Calvinist Bad Logic #2: When A Calvinist Says "Ordains"
Bad Logic #2: A Calvinist will use the word "ordains" to say something like "God ordains everything that happens in your life." Many of us will hear that and think they're saying that God knew what would happen and chose to allow it, even if it was a bad thing.
But what a Calvinist really means by "ordains" is "preplanned and causes," that God preplans and causes everything to happen the way it does ... that He even "ordains" any childhood abuse you went through, for His glory and for your good and because He knew what it would take to keep you humble. That it was God's “Plan A” for your life!
This is what my Calvinist pastor preached one day. This is Calvinist theology!
Now replace "ordains" with "preplanned and caused" to see what Calvinists really believe: That God caused any childhood abuse you went through, for His glory and for your good and to keep you humble. That it was His “Plan A” for your life, meaning that you never had any other life in store for you than abuse, because He deliberately planned your abuse from the beginning.
And now carry all that out to its logical, natural conclusions - the idea that God plans child abuse from the very beginning, that He actively causes someone to abuse a child, that He causes the sin that He commands us not to do (and that He will eventually punish us for), that the abuser could not have chosen to do any differently, and that He does all this for your good and, apparently, because child abuse glorifies Calvi-god.
Can you see how damaging this is to God's character, to our faith, to truth, to our ability to trust Him and His Word? What kind of a "God" is that? How can a God like that be trusted?
The Bible says that God is love, but if that's what "love" looks like then I'd hate to see hate! And why would anyone want that kind of "love" anyway?
And ... if we are supposed to grow to be more like God and to bring Him glory in all we do, then what kind of people is that going to make us, if God is the kind of God who first forbids sin but then causes sin, for His glory?
And yet they hide all this behind the easily-overlooked, easily-misunderstood word "ordains."
This is why a Calvinist can say something like "God was the author of these events [Joseph's brother's selling him into slavery] in that He works all things according to the counsel of His will, but God did not originate the evil desires in the brother's hearts ..." but then follow it up a short time later with "There is nothing outside of God's sovereign causation and control, such as mankind's desires" (actual words from a dogmatic Calvinist in the comment section of a Soteriology 101 post).
They are constantly trying to make it sound like Calvi-god merely "allows" certain bad things to happen when they actually believe that he preplans, controls, and causes all the bad things to happen the way they do.
"God 'ordains' sin but is not the author of sin."
Hogwash! If God preplanned it and caused it ("ordains," as they say) then He is most definitely the author of it. Because if He didn't author it, it never would have happened. But they can see no contradiction in what they say.
And if you think I'm making this up, the idea that Calvinists believe God "causes" child abuse, listen to this clip of James White, a Calvinist who's defending the idea that God causes child-rape by saying that if God didn't cause it then it would have no purpose. Calvinists say that if something can happen that God didn't actively cause then we can't trust Him because He wouldn't be "in control." But we can supposedly trust Him, even when bad things happen, as long as we know He caused it for our good and for His glory.
So ... we can rejoice knowing that God Himself caused our abuse for a reason!?! We can trust a God who deliberately causes the sin He commands people not to do (and who then punishes us for it)!?! We can trust a God who gets glory by causing children to be abused!?!
“Hey, so what if you were abused as a child … or your family was slaughtered in front of you … or you were beaten up by a gang of thugs! Take comfort, because Calvi-god himself caused those things for your good and for his glory. So it’s all good. Don’t you just love our wonderful, trustworthy, compassionate Calvi-god!”
It's sick! It's lunacy! And it's a complete affront to God's holy, good character!
(For more on the idea of God causing abuse, see "Does God Cause Childhood Abuse?" Also see "Do Calvinists Really Believe God Causes Sin? Let Them Speak For Themselves!")
[Added 11/16/19 (This explains the "volcano" from the post "When The Volcano Blows"):
I just have a question ... How can Calvinists be truly compassionate and empathic when something bad happens to someone? Seriously! Think about it. If they believe that every bad thing happens because Calvi-god preplanned it and caused it for his glory, how can they truly be compassionate when someone goes through a tragedy or hard time? Wouldn't they then be "feeling bad" about something Calvi-god wanted for his glory?
