISES Abraham that Sarah would have a son; in verse 12, God PROMISES Rebekah that “the older will serve the younger.” Why does God do this?

“(for though they had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand, NOT FROM WORKS BUT FROM THE ONE WHO CALLS)…” (Rom. 9:12, HCSB).

The emphasis of Paul’s writing is on GOD WHO CALLS, not people who act! Ishmael was the HUMAN ACT of Abraham and Hagar—but he was NOT the promised of God. Esau was to be the one who was served, but that was NOT the promised of God. Only the promise of God would serve in these situations.
So there is an election of God; God does ELECT some and not others.

Here, I can see the Calvinists smiling…but, before you get the impression that I’m turning Calvinist, let me say something else: Calvinists and Arminians believe there is an election—but we differ on the NATURE of election. The Calvinist will say that the election is done according to the arbitrary choice of God; I will disagree with them (as Classical Arminians will) and say that God’s election occurs ACCORDING TO FAITH!

Look at Romans 9:30-32—

“What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith. But Israel, pursuing the law for righteousness, has not achieved the law. Why is that? BECAUSE THEY DID NOT PURSUE IT BY FAITH, BUT AS IF IT WERE BY WORKS.”

Did you notice the question of Romans 9:30? The question “What should we say then?” of Romans 9:30 MATCHES EXACTLY the question of Romans 9:14—“What should we say then?” Paul’s matching questions in the same chapter tell us that Paul is connecting his argument. In other words, he’s telling us that in the same way Isaac was PROMISED over Ishmael and that Jacob was PROMISED over Esau, is the same way that the Gentiles, receiving the PROMISE, are saved, while the Jews, still trying to do it in some other way than God’s way, have not received salvation.

Paul tells us in Romans chapter 10 what God’s righteousness consists of (in case Romans 9:30 doesn’t convince):

“For Christ is THE END OF THE LAW for righteousness TO EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES.”

Now, I will discuss the nature of God’s election in my next post; however, someone reading this will say, “Well, if the Gentiles are elected by faith, then doesn’t this mean that God elected Jacob on the basis of foreseen faith? As I said earlier, we cannot read faith into the Genesis 25 text (or works for that matter), since neither are mentioned.

Jacob and Esau are a case where the call of God TRUMPS established tradition. Both twins are SYMBOLS of the Jewish and Gentile nations. While the Jews “by birthright,” were expected to inherit “the blessing” of salvation, they have failed to receive it; in their stead, God has CALLED the Gentiles, “the Jacob,” “the younger,” the one LEAST LIKELY to inherit “the blessing.” And why? because God CALLED, and the Gentiles have responded in faith (Rom. 9:30).

While Jacob and Esau are used as SYMBOLS of salvation, their issue in Genesis 25 is not one of salvation. Symbols can only go so far; and, in this case, the issue of salvation must stop with Romans 9. Genesis 25, in its proper context, has NOTHING to do with salvation.

I will post a Part II to this work and we will look at the nature of God’s election next time.

The Origin of Sin

As I often do, I’m back to give another quote from the church fathers. Tonight’s quote will come from Clement of Alexandria:

“Neither praises nor censures, neither rewards nor punishments, are right IF THE SOUL DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER OF INCLINATION AND DISINCLINATION AND IF EVIL IS INVOLUNTARY…IN NO RESPECT IS GOD THE AUTHOR OF EVIL. But since FREE CHOICE AND INCLINATION ORIGINATE SINS…punishments are justly inflicted” (Clement of Alexandria, c.195, E, 2.319; from “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” by David W. Bercot, Editor. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008, page 287).

Clement makes some interesting statements regarding the free will of man. First, he says that the soul has “the power of inclination and DISINCLINATION”—here, Clement tells us that not only does the soul have the power to CHOOSE ITS OWN TENDENCIES, but that the soul can also CHOOSE AGAINST ITS TENDENCIES. I stated in my post regarding “The Freedom of Inclination” and other posts in “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God” that Calvinists claim that our freedom lies in only doing what the inclination is…and yet, Scripture continually exhorts us that we can RESIST the devil. Scripture clearly can’t be wrong—therefore, if Scripture tells me that I have the power to resist the Devil, then I have the power to resist the Devil…which means that I can RESIST my inner inclinations!

Next, Clement says that rewards or punishments are not needed “if evil is involuntary.” What does it mean for something to be “involuntary”? I found two meanings in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary Online that will be pertinent to our discussion:

1 : done contrary to or without choice
2 : COMPULSORY

The first definition of involuntary is “done CONTRARY TO or WITHOUT CHOICE.” In other words, the person who does something “involuntary” is not given a choice over it—they are MADE to do it, which is “compulsory.” This would be someone who has a gun put to their head and made to rob a bank. That person is doing what they’re doing out of compulsion, out of forced request—not because they DESIRE it. It is acting on desires that makes us culpable for our deeds. So, if evil is “involuntary,” if, according to the Calvinists, we are made to do evil by the ordination of God and not the choices of men, then we are not responsible. To aid us in the discussion, I’ll give the meanings of the word “responsible” below (also from Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary Online):

1 a: liable to be called on to answer b (1): liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent; a committee responsible for the job (2): being the cause or explanation; mechanical defects were responsible for the accident c: liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties 2 a: able to answer for one's conduct and obligations : TRUSTWORTHY b: able to choose for oneself between right and wrong3: marked by or involving responsibility or accountability; responsible financial policies, a responsible job; 4: politically answerable ; especially : required to submit to the electorate if defeated by the legislature —used especially of the British cabinet.

