Calvi-god's Will: Children Deserve What!?!

I updated my comment on the R.C. Sproul Jr. quote in my post "But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!" (which, incidentally, was featured in a "reddit reformed" post).  

And as usual, I made it much longer, adding more quotes (quotes I've posted in other places, so feel free to skip them if you've read them before).  But it's important stuff, the bottom-line of Calvinism (which is why I want them all together in one place and why I re-quote them often, as needed - because Calvinists' own words make the best case against them). 

And I figured I'd repost my new comment here, too, because it's a whole post all on its own.  (Also see my post Thank you, reddit/reformed. I'm honored!)

1. R.C. Sproul Jr. (Almighty Over All): “God wills all things that come to pass" 

I think one huge way Calvinists go wrong is that they misunderstand "God's Will."  They assume that God's Will must always happen, that He always gets what He wants, and so therefore everything that happens is "His Will," what He wanted and planned and caused.

But they are wrong.  

Biblically, when it comes to our lives and choices, God's Will isn't about preplanning, wanting, causing everything that happens.  (Yes, God has some overarching plans for mankind that He will work out one way or another, but He does this by incorporating our choices and maybe even by forcing us to make the choice He knows we'll make, but not by preplanning or causing the choice we make.  He causes all things to work together - not preplans/causes all things - to fulfill His overarching plans.)  

[Note: Not all non-Calvinists believe that God foreknows the choices we'll make, but I do.]  

But according to Strong's Concordance/HELPS Word-studies, “God's Will" (especially in verses about what He wants for us and from us) is about His “desire/preferred Will; His 'best offer' to people which can be accepted or rejected; the result hoped for with the particular desire/wish.”  It's about what God desires for us and from us, how He wants us to live, not about a pre-set plan that must/will happen.  

Just wondering, but if Calvinists believe that God always does His Will no matter what and that whatever happens is "His Will"... and yet, in reality and biblically, it's really our responsibility/choice to find out what His Will is (in His Word), to pray for His Will to get done, and to choose to obey it... then how often does God's Will really go undone in the lives of Calvinists, when they're shirking their responsibility to do their part because they're assuming that God does it all?  Hmm.   

God has desires/opinions about how He wants us to live, what He wants for us, and how He wants to bless us and use us in His plans.  But He does not force it.  He tells us what He wants and expects, but He lets us choose to obey or disobey.  He lets us decide if we are in His Will or not, if we fulfill His Will or not.  

This explains how and why His Will doesn't always happen (such as His Will/desire that all people are saved, that we give thanks in all circumstances, that all orphans and widows are taken care of, etc.).  And so not everything that happens is "His Will" or what He wanted.  Many bad things happen because we resist, refuse, disobey His Will.  

Calvinism's misunderstanding of what "God's Will" means has led to massive errors in their theology, massive errors in their understanding of why things happen, how things get done, what God's role/responsibility is, what our role/responsibility is, who Jesus died for, and how we get to heaven.  (As you'll see in the following comments.)  

And it's done an enormous amount of damage to people's hearts and faith, especially when they're told by Calvinists that "It's God's Will" that they were mistreated, abused, cheated on, divorced, hurt by others, that they got cancer or a disease, that their children were injured or handicapped or killed, that they lost their job or lost their home in a natural disaster, and other things like that. 

I mean, seriously... Imagine being the family of the 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped, tortured, raped, and strangled to death... and then hearing R.C. Sproul Jr. proclaim that God ordained it to happen and that your little girl "received the judgment from God she had earned."  So according to Sproul Jr. (I'd add some adjectives to his name, but that wouldn't be very Christian of me), her violent abuse and murder was God's Will for that child, "ordained" by God as "justice" for her sins.  (Watch The Church Split's video: "Calvinism's Most DISTURBING claim yet: This Is Monstrous Theology".) 

Likewise (let's follow the rabbit hole of Calvi-god's Will for children and babies for a little while), a Calvinist in a clip in an Idol Killer video ("Why Calvinist Apologetics FAIL") responds to an atheist's comment about God not feeding starving children with "Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious.  We also recognize that those children don't deserve any food.  They deserve much worse for their sins.  They should repent and believe the gospel."  And so, apparently, it's God Will if they starve to death.  They "deserve" it, and so much worse.

