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Re (2): Why Doesn’t He Give His Life to God?

IP: 146.7.16.89
Posted on March 7, 2003 at 07:12:23 PM by Eric

LeeAnn,

Thank you for writing me. I am pleased to learn that you identified with my testimony. It would seem, however, that not everyone did. I strive for balance and fairness in the things I say, write, and do, and it seems ironic to me that I lost more subscribers over this last newsletter than anything I have previously written. Don't you find that a little ironic that my personal testimony offended more people than any opinions I might have expressed? Apparently, I "weirded them out." Maybe, for these readers, it was like a line from the fictitious main character (Mr. Anthony Durrant) in The Place of the Lion by Charles Williams, a fellow author and friend of C.S. Lewis's. This quote is in regard to the friends of the central character Anthony, who, "like most of religious people he had met, . . . probably liked their religion taken mild—a pious hope, a devout ejaculation, a general sympathetic sense of a kindly universe—but nothing upsetting or bewildering, no agony, no darkness, no uncreated light” (74–75). And, if this be true of the subscribers who left, I can't say that I blame them exactly, for one must admit that my life story is anything but mild. However, to say less would be to deny who I am and from whence I came: to say less would be less than true.

Now then, in regard to what Francis writes in the post prior to mine: Yes, he and I were in discussion today, and I was wanting to do a little more research before I responded to your question about predestination and I was asking him about resources he might have heard about. We were talking about the differing opinions held by many in the Christian community, and, as Francis has stated, he is of the Calvinist persuasion. I suggested that he might publicly recommend some further resources for thought and study on the subject and it seems he beat me to the punch, as I just walked through the door moments ago. I've had these thoughts rattling around in my head all day, but no way to express them.

Anyway, there are at least two major camps on this debate about predestination: there is the Calvinist view that derives from the French-born Swiss Protestant reformer John Calvin (1509–1564), best known for his role in the Protestant reformation. I will cover his view first, then give equal time to the Wesleyan-Arminian perspective, made most popular by British religious leader and founder of Methodism John Wesley (1703–1791). As Francis pointed out, one can understand the backbone of Calvinism by an acronym known as TULIP. According to the Calvinist Corner website, this breaks down like so: Rather than elaborating here, I will point you to this page, where you can read in a little more depth about the Calvinist perspective. It also glosses the Wesleyan-Arminian concept, though the slant of this page is definitely Calvinistic. See The Five Points of Calvinism.

Now then, the second major camp is the Wesleyan-Arminian, which believes that rather than God choosing in advance who will come to Him and who will not, this is entirely left up to the individual. Because God is all-knowing, this argument says that He looks down through the annals of time, so to speak, and can see who will ultimately accept or reject Him. (All time is present tense to the One who lives in eternity.) Thus, those who would come to Him of their own volition are rewarded accordingly. Another difference in this point of view is the idea of eternal security. To the Wesleyan-Arminian, one is eternally secure with one exception: they maintain that because God is a gentleman, while no one can pluck one of God's own out of His hand (see John 10:29), nonetheless, one of God's own can leave God's hand of his or her own free will, and, subsequently, return if he or she so chooses, as many times as will. In other words, one takes his or her eternal destiny into his or her own hands based on an ongoing response to the grace of God, and God, being a gentleman, does not force him or her to serve Him later. This is where the debate really begins to heat up.

Romans 8:38–39 might come up as a rebuttal: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This, the Calvinist might reply, shows your argument to be pure bunk.

The Wesleyan-Arminian would then say, it proves nothing more or nothing less than what I have previously said: nothing except myself can separate myself from the Father. But it was my choice to begin with—unlike your idea that by being an elect of God I was unable to resist His call (the I in TULIP)—and it remains my choice. As long as I have made my choice for God, nothing outside of my covenant with Him can break it: only He or I, the parties of the convenat, can do that, and He is faithful to His promises, saying He will never leave us nor forsake us. Hence, only we can remove ourselves from "under the covering."

Then things could get ugly. The Calvinist, if he or she was not acting in accordance with the Spirit at that moment, might sneer: "So you wake up one morning and "poof!" your salvation is gone. Oh no, I've lost it! I can't find it. Has anyone seen my salvation?"

This, retorts the Wesleyan-Arminian, is a caricature of what we teach. You, on the other hand, preach what is little more than a fire insurance policy to keep you from burning in hell: get saved and then live like the devil. To which the Calvinist might justifiably protest, you are caricaturing Calvinism. In sum, both camps are true believers, both can agree to disagree on the particulars, and both would stress that Christ is more than just Savior: He is Lord as well. The Calvinist would look at a book like James and say, we are justified by faith and faith alone before the Father and therefore the works described in James are the works to be displayed as a testimony before man of the reality of God's atonement. The Wesleyan-Arminian would point to the book of James in conjunction with a Scripture such as John 15:4—"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me"—and say that these works are the natural outflow of the Spirit. This is not to say that Calvinist would not think of good works as being an outflow of the Spirit or that the Wesleyan-Arminian would not think it was important to display one's good works before man: it is to say that by using different emphases, the available Scriptures are used persuasively on both sides to present a compelling case.

The Calvinist might question the Wesleyan-Arminian's idea of leaving the Father's hand with, "Well, was he or she really ever saved in the first place?" or "Why would you want to?" The Wesleyan-Arminian isn't saying that many would want to leave, just that one could if one wanted. What a Calvinist would call in a "back-slidden state" to mean someone still saved and bound for heaven but "out of relationship" with the Father, the Wesleyan-Arminian would question as being bound for heaven at all—at least until a time of turning away and repentance once again occurred. And so the debate continues. One final thought: as Ravi Zacharias has wisely said concerning world religions in his article Reaching the Happy Thinking Pagan: "If you can make any religion look idiotic, chances are, you haven’t understood that religion," we might do well to apply to the various camps within Christianity as well.

