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Biblical Calvinists Acknowledge That God Loves All People: Refuting a Pseudo-Calvinist Fallacy

john calvinOne of the weird problems with correcting Arminianism and, to be crude about it, convincing Christians that Calvinism is true, is that they are easily vulnerable to other errors. I can’t prevent all such problems in one post, but I want to try to point the way forward.

 

For Further Reading

Before I write anything else, let me suggest for those who want a more philosophical/theological argument that they read R. L. Dabney’s “On God’s Indiscriminate Proposals of Mercy,” hosted by Phil Johnson’s website (for which I am grateful). Yes, I know Dabney believed some pretty ugly things on some issues. But when you read him arguing that God loves all mankind, you are getting as far away from those problems as possible. Indeed, you can appreciate the irony as you read.

 

Fallacy: Future Interprets Present

One major Calvinist fallacy is to decide that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment. If God will condemn them then, he condemns them now If God will welcome them then, he welcomes them now.

But does the Bible teach that God’s relationship and/or attitude toward an unrepentant sinner is the same as after that sinner repents and believes? Yes God intends from eternity to regenerate and pardon that person, and intends to pass over some others. But what is intended, by definition, cannot already be true—or else it would not be intended.

So the Apostle Paul writes:

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. (Romans 2:2-5, ESV)

So, when someone is presently experiencing blessing even though he is continuing in unbelief and sin, is God:

  1. Increasing his guilt and condemnation at the Last Day when he will be judged for his ongoing sins?
  2. Offering him love and patience to give him the opportunity to repent?

Paul has no problem affirming both together. And, indeed, they are not possible apart from another. On the Last Day, God is not going to say to the reprobate, “I always knew you were bad and would turn out worse, so I’ve always hated you and everything I’ve done for you I’ve done so I could punish you for it.”

That’s not Calvinism; that’s Satanism.

No, God is going to say, “I gave you immense blessing, purchased by nothing less than the blood of my own son, and you spit on my efforts.”

 

God Loves; Man Hates

Or consider Isaiah 5.1-7. Reformed and Calvinist theologian, Rich Lusk writes:

At the heart of passage, God asks an amazing, deeply mysterious question: “What more could I have done to My vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (5:4). In other words, God has done everything on his side, but the vineyard – Israel – still has not borne good fruit. Thus, judgment must fall.

A non-covenantal Calvinist can think of a way to answer God’s question. God asks, “What more could I have done?” And the theologian has an answer: “Well, Lord, you could have exercised irresistible grace — you know, the ‘I’ in the TULIP – and that would have changed things. You have regenerated Israel – performed a secret and sovereign work of grace in their hearts, infallibly producing faith, obedience, and perseverance.”

To be sure, at some level that theological answer is correct. God could have done more. God is sovereign in salvation; his grace can and does operate irresistibly; and God can and does work in people in such a way that they inevitably believe, obey, and endure to the end. God could have prevented Israel’s apostasy; he could have granted them perseverance.

But it is noteworthy that this is not the “logic” of Isaiah 5. Isaiah indicates that God has given grace to the Israelites. Indeed, as the vineyard owner, he’s done everything needed to produce a good crop. The vineyard is well-loved (5:1). It is fruitful, so the soil must be rich in nutrients (5:1). All the rocks and stones have been removed from the soil, so the ground is broken in (5:2). The vine itself was choice; there was nothing wrong with what God planted (5:2). God was so sure of the vine’s eventual fruitfulness that he already put a tower and a winepress right there by the vineyard so the grapes could be pressed out into wine in due season (5:2).

It might help here if we remember that eternal damnation is not only described as God’s wrath, but as God’s jealousy. God’s love is not contrary to eternal punishment, but the Bible indicates that it is a reason for it:

Jealousy is as severe as Sheol; [or Hell]

It’s flashes are flashes of fire,

The very flame of the LORD (Song of Solomon 8.6).

Wrath is fierce and anger is a flood,

But who can stand before jealousy? (Proverbs 27.4)

These aren’t just extraneous passages. The reflect the central warning of the Second Commandment:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands [of generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6, ESV).

And it is reiterated by Moses to the next generation of Israelites:

Take care, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God. (Deuteronomy 4:23-24, ESV)

Because jealousy is experience by human beings who cannot make a spouse be faithful, it seems counter-intuitive to ascribe such feelings to God. But we are not in a better position to guess about the psychology of being God; He has to reveal his feelings to us.

 

We Don’t Know God Better Than What He Tells Us

Perhaps this is a second common Calvinist fallacy, deducing God’s feelings on the basis of what we imagine we would feel if we had omni- properties like God does. God tells us those are illegitimate guesses and that we, in our finititude, are actually more like what He really is, though infinite, than what we would guess about omniscience, omnipotence, and transcendence.

