Exposing Calvinism: Abuse, Sin, and God's "Sovereignty"

 Here are some interactions between Calvinists and non-Calvinists from the Soteriology 101 post Calvinism and Pastoral Care, a post about how Calvinist pastors cannot really offer true help or comfort to hurting people because they ultimately believe God is responsible for whatever tragedy or sin hurt the person to begin with, that He caused it for His glory and pleasure.  I like to copy quotes like these from Soteriology 101 because they are very informative, showing you Calvinist nonsense/deception in action and some helpful responses from non-Calvinists.  I will add some notes to these, some extra comments, to help uncover what Calvinists really mean.  (And I did make minor corrections for clarity or better grammar/punctuation.) 

 

 

Fromoverhere (non-Calvinist) says:

It is a true pastoral story, summarized here: 

The crying couple is in the Reformed (Calvinist) pastor’s office.  She is weeping that the husband has been cheating with her sister for years.  The husband confesses.  The pastor says it is not good. 

The husband tells the pastor that he (the pastor) has been teaching for years on the (Calvinistic) “sovereign will of God.”  God decrees/ordains/wills all things that happen. 

The reformed pastor tries, in the midst of the sobbing, to explained that it was not God’s “will of command,” even though, it must have been, hmmm, curiously enough, God’s “ordained decree” (a bumpy few sessions, as you can imagine, with the husband reminding the pastor of previous messages). 

For a Calvinist, all that has happened and will happen is directly ordained and decreed by God.  As long as one holds to that position, then ultimately all sin and misery are directly the responsibility of God.  Of course for “His glory” and “your own good” (what a thoughtful husband to do all that for his wife’s ultimate good!).

 

[My note: Or as my Calvinist pastor preached from the pulpit one day, “Everything that happened to you … even childhood abuse … was ordained by God, it was His Plan A for your life, for His glory, for your good, and because He knew what needed to happen to humble you.”  Just how in the world then would he ever be able to tell the abuser that what he did was wrong, that God didn’t want him to do that?  How in the world would he ever be able to comfort the victim, to encourage the victim that God didn’t want this to happen to them, that He wants the best for them, that He’s a good, loving God who can still be trusted?  In–freakin’–sanity!  Oh, don’t get me started!]

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In an unrelated string of comments, Rhutchin (strong Calvinist) says:

God also understood the intents of the heart, and it is those intents that precluded anyone choosing other than what God knew they would choose – God did not coerce anyone to sin against their will.  

My reply to Rhutchin:

Well, of course Calvi-god “understood” the evil intents of the heart … because he’s the one who created them with those evil intentions and prevented them from having good intentions.  And of course Calvi-god doesn’t “coerce” anyone to sin against their will … because he gave them their sinful wills that gave them their sinful desires (and so all they could want to choose was sin), and he prevented them from having “regenerated” wills that desire to do good and obey him.  This only confirms that Calvi-god is really responsible for the sinful condition and choices of sinful men.

Then Rhutchin (Calvinist) agrees, but only when I exposed what he really meant:

Heather writes, “Well, of course Calvi-god ‘understood’ the evil intents of the heart … because he’s the one who created them with those evil intentions and prevented them from having good intentions.”

Yes.  God imposed Adam’s judgment onto his descendants so that all are born with hard hearts and without faith.  The hardness of heart is undone by the new birth, and faith is conveyed to the newborn through the hearing of the gospel.

Then, “And of course Calvi-god doesn’t ‘coerce’ anyone to sin against their will … because he gave them their sinful wills that gave them their sinful desires, and he prevented them from having ‘regenerated’ wills that desire to do good and obey him.  This only confirms that Calvi-god is really responsible for the sinful condition and choices of sinful men.”

