Question: What I think you, and many Arminians fail to realize is the depth of human depravity and their unloveliness.
Answer: Actually, Arminians fully affirm our depravity.
Question: Men by nature HATE their GOD (as He is the only God). This is an active hatred, a daily moment by moment hatred. Man receives and thanks not God. Man takes and thinks nothing of God as they go about their daily lives though there is evidence of Him all around them. Do you agree?
Answer: I agree that we are all corrupt, and outside of a faith relationship with God we cannot please Him. Our lives are lives of rebellion and rejection until God works in our heart. However, since you are happy to call yourself a consistent Calvinist in contrast to those inconsistent types, I am certain that you fully embrace divine decretal determinism (and most likely reject compatibilism, another of the irrational claims of those inconsistent Calvinist types). If that is the case, then God is the sole reason for our hatred of Him. He decreed it from eternity and we are powerless to resist that decree. We can no more resist His decree to hate Him than we can create a universe.
So why should God be angry with the sin He causes us to commit and the hatred He causes us to have towards Him? Indeed, when we hate Him, rebel against Him, reject Him and sin against Him, we are perfectly fulfilling His will for us. Why should God be upset about us perfectly fulfilling His will for our lives? Why should God be upset with those who are thinking and acting exactly as God controls them to think and act? And why should God punish His creatures (with unimaginable eternal torment) for thinking and acting exactly as He irresistibly controls them to think and act? How is it that you can view those who are completely controlled by God as wholly unlovely, and still see the God who irresistibly controls them as lovely? See, for me, it doesn’t matter if you are a consistent Calvinist; it still makes for a confusing and irrational view of God.
Question: Is it wrong for God to choose who to rescue and who to leave in their sins?
Answer: It is strange that you appeal to my sense of right and wrong, when according to your doctrine it is perfectly just and right for God to control us completely and then punish us for being controlled by Him. If you don’t think that is wrong, then why bother making any appeals concerning what we might think is right or wrong. When you embrace such things, you make right and wrong completely arbitrary. You make vacuous any sense of moral justice that we might have. And yet, you still appeal to our sense of morality in defending your doctrines. Truly bizarre, in my opinion.
Question: MUST God TRY to save EVERYONE? God is obligated to no one and owes no one.
Answer: Again, statements like this have little meaning when you hold to the belief that God decreed our corrupt nature, our every thought, desire and action in such a way that we have absolutely no control over what we are, what we think, or what we do. In such a scheme God essentially punishes His creatures for no other reason than they are His creatures. The only way you can even make sense of questions like the one you pose here is if we temporally forget all that Calvinism teaches. But I intend to keep it before us in this discussion, since you do not like inconsistencies, or watered down Calvinism.
Calvinist: I have accepted that He has chosen to condemn most of my family leaving them in the cults (Mormonism, Christian Science, Roman Catholicism etc.).
Response: If you have accepted it, it is only because He has decreed for you to accept it (in your view). He might just as well have decreed that you not accept it, just as He decreed that most of your family be and act just as they do and yet condemns them for being and acting just as He irresistibly decreed for them to be and act.
Question: You, as Arminians, would have to say, ‘they’ve made the wrong choice and chosen a false Christ,’ right?
Answer: Yes. You, as a Calvinist, would have to say they had absolutely no choice, no control whatsoever over what they think, desire, or believe. No more control than a puppet has when pulled about by his strings. And yet, God punishes them for being just as He made them to be. How can you possibly see any sense of moral justice in that? Again, God’s actions, in your view, empty words like morality and justice of all meaning. And yet, you still try to appeal to our sense of morality and justice. That seems “inconsistent” and “irrational” to me, not the least “confusing.”
Calvinist: Interesting, in a world full of false gospels calling themselves “christian” they must not have been smart enough to discern truth from error.
Response: Interesting that God would decree a world full of false gospels and decree that so many embrace these false gospels, and then hold them accountable for what He irresistibly caused them to do.
Question: Maybe they just weren’t “lucky” enough to have been exposed to the truth before the heresy came knocking at their doors. Maybe they were just more wicked than the average believer and wanted to believe a lie. Need I go on?
Answer: No need. There can be all kinds of reasons for people believing lies, but that doesn’t mean they had no choice. But in your view there is only one possible reason: God made them believe lies, and then punishes them for believing what He irresistibly caused them to believe.
Calvinist: As I’ve said to my Calvinistic brethren of Arminianism, who mistaken believe Arminianism is but a harmless error, you are saved more by yourself and luck then by God.
Arminian: Well, that is a gross mischaracterization of Arminianism and betrays that you have not spent much time getting to know what Arminians really believe.
Calvinist: You’re lucky to be born in a “Christian” nation/community and lucky to hear the “true” gospel and lucky to have made the right choice.
Arminian: Rather, I would say that I am blessed and remind you that “to whom much is given, much is required.”
Question: You’re lucky to be saved because God was no more FOR YOU than anyone else! I ask, Christ died 2000 years and yet only in the last 400 years did the Indians hear the gospel. Did God truly desire to save them? The same could be said said for those of Asia and various islanders and old Europe. Need I go on?