And Papa John Calvin would agree (from Institutes of the Christian Faith, book 1, chapter 16): "... 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."  

So Calvi-god ordains the torture, rape, and strangulation of babies and children and is pleased to cause starvation.  All of this is "his Will" for them.

And why?

It's Calvi-justice.  They "deserve" it for their sins.  

Because they're wicked and depraved to their core!

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!  It’s the All-Great Universe of ME!  They don’t want to know the truth.  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...”  [Oh, those horrible little wretched babies!]

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."

Voddie Baucham (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... 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.”  

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."

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 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."  [And yet, contradictorily, MacArthur claims that he believes that babies - the wicked, depraved, sinful fruit of vile human procreation - go to heaven if they die.  How does he square that circle!?!😕]

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... This is why infants, children, and toddlers disobey by nature... It’s why they need spankings."  

[So we can spank the "total depravity" right out of them?  Spank Calv-election into them?  Spank them enough to influence or change whatever Calvi-god predestined for them?]

Or maybe Calvi-god causes bad things to happen to your kids not because they're so evil but for your benefit, to make you holy:

From my ex-pastor's son (an adult Calvinist preacher also) who was a guest pastor in February 2019: 

"If God has chosen you for salvation, He will make you holy... God purposes for you to be holy, and He will make you holy.  And if you defy Him [by His decree], the furnace of affliction will not be pleasant.  He may hide His face from you or rob you of your joy.  He may oppress you with an illness or torment you with a bodily injury.  He may destroy your career or put you in dire financial straits.  He may afflict your spouse with a disease or snatch life from your children.  GOD...WILL...MAKE...YOU...HOLY!"  

So if you're elect, God might kill your kids to make you holy!?!  So apparently, your children's purpose - their whole reason for being here - might have nothing to do with them at all, but it's all about you, about Calvi-god's plans to make you a better Christian.  

It's amusing that throughout this part of the sermon, this guy was virtually shouting and carefully punctuating every word for dramatic effect.  I think he fancied himself an 1800's hellfire-and-brimstone preacher.  

Daddy must be so proud of him!

And so according to Calvinism, what happens to all those spanked, starved, tortured, strangled, snatched-from-life babies and children?

Well, if they're not one of the Calv-elect, then it's Calvi-god's Will that they go to hell of course, for being such wicked, depraved sinners.  

Because even if they didn't do any sins of their own yet, they're still guilty for Adam's sin, and so they deserve eternal damnation.

My ex-pastor, from his June 28, 2015 sermon on hell: "The Bible says...we are born enemies of God and that we are in rebellion against God.  You are in rebellion against God from the moment of conception.  We inherit Adam and Eve's sin.  We inherit their depravity."

From his August 2015 sermon on predestination: “How many sins does it take to be a sinner?  The answer is zero because we’re born steeped in sin, because we inherit it from Adam and Eve and their rebellion.  We call that the doctrine of internal depravity, inherited depravity."   

From December 1, 2017: "Isaiah is telling us in very strong language, very clear language here, that our sins have cut us off from God, from the moment of conception, of birth, and then once we start committing sins, it even adds to it.  They separate us from God... We are sinners by conception, then by birth."

From July 16, 2017: "From the moment of conception in the womb, we are desperately wicked, hopelessly selfish, in utter rebellion against God... The unsaved man, the unsaved woman, the unsaved child, the unsaved teen is cut off from God and under judgment... We are under a divine death sentence from the moment of conception, and unless something happens, we will face the living God [and] judgment and damnation."

From February 3, 2019: "Do you understand that hell is your default destination from the moment of conception?"  

John Calvin (Institutes, book 3, chapter 23): "... individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death, and are to glorify him by their destruction."

From Calvin's Institutes, book 2, section 8: "Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother’s womb, suffer not for another’s, but for their own defect... 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."

From Calvin's Harmony of the Law, Vol. 2, Deut. 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!)

From Jonathan 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..." 

James White (start at 4:33 in the 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."

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..."

