Snippets to Ponder, part 3 (#14-19: total depravity/parables)
[Topics in this post: C.S. Lewis; Restrictions on Calvinist wives; Total depravity; Calvinism IS in the Bible; Cults and hobbits; parables and the non-elect. Click here for part 1 and part 2.]
#19:
#18: Be careful, Calvinist wives, about what books or resources you read in front of your husbands, especially if he follows Calvinist Joel Webbon (Right Response Ministries, see Faith on Fire's video "Pulpit Narcissism vs. Godly Women"): "Husbands, be very vigilant with your wives and what they are reading and what they are listening to... one of the primary and most common ways that good, godly women get derailed is women's Bible studies. They go to a study without men. And a woman is teaching this study, and she is not only teaching but also being taught... and little by little by little, the study is not sound. It's not faithful to the Scripture. And the husband thinks he's doing his duty because he's outsourced his wife's theological education. There are certain books that I just had to say (to my wife), 'Hey, I don't know if this is a bad book, but I don't have time to read it, and so you're not going to read it either."
#17: A constant theme in Calvinist sermons and writings - a major fundamental "doctrine" of theirs - is total depravity, about how wicked and depraved we humans are, which supposedly causes us to be unable to believe in Him unless He causes us to. Calvinists insist that we have to realize/admit how terribly depraved and wretched we are before we can be saved. And I think this not only is a serious doctrinal error, but it also hurts evangelistic efforts.
In his July 2018 sermon on sovereign election (full of reminders about how terrible we humans are), our pastor added a list of some "signs" to help you know if you're elect, and he ends that list by saying to ask yourself this: "'Am I the worst sinner I know?' If you're saved, the answer is 'Yes, you're the worst sinner you know.'" Admitting to this is a sign that you're elected, according to him.
Likewise, from February 2016: "All people, all cultures, all generations are universally evil, spiritually ignorant, rebellious, wayward, worthless, morally corrupt, evil-mouthed, deceitful, full of bitterness, violent, miserable, and have no fear of God in their eyes... We're dead in sin, slaves to sin, unable and unwilling to seek God... No one is righteous... We are depraved down to the core... utterly saturated, permeated, and consumed by corruption... No one is righteous... Why does nobody seek God? Because no one is able to seek God on their own and the reason goes back to total depravity... We are born slaves to sin, wickedness, depravity... You don't understand the gospel until you realize you're the worst sinner you know."
The worst sinner you know.
Not just a sinner, but the worst sinner you know, the most "evil, spiritually ignorant, rebellious, wayward, worthless, morally corrupt, evil-mouthed, deceitful, full of bitterness, violent, miserable, no-fear-of-God, corruption-saturated" sinner there is.
Wow, we're terrible, aren't we? Bad, bad people. Worthless, no-good worms.
But the problem is that Calvinists misunderstand depravity, and it taints their whole theology.
Biblically, depravity is simply about the fact that humans are sinful creatures separated from God and that we cannot save ourselves, and so we needed Jesus to pay for our sins to make salvation possible for us. (This is what Romans 3:9-20 is about, that we do not and cannot earn salvation through anything we do or through our bloodline. It's not about some sort of "inability" to believe.)
But Calvinists have turned it into an issue of ability, teaching that being depraved means we are so bad, so broken, so sinful, that we have no ability to make free-will decisions or to believe in Jesus unless God causes us to. This goes above and beyond the definition of depravity and its effects on us, leading to a very warped understanding of God, the gospel, and Scripture.
Such as, if it's humble to admit that we're sinners separated from God who can't save ourselves, then it must be even more humble to say that we're so terrible that we can't even think about God unless God causes us to.
If it's biblical to think that God is in control over all, then it must be even more biblical to think that God controls all, that He preplans, orchestrates, directs, causes everything we think and do, even sin.
