As evil as it gets: Calvinism on babies and the unreached
[A.k.a: Snippets to Ponder, part 4 (#20-21). This is such a long "snippet" - too many horrific quotes, couldn't resist adding them - that I decided to just make it a whole post. (I might break this down into smaller pieces in future posts.) Topics in this post: Calvinism, babies, and unreached people. Click here for snippets part 1, part 2, and part 3.]
#20: Calvinist comments about babies [buckle up, hang on tight, and have a barf-bag ready]:
About the suffering and abuse of babies and children:
[And remember that these are not my words. These are Calvinist's own words, and so you can see that we are not misrepresenting them or putting words in their mouths. This is hard stuff to read. Really hard. But you need to read it. To know that they really do teach this garbage. (And "garbage" is the nice word. I was gonna use a stronger one. Oh, yes, I was! Note: All bold emphasis in all quotes has been added by me.)]
a. Gordon H. Clark (Religion, Reason, and Revelation): “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do it… Let it be unequivocally said that this view certainly makes God the cause of sin. God is the sole ultimate cause of everything…”
b. James White was asked [listen here] this question: “When a child is raped, is God responsible and did He decree that rape?”
And White replied "If He didn't then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose... Yes, [He decreed it] because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless... [So in Calvinism, it's SO MUCH BETTER to have "meaningful" child-rape that was decreed/preplanned/orchestrated/caused by God than to have "meaningless" child-rape that was a result of evil people's free-will choices!?! Better that God causes it than people!?! That's sick! And that's not a God to trust or seek comfort from.]
[But if He decreed it], it has meaning, it has purpose, all suffering has purpose, everything in the world has purpose, so there's no basis for despair [other than the fact that a god like that - Calvi-god - is evil! (The true God of the Bible is not.)]... But if we believe that God created knowing all this was going to happen but with no decree - He just created and all this evil is out there and there's no purpose - then every rape, every situation like that, is nothing but purposeless evil and God is responsible for the creation of despair...."
[So let me get this straight: If Calvi-god doesn't decree all that evil and rape then he's responsible for despair, but if he does decree it then he's not responsible for despair!?! What the...!?! And how on earth can Calvinists trust a god who commands us not to do evil, but "ordains" us to do the evil he commanded us not do, giving us no ability to resist, and then he punishes us for doing the evil he ordained!?! Sick and twisted!]
c. Jeff Durbin (see clips in The Madness of Calvinism or the full video in Jeff Durbin Answering 'The Problem of Evil') talking to a woman about evils like gang rape, which would also have to include when it happens to children (and things like human trafficking, which falls under "all evils"): “God actually has a morally sufficient reason for all the evil He plans… nothing happens in the universe apart from His will… So let’s say this evil happens. How do [people try to] get God off the hook?... By saying 'He didn’t want that to happen, or He’ll fix it, or He wouldn’t mess with your free will'… [But] the truth is that all those answers make God unworthy of worship… He actually decrees all things." [So, in Calvinism, God is only worthy of worship if He deliberately wants, plans, and decrees evils like gang-rape!?!]
d. From my Calvinist ex-pastor's February 2014 sermon: “There is nothing [God] cannot forgive, be it child abuse, murder, rape, adultery, cheating, defying, betrayal… [Later in the sermon:] The book of Numbers is all about who God is… A God who ordains everything that comes to pass for His own glory. A God who is not watching history; He’s making history. A God who doesn’t sit back and just look. He’s a God who ordains everything that comes to pass to line up with His plan for His glory.” [So clearly, in Calvinism, all of the "child abuse, murder, rape, adultery, cheating, defying, betrayal" was ordained and planned by God "for His own glory."]
e. From my ex-pastor's June 2022 sermon about Joseph and forgiveness: "Some of us are sitting here today and the pain is so very deep about the way we've been treated by somebody. Any time we're physically abused, verbally abused, emotionally abused, lied about, oppressed, taken advantage of, wrongly blamed - the list can go on - here's the decision we face: 'Will I become bitter and hold a grudge, or will I choose to forgive and let it go?' And here's the key: My choice at that point - how I choose to respond to someone who has abused me - shows what I really think about God... All of our bitterness is ultimately traceable to resentment of God. Why? Because it was God who brought these circumstances into our lives in the first place, painful as they may be."
f. A Calvinist grandfather-to-be said this about his unborn grandchild (see "The total depravity of certain Calvinists", and see my post about it): "This is an ultrasound photo of our first grandbaby... And even though I love this baby, I know God may not and may [have] created it for damnation."
And apparently, he also said that God may have even decreed his unborn grandchild to be a mass murderer... and "God can do what He chooses to do with His creation" and "God is not ashamed of Himself so why should I be."
And he said this about God decreeing rape: “God must then direct the rapist not just who to rape but how to perform the rape and how long… Amen, but I would go even farther than that, God originated every detail in His mind from all eternity and decreed it to be so.”
g. Mark Talbot/John Piper (from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, page 42-44, 70-77): "God brings about all things in accordance with his will. It isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those that love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects… This includes God’s having even brought about the Nazi’s brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Nadar and even the sexual abuse of a young child... God speaks and then brings his word to pass; he purposes and then does what he has planned. Nothing that exists falls outside of God's ordaining will. Nothing, including no evil person or thing or event or deed. God's foreordination is the ultimate reason why everything comes about, including the existence of all evil persons and things and the occurrence of any evil acts or events. And so it is not inappropriate to take God to be the creator, the sender, the permitter, and sometimes even the instigator of evil.
... In summary, this means that we should affirm the age-old Christian doctrine of God’s complete providence over all. God has sovereignly ordained, from before the world began, everything that happens in our world... It should be beyond all doubt that no one suffers anything at anyone else’s hand without God having ordained that suffering.
During his first hour or so in Birkenau, Elie Wiesel saw the notorious Joseph Mengele...casually directing [people] either to his left, so that they went immediately to the gas chambers, or to his right to the forced-labor camp. In seeing Mengele, Wiesel was seeing a very evil man whom, nevertheless, God was actively sustaining and governing, nanosecond by nanosecond, through his evil existence. And we can be sure that, from before time began, God had ordained that at that place those moments would be filled with just those persons, doing and suffering exactly as they did... that he actually brought the whole situation about, guiding and governing and carrying it by his all-powerful and ever-effectual word to where it would accomplish exactly what he wanted it to do.
[Footnote: Mengele was a medical doctor who was nicknamed 'The Angel of Death.' He carried out unspeakable experiments on some of his prisoners, including injecting chemicals into childrens’ eyes in an attempt to change their eye color from brown to the preferred Aryan blue. He would visit the children, acting kindly and bringing them candy and clothing in order to keep them calm and happy, and then transport them in what looked like a Red Cross truck or in his personal vehicle to his laboratory beside the crematoria where he would perform his horrible experiments and then burn their bodies. He specialized in experiments involving identical twins. He was intrigued to see if he could make them differ genetically by, among other horrors, performing sex-change operations on one of them or removing one twin’s limbs or organs in macabre surgical procedures that were performed without the use of anesthesia and that had no scientific basis or value.]
... Even though he ordains all of our free sinful choices, those sinful choices still 'count' and we are held responsible for them.... In ordaining the evil works of others, he himself does no wrong, 'upright and just is he.'... We can be sure, as Scripture confirms, that God has made everything for its purpose, even evil persons like Joseph Mengele or Dennis Rader. We can be sure that God has made our lives’ most evil moments as well as their best....
... I myself find it very difficult to understand how [God can ordain evil for our good] with some of the worst things that human beings do, like sexually abusing young children or raping or torturing someone mercilessly. And, of course, something much less horrible than these sorts of things can happen to us and still leave us wondering how God could be ordaining it for our good. I have seen marriages break apart after thirty-five years and felt to some degree the grief and utter discombobulation of the abandoned spouse. I have watched tragedies unfold that seem to remove all chance for any more earthly happiness.... Many of us have tasted such grief....Yet these griefs have been God’s gifts.... [And in the end, when we see Jesus face-to-face] we will see that God has indeed done all that he pleased and has done it all perfectly, both for his glory and our good..."
[Talking to myself: "Deep breaths, Heather. Count to three and relax: one... two... three. Take a deep breath and calm down. You've still got a long way to go."
If someone can't see how blasphemous this is, then I'm worried for them!
As we saw before in snippets #2: Yes, Calvinists think God can do any evil, even the same things Satan and wicked men do, but it's okay because "He's God" and because it comes from His "good, sinless nature" (not an evil one like ours and Satan's) and because God does it for "good reasons" (not bad like ours).
They'll say things like "Well, what's sin, evil, and injustice to us is not necessarily sin, evil, and injustice to God, because He's sinless and He sees and judges things differently than we do."
For examples (briefly):
A Calvinist on reddit (see this post) said this (paraphrased): "Sin is when we break God's laws. But since He didn't give Himself these laws - since He didn't tell Himself that He can't do those things - then it's not sin for Him to do them."
John Calvin said this in Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God: "... God may be free of guilt in doing the very thing that He condemns in Satan and the reprobate and which is to be condemned by men... For what man wickedly perpetrates, incited by ambition or avarice or lust or some other depraved motive, since God does it by His hand with a righteous though perhaps hidden purpose - this cannot be equated with the term sin. Sin in man is made by perfidy, cruelty, pride, intemperance, envy, blind love of self, any kind of depraved lust. Nothing like this is to be found in God." [Translation: "Our motives and natures determine if it's sin or not. And so what's sin for man and Satan is not sin for God because He doesn't have our sin nature and because the evils He ordains flow from His good character and pure motives, which makes it okay for Him, but not for us." What kind of bull-dung is this!?! I mean, seriously!?!]
John MacArthur said this in Doctrine of Election, part 1: "... God is not to be measured by our understanding of what is just... God has ways and thoughts that are to us incomprehensible, unresolvable, inscrutable... It is an essential understanding of God that he is holy... morally flawless and perfect... Everything in him and of him and for him and from him and by him is perfect... And whatever it is that he wills is by definition just because he is just. It is just because he wills it." [Translation: "Anything that God decrees, even sin, evil, and unbelief, is okay - it's perfect and just - because He is a perfect and just God. And don't question us on this because you can't figure it out anyways."]
