Diserner
Well-known member
I reject Calvinism for a lot of sound reasons (that I explain here https://berean-apologetics.community.forum/threads/why-calvinism-is-a-bad-thing.24/ ), but I found many people gravitate towards the wrong reasons for rejecting Calvinism where in fact the Calvinist is actually more correct than they are; this muddies the waters, because then it becomes a partial confused truth, and one error trying to correct another.
1. Calvinism is not wrong because God does not have the right to do with his creation whatever he wants.
God is the ground and source of all being, and as such he legitimately has the official and moral right to do whatever he wants with his creation. God is not in a democracy, his people are not Americans who fight for their civil liberties to the death in the grand republic. God is a complete and unilateral monarchy, and denying him his right to do whatever he wants with no restrictions, is placing an external constraint upon God that doesn't come from himself, and so boils down to idolatry.
Thankfully our God is maximally loving, unlike the Calvinist God, and we can rest in relief that he has revealed himself as so. But never and not because he owes it to us—God does not owe us his love. This puts the obligation and demand on God from the value of creation itself, reversing the roles of Creator and created, and belittling the value of God by transferring that value into his creation itself, whereupon God becomes beholden and indebted to his creation's value: idolatry.
2. Calvinism is not wrong because God would be unloving to allow any person into hell for a reason other than their direct free will choice.
This is a powerful motivation for many false doctrines, the demand that God meet our own sense of morality. The demand that God give us the purity and capacity to know him in and of ourselves, can only logically reduce to pride and independence from God. For any obligation placed upon God logically equates to something else being more valuable than God, and putting a moral obligation upon him. Behind the scenes of what looks like care for the lost, is really a root of rebellion and pride.
It is the reason for this that people feel God owes us. And to demand a reason from God—this is the entire plot of the book of Job, and the lesson it teaches us. To demand a reason from God, an explanation, for something we personally dislike, find distasteful, or outright immoral, is to put ourselves on the throne and God as our subject. This whole line of argument that "God is a monster if he allows X, he is evil and mean and cruel and unworthy of any worship": it boils down to rebellion.
So, we have a maximally loving God who has yet, in his sovereignty, allowed us to be born with a sin nature that does not naturally like his ways. This is the path of humility—accepting what God tells us, instead of figuring out if we like it enough and think it's okay for God to do, or makes sense. And here, in fact, is a simple path of just accepting propositions we cannot logically harmonize and do not emotionally prefer. Christ told us to come this way: deny self, be simple as a child.
1. Calvinism is not wrong because God does not have the right to do with his creation whatever he wants.
God is the ground and source of all being, and as such he legitimately has the official and moral right to do whatever he wants with his creation. God is not in a democracy, his people are not Americans who fight for their civil liberties to the death in the grand republic. God is a complete and unilateral monarchy, and denying him his right to do whatever he wants with no restrictions, is placing an external constraint upon God that doesn't come from himself, and so boils down to idolatry.
Thankfully our God is maximally loving, unlike the Calvinist God, and we can rest in relief that he has revealed himself as so. But never and not because he owes it to us—God does not owe us his love. This puts the obligation and demand on God from the value of creation itself, reversing the roles of Creator and created, and belittling the value of God by transferring that value into his creation itself, whereupon God becomes beholden and indebted to his creation's value: idolatry.
2. Calvinism is not wrong because God would be unloving to allow any person into hell for a reason other than their direct free will choice.
This is a powerful motivation for many false doctrines, the demand that God meet our own sense of morality. The demand that God give us the purity and capacity to know him in and of ourselves, can only logically reduce to pride and independence from God. For any obligation placed upon God logically equates to something else being more valuable than God, and putting a moral obligation upon him. Behind the scenes of what looks like care for the lost, is really a root of rebellion and pride.
It is the reason for this that people feel God owes us. And to demand a reason from God—this is the entire plot of the book of Job, and the lesson it teaches us. To demand a reason from God, an explanation, for something we personally dislike, find distasteful, or outright immoral, is to put ourselves on the throne and God as our subject. This whole line of argument that "God is a monster if he allows X, he is evil and mean and cruel and unworthy of any worship": it boils down to rebellion.
So, we have a maximally loving God who has yet, in his sovereignty, allowed us to be born with a sin nature that does not naturally like his ways. This is the path of humility—accepting what God tells us, instead of figuring out if we like it enough and think it's okay for God to do, or makes sense. And here, in fact, is a simple path of just accepting propositions we cannot logically harmonize and do not emotionally prefer. Christ told us to come this way: deny self, be simple as a child.