To return to the original fallacy I named, to infer that God’s present attitude toward everyone is simply equal to what God will do with them at the Final Judgment, it actually proves too much. Basically, since Calvinists know that all human beings are sinners, they figure that no one has a right to complain about how God treats them. But the logic of the position is not limited to sinful creatures. It applies to all creation, including unfallen angels and human beings. Are we really going to say that Adam and Eve were not loved by God when they were created? Or that, if they were loved, it was only because God planned to redeem them after they sinned?

 

A Creation Conversation

Imagine Adam and Eve, before they fell, having a theological conversation:

Eve: Adam, your face….

Adam: Huh? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.

Eve: Lost in thought?

Adam: That’s a good metaphor.

Eve: Thank you. I wish I had one to describe your face.

Adam: Can’t you make a comparison?

Eve: Do you remember that pond we found and how still it was until you threw that rock into it?

Adam: Yes. It rippled out.

Eve: Right. At one moment it was still, but then it was disturbed.

Adam: “Disturbed.” That is an excellent word to use. Not only for my face but for my thoughts.

Eve: So what are your thoughts?

Adam: I am thinking of everything we have received from God. Each other. The trees. The animals. Everything.

Eve: But isn’t that wonderful?

Adam: Well, yes, but I’m thinking of it all in the light of the warning about that tree I told you about.

Eve: Well, the terms of that warning aren’t so wonderful, but we have everything else.

Adam: Yes, I know. But the warning presupposes the possibility that we might eat the forbidden fruit.

Eve: True.

Adam: And God, for a certainty, knows whether we will eat it or not.

Eve: OK, I’m with you so far.

Adam: So how can we take all these “good” things at face vaule as signs of God’s love and generosity?

Eve: Adam, I’m not following now.

Adam: Well, if we were to disobey, wouldn’t the seriousness of our offense be all the greater because of how good God has been to us?

Eve: Yes, which is why we should heed the warning.

Adam: Right, but if we do disobey, as God would have to know we are going to do, then all these things will have been given to us as means to make our crime more severe.

Eve: Oh.

Adam: So how can we say these things we’ve been given are signs of God’s love and generosity? It all depends on what he plans to do with them, doesn’t it? He may simply be making sure our crime is more serious than it would be otherwise. Even though I have no intention of disobeying, I can’t say I know the future the way God does.

Eve: Adam, I see your point.

Adam: Do you have any answer?

Eve: Only this: you say you don’t know the future like God does.

Adam: Right.

Eve: Wouldn’t it also be true that you don’t know God’s own mind in the way the He knows it?

Adam: But don’t we know God?

Eve: Absolutely. We know Him truly. But we don’t know everything there is to know about Him.

Adam: All right, but how does this help us?

Eve: Because if God tells us that he gives to us out of love and generosity, I think we should take Him at face value without worrying about what the future holds. Despite knowing and planning the future, God must be capable of also, in some real way, being in the moment here with us, giving us good things out of sheer grace without reference to the future.

Adam: Perhaps it is so.

Eve: I think it must be so. After all, if we were to seize the forbidden fruit, God might use it to some great advantage that he has planned all along. But that would make the trespass no less evil and rebellious. Likewise, this garden, and the Tree of Life, and we ourselves are good gifts no matter what is planned. We can take God at his word without worrying about His ultimate decrees. As His creatures, that is exactly what we are supposed to do.

So even though God has plans, it doesn’t mean that, in the here and now, there is any reason to doubt or explain away passages that declare God’s love for the world or God’s love for creation or God’s love for all people.<>как выложить рекламу в интернете

12 Responses to Biblical Calvinists Acknowledge That God Loves All People: Refuting a Pseudo-Calvinist Fallacy

  1. trkunkel says:

    In your article you say; “God is going to say, ‘I gave you immense blessing, purchased by nothing less than the blood of my own son, and you spit on my efforts.'”

    I doubt very much that God will say that on the final day since he did not purchase the non-elect with the blood of His Son. The unrighteous do not share in the blessings purchased by Christ. The general blessings of the goodness of the creation yes but those of Christ no. You are confusing common grace “rain on the righteous and unrighteous” and the tremendous patience and kindness of God with the love of God.

    There is certainly truth in what you are saying. It is true that God does not act toward sinners now as He will after the judgment. However, are you suggesting God does not hate sinners now in this life? What do the scriptures say?

    Psalm 11:5 The LORD tests the righteous, but his soul hates (present tense progressive) the wicked and the one who loves violence.

    Psalm 5:6 You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors (present tense progressive) the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

    There are MANY more scriptures like this one where Yahweh is said to hate/abhor the wicked using the present tense. Don’t confuse God’s grace, patience and goodness with His love.

    • Mark Horne says:

      “You are confusing common grace “rain on the righteous and unrighteous” and the tremendous patience and kindness of God with the love of God. ”

      No, the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous proves that God loves both:

      ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”. (Matthew 5:43-48, ESV)

      Common grace is universal love. That’s what Jesus says. We are to look at God’s behavior and infer that to be like God we must love our enemies as well as our friends. Otherwise, we are not acting perfect like God is perfect.