R.C. Sproul Jr. would agree, as seen in part of his answer to the question "How would you advise a parent who concludes that one or more of their children are not among the elect?" (start at 1:12 in this video): "God has to, one at a time, give life to those who are His elect... I can tell you this, from the moment my wife and I find out we're pregnant, we pray that God would change their hearts then, knowing even in the womb our children are sinners and needed the grace of God."  

Therefore, obviously, if a baby dies in the womb (or any time) without first being "regenerated," it dies as a hell-bound sinner.  Just as Calvi-god willed it to be!

{A Calvinist named Joe responded to a similar question - "If you found out that God chose not to save one or more of your children, how would you feel about that?" - with this answer: "It means He's God... 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... 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, or I can worry about God's choices with other wretched sinners.  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."  

(What kind of a god is Calvi-god that Calvinists are shocked that he'd love even one person enough to save them?😕  Watch the video of this conversation at Soteriology 101's "Warning: This may be the CRINGIEST video you watch about Calvinism".  And then enjoy this 2-minute video featuring Calvinist Tyler Vela and Beaker from the Muppets, called "Me, me, me."  FYI: Sadly, Tyler recently left the faith.  But is it any wonder when we really understand what Calvinism teaches!)} 

From 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... If you say, they [infants] have not deserved it so much, I answer: they certainly have deserved what they have deserved... 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." 

Vincent Cheung (“Infant Salvation”): “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 possibility [of salvation] 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... 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... As for the embryos, if they perish, they will go where God decides – if they all burn in hell, they all burn in hell…”

Calvi-god's Will: The starvation, kidnapping, torture, rape, and strangulation of babies and children - and their predestination to eternal hell, before they can even choose to commit any sins on their own, because it's "justice" for how depraved they are, how guilty they are for another person's sin.

What kind of a sick god is Calvi-god!?! 

And what does it say about a person who loves, trusts, worships, and emulates a god like that? 

[Find more quotes, along with these, in my post "As evil as it gets: Calvinism on babies and the unreached."

And to be fair, not all Calvinists are this extreme.  Some probably aren't even aware - don't want to be aware - of what Calvinism really teaches, the terrible bottom-line.  Some won't say the dark parts out loud, or even to themselves.  And some Calvinists really do believe that people are truly responsible for their sins and that all/some babies go to heaven.

But to be honest, any Calvinist who claims that Calvi-god isn't the ultimate cause of sin and that babies go to heaven is being totally inconsistent with his theology.  Calvinism itself is incompatible with the idea that anyone else but God is truly responsible for sin and the idea that babies go to heaven, no matter how Calvinists try to spin it.  See the post "In consistent Calvinism, babies cannot be saved."]

But no!  I do not agree with Calvinists that babies are born guilty for Adam's sin or that there are non-elect people predestined to hell, born "totally unable" to believe in God.  I do not agree that "election" or "predestination" or "sovereign" is about God choosing who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  I believe that we all make our own choice to believe in or reject Jesus - that we all have the ability/option to believe - and that we are judged on that basis.  And so babies who never made it to an age where they can make their own choice are considered innocent, covered by God's grace.  (See "Do babies go to heaven or hell? A critique of Calvinism's answer" and "TULIP's Totally-Depraved Doctrine" and "When Calvinists say, 'But predestination!")    

I do not agree with Calvinists that regeneration precedes faith.  But I believe that after we put our faith in Jesus, then we are regenerated and born again.  (See "Quick answers: born again" and "'But predestination': 'dead,' regeneration, born again.") 

I do not agree with Calvinists that "God ordains/causes everything that happens, even sin and evil" or that "allowing it to happen (not stopping it from happening) is the same as Him preplanning, wanting, decreeing, orchestrating it to happen."  (They believe this because they mis-define "sovereignty.") 

But I will say this: I do agree that God can cause some "bad" things to happen for a reason, such as maybe causing an illness or a storm (things we consider "bad" or unpleasant).  But causing something like that isn't like causing sin and evil.  He has no commands against storms/illness, but He does have commands against sin and evil.  And so He can ordain/cause a storm without violating His commands or destroying His character, but He cannot ordain/cause sin and evil without violating His commands and destroying His character.  