There are some definitions of note for the word “responsible”: first, there is definition 1b: “liable to be called to account as the PRIMARY CAUSE, motive, or AGENT.” When someone is the primary cause, he or she is the one who sets something in motion, someone who starts something, who originates it. If, according to the Calvinist, God is the PRIMARY CAUSE, then God is responsible for the evil in the world—for according to the Calvinist, He is the One who sets all the evil into motion.

Definition #2 is pretty much a repeat of 1b. However, definition 2b is of note:

“ABLE TO CHOOSE FOR ONESELF between right and wrong.”

Notice that the definition starts with the words “able to choose.” These words tell us that responsibility and blame start with someone who has the POTENTIAL to make a decision, choose between two or more alternatives. In this case, the person has the ability to decide whether to do right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect.
Clement then writes the words, “In no respect is God the author of evil.” These lovely words tell us that Clement attests to what Scripture has to say about God’s relation to evil:

“You are not a God who delights in wickedness; EVIL CANNOT LODGE WITH YOU” (Psalm 5:4, HCSB).

“The face of the LORD is set against those WHO DO WHAT IS EVIL, to erase all memory of them from the earth” (Psalm 34:16, HCSB).

“For indeed, LORD, your enemies—indeed, YOUR ENEMIES WILL PERISH; ALL EVILDOERS WILL BE SCATTERED” (Psalm 92:9, HCSB).

“He protects the lives of His godly ones; He rescues them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 97:10, HCSB).

“But as for those who turn aside to crooked ways, THE LORD WILL BANISH THEM WITH THE EVILDOERS. Peace be with Israel” (Psalm 125:5, HCSB).

“To fear the Lord is TO HATE EVIL” (Proverbs 8:13).

“The LORD DETESTS THE PLANS OF AN EVIL MAN, but pleasant words are pure” (Proverbs 15:26).

“Wickedness is atoned for by loyalty and faithfulness, and one turns from evil BY THE FEAR OF THE LORD” (Proverbs 16:6).

“Wash yourselves. Cleanse yourselves. REMOVE YOUR EVIL DEEDS from My sight. STOP DOING EVIL” (Isaiah 1:16).

“I will destine you for the sword, and all of you will kneel down to be slaughtered, because I called and you did not answer, I spoke and you did not hear; you did what was evil in My sight and chose what I did not delight in.” (Isaiah 65:12)

“"I will pronounce My judgments against them for all the evil they did when they abandoned Me to burn incense to other gods and to worship the works of their own hands.” (Jeremiah 1:16)

“Your own evil will discipline you; your own apostasies will reprimand you. Think it over and see how evil and bitter it is for you to abandon the LORD your God and to have no fear of Me. [This is] the declaration of the Lord GOD of Hosts.” (Jeremiah 2:19)

“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD; remove the foreskin of your hearts, men of Judah and residents of Jerusalem. Otherwise, My wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish [it] because of your evil deeds.” (Jeremiah 4:4)

“For My people are fools; they do not know Me. They are foolish children, without understanding. They are skilled in doing what is evil, but they do not know how to do what is good.” (Jer. 4:22)

“"For the Judeans have done what is evil in My sight." [This is] the LORD's declaration. "They have set up their detestable things in the house that is called by My name and defiled it.” (Jer. 7:30)

“Yet they would not obey or pay attention; each one followed the stubbornness of his evil heart. So I brought on them all the curses of this covenant, because they had not done what I commanded [them] to do." (Jeremiah 11:8)

“Seek good and not evil so that you may live, and the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed.” (Amos 5:14)

“You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you ask, "How have we wearied [Him]?" When you say, "Everyone who does evil is good in the LORD's sight, and He is pleased with them," or "Where is the God of justice?" (Malachi 2:17)

“The world cannot hate you, but it does hate Me because I testify about it—that its deeds are evil.” (John 7:7)

“God raised up His Servant and sent Him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways." (Acts 3:26)

“who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,” (Galatians 1:4)

“This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.” (Ephesians 6:13)

“But the Lord is faithful; He will strengthen and guard you from the evil one.” (2 Thess. 3:3)

“Watch out, brothers, so that there won't be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart that departs from the living God.” (Hebrews 3:12)

“No one undergoing a trial should say, "I am being tempted by God." For God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn't tempt anyone.” (James 1:13)

“because the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their request. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (1 Peter 3:12)

“Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.” (3 John 1:11)

All of the above work shows us that evil is ANTITHETICAL to God’s nature, which is “Good.” Clement’s words, then, ring true—for God is NOT RESPONSIBLE for evil. If God is not responsible, then someone has to be. In that case, the “someone” would be “mankind,” for James 1 tells us that mankind is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed.

