Ronnie W. Rogers, “Taking every thought captive…”

I am often asked what I believe concerning election, predestination, free will and other salvific issues.  Consequently, I am working on a paper that will answer many of these questions.  When I am done, there will be about thirteen affirmations. 

Although I am Calvinistic, with regard to salvational issues, I am neither a Calvinist nor Arminian. ¹ Additionally, I am aware of the Calvinist’s answers to my statements. Consequently, this is not intended to convert anyone, but rather to elucidate my position on key biblical teachings, and thereby highlight what I consider to be some of the inadequacies of the theological and logical teachings of Calvinism. 

The fact is, it is not more clarification of the Calvinist interpretation of Scripture that I need in order to “enlighten” me; for it is, in fact, their answers to the perplexities of Scripture, that after many years of consideration, I found to be increasingly unsatisfactory in light of the warp and woof of Scripture. 

While I am persuaded that many are thoughtfully convinced of the truthfulness of Calvinism, I am equally certain that many more are content being Calvinist merely because they have not come to grips with the harsh realities and inevitable logical conclusions of Calvinism. ²I am convinced of the latter, in part, because of the contradictory, obfuscatory or simply imprecise language so often used by some who claim to be Calvinist when speaking about or explaining some of the more subtle but prickly nuances of Calvinism. ³  

Additionally, I love my Calvinist brothers and sisters and appreciate their love for God and His Word more than words can say; therefore, my disagreements are related to the positions taken by Calvinists and not Calvinists personally.    

The following is my affirmation concerning the love of God, and what it means for Christians to love like God. 

I The love of God

I affirm

• that “God so loved the world” (John 3:16) means peoples of the world and people in the world and not merely “people groups or nations”. 
• that there are different kinds or expressions of love e.g. love for spouse versus love for other people or children.
• that a loving God loves the lost individual and would honestly tell him about his lost condition and offer him redemption only if it was possible for him to be redeemed (Matthew 5-7; Mark 10:21).
• that God’s love did in fact make it possible for the people of this world to be delivered from their path to eternal hell by grace enablement (John 1:12-13; Acts 17:30; 1 John 2:2; Titus 2:11).

The means of this enablement include but are not limited to: Conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11), working of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 6:1-6), good soil (Matthew 13:1-23), and the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16). Further, that man because of these gracious workings of God can choose to seek God such as the Bereans who were noble, and it says because they studied the Scripture, “therefore many of them believed” (Acts 17:12); Moreover, none can come to God without God drawing, (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all men (John 12:32)⁴

I disaffirm

• that God would ever offer, or give the appearance of offering, help to the needy when He determined to make it absolutely unavailable to them.
• that the differences between various kinds of love, e.g. love for a spouse, child, or friend, etc., adequately explain the Calvinist’s position that God loves everyone, but does not offer everyone a chance to be saved. For example, while I may love my wife differently than another woman, I would not sit passively by while a woman other than my wife perished in a burning building if I could indeed deliver her; and according to Calvinism, God can most assuredly deliver, and does so for some. 

According to Calvinism, this deliverance from hell is by an unsolicited, selective and irresistible regeneration that the individual could do nothing to prepare for, be prepared for, desire, stop, or change, and it always results in faith and therefore salvation.  Therefore, God’s love, according to Calvinism, which could indeed deliver everyone, does sit passively by while people perish in an eternal fire. 

That those perishing do not merit deliverance and even justly deserve judgment is not the issue. The issue is, whether love that could have rescued them, and did in fact rescue other equally condemned prisoners from the burning prison, is in any appreciable or demonstrable way distinguishable from heartlessness or hate.  They would have been forever grateful and praising their deliverer for that act of love had they received what the delivered prisoners received. 

Explaining how this is truly love by noting distinctions between different kinds of love actually serves to further obfuscate rather than clarify because we know of no love in Scripture or experience like the love assigned to God through Calvinism.  While it is absolutely true that God is just if He chose not to offer salvation to anyone, it is painfully difficult to see how being just elucidates how He can be perfect mercy, love and grace and not act accordingly; since if God were unjust once, He would be forever unjust and in like manner, if unloving for one instance He would simply be unloving.

II God’s love in us⁵

I affirm

• That God loves the world (John 3:16) including the lost (Mark 10:21), believers (1 John 4:11) and that God’s love dwells in believers (Romans 5:5; 1John 2:5,15).
• that Christians are to love like God loves (Ephesians 5:1-2; 2 Corinthians 6:6; 1 Peter 1:22), without hypocrisy (Romans 12:9)⁶.
• that as God’s love emanates from His nature (1 John 4:8, 16), so His love in and through Christians emanates from His nature because He is in Christians (2 Corinthians 13:5, Colossians 1:27).
• that His love through us is the same as His love to us because it is His love. ⁷ This love is often and rightly characterized as sacrificial, merciful, and moved by need (Matthew 9:36) of the recipient not merit.⁸

I disaffirm

• That God’s love is passive, or so essentially dissimilar to the way it is portrayed in Scripture (Mark 10:21), seen in normal commands to people (Matthew 5:44, 46; John 13:34; Galatians 5:22), and interactions of humans in Scripture, or experienced in human history as well as everyday normal life by humans, so that it is virtually demonstrably indistinguishable from indifference, heartlessness, hate or the acts of hate.
• that although a good faith offer of the gospel on the part of a Calvinist may be noble, that this concept of a “good faith offer” either absolves or adequately explains how God’s love for the unselected is substantially different than if He was utterly indifferent to their situation or simply hated them.

