Derek, the 10-Point Calvinist!

This was part of another post ("When Calvinism's 'Bad Logic' Traps Good Christians"), but I wanted it to have its own:  

From the Soteriology 101 post “Are Calvinist’s Rebukes Rational?” comment section (with minor adjustments for clarity):

Derek, a self-proclaimed 10-point Calvinist (because 5-point Calvinism is so last year!) gives this reply to a non-Calvinist who challenged why Calvinists criticize things that happen if God Himself supposedly caused those things to happen:

“You ask: ‘Why do self-proclaimed Calvinists, like John MacArthur, rebuke others, like Beth Moore, and express disapproval and indignation against that which they believe God has unchangeably brought to pass for His own self-glorification?’

Simple answer (and this long article could have been concluded with it quickly): Because they believe their rebukes and expressions of concern are also ordained by God and glorifying to Him.  They do not separate the two.

As Calvinists, they love to glorify God and do what pleases Him.

Next …”

[Can't you just hear the "mic drop" in his attitude, in his "next..." as if he's saying "I demolished that argument, bring on another one!"  And he's basically just giving the old Calvinist answer of "God causes sin for His glory and then causes people to fight against sin for His glory," as if it's a logical, simple explanation and not an insane contradiction and an assault on God's character.  

If Calvinists can trap you with "Everything glorifies God, even sin and evil," then they can get you to agree with their idea that a good God can cause evil.  Because, after all, "He does everything for His glory.  He is the Potter and we are the clay.  And so who are we to disagree with however He chooses to get glory!?!"  

But just because God can turn bad things into good and get glory out of it somehow doesn't mean that He preplanned it and caused it to happen the way it did.  It just means He's wise enough to make something good out of the bad things we do.]

My reply to Derek:

Yes, just like Calvi-god “ordains” murder and abuse for his glory, and then he “ordains” that others are horrified by and fight against murder and abuse for his glory.  So therefore, both the evil and the actions against evil are equally glorifying to Calvi-god.  So then, what really is the difference between evil and good in Calvinism?

Answer: Nothing!

Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

John 8:44: "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

2 Corinthians 11:13-15: "For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.  It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness."

Also, you say “As Calvinists, they love to glorify God and do what pleases Him.”

I wouldn’t be too proud of that if I was a Calvinist because a Calvinist, according to their own theology, has no control over glorifying or pleasing Calvi-god.  They are only doing what Puppet-Master Calvi-god made his Calvinist-puppets do.  So they can’t really be said to “love it,” since they are only doing it and only loving it because they were “forced” to.

Besides, wouldn’t the actions of evil people who reject Calvi-god and fight against him also be equally glorifying to him and pleasing to him, since Calvi-god himself “ordained” their choices and actions for his glory?

You yourself said that Calvinists “do not separate the two,” that they see no difference between evil and the rebuke of evil [the opposite of evil].  Therefore, in Calvi-god’s eyes, there would also be no difference between the Calvinist who “loves” to glorify/please him and the wicked person who does not.  Because either way, Calvi-god is glorified, because he ordained it all to happen – for his pleasure and glory – just the way he wanted it to.

Next …

Graceadict (a fellow non-Calvinist) says:

Heather you hit the bull's eye when you posted this verse:

Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

Calvinism does this day and night, but then they think if they just declare “God is glorified by all this,” it covers over the evil declarations they have made against Holy, Loving God.  They profane the Holy name of God day and night, but think their declaration of "It Glorifies God” absolves them of blasphemy.  It does not.

Isaiah 5:20: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."

CHAPMANED24 (non-Calvinist) says:

Does God get angry?  Yes.  In the Calvinist world, why?  How can God get angry if both evil and good are for his own pleasure?  You’d think that God is ALWAYS HAPPY, and pleased, and satisfied, never angry, let alone being SLOW TO ANGER.

Nothing should get a Calvinist god angry.  The evil that happens was ordained by God to happen, right?  You’d think that the Calvin God would pat that evil person on the back, and say, “GOOD JOB MY FAITHFUL SERVANT, you murdered those people JUST LIKE I WROTE that you would!  I’m gonna nominate you for an academy award for your performance!  Thank you for not adlibbing!”

The 10-point Calvinist then responds to our comments:

The counter-arguments that are being presented here seem to be missing the point.  As a kind reminder (just assuming you have never been told, or have perhaps forgotten), mainstream Calvinism presents *both* of the following claims:

1. All events are determined by God.

2. Human decisions are made with a voluntary freedom that is both genuine and compatible with God’s determinations.

That is pretty simple and balanced, and represents an attempt to take all of Scripture seriously.

