Sometimes when Calvinists are faced with a conundrum, they will invoke two wills in God, in which there is a “Revealed Will” and a “Secret Will.” The former is intended for man, and does not necessarily reflect the deepest truth of God, while the latter is God’s sovereign will, which He always brings about, even when it contradicts the Revealed Will. Deuteronomy 29:29 states: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.” Although there are some things that we must trust God with, that does not necessarily mean that they are in contradiction to God’s stated Word.
What do Calvinists believe?
Erwin Lutzer: “[Martin] Luther at this point made a distinction that was important to his theology: There is the revealed will of God and the secret, hidden purpose of God. On the one hand, God pleads with the sinner to believe; yet, on the other hand, he plans the damnation of many. This secret will is not to be inquired into but to be reverently adored. We should not ask why it is so but rather stand in awe of God.”363
Erwin Lutzer: “The revealed will was that all men be saved, but the hidden will was that the greater part of mankind be damned.”364
Our reply:
This claim also establishes an extra-biblical authority, since it requires a Calvinist to tell us whenever a given verse refers to the Revealed Will or the Secret Will. When God says that He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1st Timothy 2:4) and is “patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2nd Peter 3:9) and does not “have any pleasure in the death of the wicked” but rather would have it he “should turn from his ways and live” (Ezekiel 18:23), is that the Revealed Will or the Secret Will? When Jesus said to Jerusalem, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matthew 23:37), did He secretly mean that He never really wanted to do so, as part of a Secret Will in predestining them to Hell?
What do Calvinists believe?
John Calvin: “It could be asked here, if God does not want any to perish, why do so many in fact perish? My reply is that no mention is made here of the secret decree of God by which the wicked are doomed to their own ruin, but only of His loving-kindness as it is made known to us in the Gospel.”365
Our reply:
So here we have an interpreter to tell us when the Bible means the exact opposite of what it says.
What do Calvinists believe?
John MacArthur: “So God elects those that are saved; those that perish do so without any help from God. He is, as Phil [Johnson] said, passive. And you see that in Romans 9 where God is fitting vessels unto salvation. But vessels are being fitted unto damnation, and God is passive in that. It is also true that God does love humanity, and manifests that in common grace, as I said. Now, having said that you believe all of that, you now have a problem. And that is that your brain can’t handle all of that information and bring complete resolution. But that’s okay; because if you could, you wouldn’t be human. There are things that only God can understand. And I really do believe that. I’m very content with that. That’s one of the reasons I know the Bible is written by God, because men would fix it. If I wrote a book that had those contradictions, Phil [Johnson] would edit them all out. One of the bench marks of divine inspiration is the fact that you’re dealing with transcendence.”366
Our reply:
From the Calvinistic perspective, all of this is an apparent contradiction but not an actual contradiction, since our finite minds are incapacitated by the pollution of sin in the world. However, apparent contradictions are resolved with logic, while actual contradictions are resolved with Double-Talk, and that appears to be a Calvinist’s only real defense.
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363 The Doctrines That Divide (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1998), 170.
364 Ibid., 195.
365 Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Hebrews and I and II Peter, translated by W.B. Johnston (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1963), 364.
366 John MacArthur, Election and Predestination: The Sovereignty of God in Salvation. http://www.gty.org/Resources/Articles/415.
[This post has been excerpted with permission from Richard Coords, Calvinism Answered Verse by Verse and Subject by Subject, © 2024.]