Sure, God causes some things (but never sin or evil, although He can work our self-chosen sin into His plans)... and, yes, He allows some things to happen "for a reason"... but I think there are plenty of other things that He just allows, with no "for a reason" attached (and maybe it's more often than not).  He allows it to happen simply because He gave us, angels, demons, and nature a certain amount of room to move and act freely.  

And so even if He does occasionally cause some unpleasant non-sin things, I think that most bad things happen not because God wanted/willed/planned it "for a reason," but simply because of the freedom He gave us.  He allows people to have the free-will to make decisions that affect things (even bad, hurtful decisions that hurt others)... He allows demons and angels to make decisions that affect things... and He allows natural processes to run their courses within boundaries (which means that sometimes nature goes wrong, cells go wrong, wind currents go wrong, etc.).  

There are a bunch of factors that affect why things happen that have nothing to do with "It was God's Will, what He ordained, planned, wanted, caused."  

And so since God is not preplanning, controlling, or causing it all - but He has given us, demons/angels, and nature an awful lot of freedom to move and make decisions within boundaries - things will go wrong sometimes, against His Will.  And the responsibility for things going wrong lies with us, Satan/demons, and the disruption of natural processes, not with God.  

But, of course, our comfort comes from knowing that He is still over and above it all, even sinful and evil things He didn't cause or want.  (Unlike Calvinism which says that it should be comforting to us that He ordains and causes the sinful, evil things!  Very different!)  He is watching over it all, trying to guide people to do the right thing, grieved when we do the wrong thing, hurting with us when bad things happen to us, and finding ways to turn the bad into good, to bring good out of it, even the things He didn't plan, want, will, cause.  

I know that believing He "allowed" bad things can be just as devastating to people as thinking He caused it.  But at least it means that He didn't want the pain, tragedy, injustice for us, that it wasn't His plan for us, that He takes no pleasure in it.  At least it's because of the freedoms He gave us and nature, not because He wanted, planned, caused it.  At least it means people are responsible for their sins, and not God.  Because if God's responsible for sin and evil - if He causes people to commit the sins He told them not to commit and if He punishes them for irresistibly doing what He predestined them to do - then He cannot be trusted.  And so to whom then could we go to for help or comfort when the tragedies hit us?  

Calvinism's god is not a god to trust or love or feel truly loved by.  But the true God of the Bible - who didn't want, plan, cause the sin or evil that He commands us not to do and punishes us for, but who simply allows people to make their own bad decisions - can still be trusted.  He is not the planner or causer of the sin or evil.  He did not want that sin or evil.  And so we can trust Him.  We can trust that He hurts with us when bad happens to us, that He will bring something good out of it, and that He will dish out justice in the end against those who do evil and who sinned against us.  Because they chose to do it, against His Will.

This is just my two cents.  And I wanted to add all this to create a fuller picture, with fuller answers, so that you can better evaluate the following quotes from Calvinists (see "But Calvinists don't say God causes sin and evil!") when they talk about Who they really think is truly responsible for all sin, evil, and suffering.

_______________________end of updated section_________________________

Sorry.  What a great way to start the new year, huh?😕

But wait, folks, there's more!  For those who don't want to click on my other posts, here are some of the choicer Calvinist quotes about babies and children (shortened a bit).  The best of the best, the cream of the crop, showing us what they really believe underneath the sugarcoating:

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.”

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."

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... ON PURPOSE to humble us and teach us dependence on Him... God is orchestrating events... Sometimes He will use evil, sinful people to get us where He wants to get us."  ["Using" the voluntarily, free-will, evil decisions of evil people is one thing.  But preplanning/causing evil and controlling people/Satan/demons, causing them to do the evil they do, is a completely different thing - but that's exactly what Calvinism teaches.]

A random Calvinist moment: There was a little boy, 5 years old, who was murdered by his parents a block away from our house.  And at the candlelight vigil for that little boy (when he was still missing, before they knew what happened to him and before his body was found), I overheard the woman next to me talking to two men, saying something about "Oh, but He can do whatever He wants.  Because He is the Potter and we are the clay!"  

