So,
this evening, yeah, this could be a bumpy ride,
but after the Reformation,
this term heresy becomes less of a pronouncement from a particular church.
Once the Catholic Church underpinning is decaying and groups are splitting,
and once the Lutherans go,
it doesn’t take long before there’s a shotgun effect,
and there are many such groups
that are regional,
some are national,
and they begin to each pursue a slightly different
course in regard to what is going to be orthodoxy or standard belief.
So at that point,
the Catholic Church can still, as an institution,
use the word heresy,
and does,
but among the Reformers,
heresy becomes more of a charge than a pronouncement.
So they accuse one another of it,
but in most cases,
they don’t have teeth to put with it.
There are some notable exceptions.
In Switzerland,
where Calvin is, there’s a man named Servatus,
and after significant trouble with him,
Calvin puts out the idea that probably time for Servatus to go away,
and so he’s burnt at the stake.
But that becomes the exception because many of the churches don’t have access to the
kind of civil power that would allow that to happen.
Now it’s out there,
but it’s not the rule.
So to some extent,
heresy now becomes a charge that people are lobbing back and forth at one another,
and tonight we’re going to look at one such battle between two men,
one named John Calvin, a name you’ve probably heard,
and another named Jacobus Arminius,
a name that may not be as familiar to you,
especially if Calvin is familiar to you.
But before we get there,
I want to circle back.
We need to go to the late 300s,
the mid-400s, and talk about something that was labeled heresy.
So there’s a British monk,
and his name is Pelagius,
and Pelagius is a respected man.
He mostly keeps to himself, he’s an ascetic.
Not a lot is known about him.
He studies, he prays.
He’s probably Scottish,
possibly Irish,
and he seems to have been respected.
We have to infer his teaching from those who argued with him because his writings have
all either been lost or destroyed,
but as we hear from his detractors,
we get the shape
of an argument that he seems to have put forward,
and the heart of the matter is that Pelagius
seems to have denied the idea of original sin.
So original sin is that in the fall,
in Adam and Eve’s disobedience,
something enters the human condition that hadn’t previously been there.
And as such, we are now all inherently sinful.
We are corrupt, we are tainted by birth,
by the nature of being human now,
we are sinful.
Well Pelagius said, no,
that doesn’t make any sense.
We’re born blank.
We’re born with moral abilities,
with free will,
with the ability to choose.
We’re not sinners until we sin.
And even then,
after we sin,
we can make progress by making good decisions and good choices.
In fact,
we can, if we work hard enough,
attain moral perfection.
We can get to the point where we don’t sin.
We live an obedient life.
And this is not by grace.
This is by human will and free choice.
Now,
Pelagius was frustrated by church people that he thought were using the idea of our
sinfulness as an excuse to sin.
In other words,
well, we’re just sinful.
So I do this,
and I do that,
and I can’t help it.
And that frustrated Pelagius,
and so he taught something different.
He taught instead that we had the moral ability and enough willpower, if we chose,
to make good decisions.
Nothing impossible for us has been commanded by God.
This is one of the quotes that survived from him.
Nothing impossible for us has been commanded by God.
And what does God say?
What does Christ say in the New Testament?
Be perfect as I am perfect.
Wouldn’t tell us to do that if we couldn’t do it?
Must be possible.
So rather than Christ as a sacrifice for our sin,
some cosmic payment that’s made for our fallenness,
Pelagius sees Christ as a good example,
as an instruction,
as someone to emulate,
but not as a sacrificial lamb,
not as an atonement for our,
quote unquote, inherited sin.
Well, that ruffles lots of feathers,
especially the last part about Jesus just being a good example.
And so in 418,
Pelagianism is declared heretical.
It’s reinforced in 431,
and it largely died out with one interesting possible exception.
There’s no straight line from Pelagianism to anything else.
But a strong case can be made,
and has been made,
that the tenets of Mormonism connect
with the tenets of Pelagianism really, really well.
And it has been argued that Mormonism is a modern evolution of Pelagius’s ideas.
Now you can look into that if you want.
I don’t know that I’d argue one way or another.
I think I see the point.
But that has been put out there at least,
and it’s somewhat interesting.
So there’s a man named Augustine.
Augustine’s an early church father,
maybe in some ways one of the most significant,
particularly in our branch of the church.
