God is the author of all things, but not the author of all effects. Otherwise, one could convict God of all murder, malice and mayhem, and rationalize that it was God who made the serial killer to kill and the molester to molest and placed immorality into the former angel, Lucifer, to irresistibly become Satan. To be like this is not in accord with perfect justice, governed by mercy, refined with kindness, and balanced by wisdom. This would not be perfect justice. It would defy what “all powerful” truly denotes. For God to remain blameless in connection with being the author of all things would necessitate free-will, that is, designing creatures with autonomy of reason and creative intelligence, whose choices are uniquely their own and not God’s.216
What do Calvinists believe?
R.C. Sproul: “In the plan of salvation God does nothing bad. He never commits any injustice. Some people get justice, which is what they deserve, while other people get mercy. Again, the fact that one gets mercy does not demand that the others get it as well. God reserves the right of executive clemency.”217
Our reply:
In Calvinism, the non-elect actually get injustice because they are unchangeably decreed to want to do God’s bidding to commit moral evil, and then get blamed and condemned for what God according to Calvinism made them do via exhaustive, meticulous determinism. How would that be justice? If Calvinism was true, real justice would be the author of immorality being punished for causing all immoral effects.
What do Calvinists believe?
John MacArthur: “We will never be able to divest God of the responsibility for the existence of evil. He allowed it and designed it into this universe, without being responsible for it. I don’t really think He was in the Garden [of Eden] keeping His fingers crossed, hoping for the best from Adam and Eve, and I’ll tell you one thing, if positive thinking for God doesn’t work, you can forget about it.”218
Our reply:
If God, according to Calvinism, didn’t just cross His fingers and hope for the best with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, but instead scripted the existence of moral evil in our universe through the Fall, as a total plan for all things, and then preselected certain people among their descendants to save and rescue while never intending to the remainder to ever spend eternity with Him in Heaven, then that is not really justice any more. It, instead, actually aligns with the “Wicked Fireman” analogy.219 In other words, if a fireman were to set a building on fire (analogous to Calvinism teaching that God decreed the Fall), and then picked certain people to rescue that he liked (i.e. Unconditional Election), while passing by the rest (i.e. Preterition of Unconditional Reprobation) so that they would burn to death, would anyone really consider that to be heroic? It would actually be criminal. However, if someone else set the building on fire (i.e. Adam and Eve’s own free will), and then a fireman rescued everyone that was willing to let him help them, then that certainly would be heroic.
What do Calvinists believe?
If you complain about the injustice of the elect getting Heaven, for no action on their part, and the non-elect getting Hell, with no chance at Heaven, remember that everyone—including you and me—never had a chance of going to Heaven in the first place, because our heart is evil continually.
Our reply:
In Calvinism, why was our heart evil continually, in the first place? Remind Calvinists—who often seem to forget—that they believe in exhaustive, meticulous determinism, in which they believe in a total plan that includes the Fall of man, from which some get Heaven, for no action on their part, and the non-elect get Hell, with no chance at Heaven. Again, refer to the aforementioned Wicked Fireman illustration.
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216 B. W. Melvin, A Land Unknown: Hell’s Dominion (Xulon Press, 2005), 149.
217 Chosen By God (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1986), 38.
218 John MacArthur: Why Does God Allow So Much Suffering and Evil?, 35:31-36:06, emphasis mine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LFzk1afiD8.
219 The Parable of the Wicked Fireman – Calvinism – Kerrigan Skelly, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHJZRx-Y2QE&t=11s.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2020.]