Yes.  However, God holds people responsible for the intents of their hearts …  

[My note: So Rhutchin says God holds people responsible for the intents of their heart … even though he just agreed with me that God gave them their sinful wills (forcing them to want evil and sin)  and prevented them from having regenerated wills (so they could never want God or want to obey or do good), which confirms that Calvi-god is really responsible for the sinful condition and choices of men.  And yet Calvi-god holds us responsible for it, for what he caused.  Do you know how my Calvinist pastor explains the apparent contradiction here?  "We can't understand it, so we just have to accept it."  Yeah, that fixes it!  And do you see how much more honest Rhutchin is about what he really means/believes when he's pushed/challenged, but how he worded it so deceptively at first to make it sound like “free-will”?  He is a true Calvinist, through and through.]

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Rhutchin asks (in another comment):

“So, what do you propose – telling people that truly horrible circumstance are outside God’s control or that He is unable to bring good from them or that He has no purpose for them?”

My reply:

[Not part of my reply: Apparently, in Calvinism, it's so much better to have a God who preplans and causes sin, evil, abuse - after telling us not to do it - than to have a God who simply allows people to make their own bad decisions (and consequently, to have a God who punishes us for what He forces us to do than to have one who punishes us for our own free-will, self-chosen sins).  Because at least it shows that God is "in control" over all, even sin and evil.  Does that sound like a God who's good and holy and trustworthy?  One who is worthy of respect and honor and glory?  Listen to mega-Calvinist James White trying to defend the Calvinist idea that God causes the rape of children because if He didn't then it has no meaning or purpose, but if He did then it has meaning and purpose.  So he'd rather have a God who causes "meaningful rape" than have a God who just allows meaningless rape to happen. Sickening!  And what an attack on the character of God!  Now onto my reply ...]  

It’s not a problem to say that God is in control over all (in that He watches over things, decides what to allow or what to not allow, determines how to use what happens, etc.), that He allows bad things and can use the bad things He allows for His purposes, and that He can bring good out of bad.  This is biblical.  And this is a God who can still be trusted.

But it is a problem for Calvinist theology to say that God ordains (preplans, causes) abuse, evil, sin.  That He causes sin/evil for His purposes.  That He commands us not to do evil things but then causes us to do them.  This makes God the planner/causer of the evil He says He hates and forbids us to do.  And then He turns around and punishes people for what He causes them to do.  This is a horrible assault on the character of God.  And it turns Him into a God who can’t be trusted at all.

Your comment is a sneaky misrepresentation of what Calvinism really teaches at the heart of its theology.  Calvinist theology is not just “God is in control over all and can work good out of bad and can use bad things for His purposes,” as you lead people to believe with your comment.  Calvinist theology is “God PREPLANS and CAUSES the horrible circumstances (sin, abuse, evil, etc.) and that we never had a chance to do otherwise because He controls all we do, and then He punishes us for the things He causes us to do when we never really had a choice.”  Big, big difference!

Non-Calvinists praise God IN SPITE OF sin and evil, and they believe God can be glorified even in horrible situations.

Calvinists praise God FOR sin and evil, and they believe God causes sin and evil for His glory.

Rhutchin replies (essentially agreeing with my assessment of Calvinism):

Heather writes, “It’s not a problem to say that God is in control over all….that He allows bad things and can use the bad things He allows for His purposes, …But it is a problem for Calvinist theology to say that God ordains (preplans, causes) abuse, evil, sin….”

There is no difference between God “allows” and God “ordains.”  When God allows anything, He does so after the counsel of His will.  That which God “allows” is that which God decides (or ordains) is to happen.  When evil events occur, it is because God made a decision after the counsel of His will to “allow” it to happen.  This does not mean that God forced the child rapist to rape a child, but that God made a decision not to stop the child rapist thereby “allowing” the child rapist to act as he desired.  [My note: Calvinists can say God doesn't "force" someone to commit a sin because the chain (in Calvinism) goes something like this: God predetermines which nature you get and forces you to have it (the sinful/unregenerated one that the non-elect get or the regenerated one that the elect get) ... then your nature determines which desires you have (the sinful nature contains only the desire to sin, but the regenerated one contains the desire to seek God, obey God, do good) ... then your desires determine which action you "want" to do ... and then you "choose" to do what you "want" to do (and you can only "choose" to do what your desires tell you to choose, and so if you can only desire to sin because of your sin-nature then you will only and always be able to "choose" to sin, because your God-determined nature doesn't contain the desires to do good or to obey Him).  See?  So Calvi-god doesn't "force" you to sin; He just gave you the sin-nature that forced you to sin.  There, problem solved (so says the Calvinist)!  And FYI: In Calvinism, the terms “after the counsel of His Will, decides, ordains, allows, decrees, decided not to stop, God foreknew, God understood, etc.” all mean the same thing: preplanned, caused, carried out by God, and nothing different could have happened because we had no ability to choose any differently.  We were “forced” to do what God predetermined we would do.]