And he is not a fan of Pelagius.
Augustine says salvation is a free gift only,
but we are not free to choose to accept it or refuse it.
In other words, we don’t have the moral capacity to even say yes or no to God.
That’s something God has to do in us.
In order for us to accept Christ,
that itself has to be a work of grace in us.
And though some other church fathers before Augustine had taught free will,
Augustine largely rejects it.
In other words,
he rejects the twofold idea that we are able to choose good or bad.
And secondly,
that we can make those choices as human beings.
That we can choose Christ or reject Christ.
And we’ll talk about why he got there or where it goes in a moment.
But let me stop there and just ask any questions.
There’s just some groundwork stuff.
OK,
fast forward about 1,200-ish years,
and there’s a man you know named John Calvin, Geneva, Switzerland.
He is a very big fan of Augustine and in many ways uses Augustine as a springboard.
Luther had done some of this.
Calvin does even more of it.
He runs in the direction that Augustine had pointed.
And Calvin is convinced that the church has left the right track.
And so he digs into this theological problem of free will.
And following Augustine’s inklings or leadership,
he is decidedly not a free will fan.
And again, we’ll get there.
But his opponent of the day is a man named Jacobus Arminius.
He’s a Dutch theologian.
He’s born in 1560,
dies in the early 1600s.
And Arminius and Calvin have much in common.
They agree on a whole lot,
90%.
But where they disagree,
they really disagree.
Arminius holds most of the Calvinist doctrines in a way that is similar with a couple of exceptions,
primarily that mankind, humankind,
has the ability to resist God’s invitation in Christ.
So Arminius says,
“In Christ, God invites us all into covenant.”
And then we say yes or no.
Not okay with Calvin.
Arminius departs from him in that respect.
He also says that once we have come to faith,
which he says is an act of grace,
we then have the ability to choose sin or not.
Again,
Calvin,
on two levels, A, the word “choose” always makes Calvin a little nervous,
and B,
the idea that we have an ability to do the right thing and be unhindered by sin.
Calvin has a deeper understanding of sin,
and so he’s going to have a hard time making that concession.
The fundamental disagreements between them are these two points,
and they get sideways with one another.
And essentially it comes down to this, that men,
humans,
people,
can resist the Holy Spirit,
and that believers can resist sin completely.
And both of those two things are not okay with Calvin.
From the Calvinist perspective,
and here’s where we get into a little homework,
the Calvinist perspective is steeped in the idea of God’s sovereignty.
That is God’s reign,
God’s kingship,
God as ruler.
I would say even control would be a comfortable Calvinist word.
And from the Calvinist perspective,
the sovereignty of God is such that God’s plan is complete,
and God’s will is unassailable.
Nothing can supersede God’s will.
That sounds good.
We would all say that.
God is in control.
God’s will is supreme.
God’s reign is supreme.
We would agree with that.
Calvin then,
to his credit I think,
follows it on its uncomfortable path.
Calvin says,
“Well then, if God is supreme,
and God wants me to be saved,
and I tell God no,
I’m not interested,
then my choice has superseded.”
I would say Trump.
You know that word has gotten so…
That my choice now trumps God’s will.
In other words,
I can get my will at the expense of God getting God’s will.
And for Calvin,
that’s a completely unacceptable idea.
It doesn’t bother Arminius.
It bothers Calvin a lot.
That you and I could make a decision that would go against what God wants.
So there are two ways that Calvin sort of resolves this.
The first is the simplest.
He says, “No free will.” We don’t make real choices.
God has chosen for us.
God has chosen us.
We do not choose God.
And this doctrine becomes known as the doctrine of election.
You could also call it selection.
That God chooses us,
not the other way around.
God calls us to Christ and brings us to Christ,
not because we decided,
but because God is gracious and active and powerful.
And God enacts that.
Well,
follow that out for Calvin.
What does that mean for a person that doesn’t come to Christ?
God didn’t want them.
Only answer.
The only answer for Calvin.
It is God’s will that some are elect,
and it must then be God’s will that the rest are not.
Now, this wasn’t a huge problem for Calvin,
because he threw out these ideas in a time of turmoil,
and he was so engaged in trying to shape the future of the church
that he could kind of get away with this.