Of course, they might be able to be like "Oh, it's too bad you're going through this. Sucks to be you!" But they genuinely can't be like "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. How tragic! My heart is breaking for you. What a horrible thing!"
How can they think any tragedy is tragic or horrible if they believe it was caused specifically by Calvi-god for his glory? Regardless of what they say to a hurting person, at the end of the day all they can do is shrug their shoulders about tragedies and say "Well, it's what Calvi-god wanted. So who are we to feel bad about it!?! Let's praise him for this so-called 'horrible' thing he caused. Isn't he good!"
The reason I am bringing this up is because my family has gone through a serious tragedy recently, which includes someone I knew ending up dead, with a family member being arrested (not my husband or kids), with my testimony against them helping lead to their arrest, and with people sending death threats to anyone who knew the person who caused the death. (You people are sick! Truly sick! To take out your pathetic anger on people who had nothing to do with this and who were traumatized themselves through everything that happened! Sick, pathetic, ignorant psychos!) And at the same time the arrest happened, I found out that my ex-step-father - the man who was the most dad I ever had, whom I haven't seen in 14 years - is in prison for drug trafficking.
And I am waiting for the day that someone like our dogmatic Calvinist pastor from our ex-church hears about it and then calls us up to express their sympathy.
And I am going to have to bite my tongue so hard. Because what I'm going to want to say is "But why would you feel bad about this for me? I thought your Calvi-god caused this to happen. As a Calvinist, you believe your Calvi-god predestined that the person died in this horrible way, that it was Calvi-god's 'Plan A' for that person's life, that he never had anything else in store for them than this tragedy. You believe that your Calvi-god caused the other person to do what they did, exactly the way they did it. For his glory. You believe that Calvi-god caused all this to happen exactly as it did, ruining so many people's lives, because he wanted it to happen for his glory, for our good, and to keep us humble. You should be praising Calvi-god for all of this, not feeling sorry for me. So you can take your sympathy and shove it where the sun don't shine!"
Of course, I wouldn't say this, but I would want to. And that's why my tongue would be bleeding from biting it so hard. I would just so badly want for them to realize the real-world implications of their beliefs, when seen in light of extreme, real-world circumstances, of a horrible situation that has horrible consequences. To be a Calvinist means to believe Calvi-god deliberately causes all of this for his glory, that nothing different could have happened, that he never wanted anything other than a tragic death for that young person, that he caused the other person to do what they did and they couldn't have done anything differently, and that all of the pain this inflicted on my family was preplanned and caused by Calvi-god, for his glory, for our good, and to keep us humble.
So ... praise Calvi-god that he's in control and that he gets glory through it all.
(If that's God "in control," I'd hate to see God out of control! If that's what God's care looks like, I'd hate to see when He's uncaring!)
Save your freakin' sympathy, Calvinists! It means nothing!
(Instead of feeling sorry for me, maybe you should take some time to examine your frickin' destructive, satanic theology, and what you believe about our holy, righteous, good God. Are you willing to stand before Him and defend your sick, twisted Calvinist view of Him?
That's enough of my story for now. I might not speak of this ever again. But it's very fitting right now, when looking at this issue.]
And it's not just "ordains." Whenever a Calvinist uses these words or phrases about God, what they're really saying is that "God preplans and causes everything that happens": ordains, decrees, foreknowledge, foresight, plans, wills/willed, omnipotence, omniscience, sovereign, sovereignty, controls, God "agrees" to it, God "allows" it, God "knew" it would happen, God "understood" what would happen, God is "in control," etc.
They never mean that He just "allows" something to happen (because then He wouldn't fit their view of "sovereign," which is "He has to actively control all things or else He's not God.").
They always mean that He predestined it to happen and caused it to happen exactly the way it happened, and that nothing different could have happened.