God is the ultimate cause of all evil because God created the world with the understanding that evil events would occur, and He would do nothing to stop them.  God also decreed that Adam’s sin would result in the corruption of Adam’s descendants and that God would not instill faith in a person until they heard the gospel.  The person is the immediate cause of his actions, and responsible, because he desires to do evil, and the evil he does to others are not the things he wants done to himself.  [My note: By “immediate cause,” Calvinists mean we are the puppets doing the action, even though God is the ultimate cause, the puppet-master.  And by “desires to do evil” they mean that God gave us our sin-nature which contains only the desire to sin, which means we can only choose to sin.  But since we “desired” to do it – even though God essentially gave us a magic potion (the sin-nature) that made us only want to sin – we are responsible for it because we “wanted” to sin.  Even though that’s all we could do.  And Calvinists call this “making our own choices, doing what we want to do, and deserving the punishment for doing it.”  The Calvinist version of “free-will”: Being forced to “desire” to do - and consequently, “freely choosing” to do - the one and only thing God predetermined we would do.  Nonsense and insanity!]

Then, “Calvinist theology is 'God PREPLANS and CAUSES the horrible circumstances (sin, abuse, evil, etc.) and that we never had a chance to do otherwise because He controls all we do, and then He punishes us for the things He causes us to do when we never really had a choice.'”

This is because God has infinite understanding and understood all that would happen when He created the world.  [My note: He’s agreeing with me about what Calvinism really teaches, the things they usually try to hide until and unless they are cornered and forced to admit it.  And in Calvinism, it's not just "God understood" what would happen; it's God understood what He predetermined would happen and then He caused it to happen.]  It was God’s decision to restrain some sin and not restrain other sin.  [My note: He says “restrained,” to make it sound like he's saying that people actually have choices about their sin, as if God simply “lets it happen.”  It's a Calvinist deception to hide what they really mean, to make it sound more “free-will” than it is.]  If God did not preplan and cause (ordain) everything that was to happen in the world then God would not have a perfect understanding of His creation.  Is it your belief that God does not have perfect understanding of His creation?  [My note: A straw-man argument, suggesting that I am saying something I am not saying, to discredit my views.]

Br.d. (non-Calvinist) replies:

Heather says: Your comment is a sneaky misrepresentation of what Calvinism really teaches at the heart of its theology.

Rhutchin says: There is no difference between God “allows” and God “ordains.”

Br.d says: AH!  But here is an example of Calvinism’s DOUBLE-SPEAK language.  Calvinism has two very radically different meanings for the term’s “allow” and “permit”.  In the standard English language, the terms “allow” and “permit” are NON CAUSAL.  This is the standard meaning for these terms.  However, Calvinism has created its own unique secondary meaning for these terms.  [My note: And most other terms too.  That’s how they trap well-meaning Christians into Calvinism.]  When it comes to human-divine relations, “allow” and “permit” (in Calvinism) are used as replacement terms for CAUSE.  Calvin’s god only permits what Calvin’s god renders-certain.  Nothing more and nothing less is permitted or made available to the creature.  Thus, Calvinism’s ad-hoc meaning – making “allow” and “permit” CAUSAL is classified as INSIDER LANGUAGE unique to Calvinism.

Where the dishonesty comes into play:

99% of the time, Calvinists in public forums are very careful to frame their statements using the terms “allow” or “permit” in such a way as to guarantee non-Calvinists are misled into assuming the standardized meaning for these terms.

While the Calvinist quietly and secretly holds to a CAUSAL meaning.