But in the generations that came after,
this became a major,
major problem for the Reformed church, the Presbyterian church.
And it results in the doctrine that we are still trying to figure out,
and sometimes apologizing for,
predestination.
The idea that pre,
before,
you have a destination.
Your destination is chosen before you are even here.
Now,
if that destination is the kingdom of Christ,
amen.
That’s great, wonderful news, and we celebrate it.
And then somebody said,
“Well, but wait,
what about those people?” And Calvin said,
“Eh.” Well,
the Calvinists, the Calvinists said,
“Eh?” That’s God’s will.
God is supreme.
God is sovereign.
And so predestination becomes double predestination.
The idea that if some are predestined to heaven,
some are predestined to hell.
Now,
there have been churches along the way who have said,
“No, we only believe in single predestination.”
We believe that God chooses the people God wants,
and they are saved.
But we don’t like the other part about God not choosing the others.
Well, I will say in Calvin and Calvinist defense,
I think it’s hard to have one without the other.
To their credit, they are at least willing to follow the logic
and take it to its uncomfortable conclusion.
So faith is preceded by grace,
not a decision,
and not a work.
The elect are those who are chosen to be saved.
The saved are chosen by God,
not of any merit or worth,
not because God looks down their future and says,
“Oh, they’re going to be a good guy,” or,
“She does some really nice things,”
or, “He’s good to stray animals,
and she takes care of orphans.” Nothing like that.
The choice is God’s alone and based on God’s grace alone.
We add nothing to it.
It has nothing to do with our worthiness because for Calvin,
we have none.
So the implication,
God does not choose some.
God makes choices for all,
and not passively,
but actively.
And God elects some for salvation.
And this gets known,
and again, I’m sorry, I hope not to use too much jargon,
but this gets known in Calvinist circles as a doctrine of limited atonement.
Atonement being Christ’s death on the cross,
limited meaning,
obviously it’s not for everyone because everyone doesn’t accept it.
So it’s only for the elect.
It only applies to those who then are chosen to come to Christ.
On the other hand,
Arminius said there is an unlimited atonement.
It is for anybody.
The gospel,
the salvation by Christ is for all people,
at least any who will accept it.
And so while it seems like not a particularly important difference,
understand that they stand on very different sides of a pretty firm theological wall.
We do it,
God does it.
God sent an invitation,
we have to say yes or no.
God claimed you as his very own from before the time you even were,
based on nothing you did.
There is a significant difference between the two.
And for Calvin, again, this idea of the problem of free will is that it supersedes God’s plan, or it could.
So while Calvin and Arminius and Calvinism and Arminism share many common doctrine and much common history,
this becomes a kind of major battle.
This distinction,
whether God allows his desire to save all the world to be resisted by an individual,
that’s the Arminian doctrine,
or if God’s grace is irresistible and limited only to some.
That’s Calvin.
If you ever learn the doctrines of Calvinism,
one of them is irresistible grace.
In other words, if you’re elect,
you’re getting elected.
There’s no way out of it.
If that’s your destiny,
if God has chosen you, that’s it.
Why?
Because God’s God.
Simple.
I mean,
it’s that simple for Calvin.
And this is the battle they have.
Grace is resistible versus grace is not resistible.
Can you turn down God’s will?
And can salvation be lost and gained?
Calvin says no.
Arminius says yes.
And so the result is that you have the Presbyterians and Reformed on one hand.
They kind of walk the Calvinist trail,
not always comfortably, but that’s been the path that we have traveled.
On the other hand,
you have the Baptists,
the Methodists,
and a few others.
And I remember having gone to Northwestern and having been taught Calvin
by fairly staunch Calvinists,
a few at the time who would have still said,
“Yeah,
you bet,
Calvin. Go double predestination.” I remember the first time I got to Louisville Seminary,
which was across the road from a huge Baptist Seminary,
and met some people at the Baptist Seminary.
And the first time somebody proudly referred to themselves as an Arminian.
Because I came from the people who wished that all the Arminians had been running out of town.
And so to hear somebody say,
“Wow, you know, I’m an Arminian,”
I’m like, “Whoa,
that’s not good.”
That’s what they look like.
From the perspective, yeah.
I guess they’re all from the South.