Jonathan Edwards said this in "Remarks on Important Theological Controversies, Chapter III": "... God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful... he determines that there shall be such actions, and just so sinful as they are... God does not decree the actions that are sinful as sin, but decrees them as good... God decrees that they shall be sinful, for the sake of the good that he causes to arise from the sinfulness thereof; whereas man decrees them for the sake of the evil that is in them." [Translation: "God decreed all sin but since He does it for good reasons, it's not sin for Him; but since we do it for bad reasons, it is sin for us."]
Ligonier Ministries from "Vessels of destruction": "As Christians in the Reformed tradition, we affirm the biblical view of providence that affirms the world is governed by God’s sovereign ordination... everything else that ever happens was decreed by God.... How can God be just and yet punish some people if their wickedness and condemnation is foreordained?... As the Creator, God has the right to do with His creation as He pleases. [Translation: "So shut up and don't challenge us on this." Just wondering, but do you know how cults take over and brainwash people?] God is just and His glory is manifested in punishing those whom He has ordained to do evil ["because we Calvinists say it is!"]..."
John MacArthur again, in "Why does God allow so much suffering?": "He's absolutely in charge of everything. Everything. He controls everything... He is governing history in every minute detail. There's not one molecule in the universe that's out of line with His purposes.... So, while liberal theology and assorted other so-called evangelicals [hear the insult, discrediting those who don't see it his way] feel desperately the need to rescue God from [being the cause of evil and suffering], God is quite content to make it clear that He is, in fact, unhesitatingly sovereign over everything that exists, without a hint of reluctance. He's not asking to be rescued from bad press that's fallen upon Him because He's been blamed for all the bad things that are in the world... He's content to leave the responsibility for evil's existence and even its action, with Himself... God wills evil to exist.... Again, and again, God takes full responsibility for the existence of evil unfolding in this world.... The reason God ordained evil is for His glory. We praise Him because of what He has done to overcome evil." [Uhh, so we praise Him for "overcoming" the evil that He Himself planned and caused (isn't that a little schizophrenic, duplicitous, and self-defeating?), the evil He preplanned us to do, but then commanded us not to do, but then causes us to do, and then punishes us for!?!]
Can you not see how satanic this is, and how brilliantly-satanically-powerful Calvinism's manipulations and deceptions are to get such a stranglehold on the Church!?! It's freakin' incredible!
But C.S. Lewis (love him!!!), in The Problem of Pain chapter 2, says that "if God's moral judgment differs from ours so that our 'black' may be His 'white,' we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say 'God is good,' while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say 'God is we know not what'. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) 'good' we shall obey, if at all, only through fear - and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity - when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is simply nothing - may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship."
Amen and amen!
If there is no real, clear dividing line between true good and true evil - if good can be evil and evil can be good, as Calvinism is saying in order to justify their belief that God "ordains" evil - then we cannot call God good or just.
"Good" loses all meaning when it looks and acts just like evil or when it's used as an excuse for evil. "Justice" loses all meaning when it behaves like, and covers for, injustice. The words "good and evil/justice and injustice" become meaningless when they can mean the same as their opposites. (And therefore, we - if Calvinism were true - would be totally unable to obey any verse that talks about doing good or seeking justice.)
Calvinism erases the line between good and evil, which essentially erases the line between God and Satan. This lowers God to Satan's level... which, consequently, elevates Satan to God's level.
And who do you think benefits from this?
And keep in mind that even though Calvinists use words like "permit/allow" - "take God to be... the permitter" - they never mean merely "permit/allow," that God knew what people would voluntarily choose to do and He permitted/allowed it anyway.
No, they always mean that God first preplanned it to happen exactly the way it did, and then He "permits/allows" what He preplanned, orchestrating and directing it to happen, even sin and evil and unbelief.
John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "... it is impossible to deny that God foreknew what the end of man was to be before he made him, and foreknew, because he so ordained by his decree."
Vincent Cheung (The Problem of Evil, emphasis added): "Scripture teaches that God's will determines everything. Nothing exists or happens without God, not merely permitting, but actively willing it to exist or happen… God controls not only natural events, but he also controls all human affairs and decisions… God controls everything that is and everything that happens."
And from my ex-pastor's November 2019 sermon about Job, about trusting God in our times of confusion, pain, suffering, and uncertainty (he started this sermon with a true-life story of a young father who died early of cancer): "God is in full control of His universe, including suffering and tragedy... Too often when Bible-believing Christians in the west see tragedy, see calamity or experience it in their own lives, we want to immediately go to blaming Satan or his demons, that anything uncomfortable, anything painful, anything that smacks of suffering, uncertainty, betrayal, pain, misery, automatically comes only from Satan.... As western evangelicals, our immediate default is to try to get God off the hook. 'God could not have been involved in that tsunami... in the events of 9-11... in my cancer... in the death of that child, and on and on.'
... You may not like everything you hear this morning...but I'm not going to try to fix it up... I am supposed to get [it] accurate as the Author intended. And Job is very clear that God is in full control of the universe, including suffering and tragedy. And when I want to go to default and get God off the hook for suffering and tragedy, it's interesting that - in the Bible - God always puts Himself right back on the hook... He alone sends and withholds calamity... God is in full control of His universe, including suffering and tragedy. And frankly, He's not interested in trying to get off the hook.
... God allows and appoints suffering for His own good reasons... God allows-slash-appoints tragic disasters. These are really two sides of one coin. Saying 'God allowed it' is too soft. God clearly is orchestrating what is going on here [Job's tragedies]... and He ordains suffering for His own good reasons.... God is running the universe, and He knows what He's doing, even if we're absolutely confused and grieving at the moment... God ultimately allowed and orchestrated these disasters.... God doesn't want to get off the hook." [To most people, "allows" and "orchestrates" are not the same thing. God can allow something He doesn't preplan/orchestrate. He can let people make their own decisions to do things He doesn't want them to do, and He can work it into His plans somehow. This is "allows." This is biblical. But in Calvinism, God "allows" only what He preplans and orchestrates, exactly as it happens, even things He commands us not to do. This contradicts the basic commonsense understanding of "allows," and so it's deceptive whenever Calvinists use the word "allows."]
... In the end, the devil is God's devil. Satan is a puny pawn in the hand of an almighty, holy God. And even though he thinks he's waging war, in the end he will find out he did exactly as God sovereignly decreed, under God's sovereign decree. And that God is good and Satan is evil... Now I don't know how to put all that together [because his theology is garbage!] and it gives me a headache, but I do know that if your theology doesn't give you a headache sometimes, it's probably a product of your own creation." [Gaslighting - trying to trick you into shutting off your alarm bells and distrusting your own judgment, into accepting something you know sounds wrong by making you feel like it's good that Calvinism's contradictory nonsense gives you a headache, doesn't make sense, and damages God's character by making Him just like Satan - because, according to Calvinists, all our confusion over Calvinism's contradictory garbage proves that it's biblically accurate. "So don't worry about it or try to figure it out, just accept it." Manipulative gaslighting!]
i. From my ex-pastor's August 2015 sermon about God "ordaining" suffering: "[Some people] say that evil and suffering are the result of [free-will choices]... [But] God is in full control of every detail of the universe, including the suffering, evil, and tragedy in our lives. ["In control of everything" (in authority over everything) is biblical, but Calvinists mean "God controls everything, even sin and evil " which is not biblical. Very different.] God is in full control of everything that happens to us. And God is good and that whatever He does, He does for His own glory and for the advancement of His name among the nations... The Puritans remind us that we don't need to get God off the hook when it comes to evil and suffering... [We] rush to get God off the hook for human suffering [by saying things like] 'Well, this is not what He really intended; this is not really Plan A.'... And every time we do that, God puts Himself back on the hook and says, 'I am in charge, thank you, and I will run the universe as I see fit, and I don't owe you an explanation.'... Are you trusting God in the midst of your past, present, and future in whatever He has ordained and appointed for you as far as suffering, tragedy, abuse, or trials or difficulties or illness or disease or betrayal? [Translation: "Your childhood abuse, or cancer, or rape, or divorce, or whatever, was God's Plan A for your life, for His glory and the advancement of His name. So you'd better trust Him." Hogwash! Frickin' hogwash!]
... Or are you murmuring against Him?... You may get an answer someday about why you were abused or why you lost a child or why a spouse walked away. ["You may get answer why" is another way of saying "God might tell you why He deliberately did it to you." You know, it's one thing for God to have allowed abuse, death, divorce, etc. to happen because He allows people to make free-will choices and allows nature to run its course to a certain degree - but it's a totally different thing for God to have deliberated "ordained and appointed" these things, to have preplanned that people would do evil things to you, to children, evil things He commands people not to do but then causes people to do and then punishes them for it. Oh, does this get my blood boiling! Oh, the damage this does to God's character and people's faith and hearts!]
... Do you perhaps need to repent of your murmuring and the chip on your shoulder against God, and surrender today and say 'Lord, I don't understand the way You run the universe, and I don't necessarily like it, but You're God and You're good.'... Find refuge and hope in a good and holy God who says 'I have all things under My control. Everything that's going on in your life, or has gone on in your life, or will, I know about and have ordained for you. And you can find comfort and hope and trust Me.'" [Brilliant manipulative-shaming! So first he tells people that God preplanned and caused them to be abused or cheated on, and then he shames them for being upset about it, accusing them of sinning against God.]
k. From my ex-pastor's October 2019 sermon on forgiveness: "How you handle and respond to mistreatment, when someone has hurt you, wounded you, lied about you, betrayed you, abused you... directly reflects what [you] really believe about God deep down inside... The Bible teaches that God sometimes strategically uses sinful people in our lives to refine us and humble us, to do His good work in our lives... One of the things the Puritans got really, really well was God's providence, God's sovereignty, God's authority... They understood that God sovereignly chooses to use evil people and sinful people in our lives as believers - if we know Christ - ON PURPOSE to humble us and teach us dependence on Him. ["Using" evil people is one thing, but controlling evil people is another, and that's exactly what Calvinism teaches.]... God is orchestrating events and He's still sovereign over the process... Biblical forgiveness is an affirmation that God is good and that He has A RIGHT to use ANYBODY in our lives for His purpose, His glory, and for our good... Sometimes He will use evil, sinful people to get us where He wants to get us." ["So your tragedies - even childhood abuse - were caused by God for His glory, for your good, and to humble you, so that you can become the person God wants you to be." Hogwash!]