If it's true that God caused a natural "evil" in the Bible like a storm and that He uses wicked people in His plans, then it must be even more true to believe that He causes all natural "evils" and moral evils too and that He caused the wicked to be wicked in the first place.
Right?
Calvinists take a biblical truth to such extremes that it's not biblical anymore. (But sadly, many well-meaning Christians are sucked in at first by the "biblical truth" level of it, because Calvinism seems at first like such a God-honoring "high view of Scripture." But slowly over time, a bunch of Calvinist presuppositions, misconceptions, bad definitions, false dichotomies, and unbiblical ideas get added to the mix - and it's all simmered together until it's a big pot of "unbiblical stew." But the well-meaning Christian is totally unaware because it happened so slowly over time, bit by bit, in unnoticeable increments, like the frog boiling in the pot. And by that time, they're sucked in so deep that it's really hard to wake them up, to get them out. See my "9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult" post.)
... And not only that, but the Calvinist over-emphasis on total depravity - on how we can only be saved once we admit to being the rottenest, most terrible, horrible, depraved sinner there is - goes against a scriptural truth: that all it takes is one sin to keep us out of heaven.
James 2:10: "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
The point here is that all it takes is one sin to be a sinner, to become separated from God because of sin. We don't all need to be at the most depraved level of badness to earn hell, to need a Savior. We just need to sin once. The person who sins just once in his life in even the tiniest way is just as much separated from God and in just as much need of a Savior as the person who sins every day in all the worst ways.
Though we are not all on the same level of wickedness, rottenness, and depravity, we are all at the same level of being separated from God because we all sin, regardless of how bad or many our sins are. The person standing one foot outside a building in the rain gets wet just like the person standing fifty feet outside.
But Calvinism raises the bar far higher than God does, insisting that people admit how extremely wretched, depraved, evil, worthless, and God-hating they are before they can be saved - whereas God simply asks that we admit that even one sin makes us a sinner in need of a Savior. And I think shifting the bar (which I would consider a demonic tactic) actually makes more people resistant to Jesus than attracted to Jesus. It loses more people than it wins.
The Bible frames us as imperfect people - and even one sin means we're imperfect - who can't stand in the presence of a holy, perfect God without a Mediator (Jesus Christ, His blood shed for us). And God tells us that to come to Him and be saved, we need to admit that we sinned, that we are sinners. All of us past the age of accountability have willingly sinned at least once, and no good, honest person would deny it. All good, honest people would admit that they're not perfect, that they sinned at least once, which means they need Jesus to get into heaven.
But Calvinism frames us as "totally depraved" people who have to admit that we are the most terrible, evil, rebellious, God-hating, worthless, no-good, totally-wretched-from-the-top-of-our-heads-to-the-tip-of-our-toes, worst-of-the-worst sinners that we can be. And no honest, decent person would - or should - admit to something as outrageous as this.
Can you see how this actually works against evangelism, against God's Truth? Because it's demanding more out of people than God does.
I think Calvinists lose people with their theology, with that approach, demanding more than God does, going beyond what Scripture teaches. No decent, honest person who evaluates themselves fairly would call themselves "the worst sinner they know, a totally wicked, purely evil, no-good, God-hating, worthless, wretched sinner." But all decent, honest people will admit that they've sinned at least once, that they don't meet God's perfect standard, even if they've got a lot of good going for them.
And this is why the focus needs to be on the fact that all it takes is one sin to separate us from God. It's about imperfectness - which cannot stand before a perfect God - not about being the worst totally-depraved sinner there is.
If you ran a soup kitchen, how many people would come in and eat if you said "All you have to do to be fed is admit that you're hungry and need help"?
But now how many would come if you said "What you need to do to be fed is admit that you're a worthless, wretched, no-good, wicked, total-failure of a loser who hates those who love you and resists those who want to help you and that I had to force you to admit that you were hungry and that you needed help getting food... and then I'll feed you"?