Again,
let me stop there,
and if there’s anything for clarification
or just something to push back on,
again,
tonight is less maybe heresy
and more the examination of some competing ideas,
some of which we call our heritage,
not all the time comfortably.
So if you’ve got anything you’re thinking about,
throw it out there.
Under predestination,
why would the Great Commission
and the concept of discipleship be important?
Yeah,
that was one of the criticisms is if there’s predestination,
why would you need evangelism?
And the Calvinist answer was maybe that’s the way they get,
because maybe that’s the way that you got to the elect.
Maybe that’s the way the elect got the message that they were elect.
They heard it from the church.
So, Calvin,
though I would say Calvin leaves some windows open
to let us off the hook,
Calvin never lets us off the hook for anything.
Not evangelism,
not sin,
not being elect or not being elect.
And Calvin would also say,
Bernie,
that ultimately we can’t know
that the visible church is not necessarily all the elect.
In fact, all the elect is not the visible church.
And so we never know who is ultimately elect and not elect.
Now,
if they proclaim Christ and live a Christ-like life,
I mean, Calvin’s going to,
it’s not the lottery.
It’s not, you know, you show up and then you find out if you really were in or not.
But Calvin will hold that there is this truth that is not visible to us.
And so we evangelize,
and we proclaim the faith,
and we try to be an example to point toward Christ.
So I can get your arms around that.
But what I have a hard time getting my arms around is
not everybody gets invited for prom.
I mean,
you know, some of us didn’t look very good,
and there’s a girl that wouldn’t go with us.
I mean, yeah,
for whatever reason, we didn’t get to go to prom.
But to damn me to hell for that,
to put me in a fiery furnace
and beat my back when I’m at that one,
I have a hard time getting my arms around.
So if I would have adjusted God,
do that to folks
that he’s already separated from everybody else before time.
Yeah, I mean, how would Calvin deal with that?
Yeah, well,
three things.
You’re in this instance,
you’re going to the prom has nothing to do with how you look
or what car you drive or anything.
I mean, it’s it’s it’s not related to four.
I’m sorry.
No, no, it’s okay.
It’s just not related to you at all.
Based on any kind of merit.
Secondly,
Calvin would say,
or at least Calvinists have said,
the point is not that some are lost,
but that any are saved.
So that anybody who doesn’t come to the kingdom is getting what we all deserve.
So any that are saved is to God’s glory because all were lost before Christ.
All were going to be damned.
All were going to be in hell taking the beatings.
But some have been brought out.
And the third thing, I think,
and the other thing that Calvin would say,
and I think this is hard to hear,
is that wrath is to God’s glory as well.
That punishing sin and exercising God’s righteous and holy anger is to his glory.
So that in that in itself speaks to God’s sovereignty.
Now,
those aren’t those aren’t the most comfortable answers,
but I think Calvinism would respond something along those lines.
Again, one of the things I respect about Calvinism is that it’s not vested a whole lot near as much as you think it should.
It has not vested a ton of energy in defending God.
Calvin,
look, God is sovereign.
This is what happens.
Here’s how it works.
I don’t need to defend God.
God’s God.
God wants to send people to hell.
Praise be his name.
That’s not a kind of hard place to live.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. But again,
and I’m not I’m not defending it,
but I think it’s important to understand that Calvin,
in my opinion,
Calvin gets there because he’s so unbelievably committed to God’s sovereignty.
Now,
now I’m going to hold that.
I’m going to hold on to that for a bit.
I’ll finish with my own twist on it,
but you’re never going to see my name in a book.
So Calvin first Calvin first.
Why is humans do we always have to tell God what he’s like?
Why can’t we accept somebody else’s interpretation and say,
I can understand where you’re coming from.
This is how I feel.
And yet we still have to be so defensive that we put them down.
Yeah.
I think in Calvin’s case,
he believes he’s battling for truth and for the future of the church.
And he also believes he’s battling to,
if not defend,
uncover the truth of Scripture.
Now,
I can see the point for Calvin.
If you and I are just arguing,
I think we have to be kind of careful to assume that’s what we’re also doing.
But Calvin believes himself to be involved in a turmoil where the future of Christianity is at stake.
And, you know,
he’s not entirely.
I mean, there’s some truth to that.
But it just seems like human logic trying to make something that I mean,
it’s frail.
Yeah.
