To Calvinists, it's absolutely not possible that God could have simply allowed mankind to choose to be wicked and to do evil things, and then in His wisdom and sovereignty, He figured out how to work their self-chosen evilness into His plans.
No! Calvi-god doesn't just allow people to sin; he has to pre-plan and cause all the evil that happens ... or else He's not God. Because a "sovereign" God (according to their definition) has to actively control all things, even every speck of dust in the air. Because if there's anything He doesn't control, it would mean He's not all-powerful. According to them. (Where does it say this in the Bible? That God can't choose to not actively preplan/control/cause all things?)
(And remember that if Calvinists say "we make real choices," they mean we can only make the choices that coincide with the desires of our Calvi-god-given natures. So if Calvi-god gave you the "unregenerated nature" of the non-elect, then you can only desire to sin, which means you can only choose to sin. Because he didn't give you the regenerated nature of the elect which comes with the desire to obey God and do good. How's that for "having a choice," only being able to desire/choose sin because of the nature God gave you?)
Read the John Piper quotes in this post. That's pretty much what our pastor says too, while trying to make it sound good, like "Isn't it great to know that God is so in control that He even controls ("preplans and causes") wickedness and evilness!?!"
Umm, at what cost? His character? His goodness? His love? His justness? Our trust in Him? The eternal souls of those He predestines to hell?
My pastor also said that we cannot claim God is unjust when He punishes people because He is simply dealing with a world full of rebellious, sinful, wicked people. And so we can't rage against Him, because we are a sinful group of people (meaning that we deserve what we get).
But what the pastor fails to say is that, according to his Calvinist theology, God first causes us to be rebellious, sinful and wicked, giving us no choice or ability to be any different ... and then He punishes us for it.
Big difference!
How in the world can this be called "justice"? How can causing people to sin and reject Him, giving them no ability to not sin and not reject Him, and then punishing them for sinning and rejecting Him be called "justice"?
If that's justice, I'd hate to see injustice!
You bet we better rage against that kind of nonsense. Because God's character is at stake! The truth of the Gospel is at stake!
And do you know the great, comforting Calvinist answer to this, to why God can cause sin (the say "ordain" but mean "cause") but is not held accountable for it, to why He can cause our sins and yet still be considered just when He punishes us for it?
"Well, God can do whatever He wants to do. We can't understand His ways. He is the Potter and we are the clay. Who are we to talk back to Him!?!"
Deflecting and shaming, while refusing to actually answer the question!
That's some great theology!
But the problem in Calvinism starts at the very beginning with their view of God. Calvinist logic says, "If God doesn't cause everything then He's not a sovereign God."
They decide that God has to preplan/cause everything ... or else He can't be God. If even a speck of dust is not in His control, then He's not God. According to them. And contrary to what God shows us in His Word about how He's chosen to be and act.
Instead of just accepting the Bible's clear examples of God allowing people to make their own choices, Calvinists think it's so much better - so much more biblical - to say, "God shows how sovereign He is by causing the things He commands us not to do, causing rape and murder and child abuse and rebellion against Him"!?! (See the post "Do Calvinists really believe God causes sin? Let them speak for themselves.")
Makes perfect sense! Sheds a great light on God, doesn't it!
Calvinists essentially destroy the rest of God's character - His justice, love, grace, trustworthiness, etc. - in order to make Him as "sovereign" as they can, going above and beyond what God says about Himself in the Word about how He's chosen to exercise His sovereignty and power.
[And FYI, Calvinists will say "We don't say God causes evil. We don't say man can't choose." And that's generally right. They don't SAY it, but it's what their theology teaches, even if they won't come out and admit it.
With Calvinists, you have to dig deep to get to what they really believe, getting past the layers and layers they cover it up with. Question every word they use, every verse, every illustration (such as even when they say "The Bible teaches ...". Don't let them tell you what the Bible teaches, their interpretation of it, but seek to know what it actually says). And when you do, you get to what they really believe, which is far different than what the Calvinist "says." In fact, their deep-down beliefs are often the opposite of what they said, the thing they assured you they weren't saying.