Last but not least, Clement tells us one more thing regarding sin itself: “Free choice and inclination ORIGINATE sins.” This, my friends, is the ORIGIN OF SIN—man’s choice and his inner inclinations!
This is why we see Cain murder his brother Abel in Genesis 4 after the Lord’s counsel to Cain. This is why we read of the Lord’s judgment in Genesis 6, when it says that violence covered the earth and every thought of man’s was evil continually.

Clement then, is right in his statement concerning God’s separation from evil, and
man being the originator of evil itself. For those who wanna see more church father quotes, stick around for more to come…

The Joke of Calvinist Compatibilism

“The great problem of the incompatibilist conception is that it reverses the biblical order of priority in the relationship between God and human beings. It says, in effect, ‘I am free; therefore, God is limited by my freedom.’ But rather than the WILL OF GOD BEING DEPENDENT UPON THE CHOICES OF HIS CREATURES, Scripture teaches that the absolute dependence of all creatures upon God. This is the biblical ground of compatibilism. We cannot define God’s right or agency by our perception of freedom; rather we must understand what freedom means within the biblical witness to a divine sovereignty in which not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command” (“Why I Am Not An Arminian” by Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004, page 142).

Authors Robert Peterson and Michael Williams make fun of Arminianism in this statement. The authors themselves believe in compatibilism; but their definition of compatibilism is different than my definition of compatibilism.

For these Calvinist writers, compatibilism says that God’s will is done in the world—and God accomplishes this by making sure that my emotions, feelings, inclinations, thoughts, and actions all line up with what God desires. If God desires for me to do evil, then (which I pray a lightning bolt doesn’t strike me for saying, dear Lord), He will actually give me the inclination to do evil. My freedom, then, according to Bruce Ware, is that I am free to do evil; so, therefore, I will do evil because that’s all my freedom will allow.

But notice what Peterson and Williams say about Arminianism: [the] “will of God being DEPENDENT UPON THE CHOICES OF HIS CREATURES…” However, Arminianism doesn’t say this at all.
The will of God is not dependent upon the choices of His creatures. But it is non-dependent in a different way than the Calvinist maintains.

God’s will is not dependent upon His human creation because the very free will that mankind has been given COMES FROM GOD! The very dominion over the earth that man has been given was given to him by God Himself! Remember Genesis 1:26-27?

26 Then God said, "Let Us (P) make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. (Q) They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the animals, all the earth, [f] and the creatures that crawl [g] on the earth." (R)
27 So God created man in His own image;
He created him in the image of God;
He created them male and female. (Genesis 1:26-27, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

So God is responsible for man having free will. Surely then, if God gave man free will, and a choice involves at least two options, then God maintains sovereignty over man’s choices.

However, God, in His sovereignty, has allowed man the possibility of walking away from Him, has given man the power to choose a life apart from Himself. But God is only responsible for giving man power; He is not responsible for what man chooses to do with it!!!

I titled this post “the Joke of Calvinist Compatibilism” because Calvinists, in their assessment of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, seek to find a way to make everything “work out.” But they try too hard: the solution is found in the fact that man’s free will IS FOUND IN THE WILL OF GOD, for God willed man to have free will (which is, as Irenaeus said, part of man’s being made in the likeness of God).

But Peterson and Williams make a huge statement in the last sentence of the above quote:

“We cannot define God’s right or agency by our perception of freedom; rather we must understand what freedom means within the biblical witness to a divine sovereignty in which not one drop of rain falls without God’s sure command.”

I think they’re right: we have to define freedom biblically, in which everything happens with God’s command. But free will only happens BECAUSE OF GOD’S COMMAND! God made man in His image, after His likeness, and gave him dominion over the earth, lordship over the earth. This then, was God’s command (in the same way God said “let there be light,” and light came into being).

The compatibilism that the Calvinists seek is what I call a “theological redundancy.” God made free will and His own sovereignty compatible when He decreed that MAN WOULD BE MADE IN HIS IMAGE, AFTER HIS LIKENESS! But Calvinists, adding their own “finishing touches” to Scripture, have decided to create ANOTHER compatibility of their own—and, in the making, have done a huge disgrace to the Word of God.

Man: Master of His Own Will

“I find, then, that man was constituted free by God. HE WAS MASTER OF HIS OWN WILL AND POWER…for a law would not be imposed upon one who did not have it in his power to render that obedience which is due to law. Nor again, would the penalty of death be threatened against sin, if a contempt of the law were impossible to man in the liberty of his will…Man is free, with a will either for obedience or resistance” (Tertullian, c.207, W, 3.300, 301; from “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs,” page 288).

According to Tertullian, man has been given free will; and his free will is the thing that holds him accountable for his sin.

His statement that “he[man] was MASTER OF HIS OWN WILL” can be seen in Genesis 4 regarding Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous and envied the fact that his brother’s offering was accepted. Read the Lord’s words to Cain:

“Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you furious? And why are you downcast? If you do right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do right, SIN IS CROUCHING AT THE DOOR. Its desire is for you, BUT YOU MUST MASTER IT” (Genesis 4:6-7, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

The Lord told Cain that he needed to “master” sin—in other words, gain control of his anger and WILL himself to make the right choice.