So when the Calvinist says “god ordains every sin and evil, ” what he means is “god CAUSES every sin and evil.”

My reply:

Right on, Br.d., about everything you said…

Rhutchin himself revealed (unwittingly?) what Calvinists really mean when they say “allows,” even though it appears to the untrained eye to mean what we all think it does, that God permits something to happen but didn’t cause/plan/force it.  Notice what he said after saying there is no difference between “allows” and “ordains”:

“When God allows anything, He does so after the counsel of His will.  That which God ‘allows’ is that which God decides (or ordains) is to happen.  When evil events occurs, it is because God made a decision after the counsel of His will to ‘allow’ it to happen.  This does not mean that God forced the child rapist to rape a child, but that God made a decision not to stop the child rapist thereby ‘allowing’ the child rapist to act as he desired.”

So as Rhutchin apparently confirms, Calvi-god first makes the decisions about what will happen and then he “allows” people to do what he decided they would do.  Calvi-god only “allows” what he first decided would happen.  People can only do what Calvi-god decided would happen, nothing else.  It’s impossible for them to make any other choice or carry out any other action than what Calvi-god first decided would happen.  A clear example of “force,” even though Calvinists deny it.

It’s one thing for God to decide to allow us to make bad choices; it’s another thing for Him to first decide what bad choices we will make and then to “allow” us to do them.  So while Calvinists deny that God “forces” someone to rape a child, what they really believe (at the heart of it) is that Calvi-god first decided that the rape would happen, then he worked out the circumstances to cause the person to rape the child just like he planned.  Not to mention that Calvi-god first gave that person the “sinner nature” which comes only with evil desires, so that the person could never choose to do good or to change their nature (which means they cannot change their desires, they are “forced” to only want to do evil and to sin all the time.)  The person could only choose to follow the evil desires that came with the sinner-nature Calvi-god gave them.  Layers upon layers of “force.”

Ultimately, the person had no choice but to carry out the rape because that’s what Calvi-god first decided would happen before he “allowed” them to do it.  (And – duh! - of course he decided not to stop it.  Because he’s the one who first decided it’s what he wanted to have happen and because he worked circumstances out to make sure it his plans got done!)  It doesn’t matter if Calvinists call it “force” or not; that’s exactly what it is!

The scary thing is that Calvinist revere this kind of a god!  They fiercely defend him.  They elevate him as holy, good, righteous, and gracious, despite all the evil he plans and causes.  And they see nothing wrong with it.  Or at the very least, they are shamed into not admitting that they see anything wrong with it, for fear of “talking back to God” and being “unhumble,” as other Calvinists would accuse them of.

Rhutchin replies:

Heather writes, ‘It’s one thing for God to decide to allow us to make bad choices; it’s another thing for Him to first decide what bad choices we will make and then to “allow” us to do them.”

When God created the world, He understood that Adam would eat the fruit when the fruit was presented to him by Eve.  God also understood that He could stop Adam in his tracks and keep Adam from eating the fruit.  Paul refers to the “…eternal purpose which God accomplished in Christ Jesus…”  [My note: Notice the “God understood Adam would eat the fruit,” which means “preplanned and caused” in Calvinism.  And it’s nonsense when Calvinists say “God understood He could stop Adam,” because even though God understood He could stop it, He never intended to stop it because He pre-planned and caused Adam’s sin all along, according to Calvinism.  Saying that “God understood He could stop a sin but didn’t” is a way for Calvinists to make it seem like Adam really had a choice, when he didn’t, as if God just “let it happen,” when He really preplanned it and caused it to happen (in Calvinism).  It’s a Calvinist trick to keep you from noticing their foundational belief that God preplans, causes, forces all sins that happen.  They have layers and layers of deceptive, rambling gobbledygook to cover this up.  It’s how they trap you.]