I couldn't hear all that she said, but I could hear enough to know that - at this little boy's candlelight vigil - she was a Calvinist preaching that every evil is "God's Will," that He causes whatever happens to us for His glory and that we just have to worship Him anyway.  It still horrifies me to think about it, to think that someone would be this insensitive and blasphemous, convinced that they're doing it in the name of God and for His glory.

The two guys simply raised their eyebrows and exchanged looks in disgust, skepticism, and pity for her.  And then they walked away.

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. 

... [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!].

... 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...."  [But if Calvi-god "decrees" evil then he's not responsible for despair?😕]

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.”   

Mark Talbot/John Piper (editor) (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... 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... 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... 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..."

John Piper ("What is the will of God and how do we know it?"): "... God is sovereign over all things and yet disapproves of many things.  Which means that God disapproves of some of what he ordains to happen.  That is, he forbids some of the things he brings about.  And he commands some of the things he hinders.  Or to put it most paradoxically: God wills some events in one sense that he does not will in another sense.... That’s the first meaning of the will of God: It is God’s sovereign control of all things.  We will call this his 'sovereign will' or his 'will of decree.'  It cannot be broken.  It always comes to pass. ... For example, if you were badly abused as a child, and someone asks you, 'Do you think that was the will of God?' you now have a way to make some biblical sense out of this, and give an answer that doesn’t contradict the Bible.  You may say, 'No it was not God’s will; because he commands that humans not be abusive, but love each other. The abuse broke his commandment and therefore moved his heart with anger and grief.  But, in another sense, yes, it was God’s will (his sovereign will), because there are a hundred ways he could have stopped it.  But for reasons I don’t yet fully understand, he didn’t.'... But in fact we should not approve of sin or do it, even though it is part of God’s sovereign will."

[Do you really think God is supposed to be this confusing, this duplicitous and self-contradictory!?!]

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.  God is in full control of everything that happens to us... 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?... 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... [But] 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.]  

My ex-pastor's March 2014 sermon about finding hope in hard times: "Random evil doesn’t just happen to people... God is in control of each aspect of every detail... God is sovereign over those who seek to harm us... We’ve had people betray, lie, steal, vilify, slander, and do unspeakable things to us.  Some of us have undergone horrific abuse at the hands of parents or aunts or uncles or brothers.  God is sovereign over those who seek to harm us... That means, friends, that there is no such thing as random evil or random acts of tragedy... God [uses evil people in our lives] for a reason..." 

 

My ex-pastor's September 13, 2020 sermon on God being in control: "God is in complete control of all world events... He exerts not merely a general influence but actually runs the world which He has created... whatever's going on in our lives, even if it's painful, it is being directed by an all-knowing, good and loving and wise heavenly Father, who does everything for His children out of His love.

 

... Bottom line is this, how I respond to any mistreatment, how you respond to any mistreatment from anybody, righteous or unrighteous, my response shows my view of who God is.

... [But] God will punish those who do the evil to us.  God will punish them.  The Bible serves us notice that no matter what God's Will might be for the decisions and choices of others and how those choices impact our lives, that in the end, all human beings are accountable for their moral choices and what they do to other people.

... In other words, there are times when God will seem to will things in one direction...but then it 'appears' God wills something in the exact opposite direction simultaneously.  Here we come to something that theologians throughout history call 'the two wills of God' [unbiblical!]...meaning that when God wills something on one level, He will appear to will its opposite on another level at the same exact time.  [And yet Calvinists trust a dishonest, double-minded, self-opposing god like this!?!]... Do you find it strangely comforting that God's ways are mysterious?"

Augustine (whom John Calvin got his theology from almost completely) taught that if babies aren't baptized then they go to hell, because even though they're not guilty for their own sins yet, they are guilty 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")

"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 "Infants saved as sinners") 

"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 "Unless infants are baptized, they remain in darkness") 

"... surely [infants] 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?"  [From "Baptized infants, of the Faithful; Unbaptized infants, of the Lost".  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.]

Augustine also says (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 salvation comes from Jesus plus communion and baptism?  And so then should infants be force-fed the bread and wine to save their souls?]

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!

Voddie Baucham, like my ex-pastor, also recommends spanking the totally-depraved "vipers in diapers" (from this sermon): “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.”