      I fully agree that God hates the wicked. But that doesn’t refer to all unregenerate men all the time. God refused to destroy Canaan and give it to Abraham because the Canaanites were not yet wicked enough to rate that treatment. Sodom and Gomorrah, however, traveled that route ahead of their brethren so God destroyed them with his burning jealousy earlier.

      By definition, God has purchased through Christ eternal salvation only for those chosen to it. But no one gets to hear the Gospel other than as a gift made possible for them by Christ’s shed blood. Likewise, all common grace since Noah (at least) has been on the basis of Christ’s shed blood (Noah sacrificed animals to begin the world order, and those pointed forward to the cross). The intercession of Christ is what allows us time to either repent (which only happens by God’s special grace) or to build up wrath.

      Mark

  2. Joshua Butcher says:

    1. God is immutable (God does not change).
    2. An individual that possesses disposition-1 toward person-A at time-1 (i.e. love) and disposition-2 toward person-A at time-2 (i.e. love) constitutes a change in the individual possessing the different dispositions.
    3. Therefore, God cannot possess separate dispositions toward the same person at two different times.

    • Mark Horne says:

      So God has exactly the same disposition toward a baby, an unrepentant person living in sin, and a person who repents and believes the Gospel? There is no way that can be defended from the Bible. You are packing assumptions into “immutability”:that cannot be defended from Scripture. God’s decree is unchangeable but that doesn’t entail what you are saying.

  3. Joshua Butcher says:

    Edit: disposition 2 at time 2 should be “hate” and not “love”

  4. Charles says:

    “God loves all people.” “I fully agree that God hates the wicked.”
    How can both be true?

    • Mark Horne says:

      They can’t be true if they apply in the same way at the same time. But that is not what I am arguing.

      • Charles says:

        Ah, so the problem is the ambiguity of the word “love.” “I love pizza.” “I love my cat.” “I love my wife.” “I love God.” are all proper and true but have 4 very different meanings. Other than the 2nd one, most people would understand the distinctions in the way I intend. However, when we indiscriminately proclaim “God loves you,” most people do not take that to mean simply that God is kind to everyone which seems to be what you are arguing–something like my “I love my cat” above. I actually can’t stand it, but I’m kind to it and buy food for it due to other circumstances of the situation. However, most people would understand “God loves all people” to mean that God loves every individual intimately just as they are which I don’t believe agrees with God’s Word nor is it what Jesus is teaching, nor am I saying that is what you are claiming. God’s raining on the unjust in no way implies that God thinks they are special which is what we normally imply by the word “love.” Thus the statement needs to be qualified.

        • Mark Horne says:

          I don’t know why you are arguing with me when your real opposition is the Bible. The Apostle Paul ought to inform you that there are other alternatives:

          “We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

          What I’m arguing that, because a baby has original sin and God has foreordained him to become an object of His eternal jealousy does not mean the baby is the same object of God’s jealous wrath when he is a baby. And the time that God fore-ordained to work toward that person’s worsening guilt and depravity is also truly and “actually” God’s kind patience to lead him to repentance, just as the apostle says.

          Furthermore, if God had no love for those fore-ordained to destruction, why does He make a point of describing that destiny as one that matches his descriptions of jealousy?

          Frankly, I am fielding questions that don’t show any evidence that you read my original post.

          • Charles says:

            Sorry. Was trying to understand, not argue. I came here because of the title and don’t see how the argument leads to the conclusion as stated in the title or the last paragraph without some qualification or addressing passages such as Psalm 5 or God’s hatred of Esau from the womb. Perhaps it’s over my head. Feel free to delete my posts if they are irrelevant.

  5. Mark Horne says:

    Did you mention Esau before? There is an exegetical issue I will leave alone for now because I want to double check before I write about it. But, my other answer is this. : yes, God hated Esau, but applying that text must be done allowing the same principle I mentioned above in Romans 2.2-5.

    Imagine a damned Esau at judgment day. Would you say that Esau could never be guilty of spurning and rejecting the love of God? How does that work when his destiny is described as a manifestation of God’s eternal jealousy.

  6. trkunkel says:

    Mark, I think it is possible that you missed what Charles was saying about the various definitions of “love”. Perhaps much confusion could be avoided by acknowledging that God loves different people in different ways. Certainly the love God had for Moses was different than the love He had for the high priest of Moloch, right?

    A love expressed by patiently waiting until wrath is accumulated before the wicked are destroyed is certainly different than the love of applying the redemption of Christ to a particular individual. If we are talking different kinds of love then sure, God shows some kind of love toward everyone. However, I think people are objecting to the idea that somehow God loves everyone equally and with the same kind of love.

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