It's not our extreme level of badness that separates us from God, but it's the fact that we sinned even once. And all of us would admit to that. Even one sin makes us a sinner, imperfect, and disqualifies us from heaven. It caused a separation between us and God that we cannot fix, a gap that we cannot cross on our own. And this is why Jesus had to come and die for us - to pay the penalty for our sin, even if it's just one sin, so that we can enter God's presence again, covered by His blood and the righteousness He offers through faith in Him.
Calvinism's extreme emphasis on "total depravity" actually ends up hurting the gospel and evangelism because it demands more than what God does and frames people in ways that God doesn't.
No wonder there are so many atheists out there, if this is what they're told Christianity actually is and what God is actually like and how He actually sees us and what He actually expects out of us.
Calvinism - while claiming to be "the gospel" - actually twists the gospel and God's truth so badly that it destroys God's character, Jesus's worth, the work of the cross, the value of people, and people's eternities, their faith in God and chance for salvation.
[Snippet from "'But predestination!' (#15: total depravity, manipulation)", but rewritten quite a bit]
#16: Okay, I admit it, I've been wrong all along. Calvinism is in the Bible! And I found a verse that clearly shows it:
"[The Pharisees] replied, 'You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out." (John 9:34)
That, folks, is Calvinism in one verse, summing up the attitude and teachings of the high-and-mighty Calvinist leaders: "You're all wicked sinners from birth. Don't question what we tell you. And get out of here if you disagree with us!"
I guess we can find Calvinism in the Bible after all!
#15: Cults and Hobbits [Snippet from "9 Marks of a Calvinist Cult #9 (authoritarian narcissists)", with a few adjustments]:
Cults have their own writings that they add to the Bible or replace it with.... And Calvinists have Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, Grudem's Systematic Theology, Spurgeon's and MacArthur's writings (and others), and confessions like the Westminster Confession, Synods of Dort, etc... Calvinists essentially view/interpret the Bible through them (which is the only way to read Calvinism into the Bible to the extent they do).
In that "10 things to know about the psychology of cults" article, it says "Cults satisfy the desire for absolute answers."
What do you think those massive Calvinist theology books do? They make you feel like you are learning deep, rich, complex answers to biblical "mysteries" and to so many of our questions about life, God, and faith. And in order to learn these things, we have to go to Calvinists - not just the Bible - for the answers.
[However, much of what they write is an attempt to try to fix the problems and contradictions they first created (and especially to try to convince themselves and us that Calvinism doesn't teach that God causes sin when it really does). The "mysteries" they tackle are not true biblical mysteries - things God did not reveal to us clearly and so we cannot understand them. But Calvinist mysteries are man-created "mysteries" which came about because they misunderstand and twist what God did clearly reveal to us, a result of their bad theology, incorrect presuppositions, incorrect understanding of biblical words and concepts, and their twisted interpretation of Scripture.
So they first make the "mystery" and then they "solve" the mystery, like "look at how intelligent and theologically-superior we are to understand such complex, mysterious things."
And when they can't "solve" it, they fall back on "Look how humble we are to embrace such unclear things, to resist the need to find answers to the things that sound terrible and make God look bad."
Calvinists write hundreds and hundreds of pages to explain and explore their self-made "mysteries" and they spend months and months studying it and trying to solve it - when a simple, clear, commonsense reading of the Bible would solve it in a heartbeat.]
Calvinist's have their "giants of the faith," their golden calves - Spurgeon, Calvin, MacArthur, Piper, Packer, Pink, Grudem, Sproul, etc. - and don't you dare question them or think they're wrong!
Because if you do, watch how shocked, offended, or insulted Calvinists get, almost as if you'd said that you believe God is a baboon or Jesus was a woman.
Calvinists, even if they don't realize it, present other men's writings as the authority on understanding/interpreting the Bible. And so if you ask a particularly difficult question or point out a contradiction in their theology, you'll probably get an answer like "Well, MacArthur (or Grudem or Piper or Packer or Sproul or whoever) says..."