And well, and Calvin,
Calvin will give you that, I think,
at points.
Calvin probably will not give us that in areas where he believes the Scripture clearly teaches something.
And so for Calvin,
the idea that you and I might disagree on something is not foreign to him.
He’s not a tyrant.
But when we get to things like this,
he believes this is what the Scripture teaches.
And he’s going to defend that extremely,
extremely aggressively.
Linda? Could you go over that tulip acronym?
I forgot the little foggy.
Yeah, maybe.
So when you learn shorthand Calvinism,
they teach you tulip,
which is the five letters.
So T is total depravity,
meaning that we are completely fallen.
We’re completely sinful.
There’s no good in us.
Unlimited election.
You got tulip over there?
Unconditional election.
Yes.
OK,
limited atonement.
This is this idea we’re talking about,
that Christ died for the elect,
not for everybody.
Irresistible grace,
meaning that if you are elect,
you don’t have a choice.
That’s not fair, but that’s OK.
And P is the preservation of the saints.
Another place that Calvin and Arminius died because Arminius allowed for free will to be such a strong component.
Arminius argued that you could be fully Christian.
You could come to Christ and be saved.
And then through your choices,
choose something else and lose that salvation.
Calvin said,
God calls you his.
That’s the end of it.
So it’s the perseverance of the saints.
How would Calvinism, how would they explain the rapture if you’re predestined to go to heaven?
Oh, I think I think they would say that that might be the mechanism through which you get there.
I mean,
that’s the ultimately that’s ultimately the day that the elect are gathered.
Right.
The end times are given the opportunity.
Isn’t there a seven year period that they’re given the opportunity to atone for their sin?
That’s not how they’d read it.
Yeah. And if they did read it that way,
again,
they would be elect who got there on that path.
I mean,
I know it’s mind boggling,
but it’s incredibly simple.
If you’re if you if you come to faith,
true faith, not appearance of faith,
but if you come to true saving faith,
you’re elect.
And if you don’t, you’re not.
It is.
It’s hard to grab your wrap your head around,
but it’s not complicated.
It’s it’s uncomfortable.
Michael,
I find it interesting whenever we talk about this in our tradition,
because we because I think the way that we respond to it’s the same way that the second generation.
I’m interested to see if you disagree with this.
But I think when you read Calvin,
Calvin has always read for me to be for this to be a doctrine of comfort.
And in this room,
I feel all of our discomfort.
We’re all like, oh, let’s go there.
I’m like,
for Calvin, that’s not what this he does not feel that way about this topic.
This is a doctrine of comfort for him.
He never doubts what he calls the secret work of the spirit.
It’s this idea that that this in working that God has done in you is is completely by his own accord.
But Calvin is not staying up at night wondering if he’s in the elect,
though, theoretically, you could get there and figure out he’s not.
Right. But after the second generation,
Calvinist, that’s what keeps them up at night is,
wait a minute, Calvin.
That’s the implication of what you just said.
But but yes, he’s fighting and yes,
all these things.
But you have to,
I think, give him at least when you read the institutes,
which I have a lovely copy if you want to borrow it.
Because I don’t have reading it for a few months.
You know, if you retell that he does not share our affliction,
he is so confident in God.
He’s so confident in God’s work in his life that for him,
this is a doctrine of comfort and peace,
the knowledge that God has held you even when you don’t deserve it.
So so if we can capture the intent,
I think we will be farther along the road than if we wallow in the discomfort.
Is that fair?
Yeah, I don’t disagree with that at all.
In fact,
maybe to add to it,
keep in mind that who is Calvin writing to people whose whole experience of church has crumbled.
And they’ve been told by the one church they’ve known their whole life that they’re going to hell.
They’re excommunicated.
They’re outside of grace because they have been cast out by the pope and the cardinals because of their behavior and their wrong ideas.
So what is Calvin’s word to them?
The pope isn’t sovereign.
If you’re elect,
it doesn’t matter.
He’ll be means what the pope says.
The pope didn’t ever save you in the first place.
You are God’s creation.
You are God’s own child.
Nobody gets to take that away from you.
Certainly not the pope,
the cardinals or anybody else.
And it wasn’t intended.
Calvin believed that was good news.
In fact,
the best news.
God has grasped you so securely that there isn’t a thing in this realm or any realm that can take you away from him.