Answer: Is this your argument for Calvinism and against Arminianism? Do you know for sure that God did not reach out to these people in any way? I have my own views on this, but since the Bible doesn’t really address it as specifically as you seem to want, it is mostly speculation, and we should not build doctrines on things the Bible does not say. For now, I will just quote Paul,
“…and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”
But according to your doctrine, God is as far from the reprobate as He can possibly be (since they have absolutely no power or ability to grope for God and “find him”), making Paul’s words into nonsense. Of course, I can just quote 1 Tim. 2:1-6; 4:10; 2 Peter 3:9; John 3:16, and the like; but you have your supposed answers for these passages, I am sure. However, they are enough for me since I prefer to allow Scripture to dictate my view of the world, rather than the other way around. But I will make mention of John 12:46, 47,
“I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”
Notice that the same “world” that includes those who do not keep His sayings is the same world He came to “save.” So Jesus came to save even those who will ultimately reject Him. That is death to Calvinism and your arguments as far as I am concerned.
Question: Was He helpless to save them? God chose Abraham and Israel not because of anything wonderful about them, but because He determined to be gracious to them and not to the rest of mankind.
Answer: Actually, God was gracious to Abraham so that the world might believe through the witness and testimony of Israel (Gen.12:3; 18:18; 22:18; cf. 26:4; Isa. 49:6; cf. 42:6). And while God’s choosing of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel was not because they deserved it, it is an oft repeated Calvinist mistake to say such a choosing and covenant was unconditional (cf. Gen 15:6;17:1;22:18; 26:3-5; 31:13; 35:1-13; Gen 17:8, 14 cf. Isa. 24:5; Jer. 31:32).
Calvinist: This does not make God evil, but gracious and grace is not earned or deserved!
Arminian: But how can you even appeal to our sense of grace or evil when you believe that God punishes His creatures for eternity for simply being what He created them to be? However, Arminians in no way believe that salvation is deserved or earned. Rather, we believe that salvation is neither deserved nor earned, but a gift freely received by faith (Rom. 4).
We can no more take credit for salvation than one who receives a free and undeserved gift can take credit for the gift simply because he or she received it. Receiving a free and undeserved gift in no way means that the person who received the gift gave the gift to himself, or can take any credit for the gift simply because he did not reject the gift. This seems so obvious that it is a wonder that Calvinists can claim such nonsense that if one receives a free and undeserved gift, that person has therefore earned the gift or “contributed” to it. How can the one who receives the gift take any credit for the gift, or claim that he somehow gave the gift to himself? That violates the very nature of the words “giver” and “receiver.” Thankfully, you reject such inconsistent and irrational arguments, correct?
Calvinist: I teach my children that God loves His people and is ever with and for them and their good in ALL things all their lives.
Arminian: But how does this offer any comfort to your children as they may not be God’s people and would therefore be hated by God from all eternity? Do you likewise tell them that Jesus likely did not die for them (since He did not die for the majority of His creation)?
Calvinist: As to the reprobate, yes they will die in their sins,
Arminian: The sins that God caused them to commit by way of an irresistible and unchangeable decree, don’t forget.
Calvinist: but we share the gospel with ALL people because we don’t know who the elect or reprobate are until they die in unbelief.
Arminian: But what gospel (good news) can you possibly share with those who are irresistibly reprobated from all eternity?
Question: What do you teach your children, that God loves and wants to save them the 80 or so years they live, but if they reject or ignore Him ’til they die they burn in hell for an eternity. 80 years is nothing compared to eternity.
Answer: No need. I can simply teach her that Jesus died for her and God desires to save her and empowers her to trust in Him for 80 years and beyond, even to her death; that God will always desire to have a relationship with her and she can always come to Him, knowing that He will never turn her away. That is quite different than telling her that God may not want her at all; that God may actually hate her; that Jesus may not love her and, chances are, has not died for her. If I was a “consistent” Calvinist, that is exactly what I should tell her. Is that what you tell your children? If not, why not? Please don’t tell me you water such things down.
Question: Do you tell them that God loved and wanted to save Hitler, Judas and Nero all their lives until they died?
Answer: I haven’t thought to say such things, but I have no problem with that.
Question: Didn’t God already know who would be His and who wouldn’t be?
Answer: Yes, but that knowledge is based on all of His efforts to reach them and them still rejecting Him. Your doctrine denies that Jesus even died for them and that God ever desired their salvation or worked to bring them to Him, despite their ultimate rejection.
Question: Is God saddened by the execution of His justice for so many people whom He sincerely loves go to Hell?
Answer: God is not saddened by justice (and again, justice is really devoid of meaning in your theology), but would prefer that all receive Him rather than reject Him. God does not desire that anyone perish and takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (2 Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 18:31-32; 33:11). My theology can fully embrace these Biblical truths, while your theology must contradict and make nonsense of them.
Calvinist: Arminianism teaches a very confusing ‘god’.
Arminian: Surely, you can now see why I think that Calvinism (yes, even your “consistent” Calvinism) is what teaches a confusing, contradictory, and morally bankrupt view of God. The good news is that the Bible knows nothing of such a conception of God and you do not need to keep on believing such confusion. My prayer is that you will come to reject such confusion and embrace the fact that God truly loves your children and desires for them to be saved, just as He wants all people to be saved, including your family members.
[You can read the full exchange in the comments section of this post.]
[This post was taken from Ben Henshaw’s website. Here is a link to that original post and comments.]