[And here's Calvinist John Piper's "brilliant" advice about how we should respond to the evil things that God "ordains" (from this article): "How can we hate what is evil if God has ordained it to happen? You hate what God wills to happen if he wills that you hate what he wills to happen. God might will something precisely so that you would hate it... We must be careful not to oversimplify things to where we can't hate something and be thankful for it at the same time. You can hate something and consider it evil and yet still see it as an expression of God's will."]
m. From a Soteriology 101 post called "Frustrated by the state of the world?", non-Calvinist Fromoverhere asked: "But in Calvinism, yesterday's abortion was what God wanted or it would not have happened. Simple question to you Calvinists: Were yesterday's abortions in your city what God wanted?"
The Calvinist Filemon responded with “The answer is Yes... Now using the negative logic, I ask you, ‘If God hadn’t wanted this abortion to happen, do you think it would ever have happened?’ And as evil as it is [Notice that he calls what Calvinism's god wanted "evil." So what does that say about Calvinism's god?], the abortion was no more evil than the death of Jesus, which was the worst sin ever committed on earth. And I ask you, ‘Who did plan this death and who controlled everything and everybody to fulfil His plan?’" [God can work our self-made decisions into His plans without preplanning/causing/controlling our decisions. Only in Calvinism does He have to control our decisions to make His plans work out.]
Rhutchin (another Calvinist) affirms Filemon: “Even Fromoverhere knows that God is always present at every abortion and has the power to stop any abortion at any time. It is God’s choice to have the abortion continue, and because God chooses for the abortion to continue, we say that the abortion was God’s will. Calvinists say that God made this decision before He created the world so that it was part of His decree to create.” [A false inference Calvinists make: that because God didn't stop an evil, it means He wanted it and planned it. It's bad theology built on their bad presuppositions and incorrect definitions of things like sovereignty, God's Will, etc.]
Calvinist views of babies and young children:
n. Paul Washer (from the sermon "Not Ashamed of the Gospel")": "I submit to you that if that 18-month-old baby had the strength of an 18-year old man, he would slaughter you there where you stand, father, rip the watch off your arm and walk across your bloody body and out the door without feeling an ounce of remorse."
o. R.C. Sproul (from Idol Killer's video Evil and Depraved - the Reformed View of Children): "Calvin was once talking about babies and said that babies are as depraved as rats. And I said that's the one time I really really oppose the teaching of John Calvin...because that's terribly insulting to the rat." (Is Calvinism like some sort of contest to see who can believe the worst things and be the biggest heretic and jerk? I mean, seriously. You might also like Idol Killer's "God's Fault - Who is Responsible for Evil?")
p. John MacArthur (from The Distinctive Qualities of the True Christian, Part 1): "Nowhere, or at no point, is a man's depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... How do we know man is a sinner at the base of his character? How do we know man is a sinner at the root of his existence? The answer: by what he creates. Whatever comes from the loins of man is wicked because man is wicked. So I say to you that nowhere then in the anatomy of man or in the activity of man is depravity more manifest than in the procreative act... because it is at precisely that point which he demonstrates the depth of his sinfulness because he produces a sinner."
q. From my ex-pastor's January 2016 sermon on the wrath of God: "Truth-suppression begins very early in life. Children have no interest in truth…zero. Babies, toddlers, cute little kids, my cute grandkids, they have no interest in the truth. What is a child’s primary interest in life? ME! [As it should be at that age - because they're babies!] It’s the All-Great Universe of ME! They don’t want to know the truth [because they can’t even understand the concept of truth yet!]. Frankly, I think if they were big enough, sometimes they would vaporize us. If you look at the rage in a child, toddler, baby that is screaming because you’re imposing truth on them… Why am I born such a good truth-suppressor? Because I’m born sinful. Not just a little bit, we are born incredibly depraved to our core… desperately wicked. We are slaves to sin… We are born rebellious, and we don’t want authority over us… the heart is desperately wicked… deceitful above all things… We can’t handle the truth and so we suppress it.”
Oh, those awful, horrible babies! Nasty little evil things!
r. From my ex-pastor's March 2017 sermon about why there's suffering and evil in the world (referring to Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs): "The secular assumption is that ‘normal’ people – whatever that means – don’t do things like that. They’re not cannibals and sadistic killers. Something went wrong with him. That’s a secular assumption… [because] from birth we’re born corrupt and evil. And so it’s a secular assumption to think that something has to happen to make us really evil. Any of us are capable of that kind of horrific evil. Hannibal Lector answers [the question 'What made you like this?'] very biblically...‘Nothing happened to me. I just am. I’m evil.' That’s the biblical worldview.
Let me go a little further. This is why infants, children, and toddlers disobey by nature. ["Because they are corrupt and evil, obviously on par with cannibals and sadistic killers."] I have 2 [young grandchildren] living in my house… They are a delight. They are sinful. I am watching my older one – 2½ years old – and he is really pushing the envelope these days. He’s a precious little guy but, my goodness, his heart is already twisted and dark… This is why children, infants, toddlers, and kids need discipline. It’s why they need spankings. It’s why they need boundaries. And it’s why we need to enforce these things."
[So we can beat the total depravity right out of them? Spanking them will somehow make them elect or change their hearts? Nothing can affect what Calvi-god "ordained" for them, and nothing can change them before he does... and so spanking unregenerated children is really just spanking incapacitated people who are incapable of changing on their own anyway. May as well beat a wheelchair-bound person with a bat while yelling, “Stand up already!"]
Our pastor even wrote a blog post about how God "commands" spanking, and that it has to hurt. The whole "spare the rod, spoil the child" thing. (And if I'm not mistaken, he spanks his grandkids too. So those kids get it not just from mom and dad, but also from the grandparents. Sad.)
I, however, sent in a comment about how I believe God commands disciplining our children, not necessarily spanking them. I believe the "rod" is a tool of correction, guidance, authority, not necessarily something to hit them with. (And I told them that they picked an awful picture for the blog post, that the picture of the young, scared, sad child huddled on the ground is disturbing because it looks like he's hiding a dark secret of abuse.)
But the church never printed my comment. Just like how they removed my comment from his blog where I disagreed with his view of predestination, and how they are currently blocking comments on their other social media pages from a friend who also disagrees with them. And they eventually stopped allowing comments on their blog altogether, because I kept calling them out.
Authoritarian Calvinist pastors do not like to be opposed, especially when they're trying to be stealthy about their Calvinist infiltration and brainwashing of the church. And so if you disagree with an authoritarian Calvinist pastor, you could find yourself being silenced, blocked, belittled, attacked, expelled from the church, shunned, and/or demonized, all in the name of "protecting the gospel and protecting the church from heresy and division, of course." And they might even demand to know the names of everyone you talked to so that they can call those people and re-brainwash them, or they (especially 9 Marks churches) might put you under "church disciple" and/or try to control which church you go to after you leave theirs. It's really sick and cult-like.
s. Voddie Baucham would agree with our pastor (from this sermon about total depravity): “People who don’t believe in original sin don’t have children. … That’s a viper in a diaper. The angry cry happens early. The demanding cry happens early. The stiffening up of the body, that happens early. … One of the reasons God makes them so small is so that they won’t kill you. And one of the reasons he makes them so cute is so that you won’t kill them.”
And his solution (from another sermon) is: “God says your children desperately, desperately need to be spanked. [Give me the Bible chapter and verse!] Amen, hallelujah, praise the Lord, and spank your kids. Okay? They desperately need to be spanked. And they need to be spanked often. They do. I meet people all the time, and they’re like ‘Yeah, you know, I can think of maybe four or five times I ever had to spank Junior.’ Really? That’s unfortunate. Because unless you raised Jesus the Second, there were days when Junior needed to be spanked five times before breakfast… You need to have an all-day session where you just wear them out.” [So I guess repeated beatings can affect the outcome, Calvi-god's "sovereign" plan for them, huh!?! Interesting.]
[Enjoy this video from Idol Killer on Voddie's "viper in a diaper" sermon: "Your Children are Evil".]
Calvinism's teachings on infant damnation:
[Is it any wonder that they'd believe in infant damnation in light of their above views of what babies and young children are like? (However, to be fair, plenty of Calvinists believe that babies - at least elect babies - go to heaven. But I think this contradicts their theology, as I'll explain below.)]
t. Tim Challies ("Original sin and the death of infants"): "... in an article I wrote last week...[I] expressed my belief that my children (ages 6, 3, and 3 months) are, at this time, likely unsaved and are thus spiritually dead..."
u. James White (listen to the clip at the 4:33-minute-mark in this Idol Killer video "Does Calvinism Teach Babies are Elected for hell?"): "... [God] is going to have elect infants, and there are others who will not be."
w. Calvinist Vincent Cheung, in his “Infant Salvation”, also asserts that infants are damned to hell: “We insist that if infants can be saved, then only chosen infants are saved… Perhaps the same applies to those who are mentally retarded, although there seems to be no biblical evidence to say that some mentally retarded people are saved. Their salvation is only a possibility. It is also possible that all mentally retarded people are damned… [and] on the basis of the doctrine of reprobation, they would be created as damned individuals in the first place.
The popular position that all infants are saved is wishful thinking, and continues as a groundless religious tradition... Thus the invention deceives the masses and offers them hope based on mere fantasy. The way to comfort bereaved parents is not to lie to them, but to instruct them to trust in God. Whatever God decides must be right and good. It may be difficult due to their grief and weakness at the time, but if the parents cannot finally accept this, that God is always right, then they are headed for hell themselves and need to become Christians. [So quick and eager to dish out damnation!]