All of your counter-arguments are ignoring claim #2 and acting as if it is not a core component of Calvinism, and this results in repetitive “straw-man” argumentation, which, while certainly “fun” for you all to banter about (and hilarious for me to observe), FAILS to interact seriously with the *FULL* claims of Calvinism. …

As a very important side note: you may notice that I used the capital “G” when referring to God (and not to “Calvin’s god,” as has been oddly stated throughout the comments here).  He is the ONE AND ONLY GOD, in whom all true Christians believe, and who made everything that exists, period.

Calvinism claims HE, and not another, did something that only HE can do; if your “god” cannot do such things, I will happily return the favor and assign “him” (your god) a small “g,” since “he” does not actually exist.  My two cents: it would be better to interact charitably than to go further down that road.  Please give it some thought.

Along this line: Does Dr. Flowers believe, as the moderator here apparently does, that Calvinists worship a different God than Traditionalists?  If that is the case, he will essentially be saying Calvinists are not true believers.  It would be nice to have this point clarified because I will not want to waste any more time interacting with people who assume I am an unbeliever merely because I affirm the two points outlined above.  On the other hand, I will readily admit that your “straw-man” Calvinist “god” truly does not exist (not in mainstream Calvinist theology, not in the Bible, and certainly not in reality).

Again, though, is Soteriology 101 about open conversations between brothers and sisters (as Leighton led me to believe in our private email conversation long ago), or is it a launch pad for ungrounded assumptions and divisive attacks against fellow believers?  I would like to know.

My reply:

The 10-point Calvinist says:  “2. Human decisions are made with a voluntary freedom that is both genuine and compatible with God’s determinations. … All of your counter-arguments are ignoring claim #2 and acting as if it is not a core component of Calvinism …”

I say:  Ahh, yes, we know well this deceptive claim by Calvinists.  I won’t ignore it; I’ll address it.  We know that Calvinists call it “voluntary freedom” when, in reality (in Calvinism), a person can only “freely” make the choices that go with the nature that CALVI-gOD gave them.

(I will NOT call Calvi-god “God,” because that would be a terrible character assault on the true God of the Bible!  The two should NEVER be mixed, thus the reason I call him “Calvi-god,” to make sure that is abundantly clear.  You can disagree with me if you want, but you cannot force me to call him otherwise.  Besides, Calvi-god himself “ordained” that I do this for his glory, so take up your grievance with him!  In fact, praise him for it, because it brings him glory!)

In Calvinism, you are “free” to make the choices that Calvi-god predetermined you would make!

In Calvinism, Calvi-god predetermines who gets the “sinner/unrepentant nature” (the non-elect) and who gets the “saved/repentant nature” (the elect).  And these natures come with built-in desires (built in by Calvi-god).  Those who get the sinner-nature will/can only always want to sin and only always choose to sin, because the desire to sin is the only thing that comes with the sinner-nature, NEVER the desire to do good or to obey or to seek God.  (And you know it’s true, Derek, that this is what Calvinism really believes!)  And so if you are one of the unlucky ones who got assigned the sinner-nature, you can only always want to and choose to sin.

But Calvinists say that you “freely make your own decisions, according to your nature.”  That you “choose what you want, according to your nature.”

According to your Calvi-god-given nature, a nature that you didn’t choose and can’t change!

Some freedom!  Some choice!  Being locked into only one kind of desire, and only being able to “choose” that which your Calvi-god-given nature predestined you to choose.

Also you say: “Again, though, is Soteriology 101 about open conversations between brothers and sisters (as Leighton led me to believe in our private email conversation long ago), or is it a launch pad for ungrounded assumptions and divisive attacks against fellow believers?  I would like to know.”

Leighton [Dr. Flowers] is not forcing me to respond the way I do, so don’t hold him responsible for it.  (If anyone, blame Calvi-god for it, who – as you should know – gets glory by forcing me to respond the way I do.)  This is still an open conversation, is it not?  You are able to respond to us, and we can respond to you.  But this issue gets messy because it’s about deep, irreconcilable disagreements about truth, about what is biblical and who God is, etc.  And unfortunately, there is little common ground between Calvinism and anti-Calvinism.  So don’t be surprised or shocked by the division.  The division is a natural consequence of the deeply different beliefs we hold.

Also, I would like to point out that it sounds to me like you are okay with launching thinly-veiled, condescending attacks at other people ["… while certainly 'fun' for you all to banter about (and hilarious for me to observe) … reinforcing the fact that you have no real arguments to present against the actual claims of Calvinism … I will happily return the favor and assign “him” (your god) a small “g,” since “he” does not actually exist…"], but then you yourself get offended when someone does so back to you.  People can tell when someone is feigning politeness.  And I have to wonder if you are not really here to genuinely “converse” anyway, but instead are here to “teach.”

