Is the Calvinist God a cosmic rapist?

I have mentioned before that Yahoo! Answers is one of my personal mission fields. I go over there to defend the faith as best I can, to hear some new criticisms of Christianity from non-Christians (this does not happen very often), and generally to witness to people. I have met a number of interesting people over there, including atheists, Muslims, and Wiccans. I had the honor of speaking to a very intelligent and sensitive Wiccan in an extended email conversation a few months back. As a defense again my monergistic ideas of God's election and, indirectly, against the idea of any kind of sovereign God at all, she mentioned that Hank Hanegraaff said that the God of Calvinism would be equivalent to a cosmic rapist. I had never heard this ridiculous quote before, so I had to find whether he had really said this.

A little searching led to an article by Hank titled "Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Good People?", where he said:

Furthermore, without choice, love is meaningless. God is neither a cosmic rapist who forces His love on people nor a cosmic puppeteer who forces people to love Him. Instead, God, the personification of love, grants us freedom of choice. Without such freedom, we would be little more than preprogrammed robots.

I wish I could say that I was shocked by this, but sadly I am not. This is the kind of stuff that Hank comes out with too often today. This kind of thing can only have the effect of turning people off from the Biblical God to a god of their own making. It gives them one more arrow they can use to not to believe in the God of the Bible, a quiver which is tragically quite full already. In the case of the Wiccan above, it was another reason why she did not accept God's claims on her. And from her point of view it makes sense: why should she accept the claims of a cosmic rapist?

In addition, it shows an unfortunate lack of understanding of Calvinist theology which is common from people with less theological sophistication, but which I had hoped better for from Hank. Specifically, these comparisons are ludicrous for several reasons:

• What is a rapist? A person who does something against the person's will that will harm them. Even with any greater understanding of Calvinist theology, the comparison is terrible because God is doing something indescribably wonderful for the person.
• What is a puppeteer? A person who animates a dead body to give it the illusion of life. This one actually does have a bit of Biblical support: for what can a dead man do for himself? However, the Bible does not say God gives us the illusion of life. It says He gives us life, and that more abundantly, eternal life with Him ruling in the heavens. What's more, our fallen will is not neutral: it is actively fighting against God, hating Him.

No, God does not cosmically rape us. He, who created us to love Him, sees us in our pitiful fallen state and, despite the fact that we hate Him, made way for us to be reconciled to Him. None of us deserve to be saved, we all deserve the hell we desire. Due to our fallen will, nobody wants to be saved; the dog returns to its vomit. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.

However, God's justice would be a travesty if everybody were saved. Thus, God, with an intelligence and wisdom not only infinite but untainted by sin, wisely decides which of us to graciously save. I cannot imagine on what basis He makes that decision; but then I am not God. I can't figure out most things He does; His thoughts are not our thoughts. Because none of us wants to be saved, He must regenerate our wills, at which point we can accept His offer of salvation.

The Calvinist's God is not a Cosmic Rapist or puppeteer. The comparison is crass. Even if you're not a Calvinist, you must understand this. Hank, I expected better from you.

Arminians don't pray for people's salvation

In the tradition of my previous Outrageously Untrue Assertions (Arminians don't evangelize! and Calvinists don't evangelize!), I present my latest outrageously untrue assertion: Arminians don't pray for the salvation of other people. In other words, following in the tradition of those misunderstandings, I want to fill another posting with a new set of misunderstandings for your consideration.

Before properly rejecting it as obviously untrue, let's follow the philosophical path taken by most of those who say "Calvinism kills evangelism" and consider the merits of my assertion. Just like Calvinists, Arminians believe that God wants to save everybody in some sense, but that there is another consideration that overrides His acting on that desire and saving everybody. Calvinists would say that consideration is His glory, which can only be fully displayed in both His wrath and His mercy. It is my understanding that Arminians, on the other hand, generally believe that consideration is God's respect of our free will. (At least, that's what I would have said when I was among their honorable ranks.) C. S. Lewis said that God did not want to create an army of puppets; that, to quote the Free Will Song, "only willing love is worth the price." Thus, God cannot save everybody, though He wants to, because He wants more to respect our free will. That's His higher will that overrides His will that all be saved, just as Calvinists say that God's higher will that His glory be increased overrides His will that all be saved.

Let's see how the Arminian understanding plays out in the question of whether we should pray for our unsaved friends and relatives. First, logically, it means that we can't make a request of God to override the person's free will; we can't say "Lord, change his/her heart," because that would be against what we understand his will to be. We know that "praying in Jesus's name" cannot mean praying for something that we know is against His will; thus, following the idea that God's highest will is to respect our free will, we can't pray for God to save somebody.