Let’s look at the actual verses in the Septuagint (LXX, Greek Old Testament:

“kai eipen kurios ho theos tow Kain ‘hina ti perilupos egenou, kai hina ti sunepesen to prosopon sou; ouk, ean orthos prosenegkes, orthos de me dieles, hemartes; hesuxason. Pros se he apostrophe autou, kai su arxseis autou.”

Translated into English, the above Greek reads:

“And the Lord God said to Cain, “For what [reason] have you become grieved, and for what [reason] has your face fallen? Unless you bear [it] well (rightly); but if you do not bear it well, sin? Be silent: It [sin] is to turn you away, but you will rule it.”

The word here for “rule” is “arxseis,” which comes from the parent word “arxo,” meaning “to be chief, to lead, to rule, to be FIRST; to reign or rule over.”
So when the Lord tells Cain that sin is there to turn him away from doing right, He is telling Cain that he can RULE OVER his emotions and choose to do that which is right. Doesn’t this seem to show us Arminianism, that, in every situation, man can choose AGAINST his inclinations, IN SPITE of them? Contra Bruce Ware, man really can go against his strongest desires (even if those desires are evil).

But we see something else with the text of Genesis 4: we find the Lord exhorting Cain to RESIST the tendency to do evil in his heart, which shows that God NEVER INTENDS for anyone to do evil.

Tertullian’s quote above shows us that, because man CAN choose AGAINST his inclinations (can do the right thing), that man is to be judged when he does that which is wrong. It turns out, then, that man truly is MASTER of his own will: he can will to do good, or to do evil; as Tertullian said, “Man is free, with either a will for OBEDIENCE or RESISTANCE…”

Freedom of Inclination and the Likeness of God

In my last post on Ware’s response to Roger Olson in “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God,” I showed that to have the “freedom of inclination” is to have no freedom at all—for, if we can only do that which our flesh wants us to do (that being evil and sin according to the Word), then we can NEVER choose to do that which is right. However, the Scriptures constantly exhort God’s children to do right and to shun the evil; therefore, with the Spirit of God inside of us, we now have a power to please the Lord that our flesh could not produce on its own. But the problem with Bruce Ware’s beliefs regarding salvation is that, EVEN AFTER SALVATION, a person STILL can’t choose to do what is right. If Ware had it his way, salvation wouldn’t have accomplished ANYTHING!!!

Ware writes in his attack on Olson’s chapter,

“Interestingly enough, Olson seems actually to sense that FREEDOM IS A MATTER OF CHOOSING WHAT WE MOST WANT, despite his formal rejection of this concept. In the paragraph following my previous quotation of Olson, he proposes that God was free—in the libertarian or noncompatibilist sense—when he created the world. But in describing God’s freedom in creation, Olson writes, ‘Nothing within God or external to God caused him to create the world. SOMETHING INCLINED HIM TO DO IT and he chose to do it, WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM HAVING TO DO IT.’ My interest is in Olson’s comment that ‘something inclined’ God to create. If God has an inclination (he is more strongly inclined this way than another) to create, and he chooses to create according to this inclination, doesn’t it make sense to say that his freedom is precisely his ability instead to have done otherwise? In this case, would we not be saying (trying to keep libertarian freedom intact) that GOD COULD HAVE FOLLOWED A LESSER INCLINATION OR GONE AGAINST HIS TRUE INCLINATION IN CHOOSING INSTEAD NOT TO CREATE? How does it make sense to think of freedom as our ability to choose what we are not inclined to do, or to choose contrary to our strongest inclination? Indeed, it makes no sense. Here, as with all decisions, VARIOUS FACTORS ARE AT WORK GIVING RISE TO A STRONGEST INCLINATION, and freedom is constituted precisely not with the ability to choose contrary to that inclination but rather to choose in accordance with it. In short, when God created, he did what he most wanted, and in this he was free” (“Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views,” page 192).

Let’s look at the statement made by Olson that Ware can’t seem to shake out of his mind: “Nothing within God or external to God caused him to create the world. Something INCLINED HIM TO DO IT and he chose to do it, which is different from having to do it.”

I have a problem with Ware’s response. First, how dare he actually believe that God was FORCED to do something by the thought of an inclination? I mean, after all, this IS God we’re talking about. And God is not obligated to do anything except EXIST! So ANYTHING God does in His existence is TOTALLY VOLUNTARY!