... The possibility in consideration does not apply to mentally aware infants, teenagers, and adults who never heard the gospel – they will all surely go to hell… If someone dies without hearing the gospel, it just means that God has decreed his damnation beforehand.
... In itself, I have no problem with the idea that for anyone to receive salvation, in the absolute sense and without exception, he must exhibit a conscious faith in the gospel. This would mean that those who are unable to exercise faith are all damned to hell, and this would include infants and the mentally retarded, if we assume that they cannot exercise faith. I have no misgivings about this. [Phew! How wonderful that he can sleep easy at night, unconcerned with other people's damnation.] I have no problem with the idea that all who die as embryos, infants, and mentally retarded would burn in hell. If this is what God has decided, then this is what happens. [What does it say about a person to love and trust and worship a god like that?)
… If he loves his chosen ones so much that he wishes to show forth his glory and wrath to them by visiting the reprobates with judgment and hellfire, then loves wins again. [Yeah, kinda like how a demented, obsessed kidnapper-serial-killer shows his kidnapped victim how much he "loves" her by killing other people as a gift to her. Love wins!]
... But whether a fetus, infant, or adult, if you can read this and understand this, then I am telling you that you must believe in Jesus Christ to save your wretched soul. As for my critics, yes, even obnoxious morons like you can be saved. My concern is not so much about whether embryos can exercise faith, but that as annoying and unintelligent as you are, whether you can exercise faith….. As for the embryos, if they perish, they will go where God decides – if they all burn in hell, they all burn in hell…” [Yep, Calvinism is definitely a contest to see who can believe the worst things and be the biggest heretic and jerk.]
x. An atheist (Godless Granny) asks a Calvinist named Joe this question: "If you found out that God chose not to save one or more of your children, how would you feel about that?"
Joe answers "It means He's God. You see, God is a bigger being than I am. He's higher than I am. And I sure hope that God has chosen my children...but if God chooses not to save my children, that is His prerogative because He is God and I am not God. He decides who's in His heaven. He decides who's in His hell."
Godless Granny then points out that the odds are that at least one of Joe's children is predestined to eternal torment in hell, and she asks "And you don't have a problem with that?"
And Joe responds "Okay, we've got two ways to look at this. This is a glass half-full or half-empty. Either I can rejoice that God chose a wretched sinner for salvation, which is me [Enjoy this 2-minute video featuring Calvinist Tyler Vela and Beaker from the Muppets, called "Me, me, me." FYI: Tyler recently left the faith. Apparently, he had "evanescent grace."] or I can worry about God's choices with other wretched sinners. [Translation: "Don't care if others are damned to hell, just be happy that you are elect."] When I realize that the human nature and the human position against God is that I've sinned against an almighty God and that everyone deserves His judgment, I should be mystified, shocked, and stunned whenever He chooses anyone, not surprised when someone doesn't get chosen."
[This is the glorious end of Calvinism, where it leads to! Oh, how this must hurt his children's hearts! Watch the video of this conversation at Soteriology 101's "Warning: This may be the CRINGIEST video you watch about Calvinism".
To justify their doctrine of election/reprobation, Calvinists always say things like "We're all sinners who deserve His judgment, no one deserves heaven." They use this to justify why they think it's okay for Calvi-god to elect some lucky people to heaven but send the rest to hell with no chance to be saved: "Well, none of us deserve heaven anyways, and so there's nothing wrong with God predestining people to hell. He does not give the non-elect the ability or chance to be saved, but that's okay because we all deserve hell anyways."
But this is a false, unbiblical inference. Just because "we are all sinners who deserve hell" in no way means that God does not and cannot offer salvation to all people or that He must pick only a few to save while damning the rest. Calvinists make a huge unbiblical leap from "everyone deserves hell" to "and so therefore God does not truly offer salvation to all people but He reprobates the non-elect to hell." This is not in the Bible, but it's in their own heads, according to their own philosophical, unbiblical theology.
And let me ask this, as Leighton (Soteriology 101) alludes to also: What does it say about the kind of god Calvi-god is if Calvinists are "mystified, shocked, stunned" that he loves anyone at all?
We'd be shocked to find out that a cannibalistic serial killer who kills and eats a victim a day has any real love for anyone - but why should it shock us that God loves people? God (but not Calvi-god) is love. It's in His nature to love, to be gracious, to be merciful, to be forgiving, to be compassionate - in an abundant, extravagant, self-sacrificial way. He is patient and long-suffering, slow to anger and rich in love, restraining His wrath and the just punishment of the wicked as long as possible, giving us many chances and years to repent.
If He would forgive a whole city full of wicked people for the sake of one good person (Jeremiah 5:1), and spare a whole city of wicked people from destruction if only ten righteous people could be found in it (Genesis 18), and plead with a whole city of wicked people to repent so that they didn't have to be destroyed (Nineveh, the book of Jonah), and give a world full of severely wicked people 120 years to repent while Noah built the ark and preached to them, what makes Calvinists think that He is so quick and eager to dish out damnation and "justice" (as they define it), to send people to hell?
(And why would God warn "non-elect" people and patiently wait for them to repent if He made it impossible for them to repent and if He predestined them to hell for His glory? And if He predetermined to get glory from their destruction, then He's working against His own glory to call them to repentance, isn't He? It doesn't make sense. But that's Calvinism!)
It shouldn't surprise us that the God of the Bible truly loves all people, all sinners, and that He wants all people to be saved, even wicked people, and that He offers salvation to all people, to all sinners. It would surprise us if the patient, loving, forgiving, merciful, gracious God of the Bible didn't truly love someone and want the best for them - because His love, His mercy, His grace is so big and far-reaching. The exact opposite of Calvinism's god.]
y. Jonathan Edwards in "The Miscellanies", point n.: "... it is most just, exceeding just, that God should take the soul of a new-born infant and cast it into eternal torments... For none are saved by the death of Christ from damnation that have not deserved damnation. Wherefore, if it be very just, it is but a foolish piece of nonsense, to cry out of it as blasphemous to suppose that it ever is [just], because (they say) it is contrary to his mercy." [Translation: "We all, even infants, deserve damnation, so it's perfect justice for God to throw newborn infants in hell. And it's foolish for you to call this blasphemous just because you think it goes against His mercy."]
... There was no mercy showed to [the fallen angels] at all. And [so, therefore] why is it blasphemous to suppose that God should inflict upon infants so much as [the infants] have deserved, without mercy, as well as [upon the fallen angels]? If you say, they [infants] have not deserved it so much, I answer: they certainly have deserved what they have deserved, as much as the fallen angels. [No. Angels were created in different conditions. Angels were created, as far as we can tell, ageless and mature, and they stood in the presence of God from the beginning. And so when they rejected Him, they knew exactly what they were doing, making a conscious decision based on all the facts. Not so with people. This is why there's mercy and grace for people, not angels; why Jesus died for people, not angels.].... Who shall determine just how much sin is sufficient to make damnation agreeable to the divine perfections? And how can they determine that infants have not so much sin? For we know they have enough to make their damnation very just." [Sick, sick sick!]
z. Also from Edwards' The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended: “... infants are not looked upon by God as sinless, but that they are by nature children of wrath... there are some particular cases of the death of infants [in Scripture, which gives] evidences of the sinfulness of such, and their just exposedness to divine wrath… God could as easily have delivered the infants [in Sodom and its surrounding cities]. And if they had been without sin, their perfect innocence, one should think, would have pleaded much more strongly for them.... these very destructions of that city and land are spoken of as clear evidences of God's wrath, to all nations which shall behold them. And if so, they were evidences of God's wrath towards infants; who, equally with the rest, were the subject of the destruction.” [Translation: "Since God won't destroy the innocent, and since He destroyed Sodom with all its infant children, it means that infants are not innocent but are sinful and deserving of God's wrath."]
aa. John Calvin believes that God sovereignly controls (preplans and causes), for His pleasure, which babies essentially starve to death because their mothers couldn't provide enough milk (from Institutes of the Christian Faith, book 1, chapter 16): "Indeed, if we do not shut our eyes and senses to the fact, we must see that some mothers have full provision for their infants, and others almost none, according as it is the pleasure of God to nourish one child more liberally, and another more sparingly."
But don't worry, because Calvi-god will only kill non-elect babies, those who are "doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction."
So it's okay. You Calvinists can rest easy knowing that if your baby died, it was not an elect baby who was unfairly sent to hell - phew! - but it was a non-elect baby who deserved God's wrath and whose damnation pleases and glorifies Calvi-god:
From Calvin's Institutes, book 3, chapter 23: "I again ask how it is that the fall of Adam involves so many nations with their infant children in eternal death without remedy unless that it so seemed meet to God [in English: "unless it so pleased God"]?"
From Institutes, book 2, section 8 "... 'death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,'... Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother’s womb, suffer not for another’s, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God. Hence it follows, that it is properly deemed sinful in the sight of God; for there could be no condemnation without guilt." [How strange then - if children are so "odious and abominable to God" - that angels would see the face of God when they look at the children, Matthew 18:10. Hmm? What does this say about Calvinism's god?]
And from his Harmony of the Law, Volume 2, Deuteronomy 13, paragraph 15: "If any should object that the little children were innocent, I reply that, since all are condemned by the judgment of God from the least to the greatest, we contend against Him in vain, even though He should destroy the very infants as yet in their mothers' wombs... Although we must recollect that God would never have suffered any infants to be destroyed, except those which he had already reprobated and condemned to eternal death." (Phew! What a relief!)
[Be aware that Calvin contradicts himself in Institutes, book 4, section 17, when he tries to say that surely there are some babies that God regenerated before they died and so they are in heaven: "... infants who are to be saved (and that some are saved at this age is certain) must, without question, be previously regenerated by the Lord. For if they bring innate corruption with them from their mother’s womb, they must be purified before they can be admitted into the kingdom of God... If they are born sinners, as David and Paul affirm, they must either remain unaccepted and hated by God, or be justified."