(Can you see, though, how a verse like 1 Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I [God] had determined should die.''"
would defeat their theology!)
Everything always comes back to "God preplans/causes everything that happens," even if they're trying to make it sound like they're saying that God simply "allows" what happens.
A classic Calvinist tactic, which I will come back to again and again to cement it in your mind because it's foundational to their theology, is to say "God allows us to sin, to carry out the evil desires that are in our hearts." But what they really mean is "God allows us to do the sins He predestined for us (and we could never choose anything differently), to carry out the evil desires that are in our hearts - evil desires that came with the 'sin nature' He predetermined we would have. The 'sin nature' comes only with the desire to do evil and to sin all the time, and you cannot change the nature you have because God Himself predestines which nature we get, and so if He gave you the 'sin nature' you will only have sinful desires and you can only act according to those sinful desires. God 'allows' you to do the sins that result from the sinful desires that came with the sin-nature He predestined you to have, just as He preplanned everything to happen long ago. And if you get the 'sin nature' you can never want to obey Him or do good because you weren't given the nature that comes with those good desires." And yet Calvinists will insist that this is truly mankind "having a choice, making their own decisions, being accountable for their sins." It's messed up! It really is! But this is what Calvinists mean when they say that God 'allows' us to sin and make decisions, that we are 'responsible' for our choices!
In fact, they will do their best to hide their belief that God causes sin (to the point of even convincing themselves that it’s not what they’re really saying) by wrapping it in layers of “truth,” saying things like “There are two causes of sin. God is the proximate/ultimate source of sin, but we are the remote/secondary source of sin. And we willingly choose to carry out the sin that God ordains for us. And so therefore, we are really responsible for our sin, and so God is totally just in punishing us for it.” (Even though Calvi-god preplanned our sin long ago and we couldn’t have done it any differently!)
"We don't have to know how it all works out, but we have to believe it because the Bible teaches both God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibility. We don’t have to like or understand this teaching; we just have to accept it." This is how my Calvinist pastor puts it. (And yet no one stops to question his definition of sovereignty.)
They go to great lengths to hide the fact that Calvi-god causes sin, to make it sound like he's not really responsible for our sin when he really is, because they know they can't accuse God of sin. And so they come up with all sorts of convoluted ways to put the blame on us and not on Him.
(You could sit under a Calvinist pastor for years and not really know it. Because they are so good at disguising their beliefs and appearing to back up everything they say with Scripture. And they are usually powerful, dynamic, bold speakers who sway the congregation with their zeal and knowledge and confidence. See "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist.")
Calvinism is nothing less than a slippery, slithery, evil theology!
To tell you the truth: It's exhausting. It really is. Figuring out what a Calvinist is really saying behind the layers they cover it up with.
But you have to realize that talking with dogmatic, educated Calvinists is like talking with pathological liars who spin everything they say, who never really mean what they say or say what they mean, who tell you what you want to hear to suck you in more and make you believe them, who have many different tactics to manipulate you (from “This IS what the Bible says” to “I’m just teaching right from Scripture” to “Humble people have no trouble accepting what I’m teaching” to “Who are you to talk back to God or to try to understand these mysteries?”, etc.), who are really good at the old "bait and switch" routine to get you to bite onto one small truth so that you swallow whole the enormous lie hidden inside, who can backpedal out of almost any jam, and who know how to skillfully weave together bits of Scripture (always taken out of context) to "support" their views, etc.
This is why I say “DO NOT go to a Calvinist for answers to your concerns about Calvinism!” If you are not prepared with your own research into Scripture and if you are not aware of their tactics, you WILL come out the other end a Calvinist!
[See this post and that post and one more for more on that. And check out the comment section of just about any post from Soteriology 101 - try this one and that one and this other one and one more - to see how this plays out in conversations between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. FYI, a couple of the dogmatic Calvinists are rhutchin and jtleosala. It's eye-opening! And yes, the Heather in the comment section is me. Unless there's another one I don't know about.]