Calvinism is brilliant! A brilliant satanic deception! So brilliantly deceptive that the average, garden-variety Calvinist can't see how wrong it is, the damage it does to God's character and the Gospel. They just think they are being humble and God-honoring to accept it without any resistance. And they are made to feel that if they can grasp the "hard teachings" of Calvinism that the average believer can't grasp, then they are in the highest levels of the spiritually-intelligent, alongside their theological Calvinist heroes. Who wouldn't be swayed by that!?!]
I mean, think about it a moment, people. Cause vs. Allow. This is not a minor issue or a small theological disagreement. It is MAJOR! It strikes at the very heart and character of God, at the message of the Gospel, at Jesus's sacrifice, at people's chance for salvation, etc.
Does God allow us to make our own choices, to choose sin and rebellion, to reject Him? If it is our choice then He is holy and just when He allows us to go to hell, because we chose it, despite His many attempts and offers to save us from hell.
Or does He cause us to sin and to be wicked and to reject Him, and then punish us for the things He caused us to do? How is that holy, just, loving, righteous, trustworthy?
(Calvinists will hide the word "cause" under layers and layers of gobbledy-gook - such as saying that God doesn't really cause us to sin, but He just lets us choose to sin according to the sinner-nature that He gave us, the nature which can do nothing but want to sin and choose to sin - to obscure the fact that they do indeed believe God causes everything that happens, even sin and our rejection of Him. It's their desperate attempt to trick people, even themselves, into thinking they aren't saying that God causes sin, when they really are. It's sad. And yet, it's even more sad how effective it is. Brilliant satanic tricks! Also see "Calvinist Comments: Hiding "God Causes" Under Other Phrases.")
That would make Him a liar of the worst kind!
How could we trust anything He says then, when He's always playing word games with us, tricking us into thinking He's saying one thing when He really means another, saying that He doesn't want us to do something but then causing us to do it because He really does want us to do it?
Who did Jesus really die for? For everyone, and therefore everyone is invited to accept Him as Lord and Savior, to find salvation? Or did He only die for those God predestined to save, the ones He "causes" to believe in Him?
Calvinists theologians have literally, clearly said, "Jesus didn't die for everyone, but only for the elect." (That's the "L" in Calvinism's TULIP.)
Let that sink in for a moment. How can you square that with what the Bible clearly teaches?
Do you know how Calvinists try to square it?
They say, "Well, God has two kinds of love - a saving kind for the elect and a 'gives you food and water' kind for the non-elect. And God has two kinds of Wills - a revealed one where He says in the Bible that He wants all people to come to Him, and a 'secret, hidden' one that we Calvinists know about where He causes the opposite of what He says in the Bible by predestining most people to hell, even though He said He wanted all men to be saved. But God doesn't always cause what He 'wants' to happen. That's why He doesn't cause His revealed Will to happen, why He doesn't save all people even though He 'wants' all people to saved. And since God predestined most people to hell, and since it would be a disgrace for Jesus if people could reject Him, then clearly Jesus only died for those predestined to be saved. Therefore, Jesus didn't die for all people - just all 'kinds' of people, all of the elect people from all nations."
Do you hear that!?! Do you know what that is?
It's friggin' nonsense.
It's Satan spinning God's Words, turning lies into truth, evil into good.
Oh my goodness, it makes me sick! My blood is boiling!
[Let's go back briefly to the idea that God has two different, opposing Wills.
God tells us what His Will is in His Word:
"... [God is] not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, KJV)
"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4, KJV)
God has said He is not willing that anyone should perish but He wants all men to be saved. Calvinists will acknowledge this with one breath, but then in the next breath they say, "Yeah, but that's just His revealed Will. He also has a secret Will, where He has predestined most people to hell for His glory. But He still wants all men to be saved. He would like all men to be saved. It makes Him sad that they are in hell. But He has determined that predestining most people to hell is better for His glory, pleasure, and plans. We can't understand it, so we just have to accept it."
Where in the Bible is any of this crap about a "secret, hidden Will" clearly taught?