I should note that some people may object that prayer is not simply making supplication; there are other sorts of prayer that are simply "communing" with God, thanking God, praising Him, etc. I would certainly agree with that, but I don't think that's what people actually do when they are praying for somebody else's salvation. I don't think they simply say "O God, thank you for your greatness in saving me and for your greatness in respecting X's free will." That's a valid prayer (and perhaps the kind worth praying more often), but it is not praying for the other person's salvation, so I don't think that's the way most pray. Certainly, that's not what they've done in my presence.

So, the best we can pray for given that understanding of God's will - and this is what I often tried to do when I was an Arminian myself - is that God will do His will in the situation, whatever that may be. That, too, seems unsatisfying. We have such a love for our unsaved family and friends, such a desire to see them saved by God as we know that we have been saved by Him - for who among us would have the temerity to boast that it was thanks to our own free choice that we accepted God's saving grace? - that we cannot help wanting to pray for the person's salvation. Sure, we want God's will in every situation; but, like David in many Psalms, cannot help crying out our desire for God's intervention. So, how can we pray?

What if we pray for God to change the circumstances of the person's life so that he will accept the Gospel? Surely we can pray for God to change those, so the person will then accept God of his own free will. At least, that's the kind of conclusion that I drew when I was an Arminian myself, and often prayed that way. However, let's consider that answer in the full light of our libertarian free will assumption. It seems like the circumstances around the person that God might change might be of two types: the people around him, and the inanimate objects and situations around him. Let's consider each in turn.

• If the circumstances that need changing are other people around him, them what about their free will? If God so respects free will, He needs to respect their free will also. Does God only respect the free will of people He foresees as coming to faith in him in faith and thus making themselves part of the elect? And what verse does that come from?
• On the other hand, if the circumstances only include purely inanimate objects, isn't God bribing the person? Isn't this like saying either "you are free to love me or not; ignore this million dollars I'm holding in front of you" or "you are free to love me or not, pay no attention to the gun I'm holding to your head"? Either way, positively or negatively, God is coercing the person's will; and if "only willing love is worth the price," that kind of coerced love is not "willing" in any important sense I can think of.
  

The fact is, my mind cannot conceive of any way that God could influence the person to accept salvation without somehow violating their assumed libertarian free will. God could only love the person and hope for the best, so to speak; any positive action on His part would be violating what is said to be His highest will. Thus, it seems to me that a consistent Arminian would not pray for other people's salvation; the best they could do is pray that God's will be done, whether it's to save or damn the person.

However, unlike some who take a misunderstood understanding of unconditional election and assume that therefore Calvinists don't evangelize, I do not reach the conclusion that actual Arminians don't pray for their friends' and family's salvation. To their credit, most Arminians do not follow their philosophy to this logical end. They pray for their friends and loved ones with fervor, asking God to change their hearts. I have heard it myself; I prayed it myself (thought not as sincerely, no doubt, as many) when I was in more or less the same state of mind and emotions.

So, what is my point? Just the same as my other Outrageously Untrue Assertions: that you cannot take a understanding of somebody's philosophy and assume that they act on that philosophy the way you think they will. And that for two reasons:

• First, they may not act consistently with their philosophy: it was C. S. Lewis who said that he would rather play cards with a man who had doubts about ultimate questions of right and wrong but who had been raised with the understanding that "gentlemen do not cheat" than with an impeccable moral philosopher who had been raised by card sharps. People often don't act consistently with their philosophy, and I am extremely grateful for that. Otherwise atheists would be following their assumed "law of the survival of the fittest," whose primary duty - if one is to improve the human race's condition - would have to be to ruthlessly conquer everything in sight. In other words, even if it were true that Calvinism per se discouraged evangelism - which I am far from granting - you cannot assume that any given Calvinist will disdain evangelism themselves.
  
• Second, your understanding of that philosophy may be faulty. My understanding of Arminian philosophy may be faulty, I don't know; one is perhaps a poor judge of one's own positions on things. However, I can say for sure that the vast majority of Arminians I have talked to and listened to misunderstand Calvinist theology. Many hear things that don't exist ("The doctrine of Unconditional Election means there's no reason to evangelize") and ignore things that do ("What do you mean God wants all to be saved? So why doesn't He save them?")
  

One of these may be true, or both; either way, it's unwise to make pronouncements on how people will act based on what you think their philosophy teaches.

Arminians don't evangelize!