However, I will say this, that while I believe Calvi-god is not the God of the Bible, I do believe there are many good, God-fearing Christians who are truly saved but who have merely gotten suckered into Calvinism.  The sad thing is that they don’t really know enough about what Calvinism really teaches to know that they don’t really agree with it or think it’s biblical.

And you’ll have to forgive any overly-angry tone I have against Calvinism right now.  (It’s not directed to you, but to Calvinism itself.)

For starters, I am sick of Calvinism’s nonsense and how it deceptively hides its lies behind layers of biblical-truth.  A big hook in a nice, fat worm!  Poison in a shiny, juicy apple!  And I will not “play nice” when it comes to an unbiblical theology that sneaks into churches through deception and manipulation.  (We recently left our church because of it.)

But also, I am dealing right now with a huge mess that, if Calvinism were true, has been deliberately preplanned and caused by Calvi-god.  Someone I knew is dead (a tragic death), a relative has been arrested, my testimony against them is a big part of why that relative got arrested, people have sent death threats to anyone who is connected to the person who caused the death, there will be ongoing legal things to deal with, and my extended family is shattered because of it.  (Add to this the fact that, as I said, we left our church recently. The church we attended for almost 20 years.)

And Calvinists would dare to say that all of this was preplanned and caused by God.  That He had nothing else in store for the person who died than a tragic, too-young death.  That He controlled the person who caused the death, and so nothing different could have happened.  That all of this trauma caused to my extended family was His “Plan A” for our lives - for His glory, for our good, and to keep us humble (as my Calvinist pastor once said about all the bad things that happen in our lives, even childhood abuse).

So forgive me if I get worked up about this.  Calvinism is not just a theological talking-point to me, some fanciful idea way out there somewhere, something to simply debate or wonder about.  It hits close to home, to be involved in a horrible situation that Calvinists would say was preplanned and caused by God.  To have also lost my church home over it.

And I will NOT politely tolerate the God-dishonoring nonsense that God Himself caused all this to happen.  (He allowed it and knew it would happen, but didn’t cause it).  That He causes evil for His glory.  That He does not love all people enough to die for them and offer salvation to them.  That He never had anything in mind for the people I know but a tragic death, prison, turmoil, years of pain, brokenness, dysfunction, etc.  And that He predestines most people to hell because He wanted it, because it brings Him glory.

What a horrible assault on the good, holy character of God!  My God doesn’t cause evil, cause sin, or send people to hell for His glory!  My God seeks to save the lost, He offers salvation to all, and He is glorified when people obey Him and choose to love Him and follow Him to heaven.

[Note:  I hope it comes across exactly how I meant it: a blistering rebuke against satanic lies!]

In another string of comments, Derek, the 10-point Calvinist, tried to say that John Calvin affirmed that we freely make our own choices.  Derek says,

"You may be surprised to learn that Calvin affirms our “innate liberty” and uses the term “voluntary” to describe the freedom of will that we exercise ... Calvin’s conceptions of human freedom cannot be flattened out into mere robotic determinism.  His views are far more nuanced and complex than he is given credit for.  Yes, Calvin believes that God determines all; yet he also clearly affirms that man’s will is genuinely free and voluntary (back to the two claims I outlined, which are attested over and over by all of the mainstream Calvinistic theologians).  Thus, Calvin and his best proponents hold to a compatibilism that is more than mere “culpability despite having been forced,” as non-Calvinists consistently misrepresent."

My reply:

You keep using phrases like “You may be surprised to learn …” and “assuming you have never been told, or have perhaps forgotten” and “If you [do X,Y, or Z] … then Calvinism will begin to make more sense to you (assuming you are willing to consider it thoughtfully and charitably).”

With all due respect, this isn’t our first rodeo.  And you’re not the only educated one here.

You also say: “You may be surprised to learn that Calvin affirms our “innate liberty” and uses the term “voluntary” to describe the freedom of will that we exercise, even after the fall.”

Well, you may be surprised to learn that just because someone says they affirm something doesn’t mean their theology does.  I don’t care what Calvin says he affirms or what Calvinists say they affirm; I care what their theology fundamentally and undeniably teaches.  And in Calvinism, we do nothing “freely,” because that would mean that there is something that God isn’t in active control of.  And Calvinism’s faulty view of God’s sovereignty can’t allow that.