So he confidently claims that "we must recollect that God would never have suffered any infants to be destroyed, except those which he had already reprobated and condemned to eternal death", as if it's clearly, plainly said in a Bible verse (I'd like to know which one then)... but then he also confidently claims "that some [infants] are saved at this age is certain"?
Make up your mind, Calvin! You can't have it both ways. (This is why Calvinism is so deceptive and slippery. They say one thing in one place, but another thing in another place. What they affirm in one place, they deny in another. What they take out with one hand, they slip back in later with the other hand. Calvinism is full-to-the-brim with this kind of sleight-of-hand and double-talk. So never trust what they say in one place. There's always another layer or teaching that changes it, that destroys the good-sounding, biblical-sounding things they say which hide the bad.)]
bb. And for the record, Calvin gets his theology almost entirely from St. Augustine who has a very Catholic version of theology (and of course, Calvinists get most of their theology from Calvin), and Augustine taught that unbaptized infants go to hell - not for any sin they commit, but for the guilt of Adam's sin: "...it is believed, as an indubitable truth, that [without baptism] they cannot be made alive in Christ. Now he that is not made alive in Christ must necessarily remain under the condemnation... That infants are born under the guilt of this offense is believed by the whole Church." (from "Letter to Jerome")
From "Infants saved as sinners": "infants ought to be baptized, because, although they are not sinners, they are yet not righteous... Now, inasmuch as infants are not held bound by any sins of their own actual life, it is the guilt of original sin [Adam's sin] which is healed in them [through baptism]..."
From "Unless infants are baptized, they remain in darkness": "So that infants, unless they pass into the number of believers through the sacrament [of baptism] which was divinely instituted for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness."
From "Baptized infants, of the Faithful; Unbaptized infants, of the Lost": "Now if [infants] who are baptized are...reckoned in the number of the faithful... surely they who have lacked the sacrament [of baptism] must be classed amongst those who do not believe on the Son, and therefore, if they shall depart this life without this grace...they shall not have life, but the wrath of God abideth on them. Whence could this result to those who clearly have no sins of their own, if they are not held to be obnoxious to original sin?" [It's horrifying to think that the eternal souls of infants - their salvation or damnation - would be dependent on the parents, on what someone else decided for them, or that it was a matter of timing, a race between baptism and death, decided by whichever came first.]
He goes on to say (in "Infants must feed on Christ") that if infants do not partake of communion, they cannot have life in Him: "Will, however, any man be so bold as to say that...[infants] can have life in them without partaking of His body and blood...?... From all this it follows, that even for the life of infants was His flesh given, which He gave for the life of the world; and that even they will not have life if they eat not the flesh of the Son of man." [So should infants be force-fed the bread and wine, to save their souls?]
From "Christ is the Savior and Redeemer even of infants" (meaning "baptized infants"): "... the man who believes not in the Son, and eats not His flesh, shall not have life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Now from this sin, from this sickness, from this wrath of God (of which by nature they are children who have original sin, even if they have none of their own on account of their youth), none delivers them, except the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world...except the Redeemer, by whose blood our debt is blotted out... Let there be then no eternal salvation promised to infants out of our own opinion, without Christ's baptism..."
In "Why one is baptized and another not, not otherwise inscrutable", Augustine responds to those who "think it unjust that infants which depart this life without the grace of Christ should be deprived...of the kingdom of God...and of eternal life and salvation" with an answer that amounts to nothing more than "God's judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out." [Ah, just like the good old "It's a mystery, and who are you, O man, to question God?" retort that Calvinists love so much and always fall back on when they get into a theological jam.]
I wonder if Augustine's "baptized infants will be saved, unbaptized infants won't" morphed into Calvinism's "elect infants will be saved, non-elect infants won't," which is what I think most Calvinists would adhere to, as expressed in their beloved Westminster Confession of Faith: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death... Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated, and saved by Christ, through the Spirit [and non-elect infants?]... so also are all other elect persons who are uncapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word... Others, not elected...never truly come unto Christ, and therefore cannot be saved..."
Thankfully though, according to Augustine, unbaptized (non-elect) infants will only face a mild form of condemnation for being the non-elect beings that Calvi-god predestined them to be: "It may therefore be correctly affirmed, that such infants as quit the body without being baptized will be involved in the mildest condemnation of all. That person, therefore, greatly deceives both himself and others, who teaches that they will not be involved in condemnation..." (from "Unbaptized infants damned, but most lightly...")
Phew, it'll only be a gentle fire that burns babies eternally!
And yet now they try to sneak in a condition to the reason why babies are saved but older non-elect people aren't, saying that it's because babies didn't commit their own sins yet but older people did, and that this affects God decision to let them into heaven.
But that's a condition!
It bases our eternal destinies on what we do or don't do, which is exactly what "unconditional election" says is not possible!
Calvinists cannot have it both ways. They cannot say both that God elects people based on no conditions but only on His sovereign choice that has nothing to do with us... and then also say that the damnation of older non-elect people is based on their sin but that the salvation of infants is based on their not sinning. Those are conditions!
(It's ironic that Calvinists claim that we can't know why God chooses whom He does, that it's a "mystery" - but then they claim to know why God chooses to save babies. Once again, they are contradicting their own theology, and they can't have it both ways!)
Calvinist election comes before our decisions, behaviors, and sins. It determines our decisions, behaviors, and sins. It is not the result of or influenced by our decisions, behaviors, or sins.
And so for any Calvinist to claim that any baby is saved because it didn't sin yet is a clear, bold, shameless (or merely ignorant) contradiction of - at the very least - Calvinism's doctrines of total depravity (total inability), inherited guilt, unconditional election, and God's sovereignty.
And here's another conundrum: If Calvinists say that all babies go to heaven, it means all babies are "elect." This would have to mean that all adults are elect because, in Calvinism, election cannot be lost. But of course, Calvinists know that not all adults are elect. So what happened? How did they go from "elect baby" to "non-elect adult"? When did they lose their election? This contradicts Calvinism's "security of election," their "perseverance of the saints," the "P" in TULIP.
And if Calvinists try to say that babies are elect only up until they can choose between sinning and not sinning, between rejecting Jesus and accepting Jesus - an age of accountability - then they're admitting that our eternal destinies are based on our decisions, that we make free-will decisions which affect our eternities. And this also would be a contradiction of their doctrine of God's sovereignty in election. There can be no age of accountability in Calvinism because that implies free-will choice.
And so now we have at least five of their doctrines that they contradict: total depravity (total inability), inherited guilt, unconditional election, perseverance of the saints, and God's sovereignty.
Calvinism is a theological mess.]
dd. A Calvinist - Tim Challies - shares a bit about his confusion over if babies go to heaven or hell, and he also shares why he thinks that Calvinists who claim babies go to heaven are being are inconsistent with Calvinism, which backs up what I said.
From his article "What happens to children when they die?": "... Another argument people make is that God could not possibly condemn a child to hell because that child has never had an opportunity to repent. It would be unfair for God to condemn such a child.
The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that it seems to presuppose that the child, however sweet and beautiful he may be, is somehow innocent in God’s eyes. The reality, of course, is that from the moment of conception that beautiful child is a sinful child and one who deserves punishment as much as you or I. It is a hard but unavoidable truth.... If God saves infants, he must do it on a basis other than justice. Justice would usher them immediately into hell.
... Many people speak of an age of accountability, a time before which children are not considered accountable for their sins simply because they are incapable of expressing faith necessary for salvation... I find this argument difficult to believe, primarily because it finds little Scriptural support. But also, it seems strange that a child could lose his salvation simply because his mental capacity increases to a certain extent. Logically I just do not see how this argument remains consistent.
... The final argument I have heard is that God, in His grace, chooses to save children who die in infancy. I remain uncertain as to what the criteria for this are. For example, at what point is a child considered too old to be covered by God’s special grace?"
And from his Part 2, about inconsistent Calvinists: "... As mentioned earlier, this [that all children who die in infancy are saved] seems to be the predominant view in Christian circles, both Evangelical and Reformed. Among those who hold to this view are R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, B.B. Warfield and Charles Spurgeon.
This view teaches that God, out of His grace chooses to save all who die in infancy.... [R.C. Sproul believes that it's because] those who have not had opportunity to do works which explicitly and willfully reject God are not condemned to hell on that basis... [John MacArthur] believes God does not condemn infants because: they have no willful rebellion or unbelief; they have never suppressed the truth; they have no understanding of sin’s impact or consequences; they have no debased behavior; and they have no ability to choose salvation... [John Piper says that] ‘God only executes this judgment on those who have the natural capacity to see his glory and understand his will, and refuse to embrace it as their treasure. Infants, I believe, do not yet have that capacity; and therefore, in God’s inscrutable way, he brings them under the forgiving blood of his Son.’
We see, then, that the one thing this view fails to satisfactorily reconcile is original sin. The teaching of Scripture is clear: even if I never committed a sin throughout my entire life, I would still be condemned to hell because of the original sin of Adam...
... After doing much study and reflection on this topic, I find myself simply shaking my head and realizing I simply do not know. While I would like to believe that all children are immediately ushered into heaven, I simply do not find Scripture to support the idea that God will simply categorically overlook original sin in all children. Adherents of this view simply gloss-over or downplay original sin, and that is something I am not willing to do. These children are as fully implicated in Adam’s sin as I am and are thus fully deserving of hell. While that does not necessarily indicate that God will not or cannot save them, I do not find that He always will. I also do not find strong support for the idea that only the children of believers will be saved. This leaves me in the third camp, believing that God knows best. In His wisdom He has chosen not to reveal what happens to children who die in infancy..."
ee. And finally, to clearly sum up Calvinism's teachings on infants - if you weren't sick enough already - I'd like to end this section with my ex-pastor's 2019 Mother's Day sermon:
"Every single human being is a sinner by birth, by choice [which, in Calvinism, just means that you choose what God predestined you to choose], and by nature [your Calvi-god-given nature which you can't change and which determines your desires, which determines what you "choose" to do], and is cut off from God... Let me say that again...Every single human being is a sinner by birth and by practice and is cut off from God. That is true of little children. That is true of babies. That is true of teenagers and adults.