Here, I noticed, while reading Bruce Ware, that he seems to argue for a “necessity” of choice as an effect of inclination, which is similar to what process theists John Cobb, Jr, and David Ray Griffin argue about man NEEDING free will. Like process theists, Ware argues that there is some other necessity in God; but David didn’t think so. Let’s read his words:

3 When I observe Your heavens,
the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which You set in place, (E)
4 what is man that You remember him,
the son of man that You look after him? (F)
5 You made him little less than God [c] [d]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him lord over the works of Your hands;
You put everything under his feet: (G) [e]
7 all the sheep and oxen,
as well as animals in the wild,
8 birds of the sky,
and fish of the sea
passing through the currents of the seas. (H)
9 LORD, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name throughout the earth! (Psalm 8:1-9, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

David praises God in Psalm 8 because the Lord wasn’t bound by necessity to do these things. He says, “WHAT IS MAN that you remember him…?” What is man? That is a good question. Who are WE to think that God was bound to do something that He did? He didn’t have to. Because He is God, He invents the rules—and He had every right NOT TO CREATE US! According to Bruce Ware, God had “freedom of inclination,” that being “freedom to create us”; but as I’ve said countless times, IF freedom exists, then doesn’t freedom give me MORE THAN ONE OPTION? When Calvinists such as Bruce Ware attempt to REDEFINE freedom as a single option, we see that Calvinist freedom is little more than necessity and obligation. And I don’t think either of those words fit an Almighty God who didn’t need humanity then and doesn’t need humanity now!

The church father Irenaeus responded to Ware’s idea of “freedom of inclination” hundreds of years before Bruce Ware even redefined freedom:

“If, then, it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason did the apostle have, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to DO some things, and to ABSTAIN from others? But BECAUSE MAN IS POSSESSED OF FREE WILL FROM THE BEGINNING, and God is possessed of free will (IN WHOSE LIKENESS MAN WAS CREATED), advice is always given to him to hold fast to the good, which is done through obedience to God. God has preserved the will of man free and under his own control. This is not merely in works, BUT ALSO IN FAITH” (Irenaeus, c. 180, E/W, 1.519; from “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” by David W. Bercot, editor. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008, page 287).

God has always had free will—He’s always been able to do whatever pleased Him. But Bruce Ware doesn’t understand that when a person chooses to do what they want, they also make a choice—to REFUSE TO DO THAT WHICH THEY DON’T WANT TO DO! The act of deciding itself involves more than one alternative. So in every action made, we choose one thing but REFUSE countless others! This is what free will, choice, is all about…

Man possesses free will, the right to choose whatever he wants to, because God possesses free will—and He chose to create the world because He wanted to. There is, however, a phrase Irenaeus gives us that I think is ingenious to his entire argument:
“man is possessed of free will from the beginning, and God is possessed of free will (IN WHOSE LIKENESS MAN WAS CREATED)…”

Man has received free will as part of his being made “after His likeness,” the likeness of God. To deny this is to demonstrate little knowledge of what we know about the Creator.

God had reasons for why He did what He did—but He wasn’t OBLIGATED to do what He did. Like the Lord, we too, have reasons for why we do things—but we don’t HAVE to do those things; the choices we made DID NOT have to turn out the way they did! Having free will, then, is an aspect of sharing the Lord’s likeness. To remove “free will” then, is to make us more like the animal kingdom—and less like the Creator. But Scripture tells us that man was made “a little less than God” (Psalm 8:5, HCSB).

An Introduction Part One

Laying the Ground Work

"Theology" to most people this is a term that has little or no interest to them at all. Yet, it is theology that should be the most important thing to the believers life. As an Apologist my entire existence is based on a proper understanding of theology. It is for these two reasons that I want to begin this lengthy series on Systematic Theology.
It should be understood that my approach to theology is more philosophical. So what I present in this series is going to have a Philosophical slant to it. The method that I have been using in my own study of theology is the method I will use here. My theological thinking follows a particular pattern, this pattern is: Exegesis-Biblical theology-and then systematic. The Bible translation that I have chosen to use for this series is the Holmen Christian Standard. All references found in this series will come form the said translation, unless other wise noted.

What is Theology?

The word Theology comes form two Greek words. The first word is theos which means "God", the second word is logos, which means "reason" or "discourse." Thus, Theology is simply rational discourse about God. The question now is what type of rational discourse about God are we talking about? We live in multicultural age where there are many religions in our country. So to just say theology, is to be way to broad. So in order to avoid any confusion we are going to attach the word evangelical to theolgy. Evangelical Theology then is that discourse about God that maintains that there are certain fundamental truth that are held by those who call themselves Christians. Some of these essential beliefs include, the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible alone, the tri-unity of God, the virgin birth, the incarnation, the two nature of Christ, the atonement, and the resurrection.

The Foundations

In every system that exist in the human mind there is always a foundation that is being built upon. Evangelical theology is no different. The first part of this series is going to be a discussion on those foundational stones that must be in place in order to have a proper Evangelical Theology.
In our discussion we are going to consider twelve stones that must be laid first. These stones are: Metaphysical, supernatural, Revelational, Rational, Semantical, Epistemological, Oppositional, Linguistical, Hermeneutuical, Historical, and finall methodological. These twelve stones make possible the rational discouse about God that will take place in this series. When a person starts a journey one of the most important tools that he want to take with him is a map in order to know where he is at all times. This is also very true when it comes to Evengelical theology.

