Calvinist (Bad Logic) Comment #5: We Can Trust A Controlling God

5.  A Calvinist says:  
“That being said why would anyone trust in God who isn’t in control of all things that come to pass, the only way to have unreserved faith without doubt is to pray, hope and believe in God who is on the throne.”

[My note:  Of course, all Christians believe that God is on the throne.  But what he means - what Calvinists mean - is "Why would anyone trust a God who isn't actively controlling all things?"  Like Calvinist James White basically says in this clip, we supposedly can trust and have faith only if we know that God is controlling all those evil things, such as child rape.  But if they happen without God causing them, then they are supposedly meaningless evils and we would be left in despair knowing that meaningless evils can happen outside of God's "control."

Umm ... yeah ... so instead it's SO MUCH BETTER to believe that we have a God who actively causes us to sin in ways He forbids and that He punishes us for those sins He causes than to think that He simply allows people to make their own bad choices!?!  And that's the kind of God we are supposed to trust, love, and want to spend eternity with!?!  Frickin' insane!

Calvinism: "I know there's horrible abuses going on this world and murders and evil, but at least you can take comfort in knowing that God caused them to happen.  But that He'll punish them for it.  We don’t have to understand it or like it; we just have to accept it.  Now, let's praise Him for His goodness and faithfulness, and let’s go out there and try to be more like Him!"

Not to mention that, ironically, in Calvinism, the only way a person can have "unreserved faith without doubt" is if God causes them to have it.  In Calvinism, nothing we do can affect the level or kind of faith we have - or even whether or not we have faith to begin with - because only God decides and controls that.  If we have doubts or weak faith, it's because God causes us to have doubts and weak faith, and there's nothing we can do about it.  If we fail to pray, it's because God preplanned and caused it.  Calvinism shoots itself in the foot, negating or compromising every instruction or bit of advice it gives.]

My reply:

I would say “How can anyone trust Calvi-god when he lies about what his true will is, causes people to sin and to do the opposite of what he commands, gives some people evanescent grace (fake salvation) so that he can more strongly damn them to hell, pretends to offer salvation to all and to give us a choice about it but then denies most people the chance to be saved, makes it sound like Jesus’s death paid for all sins when Calvi-Jesus really just died for a few people, tells us to seek him and believe in him when he knows we can’t seek him or believe in him unless he causes us to, creates most people specifically for hell because it somehow highlights his justice, grace, and love, etc.?”

If that’s God “in control,” I’d hate to see God out of control!

The problem is not with God and His sovereignty.  The problem is with the Calvinist view of God’s control, of His sovereignty.  The Calvinist assumes that in order for God to be in control, He has to always be controlling/causing everything all the time.  Or else He’s not God, according to their ideas of how God should be.

But it’s they who put their own presuppositions on God, who box Him in to how they think He has to be in order to be God.

But the Bible shows us a God who is “in control” and sovereign in a very different way.  The God of the Bible has chosen to work in cooperation with mankind in various ways.  He has chosen to give us real choices and to work our real decisions into His plans.  He sometimes causes things to happen and sometimes simply allows things to happen, but He is over and above it all, knowing how to work all things (even our choices, our self-chosen obedience or disobedience) into His plans.

Calvi-god is a small, weak god who can’t handle any other factors than what he himself causes.  But the God of the Bible is a very BIG, wise God who can work all things together for good, even things He doesn’t cause, the things He allows us to do.

(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.")