There's this concept in the evangelical world of an age of accountability, that somehow people before a certain age - sometimes it's two, sometimes it's six, sometimes it's twelve - aren't guilty before God. Friends, that is not taught in the Bible anywhere, as much as it may be favorable in evangelical bantering. For 35 years I've tried to find that in the Bible. If it is true, it isn't taught in the Scriptures. The teaching over and over and over again is that from the moment of conception, we are guilty before a holy God. We are under the judgment of God. There is no free pass. The Bible never teaches some kind of age of accountability.
If you have any doubts, Psalm 51:5, David says 'I was born a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.' Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned, not only those over nine years old, or twelve years old, or over four years old. All have sinned and fall short of God's standard. 1 John 1:8: 'If we claim to be without sin, we have deceived ourselves and the truth is not in us.'
... We are born at war with God...in rebellion against Him and His laws. We bristle at authority. Everybody bristles at authority. We break His laws every day. We deserve judgment and hell. And the Bible says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked and beyond cure. And it started at conception.
... The only way to be saved, justified, reconciled to God, is to repent and have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ... Every single human being is cut off from God... The only way to be saved, made right, justified before a holy God, is to repent of our sins, turn around and go the other way, and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ."
Translation: "Babies who die before they can repent are in hell, permanently cut off from God. Remember, no one gets a free pass."
A rebuttal to my ex-pastor (The biblical view of babies):
First, off, 1 John 1:8 wouldn't apply to babies because babies can't claim anything about themselves since they have little to no self-awareness yet.
And yes, Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned, but I believe there are verses that show that God doesn't hold our sins against us until and unless we are old enough to know what we're doing, to choose between accepting or rejecting Jesus, such as Deuteronomy 1:39 which refers to a time when children become old enough to tell the good from the bad, and Isaiah 7:16 which talks about an age when people are old enough to choose the right and reject the wrong, and Ezekiel 16:20-21 when God calls the sacrificed children "My children," and Jeremiah 19:4-5 when He calls the sacrificed children "innocent." And then there's also 2 Samuel 12:23, Matthew 21:16, Matthew 18:6-14, and Matthew 19:14.
I think the Bible shows an overall picture of God loving children and covering their sins with His grace before they are old enough to repent and decide for themselves to believe in Jesus. So yes, we are all sinners, but God can cover our sins - with Jesus's blood for those old enough to repent and accept the gift of eternal life, and with His grace for those not old enough or conscious enough (mentally-handicapped people) to accept it.
The difference between babies and older people (those passed the age of accountability) is that babies are not rejecting Jesus by not believing in Him. The New Testament has a bunch of verses about how we bring condemnation on ourselves when we reject/resist Jesus and the truth. But babies are doing neither by not believing in Jesus - because they're not able to yet. This is why babies are considered "innocent," but older people aren't.
If Calvinists can find one verse - just one - that says babies are condemned to hell for being unable to believe the truth or for rejecting the truth or just because, then I'll start to listen to them a little more. But as far as I can tell, there's not one verse that clearly supports the idea that babies are in hell or that those who die are wicked and are punished for Adam's sin.
But there are the whole bunch of verses (that I already showed above) that support the opposite idea, that God's grace covers infants who die, that He has a special place in His heart for them, and that He considers them "innocent." And so at least my views are based on things the Bible actually says, whereas Calvinist views are based on things the Bible doesn't say, growing out of their own wrong ideas of other things.
Babies are considered innocent because they haven't been able to willfully sin yet. It's sin that separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2). And babies can't sin if they can't make choices, can't comprehend what they are supposed to do or not do. Even Romans 5:13 says that "sin is not taken into account when there is no law." And Romans 4:24 says "... And where there is no law there is no transgression." And James 4:17 says "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins."
When we don't have or know the law, it's not considered sin. It's not sin until you have the law and know that you're breaking it, until you know what you're supposed to do and not do, and you make a willful choice about it.
Therefore, babies and mentally-handicapped people who cannot understand or choose to obey or disobey the law are considered innocent of wrongdoing - until they become old enough to know good from bad (Deut. 1:39) and to tell right from the wrong (Isaiah 7:16). (What point is there in highlighting the different and innocent condition of children in these verses if it makes no difference? If there is no difference between children and adults, according to Calvinism?)
Just like we wouldn't hold a severely mentally-handicapped person guilty for a "crime" they did, God does not hold babies guilty for "sins" they do, because it's not willful yet, not a choice. They didn't know what they were doing.
And so if they die, He considers them innocent (Jer. 19:4-5) and His children (Ez. 16:20-21). And this is why heaven is filled with them (Matt. 19:14), and why the angels see the face of God when they look at children (Matt. 18:10), and why it's said that God ordains praise from the lips of infants (Matt. 21:16), and how King David knew he'd see his dead son again (2 Sam. 12:23).
(I like the point that Warren McGrew of Idol Killer made in his video "Does Calvinism Teach Babies are Elected for hell?", which is, basically, that the reason it's called "new birth/being born again" is because it's wiping our slate clean and taking us back to the original "innocent" condition we were born in the first time around, as innocent and pure as newborn infants. I had never thought of it that way before, but I like it!)
But as I said, Calvinists can't believe in an age of accountability because that would affirm the idea of human choice, of people making decisions about Jesus. And in Calvinism, salvation is not based on our choice, but on God's choice for us.
And regarding Psalm 51:5 (the other verse my ex-pastor used to support the idea of babies in hell): In the KJV, the more accurate translation, it does not say that David was sinful from birth, but it says that his mother conceived him in sin, which could mean that his parents were doing something considered sinful when he was conceived (such as maybe the way they were having sex or the time/day they had sex, maybe on a forbidden day) or maybe he's talking about being born into a sinful world. Either way, there is no hint in the KJV that David is calling himself sinful from birth.
In fact, Genesis 8:21 in the KJV notes that "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," not "at birth," as it would be in Calvinism. Man starts going wrong - sinning, becoming guilty of sin - from youth, not at birth.
And "youth" doesn't necessarily mean "infancy/childhood," because this word is also used in Psalm 127:4 which talks about "children of the youth," children from one's youth. Babies and small children cannot have children. Grown people have children. Therefore, "youth" is not even necessarily about very young people, but about those young people who are old enough to have their first kids.
The point is, babies are not born guilty of sin and on their way to hell. They are considered innocent of wrongdoing until they get old enough to make willful sinful decisions.
None of my ex-pastor's "infant damnation" verses support infant damnation. But many verses support the opposite. (Also see my post "Do babies go to heaven or hell? A critique of Calvinism's answer.")
Also, for the record, our pastor must have gotten backlash for that sermon because shortly after it, he wrote a post on the church blog where he backpedaled, saying that he's not sure if babies go to heaven or not, but that maybe they do. Pathetic. So I sent an email saying that we knew exactly what he was teaching in that Mother's Day sermon and that how dare he now think he can pull the wool over our eyes, tricking us into thinking he didn't teach what he did. Shameful.
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Now moving onto a similar, related issue (And you thought we were almost done! Ha!)...
#21: Calvinism and unreached people:
As I said, take heart about all those babies going to hell because, as Calvinists say, it glorifies and pleases God. And not only that, but those "gently burning" babies will have lots of company in hell: All those who haven't heard the gospel or Jesus's name. They're all non-elect and predestined to hell, too, according to Calvinists:
ff. Vincent Cheung (“Infant Salvation”): "If someone dies without hearing the gospel, it just means that God has decreed his damnation beforehand."
gg. John Piper (Can an elect person die without hearing the gospel?): "You have to hear the gospel and believe in order to go to heaven. If you don’t hear the gospel and believe, you don’t go to heaven. If you don’t go to heaven, you weren’t among the elect."
hh. John Piper answering the question What happens to those who have never heard the gospel?: "They perish. And they perish justly... I don't believe, since the cross of Christ, that anywhere in the world there is a person outside the gospel who is a genuinely brokenhearted, repentant, truster in the grace of God. Rather they suppress the truth [as Calvi-god decreed], and since they suppress the truth they have, that will be the foundation of their judgment." [Translation: All people who never hear the gospel are hardened, unrepentant suppressors of the truth who need to be - and will be - punished."]
ii. John MacArthur, answering a question about if those on a remote island who never heard the gospel can be saved: "No, you can't receive salvation, except through Christ... If God had determined to save that guy in isolation, somehow He would see to it that the gospel arrived to him."
jj. SBC Voice (Missions and the fate of those who never hear): "One of the things that helps me is to realize that there are no 'innocent' persons out there that are condemned for the ill fortune of not hearing about Jesus. The Bible is clear that 'all have sinned' (Rom 3:23) and that all have rejected even the truth that has been revealed to them so that they are 'without excuse' (Rom 1:20). Further, if anyone is condemned apart from hearing and receiving the gospel, they are not condemned for not hearing the gospel. They are condemned for their sin and rebellion against a holy God in thought, word, and deed." [So even though the non-elect never had a chance to believe in Jesus, they are still condemned - not for not hearing the gospel, but for their sins, which also were predestined by Calvi-god.]
kk. Likewise, I read a comment from one Calvinist which was this: "The non-elect aren't punished for something they had no control over, but they are punished for the sin they willingly commit."