(For all the posts in this series, see the "Intro ..." Or look for "'Calvinist Bad Logic' Series" in the labels on the side-bar. Or find the whole series in one post, "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians.")
But what a Calvinist really means by "ordains" is "preplanned and causes," that God preplans and causes everything to happen the way it does ... that He even "ordains" any childhood abuse you went through, for His glory and for your good and because He knew what it would take to keep you humble. That it was God's “Plan A” for your life!
This is what my Calvinist pastor preached one day. This is Calvinist theology!
Now replace "ordains" with "preplanned and caused" to see what Calvinists really believe: That God caused any childhood abuse you went through, for His glory and for your good and to keep you humble. That it was His “Plan A” for your life, meaning that you never had any other life in store for you than abuse, because He deliberately planned your abuse from the beginning.
And now carry all that out to its logical, natural conclusions - the idea that God plans child abuse from the very beginning, that He actively causes someone to abuse a child, that He causes the sin that He commands us not to do (and that He will eventually punish us for), that the abuser could not have chosen to do any differently, and that He does all this for your good and, apparently, because child abuse glorifies Calvi-god.
Can you see how damaging this is to God's character, to our faith, to truth, to our ability to trust Him and His Word? What kind of a "God" is that? How can a God like that be trusted?
The Bible says that God is love, but if that's what "love" looks like then I'd hate to see hate! And why would anyone want that kind of "love" anyway?
And ... if we are supposed to grow to be more like God and to bring Him glory in all we do, then what kind of people is that going to make us, if God is the kind of God who first forbids sin but then causes sin, for His glory?
And yet they hide all this behind the easily-overlooked, easily-misunderstood word "ordains."
This is why a Calvinist can say something like "God was the author of these events [Joseph's brother's selling him into slavery] in that He works all things according to the counsel of His will, but God did not originate the evil desires in the brother's hearts ..." but then follow it up a short time later with "There is nothing outside of God's sovereign causation and control, such as mankind's desires" (actual words from a dogmatic Calvinist in the comment section of a Soteriology 101 post).
They are constantly trying to make it sound like Calvi-god merely "allows" certain bad things to happen when they actually believe that he preplans, controls, and causes all the bad things to happen the way they do.
"God 'ordains' sin but is not the author of sin."
Hogwash! If God preplanned it and caused it ("ordains," as they say) then He is most definitely the author of it. Because if He didn't author it, it never would have happened. But they can see no contradiction in what they say.
And if you think I'm making this up, the idea that Calvinists believe God "causes" child abuse, listen to this clip of James White, a Calvinist who's defending the idea that God causes child-rape by saying that if God didn't cause it then it would have no purpose. Calvinists say that if something can happen that God didn't actively cause then we can't trust Him because He wouldn't be "in control." But we can supposedly trust Him, even when bad things happen, as long as we know He caused it for our good and for His glory.
So ... we can rejoice knowing that God Himself caused our abuse for a reason!?! We can trust a God who deliberately causes the sin He commands people not to do (and who then punishes us for it)!?! We can trust a God who gets glory by causing children to be abused!?!
“Hey, so what if you were abused as a child … or your family was slaughtered in front of you … or you were beaten up by a gang of thugs! Take comfort, because Calvi-god himself caused those things for your good and for his glory. So it’s all good. Don’t you just love our wonderful, trustworthy, compassionate Calvi-god!”
It's sick! It's lunacy! And it's a complete affront to God's holy, good character!
(For more on the idea of God causing abuse, see "Does God Cause Childhood Abuse?" Also see "Do Calvinists Really Believe God Causes Sin? Let Them Speak For Themselves!")
[Added 11/16/19 (This explains the "volcano" from the post "When The Volcano Blows"):
I just have a question ... How can Calvinists be truly compassionate and empathic when something bad happens to someone? Seriously! Think about it. If they believe that every bad thing happens because Calvi-god preplanned it and caused it for his glory, how can they truly be compassionate when someone goes through a tragedy or hard time? Wouldn't they then be "feeling bad" about something Calvi-god wanted for his glory?
