How many Calvinists understand Reformed theology?

Posted on 02/19/11 20 Comments

How many Calvinists understand Reformed theology? Not as many as you might think. As I noted this week I had a debate of sorts a couple years ago with Tim Challies in which it became clear that he didn’t understand some of the most fundamental tenets of Calvinism. This is especially strange since he’s set himself up as something of a shepherd for his legions of Reformed Christian followers.

And then there’s that machismo pastor from Seattle, Mark Driscoll. I have heard him appeal to the free will defense / theodicy in the past to help explain the existence of evil. But the free will defense assumes libertarian freedom and Reformed theology denies libertarian freedom. So this leaves me wondering how well this influential spokesman for Calvinism understands the theology he promotes.

In keeping with this trend, a Calvinist named Robert Fisher accused me of misrepresenting Reformed theology in “Calvinism and the ice cream man“:

No, I’m sorry. Predestination to saving faith is only given *in light of* man’s depravity. Despite man’s depravity. You’re using a slanted illustration of an ice cream man being mean to little kiddies.

The standard analogy, which is actually closer to what is being described is: is the governor morally obligated to pardon all prisoners on death row if he pardons one?

Challies is right about you. What you offer is Geisler cartoon caricature of Calvinism.

To repeat, the ‘willing people to accept Him’ is done IN LIGHT of their depravity, you cannot omit that.

I responded as follows:

The ice cream man illustration was intent on illumining one specific point, namely that God acts to maximalize his glory for his creatures and that means damning some to the end of granting those not damned a greater sense of his glory. Are you denying that this is the case in Calvinist theology?

The specific objection you raise is unrelated to the matter of the post, but I will address it nonetheless. I take you to be saying that all are totally depraved so God is just if he saves none (i.e. he is not obliged to save any). But I would simply ask you to address this specific question: who is the primary cause of the fact that human agents will to sin? Who is the primary cause of the fact that they are totally depraved? If you say anything other than God then you are not a Calvinist.

Robert has yet to reply. I don’t know how busy he is, but I think if you can find the time to make fallacious accusations and throw out red herrings then you can probably find the time to respond to the rebuttal to your fallacious accusations and red herrings.

As it stands I often find myself in the curious situation of getting shot at by Calvinists for explaining to them the finer points of Reformed theology. That’s like facing the wrath of an old party communist when you explain that their views are irreconcilable with the free market.

http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David

Alvin Plantinga is a Molinist but his best known works are in two areas:

1. The free will defense
2. Reformed Epistemology

He was raised as a Dutch Calvinist, studied under the same mentor as Cornelius Van Til, and (I’m told) attends a reformed church. So is he reformed? I don’t think we should narrow “reformed theology” down to the 5 points of Calvinist and theological determinism.

Also, where did Driscoll use the free will defense? I missed his debate with Deepak, was it there?
- randal
  
  Of course the question of what constitutes a Calvinist (or a good Calvinist) can be debated. After all, Arminius believed he was a good Calvinist! I certainly don’t think the 5 points are necessary for Calvinism.
  
  Not all points are created equal. But two points are, so far as I can see, essential for identifying oneself as a historical Calvinist. These are unconditional election and irresistible grace. Together these bring us to the essence of Reformed Theology’s negation of Arminianism. Plantinga rejects both of them and so he is a wayward Calvinist. Perhaps we should just call him an Arminian in Calvinist clothing.
  
  I’ve heard Driscoll appeal to the free will defense in a couple public talks. As I recall he also refers to it in his book on doctrine.
  - http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
    
    Here are the sections from the book:
    http://books.google.com/books?id=7C9Pa–VL1IC&lpg=PP1&dq=driscoll%20doctrine&pg=PA166#v=snippet&q=%22free%20will%22&f=false
    
    He refers to the FWD but doesn’t use it. Anywhere else on the net we might find Driscoll being painfully ignorant of the most basic tenant of his theology?
    - randal
      
      I can’t find a citation in print right now. I know I heard him mention the free will defense in a talk. But rather than spend time trying to hunt that down, just put the example on the shelf. If you want an example of Driscoll’s general ineptitude you could consider his review of The Shack which was watched on youtube by a few hundred thousand people. In that review he makes four completely absurd heresy charges of the book even though he hadn’t read the book at the time (a little fact he forgot to tell his audience).
      - http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
        
        Just watch it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK65Jfny70Y)
        Wow, his objection to graven images is pretty weak. Why not reject theophanies too?
        
        I do agree with him that there was some modalism in there, but I ignored it because it was so minor.
        
        I remember reading the “there is no hierarchy among us” part and thinking that was just talking about co-equality. Of course, there is also the role that each person plays (submitting to the will of the Father, etc.)…it seems like Driscoll just picks the interpretation that makes it heretical.
        
        Everyone jumped all over this book when it came out. I still have your book on my reading list…my guess if you aren’t ask negative about it.
        
        http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
        
        *Typo: just watched it
        
        randal
        
        There are a couple statements in the book that are incautious, but then there are passages in scripture about which one could say the same. “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father”. “I and the Father are one.” Driscoll interprets these in light of other biblical passages without a blush. Why wouldn’t he grant The Shack the same minimal courtesy?
        
        Two reasons I’d suggest. (1) He hadn’t read it so how could he? (2) He’s macho and The Shack God is namby-pamby. Just some thoughts…
        
        http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
        
        LOL, you’re spot on about the macho part. Driscoll loves his image as a “man’s man.”
        
        I figured you’d like Driscoll’s sense of humor though. Have you seen his sermon on “Humor in the Bible”…its pretty funny.
http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David

Suppose some form of dualism is correct. Explaining behavior is a problem, since even a complete knowledge of the fundamental physical laws won’t allow us to predict whether John will choose vanilla or chocolate. Even after he chooses, we are left wondering how to explain his choice. Why that instead of the other?