The Theological map
Because of the scope of Evengelical Theology it is important to have a general map. The map that I want to give you will help you find where systemtic theology falls in the broad scope of things. First, You have the unbrella of Theological studies,under this unbrella there are four differant type of theological studies. 1) Biblical studies,2) Historical Studies,3) Doctrinal studies, and finally Practical studies. under each of these studies there is a theology to go with it. In other words, you have 1) Biblical theology,2) Historical Theology, 3) under Doctrinal studies you have Systematic Theology, and then under Practical studuies you have Philosophical Theology. All these types of theology that we just named all deal with the main issues of Theolgy like, Scripture, God, Man, Sin, Christ, Salvation, Chruch, and Last things.

Conclusion

In Part one of the introduction to our discussion on Systematic Theology, we look at what theology is, we also saw what foundation stones are nessary to have a Evanegelical Theolgy. Finally, we developed a map that will help use keep track of where we are on this theological journey. In Part II of this introduction we will discss certain relationships that exist in this field of study.

Calvinist Freedom

This morning, I began to read Roger Olson’s perspective on the Doctrine of God in the titled book, “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God” by four writers: Paul Helm, Bruce Ware, Roger Olson, and John Sanders. Olson’s chapter, titled “The Classical Free Will Theist Model of God,” presents a very commendable view of Arminianism and its evangelical nature in the face of attacks upon its theological system. Olson’s chapter, as all the others, faced attacks by the other writers, notably among them, Bruce Ware. In his response, Ware writes the following:

“In response, I put forward this claim: libertarian freedom possesses an initial advantageous prima facie philosophical and intuitive legitimacy, yet under examination this legitimacy soon vanishes such that the Calvinist view of freedom—which I prefer calling “FREEDOM OF INCLINATION”—alone can sustain careful and probing scrutiny…for example, if we are considering the menu at a restaurant and eventually order the deluxe pizza, it seems clear to us that as we requested what we did, we surely could instead have selected a hamburger or the French dip. In other words, it seems intuitive that we could have chosen otherwise, and in fact, if we could not have chosen otherwise, we wouldn’t have been free. But what this surface analysis fails to notice is a definition of libertarian freedom that is sometimes hidden or implied. Not only is it the case that when we choose X, we could have chosen Y; it is also more precisely the case that at the moment we choose X, ALL THINGS BEING EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE WHEN WE MAKE THE CHOICE OF X, we could instead have chosen Y. Now, as one analyzes libertarian freedom more fully exposed, as it were, we can begin to detect a real problem…if all of the factors leading to my choosing X are identical to the reason that, instead, I might choose Y, then THERE IS NO EXPLANATION FOR THE CHOICE OF X OVER Y OR Y OVER X. Libertarian freedom, then, reduces to what Calvinists have long called a ‘freedom of indifference.’ If this libertarian view of freedom is correct…libertarian freedom accounts for human free choice such that no explanation is forthcoming for why one made the specific choice one did and, hence, one must be quite literally ‘indifferent’ to X or Y when one chooses X instead of Y or Y instead of X” (Bruce Ware, from “Perspectives on the Doctrine of God.” Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2008, pages 190-191).

Bruce Ware presents what he believes to be a problem for Arminians; yet, he has the wrong idea of what choice is. A choice is only a choice if a person has two or more alternatives. But what Ware seems to do is present one possibility as having a stronger inclination or preference over another.

But how does this eliminate choice? While people do make choices everyday that their inclination exhibits strong tendency towards, similarly, they also make choices that their inclinations GO AGAINST, ARE OPPOSED TO! For example, if I’m at the car dealership buying a new car and I want a BMW but can only afford a Honda, I’m gonna choose a Honda—ALTHOUGH IT GOES AGAINST MY INCLINATION—because I can only afford a Honda! To buy a BMW when I can’t afford it might be a nice at first, but it won’t be nice when the BMW gets repossessed and taken back to the car lot! Mind you, my reasons for the BMW might be more and might be stronger, but to choose what my inclination wants would be to go against all sense of reason. I must take into account the financial issue if I plan to get a car I can keep. The financial reason, then, while maybe not as strong as my desire for the car, is gonna win the day.
Ware labels the Arminian freedom as a “freedom of inclination”—but then, this isn’t a FREEDOM at all! This is what James has to say about the inner inclinations of man’s heart:

“No one undergoing a trial should say, ‘I am being tempted by God.’ For God is not tempted by evil, and He Himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desires. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death” (James 1:13-15, Holman Christian Standard Bible).

Notice that man has “evil” desires. This matches the words of Genesis 6 regarding God’s decision to destroy man:

“When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was WIDESPREAD ON THE EARTH AND THAT EVERY SCHEME HIS MIND THOUGHT OF WAS NOTHING BUT EVIL ALL THE TIME, the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Genesis 6:5-6, HCSB).

Jesus Himself tells us of the corruptness of man’s hearts:

“For from the heart come EVIL THOUGHTS, MURDERS, ADULTERIES, SEXUAL IMMORALITIES, THEFTS, FALSE TESTIMONIES, BLASPHEMIES. These are the things that defile a man…” (Matthew 15:19-20a, HCSB).