Of course, they might be able to be like "Oh, it's too bad you're going through this. Sucks to be you!" But they genuinely can't be like "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. How tragic! My heart is breaking for you. What a horrible thing!"
How can they think any tragedy is tragic or horrible if they believe it was caused specifically by Calvi-god for his glory? Regardless of what they say to a hurting person, at the end of the day all they can do is shrug their shoulders about tragedies and say "Well, it's what Calvi-god wanted. So who are we to feel bad about it!?! Let's praise him for this so-called 'horrible' thing he caused. Isn't he good!"
The reason I am bringing this up is because my family has gone through a serious tragedy recently, which includes someone I knew ending up dead, with a family member being arrested (not my husband or kids), with my testimony against them helping lead to their arrest, and with people sending death threats to anyone who knew the person who caused the death. (You people are sick! Truly sick! To take out your pathetic anger on people who had nothing to do with this and who were traumatized themselves through everything that happened! Sick, pathetic, ignorant psychos!) And at the same time the arrest happened, I found out that my ex-step-father - the man who was the most dad I ever had, whom I haven't seen in 14 years - is in prison for drug trafficking.
And I am waiting for the day that someone like our dogmatic Calvinist pastor from our ex-church hears about it and then calls us up to express their sympathy.
And I am going to have to bite my tongue so hard. Because what I'm going to want to say is "But why would you feel bad about this for me? I thought your Calvi-god caused this to happen. As a Calvinist, you believe your Calvi-god predestined that the person died in this horrible way, that it was Calvi-god's 'Plan A' for that person's life, that he never had anything else in store for them than this tragedy. You believe that your Calvi-god caused the other person to do what they did, exactly the way they did it. For his glory. You believe that Calvi-god caused all this to happen exactly as it did, ruining so many people's lives, because he wanted it to happen for his glory, for our good, and to keep us humble. You should be praising Calvi-god for all of this, not feeling sorry for me. So you can take your sympathy and shove it where the sun don't shine!"
Of course, I wouldn't say this, but I would want to. And that's why my tongue would be bleeding from biting it so hard. I would just so badly want for them to realize the real-world implications of their beliefs, when seen in light of extreme, real-world circumstances, of a horrible situation that has horrible consequences. To be a Calvinist means to believe Calvi-god deliberately causes all of this for his glory, that nothing different could have happened, that he never wanted anything other than a tragic death for that young person, that he caused the other person to do what they did and they couldn't have done anything differently, and that all of the pain this inflicted on my family was preplanned and caused by Calvi-god, for his glory, for our good, and to keep us humble.
So ... praise Calvi-god that he's in control and that he gets glory through it all.
(If that's God "in control," I'd hate to see God out of control! If that's what God's care looks like, I'd hate to see when He's uncaring!)
Save your freakin' sympathy, Calvinists! It means nothing!
(Instead of feeling sorry for me, maybe you should take some time to examine your frickin' destructive, satanic theology, and what you believe about our holy, righteous, good God. Are you willing to stand before Him and defend your sick, twisted Calvinist view of Him?
That's enough of my story for now. I might not speak of this ever again. But it's very fitting right now, when looking at this issue.]
And it's not just "ordains." Whenever a Calvinist uses these words or phrases about God, what they're really saying is that "God preplans and causes everything that happens": ordains, decrees, foreknowledge, foresight, plans, wills/willed, omnipotence, omniscience, sovereign, sovereignty, controls, God "agrees" to it, God "allows" it, God "knew" it would happen, God "understood" what would happen, God is "in control," etc.
They never mean that He just "allows" something to happen (because then He wouldn't fit their view of "sovereign," which is "He has to actively control all things or else He's not God.").
They always mean that He predestined it to happen and caused it to happen exactly the way it happened, and that nothing different could have happened.
(Can you see, though, how a verse like 1 Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I [God] had determined should die.''"
would defeat their theology!)
Everything always comes back to "God preplans/causes everything that happens," even if they're trying to make it sound like they're saying that God simply "allows" what happens.