It's not in the Bible anywhere. Calvinists have to cobble together a bunch of verses, taken out of context, to get the Bible to say that, to get it to "teach" the exact opposite of what it expressly says. It's actually quite brilliant how they can get Christians to believe the opposite of what God clearly said in His Word, simply by convincing them that there's a "secret" layer to God's messages that only they know about. (And fyi, the ESV changed 2 Peter 3:9 to say "that all should reach repentance," which is a very different thing. Because the only ones who can "reach" something are those already headed towards it, and in Calvinism this would mean the "elect" who are predestined for repentance. This is a very Calvinist change to the verse. However, the KJV is clear that God wants all people to come to repentance, which means that no matter where you are at or where you are headed, God wants you to come to repentance. Big difference! For more on why I believe the ESV is a Calvinist Bible, see this post.)
So the idea that God has two different and opposing Wills regarding the salvation of mankind is not clearly in the Bible anywhere.
But do you know what is clearly in the Bible?
Not only does the Bible clearly say God that wants all men to be saved and wills that none should perish, but it also clearly says this about Paul's message that God wants all men to repent, believe in Jesus, and be baptized in His name:
"For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God" (Acts 20:27).
The whole Will of God!
Paul's consistent message was "God wants you to repent and believe in Jesus and be baptized in His name," and he calls it "the whole Will of God"!
Where is there room for a "secret Will" of God that contradicts here, one that contradicts the revealed Will of God? Where does Paul ever preach - clearly - about a secondary, hidden Will of God?
If God really does have a secret, hidden, contradictory Will where He predestines most people to hell even though He says He wants all men to be saved, then Paul is lying when he says that "repent and believe and be saved" is God's "whole Will."
But Calvinists would still rather insist that God has a secondary, secret, hidden, contradictory Will than to admit that "God wants all men to be saved" is the "whole Will of God." They will deny what the Bible clearly says, in favor of their messy, convoluted, cobbled-together, "mysterious," can't-be-understood-anyway theology. And that's why they have to fall back on "We can't understand it, so we just humbly accept it. Who are you to talk back to God anyway or to think you can understand His ways!?!"
Sad!]
Read the Bible, from beginning to end, and you tell me if it sounds like God lets people make their own choices ... or if He makes people's choices for them.
[God can and does control some things, plenty of things, and He can and does manipulate circumstances sometimes to get people to make the choices He knows they'll make, which He will use for His plans, but He doesn't predetermine which choices we make. He doesn't command things but then prevent us from doing them (such as His command to seek Him, believe in Him, repent), and He doesn't cause us to break His commands, to sin, or to be wicked.]
The Bible is really clear on this. It's the Calvinists who have screwed it all up with their illogical, contradictory, flawed, nonsensical misconceptions and assumptions about God. They use a few unclear "Calvinist-sounding" verses (spun in such a way that it contradicts the rest of the Bible) as the lens that they view the rest of the Bible through, instead of simply finding a more biblically-consistent way to read those few "Calvinist" verses.
Don't alter the rest of the Bible and God's revealed character for a couple "Calvinist" verses. Research those "Calvinist" verses more until they fit with the rest of the Bible and with God's revealed character. And when you do, the whole Bible (and God Himself) is consistent and makes sense and is reliable. Unlike Calvinism which alters everything about God and salvation to fit a few misunderstood verses!
I think Calvinist preachers bank on people not knowing their Bibles well enough for themselves. That way, they can throw out a few "Calvinist" verses and say, "See, it's in the Bible, so you have to accept it. Humble Christians accept it and don't fight God on it." (Another thing my Calvinist pastor basically said.) And so we simply trust them and their views, believing that they must be more intelligent and more educated than us because they sound so sure of themselves and have so many verses to back them up and know some Greek. We eat whatever garbage they force-feed us and assume there must be something wrong with us and our faith if we disagree with them or if we find it distasteful. And no one speaks up because we are all afraid of looking "unhumble" or like we're too stupid to get it. And the heresy spreads and grows stronger. Calvinism thrives on the people letting the Calvinist pastor tell them how to "understand" what God says in His Word!
It's very hard for people to break free from Calvinism once it gets a strong hold on you. Shame, fear of questioning the pastor, fear of being unhumble for questioning God (a Calvinist threat if you question their theology), and fear of offending or losing your Calvinist friends keep you captive!
But if you take off the Calvinist glasses and read the Bible for yourselves, praying for insight, then you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free! And your heart and soul will begin to breathe again! (I could literally feel my heart breaking and my soul suffocating under that Calvinist pastor's preaching!)