Now, Michael’s exactly right.
Things settle down a little bit.
People start scratching their head and saying, well, what about?
And then we all go, yeah,
we don’t like that.
We love the part about confident.
But it’s difficult.
It’s difficult to find that that middle place.
And we’ll finish up with that in a minute.
But any any other comments, questions?
Yeah.
Throw it out there, Mike.
This is a great thing to wrestle with.
And I have no problem with the idea that I’m not.
I mean, I truly believe this.
I mean, I don’t know how God would pick me.
You know, I have no idea.
OK, so I have no problem with all of that part of it.
I’m sorry to interrupt,
but Calvin said that’s why the only fitting response to election is not pride,
but gratitude.
Yeah. Do you take no pride in being elect because you didn’t do it?
Absolutely.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
But you see two different strains of thought here,
both of which have merit,
both of which have biblical merit.
And Luther would say we base everything on the Bible.
I mean, here’s here’s truth.
We’ll look for truth in the context of the Bible.
Yeah.
Right.
So can you find ample proof for Calvin?
Can’t argue with that.
I mean, there’s.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, it’s there.
Pardon Farrell’s heart and Jacob I’ve loved and Esau I’ve hated.
And yeah,
absolutely.
Can you find ample choose this day who you will serve as for me and my house?
Yep. Absolutely.
And we’re really trying to both go to the same place.
I mean, we’re trying to get there.
Yeah.
So to make it so divisive,
Jen was almost saying that.
So that’s what you’re referring to.
But yeah, but but to make it so divisive as Calvin did,
maybe I have to understand that in the context of this is critical.
Yeah. Church.
I mean, do you see what I’m saying?
I do.
You can find truth,
ample truth for both streams of thought.
Yeah.
Calvin’s not going to give you that point.
I don’t believe.
Well, but neither is Arminius.
Neither is Arminius.
And in fairness,
again,
I’m not defending Calvin,
but in fairness to Calvin,
his ideas do carry the day.
And so we think of him as perhaps the bully.
But Arminius was just as convinced that Calvin is wrong and dangerous,
though, for whatever reason, couldn’t compel as many people to get on board.
And as to the passion of defending their their individual ideas.
Because they they believe and and we could disagree with them,
but they believe they are speaking to and teaching the character of God as it has been revealed to them.
I mean, they’re making fundamental assertions about the nature of humanity,
the nature of God,
the work of Christ and the eternal human condition.
And those are core issues of our faith.
And when you know,
if you and I,
if you and I want to get a book here,
volume one, if you and I want to argue over whether this guy’s volume one or volume two was better.
If we start arguing over who is Christ,
that’s going to get it becomes a more charged debate, I believe.
And so.
Yeah.
And, you know,
it wouldn’t be the first or last time that somebody overstated their case in the attempt to prove they were right.
I don’t know if that’s ever happened to anybody here.
I certainly have never done it.
I spent too much in a Baptist church.
And I love those people.
And but I guess we’re here 10 months.
So we’re safe.
Well,
let’s see.
Yeah.
Let me try to let me try to tie some things and then we’ll go back into the conversation.
As I think you can probably imagine judging just by this room,
this is not a modern controversy.
This is probably all but gone outside of academic circles.
You could probably go get a pretty good argument started at Dort or Northwestern if you wanted to probably go to a couple of seminaries.
You could probably ruffle some feathers if you know some good Southern Baptists,
you probably get them pretty riled up.
But other than that,
this isn’t the kind of thing that most people think about worry about.
But I do think there’s one exception to that,
that we continue to struggle with sometimes
without even knowing we struggle with it.
And the question that lingers out of this debate is what role do we play in our salvation?
And is salvation a gift or an accomplishment?
And you hear this kind of language a lot.
I have heard Presbyterians say that we are partners with Christ in the work of God to save people.
Calvin is not very happy when he hears we’re partners.
God and us, we’re in this together.
You’re kind of both doing our part.
Does this make salvation a work?
And if it becomes something we do,
what’s the role of grace in it?
The pastor I worked with in Texas,
I’ve told some of you various stories about Steve.
Steve was wonderful,
died in the wool, reformed Presbyterian,
a very intelligent man,
theologically astute.