... You know, Calvinists love to say "sola Scriptura" - Scripture alone! - but what they really mean is "Scripture through the eyes of Calvinists."
... You know, I was just thinking today of the verse "knowledge puffs up." And I totally think this is what happens when studying those big Calvinist theology books. People spend months learning a lot of information through Calvinist books and sermons and videos, etc., and it makes them feel smarter, more spiritual. It puffs them up. But what they don't realize is that it's all air, all emptiness. They mistake learning lots of information for growing in the faith, in truth, and growing closer to God.
Imagine you wanted to study world history - to get really good at it and to feel closer to the world because of it. And so someone took you through an intensive study of some big, meaty, complicated, history books... of Middle-earth. You read The Book of Lost Tales and The Lays of Beleriand and others. You devoured The Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. You wrestled with some of the difficult, disturbing aspects of it all. You know all the history of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, the Ents, the Wizards, Sauron, Numenor, Gondolin, Valinor, etc. Maybe you even learned to read Elvish.
You gained so much knowledge and feel so close to the people and events of history because of it... until you sit down to take an official test on world history and realize that you've got nothing.
Sadly, you were learning all the wrong things. And as a consequence, you missed out on all the right things. But you didn't realize it at the time because you were deceived by, enchanted by, how much knowledge you were gaining.
I think Calvinism is like that. Calvinists think that all the knowledge they are gaining means they are growing in the faith, in truth ... until they wake up one day and realize that their faith is on life-support, that it's been starving all this time for real truth and hope. And yet they couldn't feel it through all the information they were learning. It's sad. And many times, they don't realize it until it's too late.
#14: Parables [Snippet from "Quick Answers to Calvinism, part 2"]:
Calvinists say that God doesn't really want everyone to be saved, that He predestined people to be unbelievers (the "non-elect") who never had the chance or ability to be believe in Jesus. And they'll quote Bible passages like Matthew 13:10-15 (about why Jesus speaks in parables) to prove it, saying that Jesus speaks in parables to prevent the non-elect from understanding the gospel and being saved.
As one Calvinist said it (I think I found it on reddit somewhere): "[It's an unbiblical teaching that] God wants everyone to be saved [because] Matt 13:10-13 says clearly that Jesus speaks in Parables to prevent the unbelievers from understanding the gospel and being saved."
In "quick answers," I explained why this isn't what's going on with parables, and then I asked this question to Calvinists:
If the so-called "non-elect" have no ability to believe because Calvi-god never gave them the ability to believe (a result of Calvinism's unbiblical understanding of "depravity") and because Calvi-Jesus didn't die for them anyway, why would Jesus need to speak in parables to veil the truth from them? [Likewise, why would God need to harden their hearts more (Romans 9:18) and why would Satan need to steal the truth from them and blind them (Matt. 13:19, 2 Cor. 4:4)?]
Even if Jesus spoke super clearly, the so-called "non-elect" could never understand and respond to the gospel anyway because they have no ability to, regardless of circumstances or what they hear. There is simply no reason for Jesus to speak in parables to prevent them from understanding. (In this case, parables wouldn't hurt the "non-elect," but it would hurt only the "elect" who can hear and understand, according to Calvinism. It would really only be veiling truth from the elect because the non-elect never had the ability to understand anyway.)
In fact, saying that "Jesus had to speak in parables to prevent the non-elect from understanding, otherwise they would understand and believe" actually implies that the people (even unbelievers, even Calvinism's "non-elect") have an innate ability/option to understand and believe - because under different circumstances the people could have believed and been saved. This means that circumstances affect us and our decisions, which means that it's our choice how to respond, which means free-will is true and that Jesus really did die for all people's sins (the only reason belief and salvation are possible for everyone).
The Calvinist argument that Jesus speaks in parables to prevent the people from believing (and that God hardens the "non-elect" and that Satan blinds them and steals truth from them) is actually self-defeating, shattering the TULIP.