But the quick answer here is: "But their desire to sin is exactly what they had no control over, in Calvinism. It was ordained by Calvi-god. He gave them the sin-nature that made them want to 'willingly' commit sin, and they had no ability to resist it. Like a magic potion we're forced to obey." [Calvinism is nonsense!]
ll. Matt Smethurst from The Gospel Coalition (What happens to those who never hear the gospel?): "So will God condemn the innocent tribesman who has never heard the name of Christ? No, because there are no innocent tribesmen. Scripture simply does not picture fallen humans as having some vague but noble desire for mercy and forgiveness. Moreover, we seem to have an inescapable pull toward enacting our faith in ritual, liturgy, and sacrifice. So what does the man on the island do? In the imagination of the inclusivist, he just cries out for vague mercy and forgiveness, claiming no merits of his own. In the real world, however, he probably participates in a form of idolatrous folk religion that contradicts and undermines the gospel of grace [thereby proving he is non-elect and "earning" his predestined damnation, of course]."
mm. From the EFCA website: "What is the destiny of the unevangelized who have not heard of God’s saving work in Jesus Christ—can they be saved? Since the coming of God’s final work in Jesus Christ, Scripture speaks clearly of the need to hear and to believe the gospel. Among those capable of understanding the gospel, we affirm that we have no clear biblical warrant for believing that, since the coming of Christ, God has saved anyone apart from conscious faith in Jesus [which would also condemn infants and the mentally-handicapped who are incapable of making a conscious decision for Jesus]... While God could reveal Christ to some apart from the normal means of the ministry of the Word (e.g., through dreams or visions), we have no biblical warrant for believing that He will reveal Himself in that way to anyone... Because all have sinned and are deserving of God’s condemnation, we believe that we can be saved only by the atoning work of Christ, and we believe that we can be sure that people can be saved by that work only if they are told about it." [Though the EFCA officially says it has both Calvinist and Arminian churches under its umbrella, I think that just like the SBC, the EFCA has been aggressively hijacked by Calvinists lately.]
nn. Jordan Standridge (Where do people go who have never heard of Jesus?): "When we think about those around the world who have yet to hear the Gospel... We should remind ourselves about the perfect holiness and justice of God, who will be perfectly righteous to cast every unregenerate human being into Hell... People who never hear of Jesus go to Hell."
oo. David Platt (What happens to people who never hear the gospel?): "All people everywhere are guilty of sin before a holy God. Here's why this point is important. So many times this question is asked: 'Pastor, what happens to the innocent man or woman or child in this remote part of the world who's never heard of the gospel when they die?'
If you were to ask me that question, I would say, 'Without question, based on the Bible, those people go to heaven even though they've never heard the gospel. [Wait for it.] Without question, an innocent man, woman, child would go to heaven without ever hearing the gospel, because they have no need to hear the gospel. [Keep waiting...] If they're innocent of sin, they don't need to hear that Jesus died to save them from sin. If they're innocent of sin, they'll go straight to heaven. Of course they'll go to heaven.' [Still waiting...]
The only problem is those people do not exist. [There it is!]... There are no innocent people in the world just waiting to hear the gospel. There are guilty people all over the world - that's why they need to hear the gospel.
... He loves us and has made a way for us to be saved from our sin... The way is faith in Jesus... [But] people cannot put their faith in Jesus if they never hear of Jesus... Over two billion people cannot go to heaven if they don't have faith in Jesus, but they cannot have faith in Jesus if they don't hear about Jesus... If we don't go [to evangelize in the nations], they won't hear, they won't believe, they won't call and they won't be saved..." [Ergo, all those who do not hear the gospel or cannot respond to the gospel (this would include remote tribesman, babies, and the mentally-handicapped, wouldn't it?) are non-elect, predestined to hell.]
pp. John Piper (We are accountable for what we know): "I think this text carries a huge implication for understanding the justice of God in dealing with people around the world — some of who know God only through natural revelation rather than any gospel witness. They’ve never heard the gospel. In Romans 1:18-23 we see that every human being has enough knowledge of God to be held accountable before him at the judgment day.... Whenever people ask me, 'What about those who have never heard the gospel?' My answer, based partly on Luke 12, is that no one will be judged for not obeying revelation they did not have. We will all be judged according to the knowledge of the truth we have access to."
Note carefully that Piper is not saying that everyone has enough revelation of God through nature to be able to believe. He's not saying that they're being judged because they had a chance to believe but chose not to.
He's saying that the non-elect ("those who know God only through natural revelation rather than any gospel witness" - because, in Calvinism, all elect people will hear the gospel) have enough revelation of God in nature only to make them guilty for their sins, for their unbelief (even though it was predestined), but not enough to save them.
It's kinda like saying that your car is predestined to go 100 miles per hour. But the police - knowing that your car must go 100 miles per hour, that it's impossible for you to change it - post a "Speed Limit 5 mph" sign. The police didn't post it to make you change your speed, to help you, to save you - because they knew you couldn't reduce your speed - but they posted it only to make you guilty of speeding, to make you a lawbreaker, so that they can punish you like they always planned to do anyway.
That's what's going on here. In Calvinism, the revelation of God in nature is not to save the non-elect or to help them find Him, but it's to condemn them, to make them guilty.
qq. John Calvin even says it clearly, that God did not reveal Himself in nature to draw us to Him but to condemn us, to make us guilty for not seeing Him (Institutes, Book 1, Chapters 5-6): "Wherefore, the apostle, in the very place where he says that the worlds are images of invisible things, adds that it is by faith we understand that they were framed by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3); thereby intimating that the invisible Godhead is indeed represented by such displays, but that we have no eyes to perceive it until they are enlightened through faith by internal revelation from God. When Paul says that that which may be known of God is manifested by the creation of the world, he does not mean such a manifestation as may be comprehended by the wit of man (Romans 1:19); on the contrary he shows that it has no further effect than to render us inexcusable (Acts 17:27)."
As he says in Institutes, chapter 6 section 1, God gave revelation of Himself in nature (paraphrased) "in order to bring the whole human race under the same condemnation." So it's not to save us or help us find Him, but to ensure that we are damnable.
rr. Similarly, my ex-pastor said this in his June 22, 2014 sermon: "[Nature] screams out there's an Almighty God. So we call this 'general revelation.' Theologians call it 'natural revelation.' There is a certain amount of information about God that comes through creation and nature... But 'special revelation' is the information about God that can only be known through the Bible... [General revelation] is not enough information in order to lead someone to Christ as Savior. It is enough information to indict them on Judgment Day, but it is not enough information to save them."
ss. And again in a July 2015 sermon on what happens to those who don't hear the gospel (his reference verses were Romans 1:18-25): "General revelation is enough to indict us, but it's not enough information to save us... We must call on the name of Jesus to be saved... Lost sinners must hear the gospel and call on the name of Jesus... Those who've never heard are liable and they will face judgment someday..."
tt. And again in January 2016: "General revelation can’t lead you to Christ. It’s enough to inform you about God and to indict you, but it’s not enough to save you. That’s why Paul says that no one will have an excuse on Judgment Day... It’s exhilarating to be outdoors, but it’s not enough to lead you to saving faith. That’s why God gave us the Bible.... So what about those who never heard the gospel?... All people suppress the truth in their wickedness. That’s everybody on the planet…all people, to the most primitive tribal person you can imagine on the most remote island. Everybody suppresses the truth that there is an almighty, personal God they are accountable to… Unless the gospel is preached [to them], they can’t believe.”
[Non-Calvinists would say that the verse about "no one has an excuse" means that all people have the chance and ability to believe and be saved, even if all we have is God's general revelation, that God holds us accountable for how we respond to the information He gives us. And because we all have the chance and ability to believe - and because God gives us all enough revelation of Himself to prove He's real - there's no excuse for not believing in Him.
But Calvinists think that "no one has an excuse" simply means that even though Calvi-god predestined you to hell and ordained your sins/unbelief and prevented you from believing in him, that's no excuse, and so you'll still be punished for it, even though you had no control over it. Very different!]
uu. And again in July 2018: "What about the innocent native who never heard of Christ? Well...there's no such thing as an innocent native. All of us are born into sin and depravity... All people suppress the truth because of their sin and wickedness... All people know there's a God [because of general revelation]...so all people are without excuse... Those who never heard of Christ are damned for two reasons. One: They are born rebels and they sin throughout the course of their lives. And two: They're sinning in a floodlight of God's revelation of Himself."
In Calvinism, general revelation is only enough to make the non-elect damnable (and all those who never heard of Christ are non-elect), not enough to lead them to salvation.
(So why on earth would we thank God for His creation and for how creation points back to Him if it's the very thing that damns most people to eternal hell and torment? That's sick.)
What God did to reach all people:
vv. R.C. Sproul (in Chosen by God: God’s Sovereignty) says that a problem with believing in free-will (that God offers salvation to all, gives everyone the ability to believe, and lets them choose) is this: “However, there are millions and millions and millions of people who never hear the gospel and who, in fact, don’t have the opportunity… God has not made sure that everybody in the world hears the gospel. Could God make sure that everybody in the world hears the gospel? Could God print it in the clouds if He wanted to? Yes, but He doesn’t. So [in a strike against believing in free-will] we are left with the problem that God does not do everything He conceivably could do within the bounds of His own righteousness. He does not do everything conceivable to ensure the salvation of the world.”
And so to Calvinists, Calvinism is better because at least God makes sure to definitely save some people, instead of just giving everyone the potential of being saved.
(It's ironically hypocritical that Sproul is bothered that a non-Calvinist God "does not do everything conceivable to ensure the salvation of the world"... but he has no problem with a Calvinist god who also "does not do everything conceivable to ensure the salvation of the world". Calvinists would rather have a god who selects a few people to save while deliberately damning most to hell than have a God who truly loves all and offers salvation to all but lets them decide. Odd. Disturbing.)
But I say that, contrary to Sproul, the Bible does indeed teach that God did indeed write His truth in the clouds... and in the trees and the mountains and the stars and all of creation, for all to see - for all to see Him in His creation and turn to Him and reach for Him.
This is why all people have a chance, why all people can find Him. And this is why there is no excuse for not.
Isaiah 40:26: "Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls them each by name..."
Not only that, but God also wrote His truth, His conviction, His law, on our hearts:
Ecc. 3:11: "... He has also set eternity in the hearts of men..."
John 16:8: "When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment"
Romans 2:14-15: "(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness...)"
[Sidenote: Calvinists say "totally-depraved" people have no spiritually good thing in them, nothing that could turn them to God. But isn't God's law in our hearts a very good spiritual thing, something that could turn us to God? And why would God write His law on our hearts if it wasn't meant to turn us to Him, if - according to Calvinism - He gave us no ability to see it, acknowledge it, or respond to it?]