We have the promises to Abraham, the prophecies, and the promises to believers.  All this indicates that God had a plan and that plan included Adam eating the fruit, David committing adultery, Christ being crucified, Paul being confronted on the road to Damascus, etc.  We have seen God’s plan working out ever since He created the world.  That plan, developed according to the counsel of His will, incorporates all the desires of people from the creation onward.  [My note: No!  In Calvinism, that plan doesn’t just “incorporate” our desires; it “preplans, causes, controls” our desires.  Another Calvinist trick to make it sound more “free-will” than it is!]  That plan does not require that God make choices for people but it provides for God to limit the choices available to people (e.g., the brothers of Joseph were not allowed to kill Joseph).  [My note: “That plan doesn’t require that God make choices for people” … but that’s exactly what He does anyway, in Calvinist theology, even if it’s not “required.”  Another trick.]

Unless you want to help br.d try to argue against God having infinite understanding, then you can moan and groan like br.d but never accomplish anything constructive in building toward an alternative explanation.  You, like br.d, are unable to describe any God but that God described in the Scriptures – unless you mean to deny the God of the Scriptures – and the God of the Scriptures has infinite understanding and it is from that infinite understanding that God created the universe and knows all future events in His creation with absolute certainty as well as the influences necessary to bring that future to pass.

My reply to Rhutchin:

Rhutchin: “All this indicates that God had a plan and that plan included Adam eating the fruit,…”

Yes, but the difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists would be that non-Calvinists would say that God knew Adam would sin and that He made a way to redeem it, to work it into His plans [or maybe better yet “to work His plans around it”] … whereas Calvinists would say that God preplanned and caused Adam (and people in general) to sin, that Adam never had the choice to do any differently, and that God then punishes people for the things He preplanned and caused them to do.

That’s a big difference!  [In one, God makes plans knowing what people will choose to do … and in the other, God plans what people will choose to do.  Big difference because one makes man responsible for his sin and the other makes God responsible for man’s sin.]

Rhutchin says “When God created the world, He understood that Adam would eat the fruit when the fruit was presented to him by Eve.  God also understood that He could stop Adam in his tracks and keep Adam from eating the fruit.”

But here it is again, as Calvinism really teaches it: “When God created the world, He understood that Adam would eat the fruit when the fruit was presented to him by Eve … BECAUSE CALVI-GOD HIMSELF PLANNED THAT IT WOULD HAPPEN AND CAUSED IT TO HAPPEN, SO – DUH – OF COURSE HE ‘UNDERSTOOD’ IT WOULD HAPPEN.  God also understood that He could stop Adam in his tracks and keep Adam from eating the fruit … BUT EVEN THOUGH GOD KNEW HE COULD STOP IT IF HE WANTED TO, IT WAS NEVER HIS PLAN TO STOP IT BECAUSE HE PREDESTINED/CAUSED IT TO HAPPEN.”

Big difference!

Rhutchin says: “We have seen God’s plan working out ever since He created the world.  That plan, developed according to the counsel of His will, incorporates all the desires of people from the creation onward.  That plan does not require that God make choices for people but it provides for God to limit the choices available to people (e.g., the brothers of Joseph were not allowed to kill Joseph).”

However, translated into true Calvinism, it’s “We have seen God’s plan working out ever since He created the world … BECAUSE CALVI-GOD PREPLANNED/CAUSED IT ALL TO HAPPEN THIS WAY.  CALVI-GOD DOESN’T JUST ‘CAUSE ALL THINGS TO WORK TOGETHER’ FOR HIS PLANS; HE ‘CAUSES ALL THINGS’ FOR HIS PLANS.”  (Big difference!)  “That plan, developed according to the counsel of His will (PREPLANNED BY HIM), incorporates all the desires of people from the creation onward (DESIRES THAT HE ESSENTIALLY GAVE THEM WHEN HE PREDETERMINED WHETHER THEY GOT THE SINNER-NATURE WHICH COMES ONLY WITH THE DESIRE TO SIN OR THE SAVED/REPENTENT NATURE WHICH COMES WITH THE DESIRE TO OBEY HIM AND DO GOOD).  That plan does not require that God make choices for people (BECAUSE HE SIMPLY “ALLOWS” THEM ACT OUT THE DESIRES THAT CAME WITH THE NATURE HE GAVE THEM, DESIRES THEY CAN’T CHANGE AND THAT THEY HAVE TO OBEY BECAUSE HE GAVE THEM NO OTHER CHOICE)… ”

You (Rhutchin) are always trying to find “common ground” with non-Calvinists, making it seem like we are speaking the same language.  But anyone who thinks about it can see that there are huge differences between what non-Calvinists say and what Calvinists say, and that there are huge differences between what Calvinists appear to say and what they are really saying.