God’s attributes and actions—like holiness, omnipotence, love, forgiveness, mercy—are the absolute standard of what is righteous for everyone and everything.  We are to be known by this love (Matthew 5:44, John 13:35), but if acting in this love does not truly seek peoples’ ultimate betterment when we can, how is that love any different than indifference or hate?  If believers do not seek to help where we surely and practically can help, whether it is to deliver people trapped in a burning building, offer healing to the sick,⁹ compassion for the grieving, or in some way do what we can, it seems that our compassion and love for the afflicted is tangibly indistinguishable from cruelty, heartlessness, and hate. 

How is it loving or compassionate, by any standard that we know, to tell all people to believe on the Lord Jesus for deliverance from everything just mentioned and more, when the truth is that only those God selects can and will receive the help—even if we don’t tell them—and He has selected not to offer help to some of the very ones whom we urge to accept Christ for complete forgiveness.

The dilemma is not that the Calvinist does not know whom God selected, but rather that God does know; and yet, He has commanded His people to preach to those whom He does not love enough to help as though He does love them enough to provide their ultimate deliverance. These are actually hearing the good news of God’s love, Christ sacrifice for their sin, and “Whosoever will” which sounds like the most loving message one could ever conceive of; but the stealthy dreadful news is that “whosoever will” really means “a selected few” and therefore the seemingly loving offer to the rest is actually horrible news because God through eternal selection decided that they could not receive what seems to be lovingly offered.
 
Therefore, if God does not love everyone enough to at least offer a real chance to receive the help that they desperately need, e.g. salvation, how can we do so, based on the commands to love as He loves?  If God does not love all men sufficiently enough to save them, and according to the Calvinist doctrine of “irresistible grace”,¹⁰ He does not since He could if He so chose, we should not either.  Moreover, we cannot because it is His love in us, and we cannot love more than God with His love or any love;  in addition,  that we do not know whom God loves enough to save is not the issue.  It does not suffice to say “since we do not know who they are, we are to love them with God’s love anyway” for that is impossible since God does not love them enough to offer real help.  

His eternal love is only directed toward those whom He is saving; consequently, from the perspective of a Calvinist, one must be extraordinarily, I would even say supernaturally, guarded about whom he purports to be showing the love of God.   Further, would the Holy Spirit who gave us this love (Romans 5:5) ever lead a Christian to love someone more than God loves them, as demonstrated by truly praying and sacrificing for their salvation since it is His love, and He withheld it from that person?
 
To say we do not know whom God does not really love, therefore we must love all and present the gospel to all does not sufficiently resolve the dilemma since we do not know those whom He really loves either; consequently, maybe we should love all with the same unredeeming, unforgiving love that God has for the vast majority of people (Matthew 7:13-14) since those whom He does redeemably love will be saved anyway. Afortiori, since our Christian character comes from the indwelling of our Lord, and He is infinite and we are finite, we cannot show forth an attribute that is superior to His.

Similarly to what I mentioned earlier, while our love for our wives, children, and friends are all different kinds of love, this does not adequately illustrate the difference between God’s love for the lost whom He does not even offer a genuine¹¹chance to flee the wrath to come and those that He irresistibly saves; for example, while I love my wife differently than my two daughters, I would never contemplate sitting idly by while they perished in a burning building, and call that love albeit a different kind.  For to any human that seems undeniably and inarguably indistinguishable from callousness.

While it is true that I love my children differently than I love another man’s children, I would not sit idly by and let his child be run over by a car, when I could have delivered him, and then try to convince the father of the child how much I loved his son even if in a different way. It is undeniable that God’s love is not less than portrayed in Scripture and never less than human love.

Next Topic: Grace

1. In the sense of ascribing to the tenets of either as they describe them [↩]
2. The same could be said of those who are a part of a predominately Arminian affiliation [↩]
3. I am referring to things like talking about praying for a lost person when actually, according to Calvinism, there is nothing that can influence him toward God except regeneration, and that is a work of God alone—monergism.  To answer this by saying that it is done out of mere obedience is not the issue because, by some, it is spoken about, and I suggest even believed, as though it has some significance. [↩]
4. The same Greek word for draw, ἑλκύω, is used in both verses [↩]
5. I could do this same thing with grace (2 Corinthians 9:14), mercy, compassion…of God. [↩]
6. The word translated hypocrisy ἀνυπόκριτος appears 6 times in the New Testament, which means without pretense or show, and is sometimes translated genuine or sincere. It is used also of our sincere faith (1 Timothy 1:5; 2 Timothy 1:5) and wisdom (James 3:17 [↩]
7. The love we are to manifest is not our human, fallen love, but His love through us.  It is His love in kind, although we surely will not manifest it in the same degree since He is infinite and we are finite. [↩]
8. Human love is based upon and increased or lessened by the actions of the one loved whereas God’s love is not.  His love is perfect, infinite and immutable. [↩]
9. That Jesus does not heal everyone in this life is not the issue, but rather if He does not offer real ultimate healing, how is that love? [↩]
10. which simply means that God elects to regenerate some and all that He regenerates will believe [↩]
11. By genuine I am emphasizing the lack of supernatural enablement that is necessary for a person to choose to be saved [↩]