Calvin can claim whatever he wants to, but to claim that we are “free” in any real, genuine, meaningful way contradicts his theology.

Also from his Institutes, in Calvin's own words ...

[... I go on here to share with him everything I included in my "Calvin's Contradictions, simplified" post, so click on that to read this section.  And I ended my reply to him with this...]

Calvin (Calvinists) says God controls all evil when he's trying to uphold God's "sovereignty" (by that, he means "micromanaging, controlling, causing"), but he denies that God controls all evil when he's trying to figure out who to "blame" for it.

"Confused, inconsistent theologian, table of one!"

I could go on.  But you get the idea!

Just because Calvinists claim they affirm something doesn’t mean their theology does.  It just means they are being inconsistent and contradictory and deceptive.

And the other non/anti-Calvinists weren’t falling for it either:

TS00 says:

It is not that we are ignorant of, nor that we ‘misrepresent’ what Calvin taught – we simply view it as inconsistent, illogical doublespeak.  And yes, many who were suckered into going along with Calvinism based on that inconsistent, illogical doublespeak called Compatibilism seek to spare others from falling victim to the same trap.

We are fully aware that Calvin, and many other Calvinists, try to have their cake and eat it too.  But just because someone states ‘Both A and non-A are equally true’ does not make it so, no matter how many multi-syllable words they string together in its defense.

If all things were predetermined before we were even conceived, then we do not have any degree of meaningful freedom or choice.  Period.  We know all of your arguments, and all of your word-thuggery, but we simply refuse to be intimidated by it anymore.  ‘Irresistibly predetermined by God’ and ‘freely chosen’ are directly opposite and contradictory, however you wish to disguise it.  I’ll grant you ‘pre-known’ and ‘freely chosen’, but foreknowledge is an entirely different matter from predetermination.

I will never again be bullied, shamed or conned into rejecting common sense and logic and embracing a man-made, illogical and unbiblical system.  And I will do everything I can to protect others from the same.

Graceadict says:

Affirming contradictory points is illogical and is unbiblical.  "The Car is Red" and "The Car is NOT Red."  If spoken about the same car and in the same way… is bad logic, and the Bible never does that kind of illogical teaching.

“Man is Free, however God has predetermined his every move before time began, so that there is 0 left over for him to ‘adlib’.”  These two statements are what Calvinism tries to prove as both true.  But only those people who are drinking the Kool-aid of John Piper, John MacArthur, and John Calvin are going to believe it.  A careful study of the Word shows that one of those statements is FALSE.

TS00 you stated: “foreknowledge is an entirely different matter from predetermination.  I will never again be bullied, shamed or conned into rejecting common sense and logic and embracing a man-made, illogical and unbiblical system.  And I will do everything I can to protect others from the same.”

Agreed!  We have been there.  And the likes of James White are great examples of what you are talking about… and then they cover it with “mystery” to make people unsuspecting, even while they smuggle error into the church.  They have done more to bring in error into the church through their systematic than any other systematic.  And it starts with this faulty understanding of Sovereign.

Br.d. says (snippets of his comments):

I don’t think Derek realizes how dangerously close he is to a form of idolatry – when he raises the word of John Calvin up and makes it infallible.

The Catholic church teaches Mary was born without sin and the Catholic takes that as the infallible word of god.

Not much difference between that and holding John Calvin’s word as infallible.

Just because someone claims something doesn’t make it TRUE and doesn’t make it LOGICALLY valid.  Therefore just because John Calvin calls something “voluntary” doesn’t make it TRUE.

Everyone who understands compatiblistic freedom knows it is the exact same freedom that robots have.  A robot engineer can claim his robots do what they do “voluntarily,” exactly the same as Calvin claims.  But using that term to describe compatibilistic freedom is dishonest.

Derek says that “Calvin’s conceptions of human freedom cannot be flattened out into mere robotic determinism.”

Sorry – but that is LOGICALLY fallacious – either something is TRUE or it is FALSE.  Christian Philosophers simply understand the LOGICAL consequences of Compatiblisitic freedom.

It is exactly as I have stated:

1. The THEOS does NOT PERMIT the creature to falsify or negate the divine decree

2. The THEOS does NOT PERMIT the creature to be/do otherwise than what the THEOS determines

3. The creature has no say in the matter of what is determined.

All of the above = Compatiblistic freedom.  And Compatiblistic freedom is the exact same freedom found with robots.

Again we are not saying in Calvinism people are robots ONTOLOGICALLY – but it LOGICALLY follows that in Calvinism, humans FUNCTION ROBOTICALLY.

Additionally we understand that most Calvinists embrace a form of DOUBLE-THINK in this regard.