Now this is hardly an exhaustive treatment of the subject, and will soon, no doubt, reveal to those who have studied these views more thoroughly than I just how ignorant I remain. Beyond this, these are only the two polar extremes, when in actuality, there are at least four main camps: Classical Calvinism, Moderate Calvinism, Reformed Arminianism, and Wesleyan-Arminianism. But my point is this: there are several ways of looking at this issue and each should carefully and prayerfully be considered in turn. Francis says that he is "a bit of a 'closet Calvinist,' but also a 'mere Christian.'" What he means by this is that in examining the issue, he feels that the truth lies with Calvinism, though he doesn't feel this is a fighting point, hence his allusion to Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. (Lewis was careful to write this book in a way that was acceptable to all Christians and he therefore worked overtime to ensure that the work avoided taking sides on the controversial issues.) One of the reasons Francis alludes to in his post that he considers a selling point is "many if not all of the great theolgians [sic] from England to early America as in the Founding Fathers were strong adherents of the doctrine of predestination/election as well as the other tenets of the TULIP." But to my mind, this does not necessarily prove or disprove Calvinism as being the "correct" view of approaching predestination: citing popular majority does not necessarily mean a particular view is correct, nor does it necessarily mean a particular view is not. It is, in the end, irrelevant to the question of truth (if not often a rough gauge or a tendril to extend to test the temperature of a thing to be considered), for if a thing is true, it will exist whether all, many, some, or none believe it: it will exist entirely on its own with or without a person's knowledge or belief.

Among Protestants, many of those living in North America are Calvinists. Many—though not all—Baptist churches preach at least a modified form of Calvinism, and when you consider, if I am not mistaken in this, that the Southern Baptist church (which is predominately, if not entirely, Calvinist) is the largest denomination in the United States, it should come as no surprise that so many hold this view. Further, when you consider that many who came to settle on these shores to avoid religious persecution were of this persuasion, it is only natural that such a view will be perpetuated whether it be the "correct" way of looking at theology or not. On the other hand, nearly all Catholics and Protestant denominations like the Wesleyans, Assemblies of God, Free Methodists, and others hold to at least a modified form of the Wesleyan-Arminian view.

My advice to you is to look into each view in turn with a Bible nearby and decide for yourself, after much petition and prayer over the matter, what you believe to be true. If you should happen to believe the Wesleyan-Arminian view-point, you would likely interpret my story to be proof that because my heart was ultimately set toward the good (I wanted to learn how to use this supposed "talent" wisely), that, especially when fueled by the prayers of my mother, father, and others, it resulted in God, who knows my heart, sending an angel in response to one He knew would come into repentance. If you were to come from a Calvinist viewpoint, you would look at this and conclude that I was one of God's elect, I was unable to resist my calling, and the prayers of my mother, father, and others, because they were prayed in accordance to the will of the Father, were answered. And, depending on the other viewpoints, you might come to totally different conclusions.

In my quick, impromptu research to answer your question, I came across a book I think I will check out for myself as well. It is called Four Views of Eternal Security by four different authors: Stanley N. Gundry is the Series Editor and J. Matthew Pinson is General Editor. A description of the book can be found at Amazon, though if you are a cheapskate like me, you could likely obtain it through your library or its loan system. In the meanwhile, I have some links for further reading for you, in addition to those Francis proposed in his send: John Calvin's view of predestination, in his words, can be found at Modern History Sourcebook: John Calvin: On Predestination, and John Wesley's original thoughts can be read at Wesley Center Online: Sermon Fifty-Eight On Predestination. Another view, to offset the one listed above from the Calvinist Corner on the TULIP acronym can be found at The Skeletal Basis of Predestination and Freedom. It seeks to be objective, while seeming to favor either a Wesleyan-Arminian viewpoint or a modified version of Calvinism: I am not sure which.

In conclusion, though I have done a somewhat poor job of really giving you anything concrete here to go by, hopefully I have at least made you aware that there are at least two main schools of thought on this issue as well as some offshoots that modify these main positions. I would encourage you to consider these viewpoints carefully and prayerfully, researching them further as I myself plan to do in case this issue comes up again in the future. The way you answer these questions will affect the way you view issues such as predestination. I would not let the opinions of anyone else—your church, your pastor, etc.—come in the way of your honest grappling with this issue. As for me, while I do definitely come down closer on one side than the other (while remaining somewhat agnostic on the particulars), I have striven to keep my account here neutral in every way, keeping you guessing as to which one I might be—that is, if I have at all succeeded in my mission. I did this on purpose, because as the spearhead of a nondenominational Christian ministry, I strive to skirt the controversial issues, being sensitive to write in such a way that my words do not offend or play into these controversies while still being decisively "Mere Christianity." Could it be that God intentionally left some wiggle room in the interpretation of Scripture just to see if we could learn to get along with one another? After all, each side wields the Bible with deft precision, building compelling cases to support their claims. But, alas, such poetic sentiments are perhaps best reserved for a later date. One thing we can all say with confidence: thank God for His grace; thank God for our adoption as sons and daughters of the King. Anything beyond this is subject to debate—a profitable discussion perhaps—but not essential to salvation and solid Christian living. Theology that does not take us into the arms of the Father is, in the end, totally worthless.

God bless,
Eric

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