And we had,
I can’t remember the context,
if we were at a conference,
in some context we heard someone preach and they said,
“In Christ God has built a bridge.”
You’ve probably seen that diagram,
if you’ve ever read the four spiritual laws,
right? Man’s on one side,
God’s on the other,
big chasm in the middle,
and here comes the cross.
Now there’s a bridge.
So what’s the implication?
What do you have to do?
All you have to do is walk across.
God has invited you,
“Hey, I’m over here.
Come on.” You have to make a decision and you have to go.
And Steve next to me goes,
“That’s Pelagianism.”
And I’m like, “What are you talking about?
That’s a word I hadn’t heard in five years since I graduated seminary.” And he’s right.
That’s a version of what we have the ability to make a decision
and to act on it.
And God is sort of waiting to see what we do.
Is that good enough?
Does that honor this enough?
That kind of discussion is still out there.
Two things, I think.
I think,
“Hey, we live in an era where we’re a little bit more willing to live with mystery.” We’re probably more able to say,
“I think there’s free will and I think God is sovereign.”
And we say, “Well, how do you think both?” I don’t know.
I just do.
I just want to believe both of those things.
And so I’m going to.
And someday if God tells me one of them was wrong,
well then,
he’s God.
And I look forward to learning something.
The second thing, I think, and this is just my own piece.
I don’t think I’m the only one who says this.
I mean, it’s not an original idea.
But I think when we look at sovereignty in that vein,
we see a very select view of what it means to have authority.
In other words, authority is equated with control.
And I think we have maybe nuanced the idea that you can be sovereign and not get everything the way you want.
That maybe somehow God can fill both of those roles.
God is willing to let us make choices.
And yet God is somehow over all of our choices.
And if you’ve ever parented,
you know this, right?
There’s one of my kids.
I have authority over my child,
except that I don’t.
Right?
I mean, I do and I don’t.
I can say yes to some things and no to some things,
but I don’t control my children.
I have authority.
I speak into their lives.
I invite,
I encourage, I scold, I whatever.
But I don’t control them.
And I think there may be some wiggle room in this idea that God is sovereign.
And yet,
we can make choices that don’t please God.
And Mike pointed out earlier and is exactly right,
in my opinion,
the scripture speaks to both of these ideas.
And they may both be true in a way that will never wrap up neatly.
Practically,
it feels like we make choices.
So the encouragement in that is to whatever extent we do or don’t,
do good.
Try your best.
Whether that’s you doing it or not,
it ultimately may not matter.
And to whatever extent we can or can’t avoid sin,
try to avoid sin.
Try to say no to temptation.
Try to do the right thing and not the wrong thing.
And by the way,
you are never excused when you do the wrong thing in Calvin,
Arminius either.
But it’s not like Calvin gives you a free pass on that.
Trusting God like everything depends on him and pursue righteousness like everything depends
on us.
And the theology part, well,
that’ll get worked out.
You know, there are not, there just aren’t many old school Presbyterians left.
It’s an age where freedom is everything and choice is assumed.
But I think we can find a way to be comfortable with the best parts of Calvin and maybe the helpful parts of non Calvin and not feel like we have to be one or the other.
Maybe we’re better able to live with the discomfort 500,
600 years later.
Even if, you know, we’re not sure how it all works.
So let me stop there.
Any, any other thoughts,
comments, questions?
I think I would rather trust in God than trust in human logic.
Agreed.
Yeah, agreed.
How does Calvin deal with the Great Commission?
He says, go do it.
Why?
Because how does Calvin deal with the Great Commission?
Because it is the task set before Christians to proclaim Christ.
Because God said to do it.
Sure, in the same way that that any Christian endeavor that care for the poor,
feed the hungry,
don’t kill, don’t commit adultery.
Yeah, that that’s that this is the map God sets for what being Christian looks like.
So go therefore into all the world and proclaim.
And again,
Calvin is Calvin is a very smart man and
is not willing.
Calvin didn’t leave loopholes, you know,
when you hear that,
you think, well, then we’ll just sit back.
And if there’s some kid in Africa that’s elect,
that’s God’s problem.
Calvin,
he caught on that one really quick.
Yeah.
Anything else?
Well, again, thanks for your patience and thanks for your tolerance of some jargon and interesting discussion.
Thanks for giving me some stuff to think about.