Even worse, how does this fair for an omniscient God? Sure, God is outside of time so he knows whether or not John will choose vanilla or chocolate. But can God explain why John chose vanilla? Simply saying, “because his mind exercised free will” won’t cut it. God must know all there is to know about minds, and the exercise of free will.

God created a world in which we find John’s mind choosing vanilla. He chose to instantiate that world instead of another one(presumably).

Suppose someone poisoned only the vanilla ice cream. God knew this too when he created the world. He chose to create that world with full knowledge of John choking on vanilla, instead of another world where John eats chocolate. Given the total number of facts that God knows, this fact is unbelievably trivial, yet when creating the world he held all those facts in mind. And he could have chosen otherwise (presumably).

So, unless we embrace open theism I am having a hard time seeing how this kind of argument impacts compatibilism any differently than foreknowledge.

This is actually better than I originally predicted, scratch my cynical comments earlier about the free will debate being fruitless. I might actually learn something today!
- randal
  
  First, I don’t think God is outside time. If he is outside time then a static/eternalist/b series theory of time is true and I have good reasons to reject that. Divine atemporality also founders on a little fact called the incarnation.
  
  As for the argument, I simply demur: there is a crucial difference between God passively foreknowing that p and God actively determining that p.
http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David

“there is a crucial difference between God passively foreknowing that p and God actively determining that p.”

Righto, given presentism this would not be a problem.

If God could choose which world to create, and had complete knowledge of those worlds…I don’t think there is any such thing as passive foreknowledge. By virtue of creating *this* world instead of *that* world, he has effectively determined all the facts the he foreknew would become true.

Of course, for you this isn’t a problem because you deny that God has a complete knowledge of those worlds (since future tensed counterfactuals have not truth value on presentism).
- randal
  
  “you deny that God has a complete knowledge of those worlds (since future tensed counterfactuals have not truth value on presentism).”
  
  Are you refering to the grounding objection?
  - http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
    
    I just mean that for your ontology of time, God doesn’t foreknow all future facts when he creates the world, since on presentism those future facts are not real. You might not be the Greg Boyd style of presentist though, which would say that future counterfactuals have no truth value.
  - http://ponderingthepreponderance.blogspot.com David
    
    Here is a more precise way to put it (taken from Murray and Rea’s Intro to Philosophy of Religion, ch 2.)
    
    “Suppose that Sally is now reading a book. Let t be the present time; let t* be a time 1,000 years before now; and let Ps be the proposition that Sally will read a book 1,000 years hence. Furthermore, let us assume (as seems obviously true) that one is free with respect to an action only if one has a choice about whether one performs it. Then we may reason as follows:
    
    1. Ps was true at t*.
    2. God is omniscient.
    3. An omniscient being believes every true proposition and has no false beliefs.
    4. Therefore, at t*, God believed that Ps was true.
    5. Premise 4 entails that Sally reads a book at t. (That is, it is impossible that premise 2 be true and Sally not read a book at t.)
    
    I’m assuming that you reject the first premise?
    - randal
      
      No. If God believes Ps then necessarily Ps is true. But it doesn’t follow that Ps is necessarily true.
      - David Parker
        
        Right, but regardless the fact that God knows Ps entails that Sally reads at t. Denying premise 1 or 6 is the only reasonable way that I can see out.
PM

“As for the argument, I simply demur: there is a crucial difference between God passively foreknowing that p and God actively determining that p.”

Dr. Rauser, what’s that? Libertarian David Widerker has this to say,

“Examining now the previous examples from this point of view, it is not at all clear to me that they describe situations in which Jones can be said to be acting on his own. Since in them God is assumed to be infallible, the fact D(B) occurs at T is entailed (in the broadly logical sense) by the prior act of God’s believing at T’ that D(B) occurs at T (T’ is metaphysically necessitated or metaphysically determined by the belief of God. Now, if a libertarian rejects as an instance of an agent’s acting on his own a scenario in which an agent’s decision is nomically necessitated by a temporally prior fact (or a conjunction of such facts), why wouldn’t he reject the one in which the decision is metaphysically necessitated by a prior event? What, in my opinion, is crucial to the libertarian’s conception of free decision is that such a decision is not necessitated or determined in any way by any antecedent fact. . . . Now, one may object that metaphysical necessitation is not nomic necessitation. But why should this difference be relevant? If a decision is rendered unfree by the fact that its occurrence at T is entailed by the conjunction of some temporally prior facts together with the laws of nature, then why would it not be rendered unfree if its occurring at T is entailed by God’s prior belief that it will occur at T? If the critic still thinks that there is a difference between the two cases, it is incumbent upon him to explain why.” (Widerker, Responsibility and Frankfurt Examples, Oxford Handbook of Freewill, 328,).

P.S. I’ve finished your book and am working on the review. Other things going on, but I hope to have it done shortly.
- randal
  
  Thanks Paul. I look forward to your glowing review .
  
  Unfortunately engaging this extended quote from Widerker would require a Sabbath breaking expenditure of mental work. The Puritans frowned on sports on Sundays. I can’t imagine what they’d say about blogging on metaphysics. Suffice it to say the debates among all parties continue.
PM

Dr. Rauser,

In the spirit of your book, I’ll offer a truthful review

Best,

PM
David Parker

I forgot about omitting the rest of the argument. Here’s the whole thing:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ga1Ei7s_fXcC&lpg=PP1&dq=introduction%20to%20the%20philosophy%20of%20religion%20rea&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q=theological%20fatalism&f=false