I’m not saying any of this for Rhutchin’s sake because it would be futile to do that (arguing with a dogmatic Calvinist is like trying to wrestle a greased pig; they’ll wriggle and wriggle in any way they can to keep you from getting a grip on them), but I’m saying all this for others who are reading and who want to know the difference between what Calvinists say and what they really mean.

And one last thing Rhutchin says: “… then you can moan and groan like br.d but never accomplish anything constructive in building toward an alternative explanation….”

Moaning and groaning and never accomplishing anything constructive … all because Calvi-god “ordained” it and caused it and gets glory from it!  Hallelujah!

Rhutchin replies:

Heather writes, “the difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists would be that non-Calvinists would say that God knew Adam would sin and that He made a way to redeem it, to work it into His plans”

OK.  Yet God knew this before He created the world, and God worked it into His plan before He created the world.  [My note: No!  In Calvinism, God didn’t “work it into His plan.”  He preplanned it from the beginning as His “Plan A.”  Calvinist deception!]  So, when God created the world, He knew Adam would eat the fruit and God had already provided a way for redemption in Christ who was to be born much later.  [My note: Calvinist deception!  In Calvinism, God didn’t just foreknow that Adam would eat the fruit; He preplanned and caused Adam to eat the fruit.  You see, in Calvinism, “foreknew” and “preplanned/caused” are synonymous.  But they don’t tell you this upfront.  They say things like “foreknew” and “understood” to hide the “preplanned and caused.”  Calvinists know exactly what they are doing when they carefully use the words they do and hide the ones they mean.  They go to great lengths to hide - from others and from themselves - their belief that God causes and is responsible for sin.]

Then, “…. whereas Calvinists would say that God preplanned and caused Adam (and people in general) to sin, that Adam never had the choice to do any differently,”

God is said to have caused Adam to sin because God created the world with full knowledge that Adam would sin.  God is the first cause.  Then, if God had prevented Satan entering the garden, there would have been no deception of Eve and Adam would not have eaten the fruit.  So, by giving Satan free rein to enter the garden, God caused Eve to be deceived and then Adam to eat the fruit.  Then, God was present at the side of Eve and then Adam and had the power to prevent Eve being deceived and Adam eating the fruit but God did not, so again God is the cause of Eve being deceived and Adam eating the fruit.  The deception of Eve and sin of Adam was possible because God made them with limited knowledge and understanding.  Had God created Adam and Eve with greater knowledge and understanding, then Eve would not have been deceived and Adam would not have eaten the fruit.  So, again God is the cause.  However, God did not coerce Eve to be deceived nor Adam to eat the fruit.  [My note: Once again, Calvinists say God does not “coerce/force” people to sin, making it sound like “free will,” like they believe we “freely choose” to sin.  But what they mean is that Calvi-god doesn’t have to coerce/force someone to sin because they already “want” to sin … because Calvi-god gave them the sin-nature that is full of only sinful desires, and so they are just “following their desires” (desires which were predetermined by Calvi-god).  Therefore, Calvi-god doesn’t have to “coerce/force” them to sin.  He simply gives them a magic potion – the sin-nature, full of only sinful desires – that makes them “want” to sin and “choose” to sin, even though that’s all they could want and choose.  But that’s apparently not “coercing/forcing” in Calvinism.  Yeah, right, whatever!  So deceptive!]  Thus, Adam and Eve, were the immediate causes [the puppets] of their misfortune granting that the limitations with which they were created contributed to their wrong choices.  So, in the end we can say that Adam and Eve really had no choice to act differently.  (We can say the same thing about the Assyrians of Isaiah 10, Judas, Paul, etc.)  Yet, Adam knew what God had commanded and the intent of his heart was to disobey God.  For that he was judged.  [My note: Adam “knew” what God commanded … and yet was prevented (by Calvi-god) from obeying, having been given sinful intentions (from Calvi-god) to disobey what was commanded … and for that he was judged.  For being made unable to obey, for being forced (by Calvi-god) to break his commands.  Insanity!]