Ok, so that's a provocative title. And it's probably the first time in history that anybody has ever used that phrase. (Google turns up no hits on it: guess I'll be the first!) However, I'd like to discuss the merits of this phrase versus the common refrain that Calvinists don't evangelize. I believe it was Wesley (cite, anybody?) who said that if Calvinism was true, there would be no reason to evangelize. If the quote is authentic, it shows me one thing only: Wesley knew very little about Calvinism, despite having been brought up on Calvinist doctrine. (That should not be surprising: how many today would call themselves Calvinists because they were brought up in the Presbyterian church, perhaps are even Presbyterian pastors; but could not give any substantive doctrinal differences between the 5 points of Calvinism vs. the 5 points of the Remonstrants? Or describe the key difference between monergism and synergism, and why it's illogical to cling to "once saved, always saved" and still be a synergist?)

However, I don't want to talk about Wesley. What I'd like to do is discuss on what basis a person would come to the strongly-held belief that either Calvinists, Arminians, or any other group don't evangelize, and whether Calvinists have just as strong a claim to say Arminians don't, as the other way around.

It seems to me that you can make the claim that any group of Christians (Calvinists, Arminians, Pentacostals, etc.) don't evangelize on one of three grounds. First, the experiential: who do you actually know who subscribes to the doctrine, and do they share the gospel with others? Second, the historical: have members of that group historically been evangelistic? Third, the philosophical: does the doctrine tend to discourage evangelism? All three of them have faults. Let's consider them in turn.

First, the experiential argument. Think for a second of other Christians you know. Then ask yourself two questions: (1) Do you really know where they stand doctrinally? (2) Do you really know whether or not they share their faith? I think you will find that you probably come out, as I did, rather poorly in both of these areas. First, I seriously doubt that you really know what most of their doctrinal beliefs are. There are beliefs of every stripe in every kind of church. I attend a Calvary Chapel, which I've noted before as being well-known for its anti-Calvinism; yet I know a number of monergists that attend there. We are pretty quiet most of the time, but we are here nonetheless. But in addition, I doubt you really know whether most of them share their faith. I have fairly recently (past year or so) become more convicted about sharing my own faith, so I purchased the Way of the Master video series and I am now leading a small group in this series. One of the assignments was to call some Christian friends and ask them whether they shared their faith. I was, frankly, very surprised at their responses. The wife, very outgoing and friendly (and strong in her faith as well) said she rarely did. The husband, on the other hand, is very, very quiet: yet he said that he shared his faith all the time, even seeking out strangers. (I believe he has monergist leanings as well.) I would bet most people have the same lack of understanding of their friends doctrines and evangelistic fervor.

So, the question next turns to the historical. This is even trickier, because the vast majority of people in the past we have no access to. All we know is the well known preachers and writers. And I submit that many of them in the past: Whitefield, Spurgeon, and Edwards, to name three, were both Calvinist and evangelistic. Even if it were true that there were more Arminians in the past who were evangelistic, that would have little bearing on whether it was the monergism itself that tended to produce less evangelistic fervor or some other factor. (Relationships, other philosophies, etc.) One might also compare against these against non-Christian groups (e.g. Mormons) and both Calvinists and Arminians would fare rather poorly in comparison, evangelistically-speaking.

Finally, we turn to the philosophical. I find, in practice, that most people who have used a variant of "Calvinism destroys evangelism" with me are basing their belief on the philosophical ground that the doctrine of election makes it useless to evangelize. I have argued elsewhere on this blog, of course, that this is a specious argument: but I will have to keep fighting this battle for a long time to come. However, the title of this blog is not "Calvinists don't evangelize", but rather "Arminians don't evangelize." And, following my many synergist friends, I want to put forth primarily the philosophical argument, because as I have pointed out, I know so little about other people's evangelistic efforts in the present or the past.

Now, the philosophical basis is dangerous too, because I've found that it's dangerous to assume you know how somebody acts based on his philosophy. I know atheists who are kind and loving even though logically their philosophy (some variant of "survival of the fittest") should dictate they should not be.

Nevertheless, let's consider how the typical Arminian sees God's foreknowledge. We all believe that God knows "the end from the beginning," and that He "elects" us in some sense. The most logical way these could be true, of course, is if He's ordaining them; but let's take the synergistic tack here. Let's say that God's looking down that "corridor of time" to see who will believe in Him, and electing them on that basis. Now, let's say that God foresees that some time in the future a given person will believe. Since God is perfect, He must have perfect knowledge of the situation, right? So, if God sees that the person will believe, why should I bother sharing the Gospel with him? God knows who will believe in him; if I don't share the Gospel with him, obviously somebody else will (since God has already seen that it will happen). Bingo! I'm off the hook!

Let's say, on the other hand, that God sees that the person will not believe. In that case, there's still no point in sharing the Gospel, right? No matter what I do, God has already seen with His perfect knowledge and flawless vision down that big "corridor of time" that the person will not believe. Again, why should I then bother sharing the Gospel with him? In fact, it seems to me that Calvinists and Arminians are in the exact same boat here. Either way, what the person will do is foreknown by God. In either case, one could argue there's no reason to share the Gospel with anybody. In fact, using this logic, the only people who would ever share the Gospel are Open Theists, those who believe that God does not know the things to come. They reject the "corridor of time"; and thus, they might argue, they need to share the Gospel because the future of the person cannot be known by anybody, either us or God.