A classic Calvinist tactic, which I will come back to again and again to cement it in your mind because it's foundational to their theology, is to say "God allows us to sin, to carry out the evil desires that are in our hearts." But what they really mean is "God allows us to do the sins He predestined for us (and we could never choose anything differently), to carry out the evil desires that are in our hearts - evil desires that came with the 'sin nature' He predetermined we would have. The 'sin nature' comes only with the desire to do evil and to sin all the time, and you cannot change the nature you have because God Himself predestines which nature we get, and so if He gave you the 'sin nature' you will only have sinful desires and you can only act according to those sinful desires. God 'allows' you to do the sins that result from the sinful desires that came with the sin-nature He predestined you to have, just as He preplanned everything to happen long ago. And if you get the 'sin nature' you can never want to obey Him or do good because you weren't given the nature that comes with those good desires." And yet Calvinists will insist that this is truly mankind "having a choice, making their own decisions, being accountable for their sins." It's messed up! It really is! But this is what Calvinists mean when they say that God 'allows' us to sin and make decisions, that we are 'responsible' for our choices!
In fact, they will do their best to hide their belief that God causes sin (to the point of even convincing themselves that it’s not what they’re really saying) by wrapping it in layers of “truth,” saying things like “There are two causes of sin. God is the proximate/ultimate source of sin, but we are the remote/secondary source of sin. And we willingly choose to carry out the sin that God ordains for us. And so therefore, we are really responsible for our sin, and so God is totally just in punishing us for it.” (Even though Calvi-god preplanned our sin long ago and we couldn’t have done it any differently!)
"We don't have to know how it all works out, but we have to believe it because the Bible teaches both God's sovereignty and mankind's responsibility. We don’t have to like or understand this teaching; we just have to accept it." This is how my Calvinist pastor puts it. (And yet no one stops to question his definition of sovereignty.)
They go to great lengths to hide the fact that Calvi-god causes sin, to make it sound like he's not really responsible for our sin when he really is, because they know they can't accuse God of sin. And so they come up with all sorts of convoluted ways to put the blame on us and not on Him.
(You could sit under a Calvinist pastor for years and not really know it. Because they are so good at disguising their beliefs and appearing to back up everything they say with Scripture. And they are usually powerful, dynamic, bold speakers who sway the congregation with their zeal and knowledge and confidence. See "How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist.")
Calvinism is nothing less than a slippery, slithery, evil theology!
To tell you the truth: It's exhausting. It really is. Figuring out what a Calvinist is really saying behind the layers they cover it up with.
But you have to realize that talking with dogmatic, educated Calvinists is like talking with pathological liars who spin everything they say, who never really mean what they say or say what they mean, who tell you what you want to hear to suck you in more and make you believe them, who have many different tactics to manipulate you (from “This IS what the Bible says” to “I’m just teaching right from Scripture” to “Humble people have no trouble accepting what I’m teaching” to “Who are you to talk back to God or to try to understand these mysteries?”, etc.), who are really good at the old "bait and switch" routine to get you to bite onto one small truth so that you swallow whole the enormous lie hidden inside, who can backpedal out of almost any jam, and who know how to skillfully weave together bits of Scripture (always taken out of context) to "support" their views, etc.
This is why I say “DO NOT go to a Calvinist for answers to your concerns about Calvinism!” If you are not prepared with your own research into Scripture and if you are not aware of their tactics, you WILL come out the other end a Calvinist!
[See this post and that post and one more for more on that. And check out the comment section of just about any post from Soteriology 101 - try this one and that one and this other one and one more - to see how this plays out in conversations between Calvinists and non-Calvinists. FYI, a couple of the dogmatic Calvinists are rhutchin and jtleosala. It's eye-opening! And yes, the Heather in the comment section is me. Unless there's another one I don't know about.]
(For all the posts in this series, see the "Intro ..." Or look for "'Calvinist Bad Logic' Series" in the labels on the side-bar. Or find the whole series in one post, "When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians.")