Scripture clearly shows us man’s inclinations—if all man does is go towards his “inclinations,” then evil is not only all he CAN do; it is all he WILL DO!
And if this is all Scripture told us, then we’d have every reason to believe that we could NEVER come to be convicted of our sin. However, Scripture not only TELLS us of our nature, but shows us how to FIGHT our nature:

“BLESSED IS A MAN WHO ENDURES TRIALS, because when he passes the test he will receive THE CROWN OF LIFE that He has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12, HCSB).

“Be sober! Be on the alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. RESIST HIM, FIRM IN THE FAITH, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your brothers in the world” (1 Peter 5:8-9).

“For His divine power has given us EVERYTHING REQUIRED FOR LIFE AND GODLINESS…by these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, ESCAPING THE CORRUPTION THAT IS IN THE WORLD BECAUSE OF EVIL DESIRES” (2 Peter 1:3-4).

And, last but not least, the favored passage of 1 Corinthians 10:

“Therefore, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall! No temptation has overtaken you except WHAT IS COMMON TO HUMANITY. God is faithful and HE WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BE TEMPTED BEYOND WHAT YOU ARE ABLE, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape, so that YOU ARE ABLE TO BEAR IT” (1 Cor. 10:12-13).

Man’s inclination lies in temptation, evil, and sin. This is what the heart of man desires most; and yet, Scripture tells us that we can “resist” these inclinations, these evil desires, that we can choose THE OTHER PATH, the alternative! We are also told (from the 2 Peter 1 verses above) that God gives us everything we need to live a godly life. So, despite Ware’s statement of the “freedom of inclination,” Scripture attests that, not only are we free to do what our flesh desires—but that we are also free in Christ to lean on His power and His strength and CHOOSE to do that which is pleasing to Him. However, for one to agree with me in the last statement I said means that, contra Bruce Ware, we CAN go against our inclinations! We are not “bound” in our “freedom” to do only sin. We are truly free to choose from either two or more options in every decision.

Man goes against his nature every day when, for example, a husband REFUSES to cheat on his wife with a single woman; when a Christian who struggles with homosexuality refuses to give in to his struggle and, instead, maintains his purity for Christ’s service; when a believer chooses not to deal drugs when he gets laid off of work, and so forth. We make choices everyday that go against what we want. But when we make these decisions, we do so because there are also STRONG REASONS for choosing the alternative (just like our inclinations come with STRONG REASONS). This doesn’t produce a “freedom of indifference,” but rather, a true deliberation of the mind regarding what to do.

In every decision, ONE OPTION will stand out from all the rest; but the option that stands out might not match our inclination.

Bruce Ware and other Calvinists have their own idea of “Calvinist freedom,” where a choice isn’t a choice. But the truth is that Calvinist Freedom isn’t freedom at all—if all man could do was what lay in his heart, then God’s strength and power for the believer would be of none effect. Calvinist freedom fails to deliver in the way Bruce Ware believes it does: for, it not only goes against Scripture…it also nullifies the work of Christ on the Cross.

Same Old Pharaoh, Same Old Discussion: Quote #3, Part II

“[The Marcionites] say, ‘But God hardened the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants.’ Now those who allege such difficulties do not read in the Gospel the passage where the Lord replied to the disciples, when they asked Him, ‘Why do you speak in parables?’ He replied: ‘Because it is given to you to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven. However, I speak to them in parables so that seeing they may not see and hearing they may not hear.’…so God knows the number of those who will not believe, since He foreknows all things. So He has given them over to unbelief and turned His face away from men of this character, leaving them in the darkness that they have chosen for themselves. So what is baffling if He gave Pharaoh and those who were with him over to their unbelief? FOR THEY WOULD NEVER HAVE BELIEVED.” (Irenaeus, c. 180, E/W, 1.502; from “A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs” by editor David W. Bercot, page 286).

Now, on to Pharaoh. God gave Nebuchadnezzar over to “himself,” as the Lord did those in the Gentile world who refused to acknowledge God in “the things that had been made.” But what about Pharaoh? Is God responsible for Pharaoh’s hardened heart?
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go in to Pharaoh and say to him: This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: Let My people go, so that they may worship Me. 2 But if you refuse to let [them] go and keep holding them, 3 then the LORD's hand will bring a severe plague against your livestock in the field—the horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks. 4 But the LORD will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing of all that the Israelites own will die." 5 And the LORD set a time, saying, "Tomorrow the LORD will do this thing in the land." (A) 6 The LORD did this the next day. All the Egyptian livestock died, (B) but none among the Israelite livestock died. 7 Pharaoh sent [messengers] who saw that not a single one of the Israelite livestock was dead. But Pharaoh's heart was hardened, (C) and he did not let the people go.

The Sixth Plague: Boils

8 Then the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Take handfuls of furnace soot, and Moses is to throw it toward heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 It will become fine dust over the entire land of Egypt. It will become festering boils (D) on people and animals throughout the land of Egypt." 10 So they took furnace soot and stood before Pharaoh. Moses threw it toward heaven, and it became festering boils on man and beast. 11 The magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils, for the boils were on the magicians as well as on all the Egyptians. (E) 12 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart (F) and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had told Moses. (Exodus 9:1-12, HCSB)

Notice that in verse 7, Pharaoh hardens his heart after the fifth plague comes and leaves. By the time the Lord sent plague six, boils, over the land of Egypt, GOD HIMSELF hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Verse 12 says, “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he did not listen to them, AS THE LORD HAD TOLD MOSES.”

The Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart here in Exodus 9:12, as well as Exodus 10:27 and Exodus 11:10. But the Lord had told Moses and Aaron in Exodus 7:3,

“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply My signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.”

In the same chapter, Exodus 7, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh as God had instructed them. After they gave Pharaoh their message, what happened?

“13 However, Pharaoh's heart hardened, (H) and he did not listen to them, as the LORD had said.” (Exodus 7:13, HCSB)

Pharaoh refused to listen to them. He refused to pay attention to the signs God had given them to prove that He was the one true living God, and that He wanted His people freed—that He would do whatever it took to deliver His people.

How did God respond to Pharaoh’s attitude?

14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh is unresponsive: he refuses to let the people go. (Exod. 7:14, HCSB)

The Lord made it clear that PHARAOH HIMSELF was unresponsive, and refused to yield. God wasn’t responsible for Pharaoh’s response—PHARAOH WAS! However, God would use Pharaoh’s response to bring glory to His people—and Himself! He would bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt at all costs.

After God sent the first plague (turned water into blood), what happened?

20 Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD had commanded; in the sight of Pharaoh and his officials, he raised the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile was turned to blood. (K) 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad the Egyptians could not drink water from it. There was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
22 But the magicians of Egypt did the same thing by their occult practices. So Pharaoh's heart hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. 23 Pharaoh turned around, went into his palace, and didn't even take this to heart. (Exod. 7:20-23, HCSB)

Pharaoh’s magicians did the same thing that Moses and Aaron did; and none of it
affected Pharaoh. It says he “turned around, went into his palace, and DIDN’T EVEN TAKE THIS TO HEART.” It had no effect on him, changed nothing about him…didn’t scare him, didn’t alarm him, didn’t make him change anything about his routine. He lost no sleep, no weight, nothing, behind God’s actions.

God sent the second plague, FROGS, all over the land. Pharaoh asked Moses and Aaron to pray that the frogs would leave. They did so, and all the frogs left. What was Pharaoh’s response?

13 The LORD did as Moses had said: the frogs in the houses, courtyards, and fields died. 14 They piled them in countless heaps, and there was a terrible odor in the land. 15 But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, he hardened his heart (I) and would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. (Exodus 8:13-15, HCSB)

Notice that verse 15 says, “But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, HE HARDENED HIS HEART…” Here we see, once again, that Pharaoh was responsible for hardening his heart.

What I find most fascinating about this story is that, God, KNOWING PHARAOH’S RESPONSE EVERY TIME, listened to the prayers of Moses and Aaron to remove judgment from Egypt—and every time, God removed the plague. But He knew that Pharaoh would not believe in Him, no matter what He did. Someone might say, “Well, if God knew that, then why did He remove the plagues?” My answer? Because God’s mercy would be justification for God’s judgment. The fact that God had mercy on Pharaoh, spared his life, and gave him time to repent, change, and do the right thing is why God could bring judgment on him in the end. God never brings judgment and wrath without first bringing MERCY AND BLESSING. And with Pharaoh, it was no different.

The third plague was gnats all over the land. This was the one thing that the magicians could not reproduce. Finally, when their magic had come to its end, they saw this as a sign from God:

19 "This is the finger of God," (K) the magicians said to Pharaoh. But Pharaoh's heart hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said. (Exodus 8:19, HCSB)

The magicians saw God in the fact that He could do something they could not do; but not Pharaoh—he was gonna stay on the Titanic; even if it was a sinking ship.
God sent the fourth plague, the swarms of flies. This time, Pharaoh initially conceded to letting the Israelites worship in Egypt itself. Moses made it clear that their practices were abhorred by the Egyptians, and that, if they were caught conducting practices against Egyptian law, they could be stoned. Pharaoh initially acted as though he would let the Israelites go. This is the encounter between him and Moses:

29 "As soon as I leave you," Moses said, "I will appeal to the LORD, and tomorrow the swarms of flies will depart from Pharaoh, his officials, and his people. But Pharaoh must not act deceptively again by refusing to let the people go and sacrifice to the LORD." 30 Then Moses left Pharaoh's presence and appealed to the LORD. 31 The LORD did as Moses had said: He removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh, his officials, and his people; not one was left. 32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also and did not let the people go. (Exod. 8:29-32, HCSB)

Moses said, “Pharaoh must not act DECEPTIVELY AGAIN by refusing to let the people go…” In other words, God was not gonna tolerate Pharaoh’s hard-heartedness but for so long. Pharaoh promised he wouldn’t, but, once again, “Pharaoh HARDENED HIS HEART THIS TIME ALSO…” Nothing would change Pharaoh’s heart—nothing at all. No matter what God did, Pharaoh wasn’t gonna budge.

Part III is on its way.