Contrary to Sproul, God did do everything He could conceivably do (with respect to the free-will He gave us) to ensure the salvation of the world, to ensure that everyone has the chance, the option, the ability, to be saved.
“… 'Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the whole world.'” (John 1:29)
"He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." (1 John 2:2)
"But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.'" (Luke 2:10)
He makes salvation possible for all, but He allows us to decide if we want to accept His offer or reject it.
Whether we have the Word or just the truth He puts in creation and in our hearts, everyone has enough information to know He's real and to find Him. No one will be able to say "You never gave me a chance, God." And whatever level of revelation we have, God will hold us responsible for how we respond to it, for whether we accept it or reject/ignore it, whether we draw near to Him through it or go our own way and make up our own truths.
I think the difference between babies and older people that I talked about above similarly applies in this situation: Those in remote areas who never had the chance to hear about Jesus are not necessarily rejecting Him by not believing in His name. It's just that they never heard His name. And I think Scripture shows that God punishes people for rejecting/resisting Jesus, not for not hearing about Him.
And so those who never hear Jesus's actual name or the gospel as written in the Bible are accountable for how they respond to what they do know, for the revelation of Him they do have: they can accept that there's a Creator and reach for Him, or they can reject Him and make up their own truths. Anyone who truly seeks Him and who wants to know the true God and who reaches for Him will find Him, as promised over and over again in the Bible.
Do you think God cannot make Himself known without a copy of the New Testament? Did He bind His own hands when He had the New Testament written, suddenly becoming unable to get His truth across in any other way? Did the heavens suddenly stop declaring the glory of God and pointing people back to a Creator after the New Testament was written?
And the remote people who find God through the only information they have - the general revelation of Him in nature and on their hearts - are still be saved by Jesus's death, even if they don't know His name, because Jesus's death is what paid for their sins and made salvation possible. It's like how someone can cross a bridge to safety even if they don't know the name of the bridge.
[Inevitably, Calvinists will reply with Romans 10:14: "...how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?..." They'll say, "See, no one can believe in Jesus if they don't hear about Jesus. So how can anyone on a remote island be saved if the gospel isn't preached to them? They can't be."
But what Calvinists fail to realize is that the Bible answers this just four verses later, Romans 10:18: "But I ask: Did they not hear? Of course they did: 'Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." This is a reference back to Psalm 19:4 which says that the heavens declare the glory of God to everyone, to the ends of the earth. Paul is saying that, yes, all people have heard and, therefore, all people have the chance to believe and be saved. The Bible says so. (Like I said, Calvinist proof-texts fall one by one the more you research them.)]
Calvinists on celebrating other people's eternal damnation:
And for the record, since we're talking about the most evil teachings of Calvinism, some Calvinists get even more disgusting in their teachings by telling us that we should delight in the "reprobation" of people, in the fact that people will suffer in hell for all of eternity (I'm not making this stuff up):
ww. Matthew McMahon (The Two Wills of God, pg 349): "The saints should delight in the reprobation of the wicked... We come to understand and praise God concerning the damnation of other people. We understand that we could have been what they are. We contemplate their eternal destiny, and bow before the throne to praise the Creator and the Father we have. How awesome is that grace which He bestowed upon us in His Son!"
yy. David Mathis, 9Marks ("Hallelujah over hell? How God's people rejoice while their enemies perish"): "Yet [in the end]... we will rejoice in his power on display in the destruction of the wicked [who were wicked by Calvi-god's decree]. Even now, we can shape our hearts to rejoice appropriately in those truths... Some Christians today may reluctantly think about hell, Well, God said it. I’ll believe it, but I don’t like it... While we might admirably profess to hold to God’s Word, our 'not liking it' is no evidence of maturity. In fact, it’s an expression of moral immaturity, if not error or sin... We want to mature in this by meditating on the happiness of God’s people not despite but because of God’s destruction of the wicked... Divine judgments against the wicked are for you [you lucky elect!]." [You know, if the eternal damnation of people is so good, praiseworthy, God-glorifying, and beneficial for the elect, why would any Calvinist truly desire the salvation of all people?]
zz. Paul Washer (“The Gospel is only Good News to a needy man”): “If you reject Christ, then the moment when you take your first step through the gates of hell, the only thing you will hear is all of creation standing to its feet and applauding and praising God because God has rid the earth of you. That’s how not good you are."
[And yet Luke 15:10 says that angels rejoice when even one person is saved, not that they rejoice when someone is damned. And Ez. 18:23 says that God Himself does not take any pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that He'd rather they turn from their evil ways and be saved. But apparently Calvinists think that everything and everyone should - and will - take pleasure in the death and destruction of the wicked. That's sick.]
ccc. Robert Golding [Themelios, Vol 46, Issue 1, "Making Sense of Hell". While I agree that those in heaven will not spend eternity feeling sad about those in hell - because God promises to wipe away every tear when eternity comes - I have a very big problem with the idea of Calvinists trying to find ways to be okay with their idea that God predestines people to hell.]: "... Jonathan Edwards taught that the saints in heaven will rejoice over the damnation of their unbelieving family members in hell because they will be witnessing the justice of God in glorious display... If the persons in hell are devoid of God’s goodness, they are as evil as possible. So much so that we should not even use the term 'human' to describe them... Therefore, we should imagine a repugnant distillation of evil in hell, not an amalgamation of lost souls and poor misled Buddhists, etc. If we think of the former as opposed to the latter, it seems we can intuitively agree with God’s wrath upon it. [Whatever helps you sleep at night.]... Traditionally, Christians [Calvinists!] have taught that the necessity of hell is such that, without it, God would not be fully glorified since his justice would not be fully manifest. In this vein Edwards said that 'mercy and grace are more valuable on this account. The more they [that is, the saints in heaven] shall see of the justice of God, the more will they prize and rejoice in his love.'.... I have sought to show that the reprobate are so hellish that any fond feelings for them (as the universalists seek to evoke) are misplaced...."
ddd. Robert Murray M'cheyne, Monergism ("Vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" [from a sermon preached in 1843, talking up the "good" reasons for the damnation of the non-elect]: "All will not be saved... Some of you, I think, are going to hell, and some, I trust, are going to heaven; and doubtless it is best it should be so, though I cannot explain the reason of it... Every one of you will be to the glory of God. You will be made to glorify him in one way or another... either a beacon of wrath or a monument of mercy... the chief end of God in the world to manifest his glory... self-manifestation... This seems to be the reason why there are vessels of wrath as well as of mercy - that they might be mirrors to reflect his attributes... Last of all, the destruction of the vessels of wrath will be no grief to the vessels of mercy. I once spoke to you of this before; but I would again remind you of it. The redeemed will have no tears to shed; and here is the reason - the very destruction of the wicked makes known the riches of divine grace..."
[Calvinists say that God predestines people to hell to show His justice to get glory for Himself. But it's very important to know that God Himself tells us how He chose to demonstrate His justice and get glory, and it wasn't by creating non-elect people to predestine to hell.
“God presented [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished- he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.” (Romans 3:25-26, emphasis added).
John 12:27-28: Jesus said "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!"
John 13:31: "When he was gone, Jesus said, 'Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.'"
God Himself tells us that He sent Jesus to take our punishment for sin in order to demonstrate His justice. Jesus's death demonstrated and satisfied God's justice. Fully. "It is finished." And not only that, but Jesus's death - His sacrifice for our sins - was going to be to the glory of God.
And so Calvinism actually contradicts what God clearly said in His Word about how He chose to show His justice and get glory. It replaces/detracts from Jesus's sacrifice. It steals God's glory. (If Calvinist can find one verse that clearly says God created non-elect people to punish in hell to show off His justice and get glory, maybe then I'll start to give them more credit.)
If we end up in hell, it's not because we were predestined by God to hell for "justice" and for His glory, but it's because we chose to reject the sacrifice Jesus made on behalf of all people, the gift of eternal life He offers to all that He paid for with His blood, that He died for so that we didn't have to.
That God "needed sinners to punish in order to show His justice in order to get more glory for Himself" is a completely unbiblical idea that Calvinists add to Scripture to make their doctrine of election/predestination sound good and God-glorifying.
And that the non-elect "deserve" their punishment is what Calvinists say to make it seem logical and "fair," to manipulate people into accepting what they know in their spirits sounds wrong.]
eee. Jonathan Edwards ("The End of the Wicked Contemplated by the Righteous", section 2): "... the just damnation of the wicked will be an occasion of rejoicing to the saints in glory... [they will] rejoice in seeing the justice of God executed, and in seeing his love to them in executing it on his enemies... the sufferings of the damned will be no occasion of grief to the heavenly inhabitant, as they will have no love nor pity to the damned as such.... the heavenly inhabitants will know that it is not fit that they should love them, because they will know then, that God has no love to them, nor pity for them; but that they are the objects of God’s eternal hatred... God glorifies himself in the eternal damnation of the ungodly men. God glorifies himself in all that he doth; but he glorifies himself principally in his eternal disposal of his intelligent creatures, some are appointed to everlasting life, and others left to everlasting death.... To see the majesty, and greatness, and terribleness of God, appearing in the destruction of his enemies, will cause the saints to rejoice; and when they shall see how great and terrible a being God is, how will they prize his favour! how will they rejoice that they are the objects of his love! how will they praise him the more joyfully, that, he should choose them to be his children, and to live in the enjoyment of him!" [Delighting a little much in the destruction of others!?!]
fff. Jonathan Edwards on how God views the reprobates ("Sinners in the hands of an angry God"): "The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God...that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood... The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours...
Well, that about does it. I've said enough already, so I think I'll just leave you with this:
[Snippets from all over, such as:
"When Calvinists say 'But predestination!" (my pastor's sermons)"
"But predestination! (#16A (God's Will and babies)
"But predestination! (#16B: sin, evil, suffering)"
"Do babies go to heaven or hell? A critique of Calvinism's answer"
"Calvinist Hogwash #1 (God and sin/suffering)... #2 (the elect)... #3 (the reprobate)... #4 (hell and justice)... #5 (rejoicing about hell)]