He goes on to give this specific example of discipline/spanking (click here for the transcript of the sermon): "Discipline and training.  That’s the other side of it... Let me give you an example — the prime example.  The so-called shy kid, who doesn’t shake hands at church, okay?  Usually what happens is you come up, you know — and here I am, I’m the guest, and I walk up and I’m saying hi to somebody and they say to their kid 'Hey, you know, say good morning to Dr. Baucham!'  And the kid hides and runs behind the leg — and here’s what’s supposed to happen.  This is what we have agreed upon silently in our culture.  What’s supposed to happen is: I’m supposed to look at their child and say, 'Hey, that’s okay.'

But I can’t do that.  Because if I do that, then what has happened is, Number One, the child has just sinned by not doing what they were told to do.  It’s direct disobedience.  Secondly, the parent is in sin for not correcting it.  And thirdly, I am in sin because I just told a child that it’s okay for them to disobey and dishonor their parent in direct violation of Scripture.

I can’t do that.  I won’t do that.  I’m gonna stand there until you make them do what you said... Train them... And you practice that five, six, seven, eight, nine times... [And] if they don’t [do it the way you trained them to do it], you take them to a private place and wear them out.  Because they have just been directly defiant after you trained them and told them what to do.  

I have a pastor friend of mine.  One of his daughters was just really defiant in this one particular area.  And they had one instance where they had drawn the line and they were like, 'This has to end today.'... [Her parents told her to] shake the deacon’s hand.  She won’t do it.  Pastor goes back in the office, goes through that whole process — spank the child, comes back out, child won’t do it again.  Goes back again, asks the deacon, 'Will you please wait here?'

Thirteen times.  Thirteen times.

... Are you gonna reign in your home, or is sin gonna reign in your home?  Which one?"

So after thirteen times of taking the child into the back (while the church watches it happen) and spanking the sin out of her, spanking her for being so wicked, rebellious, and defiant for being too shy to shake someone's hand, they finally break her.  (Is it any wonder why lots of Calvinists deconstruct from the faith later in life!) 

I can only hope that she really was being defiant and not just shy.  I'd rather think that she was deliberately refusing to shake his hand, deliberately putting her foot down and defying her parents, than to think that she got punished for being painfully shy and socially-awkward.  I'd actually congratulate her for digging in her heels like that.  (Oh yes, I would.)

Tim Challies shares a bit about his confusion over if babies go to heaven or hell, and he also shares why he thinks (as I do) that Calvinists who claim babies go to heaven are being are inconsistent with Calvinism (from his article "What happens to children when they die?", and I appreciate that he's struggling with this honestly, trying to be true to his Calvinism, even if it sounds horrible):

"... 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.  [So a baby who's committed no willful, deliberate sin is just as guilty as adults who have - adults who've willfully lied, stolen things, gossiped, abused people, cheated on spouses, killed others, etc.... and those wicked babies deserve hell for it!?!  And that's "justice"!?!  Question: Do we as a society really want any Calvinist being a judge in our courts if this is how they view justice?  I'm just asking.]

... 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.  [Oh, but there's tons of support for their idea that babies are sent to hell!?!  Hogwash!]  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 article, 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.... 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...  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."

And finally, my ex-pastor's 2019 Mother's Day sermon: "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.

... 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."

And once again, this was his Mother's Day sermon.

We resigned from that church a week later, after five months of the elders ignoring the letter we sent them.  

[Incidentally, the head elder was a really good friend of ours, a super great guy, and we're sorry to have put him in that position because we know it was hard on him to be in the middle of our disagreement with the church.  And so we have no real hard feelings toward him about it.  It's nothing personal.  We're just really sad that it all worked out the way it did, that he couldn't have taken the time to sit down with us and listen to what we know about why Calvinism is wrong, how it's a corruption of God's Word and character.  

And we're really sorry that, in the end, we lost our friendship with him and his family because of all this.  Collateral damage.😞  But to visit now without being able to talk about all this, acting like everything's okay... well, the elephant in the room is just too big to ignore.  The pile swept under the rug would just keep tripping us up.  And so it's better to just smile, say 'Hi,' and move on... until and unless they want to talk about it all openly and receptively, which we'd love to do, if they ever asked.]