Then, “EVEN THOUGH GOD KNEW HE COULD STOP IT IF HE WANTED TO, IT WAS NEVER HIS PLAN TO STOP IT BECAUSE HE PREDESTINED/CAUSED IT TO HAPPEN.”

So, are you claiming that God didn’t know that Adam would eat the fruit and that was not part of His plan?  Earlier, you said, “non-Calvinists would say that God knew Adam would sin and that He made a way to redeem it, to work it into His plans.”  Does this mean that God did not have a plan that included Adam eating the fruit or that God only came to know that Adam would eat the fruit when Adam actually ate the fruit?  [My note: Look at how Calvinists try to straw-man you.  To make you sound like you’re saying something you’re not so that they can tear it down.  To try to trap you into only the options they want to give you.]

Then, “anyone who thinks about it can see that there are huge differences between what non-Calvinists say and what Calvinists say, and that there are huge differences between what Calvinists appear to say and what they are really saying.”

In this case, it appears to me that we are saying the same thing using different words.  We both seem to agree that God knew, before He created the world, that Adam would eat the fruit and that God, knowing this, planned to provide redemption through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection.  We seem to agree on the basics.  I don’t understand your complaint against Calvinism given your seeming agreement on the basic issues.

[My note: No matter how much we explain the differences between his view and ours, he cannot seem to see or admit the biggest difference of all, the one that makes all the difference about what kind of a God we believe in.  (If they can get you to think we are all saying the same thing, then they can suck you into their side.)  But the biggest difference is this: Rhutchin (Calvinists) believe God preplanned Adam’s sin and “caused/forced” Adam to sin to fulfill His plans, that Adam had no ability to make any other decision, and that God will then punish Adam for the sin He preplanned/caused … whereas non/anti-Calvinists, like myself, say that God gave Adam real choices and real free-will, that Adam chose to sin without God’s “help,” that God knew from the beginning that Adam would choose to sin and so He preplanned how to work Adam’s sin into His plans and how to redeem mankind and our fallen world, that God doesn’t cause us to do what He tells us not to do or prevent us from doing what He tells us to do, and that if God punishes us for the sins we commit, it’s because we truly deserve it because we chose to do them of our own free-will when we could have chosen to obey instead.  No matter how much we push Rhutchin on this, he refuses to see the difference, the problem, how Calvinism completely twists and destroys God’s nature and the gospel and our responsibility.  Educated, dogmatic Calvinists are experts at taking you round and round in convoluted circles until you’re so exhausted you just give up or give in.]

In response to the Calvinist idea that God’s foreknowledge of what will happen is essentially the same thing as Him preplanning/causing it to happen, Steve Sabin (non-Calvinist) says:

[Calvinists] make the fundamental error of equating knowledge with causation.  They are not the same and this is easily proven.  We can possess with absolute certainty knowledge of things from the past.  Like what day the US Civil War ended.  Or who the president was at the time.  But we did not cause such things.  We weren’t even born.  God can likewise know the future without causing/decreeing each microscopic detail and choice.  He is omniscient and omnipresent.  Knows all and sees all and is present throughout all time and space without decreeing every thought and choice, but rather creating entities with limited autonomy to chart their own course, free of absolute coercion.  That course can include evil.  Created beings are the authors of sin and in that sense possess creative powers.  Problem solved.