At this point, an Arminian may demur and bring up the point that there are other reasons why he shares the Gospel, such as the following:

1. God may have access to that "corridor" and know who will believe in Him, but we don't.
   
2. We were told to share the Gospel in the Great Commandment, and it doesn't matter whether the person will ultimately believe or not. Therefore we need to share the Gospel with every man.
3. Even if God can see that down His "corridor of time" that the person will not believe, being told the truth of the Gospel will make his eventual lot in hell worse, and rightly so.
   

And I would agree with him. However, one could make the point - and I have in other posts - that these exact same reasons can be used by Calvinists:

1. God may know who His elect are, but we don't.
2. We were told to share the Gospel in the Great Commandment, and it doesn't matter whether the person is ultimately saved or not. Therefore we need to share the Gospel with every man.
3. Even if God has not sovereignly chosen to save that person from the condemnation he rightly deserves and even desires, being told the truth of the Gospel will make his eventual lot in hell worse, and rightly so.

So, you can't have it both ways. Either you believe that both Calvinism and Arminianism discourage evangelism (and become some form of Open Theist, whether the Christian variety, Jehovah's Witness, Muslim, whatever), or you give up on the old saw that Calvinists don't evangelize.

Postscript: I should note that none of this says anything about whether monergism or synergism is actually the true description of God's redemptive plan. After all, two of the most evangelistic groups today, with more evangelism per capita than either Arminians or Calvinists, are the Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. They are evangelizing to a false gospel, but they certainly have fervor.

Calvinists don't evangelize!

"Calvinists don't evangelize. After all, if you're among the elect, God will save you no matter what happens. If you're not, God will send you to Hell regardless of what you do."

If you're a fellow monergist, you have no doubt heard those statements countless times. If you are a synergist (either of the classical Arminian variety or a modern "all means all" Southern Baptist/Calvary Chapelite), you have probably said them. A good friend of mine who is one of the latter said essentially this very thing to me not long ago, and there is a recent comment in Tim Challies' blog saying essentially the same thing. I would like to give an answer to this from the point of view of one monergist.

The crux of the issue is that we need to distinguish between classical Calvinists/monergists and hyper-Calvinists. As I discussed in an earlier entry (although Phil Johnson does a much better job of it than I ever could) they are not at all the same thing. I have generally found that those who are not monergists generally don't make such distinctions - not that nobody does, but that most don't. It's not that surprising, really: people tell me all the time that the kinds of music I favor (classical, jazz, and bluegrass) "all sound the same," though they know next to nothing about the genres. We tend to lump everything we don't really know or understand into one big category: thus black/European/Asian people "all look the same," and as C. S. Lewis pointed out, in most people's minds basically all of history up to about 100 years ago was one big undifferentiated soup of Roman centurions, Vikings, Renaissance men, and Knights.

If you are only planning on having a passing interaction with a subject, I suppose that's reasonable: I don't expect a person who likes to listen to general "classical stuff" as background noise to master the fine distinctions between fugues and canons; similarly, between bebop and post-bop, or between Bill Monroe's instrumentation and that of Flatt and Scruggs. There are only so many hours in the day.

However, if you are going to make an argument maligning another person's love for the lost, it is a serious charge and you really should know what you're talking about. And this is what I find many synergists don't do. Many of them take a sketchy understanding of the monergist's understanding of the secret will of God, and then they extrapolate it to be his total belief about the action of God in history. Furthermore, they then assume the monergist will ignore the clear teaching of Scripture to evangelize the world in favor of his understanding of God's secret will.

For that is what we are really being accused of: ignoring God's clear command to evangelize in favor of our understanding of God's secret will. This is no small accusation. However, if you think about it, does it really make any sense? Is somebody willing to tell me to my face that we monergists are willing to ignore God's clear commands and follow what we think (even based on good evidence) that God is planning on doing to the unregenerate in the end? If one is going to take that tack, why not do as the extremist Muslims to, and kill the infidels? After all, God is just going to send them to hell in the end anyway, right? One might object that we don't know somebody is non-elect, only that they are not yet regenerated (yet synergists make this same mistake when they facetiously ask us "why don't you just preach to the elect?") But let's say that we somehow did know who was elect and who was not. In principle, why not kill them now, since we know God is planning on reprobating them anyway?

The answer should be obvious: because God never told us to. He told us to love our neighbor and preach the Gospel. And ignoring what you are clearly told for what you think God will do in the end is not only extremely foolish but sinful.