As to omnipotence, God did not stop all of the evil because this is an inescapable consequence of letting people choose good or its absence.  This concept is present from almost the first chapter of the Bible and Calvinism gets it wrong.  The errors start compounding from there.  God does not extend freedom but then renege on it the moment we use that freedom to displease Him.  In His justice and omnipotence He enforces consequences for those choices – but He does not remove the choices.  This theme is absolutely central to the Bible.  Coerced love is not love.  Coerced obedience is not freely-given obedience.  Omnipotence means nothing is too hard for Him – not that everything is allowable for Him or that He must do everything of which He is capable.  He cannot lie.  He cannot be unfaithful.  He cannot be the author of sin.  And although He could decree every action, He cannot do so while simultaneously decreeing free-will for created beings.  I thus have no problem whatsoever with the problem of evil.  It is a consequence of choice, the absence of good.  Because Calvinists butcher the concept of sovereignty so brutally, they believe they can make God the author of everything, but just append verbiage like “except sin” and claim tidy closure.

“There, problem solved,” they say.  “The snow is white, but not in such a way that it is white.”  ”It’s raining outside, but not in such a way that it is raining.”  What is incredible is the number of people who actually maintain the cognitive dissonance that such statements entail.

Mrteebs (non-Calvinist) comments:

I sense that as we dig deeper into the practical implications/horrors of Calvinism — with articles such as “Calvinism and Pastoral Care” — we are going to see the likes of rhutchin dig inescapable holes from which there is no climbing out with clever feints and double-speak.

They will be forced to admit that Calvinism presents us with a God who decrees infants to hell without so much as batting an eye.  Because “sovereignty” [as Calvinists define it: God actively preplans/controls everything, even sin, or else He’s not God].

A God who has children burned alive in the womb with saline.  Because sovereignty.

Who has serial killers dismembering and torturing victims.  Because sovereignty.

Who has men sleeping with their sister-in-laws and destroying their wives and families.  Because sovereignty.

Who has psychopathic mothers drowning their children in bathtubs.  Because sovereignty.

Calvinism makes God the author of sin, notwithstanding the ridiculously contradiction-laden language of the Westminster Confession.

The more I study this contorted doctrine of demons, the more disgusted I become with it.  I just had two men over for dinner tonight and the discussion turned to our local Calvinist congregation.  The pastor’s son labors under a cloud of guilt and depression because constant reminders of sovereignty and week after week of doctrinal browbeating results in – wait for it – a complete absence of joy, peace, and serenity.  Who knew?  The leader of our men’s group is a former Calvinist from that very church. His observation: no joy.  Arguing and teaching doctrine is considered meat, not milk, and the highest calling of the Calvinist to spread and defend the “doctrines of grace” as the true gospel delivered once for all — oops, I mean once for all THE ELECT.

The common denominator all three of us see is an absence of joy in these Calvinist believers.  They constantly pit sovereignty against love, and love always loses.  God’s character always takes a backseat to his sovereignty.  There is no joy in their salvation, they are simply coerced participants in a cosmic play where every line has already been written.

Br.d. writes:

THE TIGHTROPE OF CALVINISM – A THEOLOGY OF GOOD-EVIL

The process of walking a tightrope involves maintaining a constant balance.  At one instance in time, the rope will shift to the left, threatening one’s fall.  This requires a counter compensating movement, of shifting one’s body weight.

However, if one’s compensating movement is excessive, the rope will naturally respond by shifting to the opposite direction.  And this will require another counter compensating movement, in order to retain balance.  And so, back and forth it goes.

Calvinist language is readily observed as having this characteristic.  The shifting back and forth, in this case, is the shifting between conceptions of good and conceptions of evil.  Between divine malevolence, and divine benevolence.

This is because – in Calvinism good and evil are co-equal, co-necessary, and co-complimentary.

Just as the back-and-forth movements of the tightrope in two antithetical directions are co-equal, co-necessary, and co-complimentary.

This is the reason why Calvinist language is so characterized by equivocations, obfuscations, semantic illusions, semantic masquerades, half-truths presented as the whole truth, eulogizations, amphibolies, and amorphisms.

This back and forth motion between divine good and divine evil, divine benevolence and divine malevolence, which in Calvinism are co-equal in nature, as well as co-equal in degree.

So, this the characteristic nature of Calvinist language.

It makes perfect sense – why observers of Calvinist language – have perennially labeled it Double-Speak.