Those in Glass Ivory Towers Shouldn't Throw Stones

I would like to get some opinions on the following two quotes by James White. The first comes from his debate with Dave Hunt and the second comes from his website. Maybe I am wrong, but I detect a bit of inconsistency here. It seems to me that he is quite comfortable using virtually the same tactics he rebukes Dave Hunt for in Debating Calvinism.

Am I reading this wrong? I know that Mr. White often plays the misrepresentation card so I want to be cautious here. That is why I am asking what you think.

Here is Mr. White on Dave Hunt comparing Calvinism to Roman Catholicism via Augustine:

"Hunt’s entire presentation is an attempt to poison the well through poor argumentation. He is saying:

1. Augustine was Roman Catholic.
2. Calvin cited heavily from Augustine and respected him.
3. Therefore, Calvinism is suspect by association with Catholicism through Augustine."

[Debating Calvinism, pg. 244]

Below is a post from Alpha and Omega with a few observations of mine concerning White's comments:

The Arminian01/05/2004 - James White

"A fine young fellow that I've been seeing a lot of lately (has something to do with my lovely daughter, I do believe) showed me a periodical titled "The Arminian." I was first amazed that there are still folks left on planet earth that willingly, gladly, without a word of remonstrance, accept the name of themselves. "

Does Mr. White really feel this way? Does he think it incredible that there are people who would still call themselves Arminians today?

"But what was far more interesting was the fact that there was an article in it by Steve Witzki written against "eternal security." You can see the article Here. Right at the beginning you will find the author quoting James Akin, staff apologist for Catholic Answers, from the debate notes he posted on his website from our radio debate from many years ago. This is the same debate where Akin misidentified various elements of the Greek language, as we documented in a previous Dividing Line broadcast."

Notice how James White doesn’t say anything about the argument Steve Witzki was making regarding the total lack of historical precedence for the Calvinistic understanding of perseverance. He doesn’t deny that Calvin invented a doctrine that was unheard of prior to Calvin himself. Instead, he tries to undermine Akin’s credibility by pointing out that he made some mistakes with Greek grammar.

"What was so strange is that this Arminian writer seemingly has no problem borrowing from a Roman Catholic when he is arguing that church history stands opposed to a belief in the perfection of the work of Christ."

The reason Steve Witzki references James Akin is because Akin did considerable research looking into the origin of the doctrine. This research included calling numerous Calvinist Seminaries and speaking with Calvinist professors asking them if anyone taught this doctrine prior to Calvin. The answer was always “No”. This is the point that Mr. White should have addressed in this article, and not the issue of any blunders on Akin’s part concerning the Greek language. Oh, and BTW, the belief in perseverance from a synergistic perspective is in no way analogous to opposition to "a belief in the perfection of the work of Christ".

"Of course, would the author likewise follow Akin's historical arguments on such topics as the Mass, purgatory, or the Marian dogmas? We think not."

Oh good, so Mr. White gives Mr. Witzki a little credit.

"But for those who get all upset when I point out the confluence of Arminianism and Roman Catholicism (based upon the centrality of synergism to both systems), please take up your complaint with Mr. Witzki."

And what exactly was the point of all this? Wasn’t it to cast doubt on Arminianism by pointing out how it is similar to Catholicism? Does it matter that Arminianism and Catholicism have similar synergistic views of salvation? Does it matter that James White agrees with Roman Catholics on the doctrine of the Trinity? Maybe he will say that the belief in the Trinity predates the RCC, and he would be quite right about that. It is just as true that a belief in synergism predates the RCC as well, which was one of Witzki’s main points. What does not predate the RCC or John Calvin is the Calvinistic understanding of Perseverance, and this was Steve’s and Jimmy Atkin’s main point. So just what have we learned from Mr. White? Could someone please explain?

How about this:

1. James Atkin is a Roman Catholic.
2. Arminian Steve Witzki cited James Atkin.
3. Therefore, Arminianism is suspect by association with Catholicism through James Atkin.

Sound Familiar?

Dealing With a Libertarian Determinist?

JC recently directed my attention to this website where a certain Adam Murrell decided to make some comments concerning a previous post of mine. He decided I needed a lesson in Calvinism by providing an impressive list of "proof texts" that he feels, if I would only take the time to read them, would make the case for Calvinism undeniable.

His post consists of trying to show that the Calvinist position in no way renders God the author of sin. As with most Calvinists, when it comes to this difficult task, he reverts to language that only makes sense in the framework of libertarian freewill (e.g. the language of "permission").

The following quote from Mr. Murrell demonstrates this lapse:

"While God is not the author of sin, He is the permitter of sin in such a manner for His wise, holy, and most excellent end."

Any Arminian could heartily agree with this statement, but such a statement is nonsensical with reference to determinism. I left a comment telling Mr. Murrell that I found his comments to be so consistent with Arminianism that I would, with a few minor exceptions, be willing to claim them as my own. I also pointed out that they are in no way compatible [pardon the pun] with his compatibilism. When I tried to submit my comments his blog informed me that I had used too many "characters". Apparently Mr. Murrell is not interested in any kind of meaningful interaction. Below is the comment I left which was rejected because it was too long:

I want to clarify something and make a few quick points. I wrote the post you are referring to. The context of that post is important. It was in response to some Calvinists at my blog trying to say that Arminians, to be consistent, must be Open theists. You can see how that conversation developed in the combox of this post:

http://arminianperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/11/struggling-with-regrets.html

I do want to say, though, that I would be comfortable affirming almost all of what you have said here as an Arminian. However, I believe your use of "permission", etc. is incompatible with determinism and implies libertarian free will, which was kind of my point. Permission makes no sense in a deterministic paradigm, compatibilism included.

Thanks for directing your readers to my blog.

God Bless,
Ben

Now, imagine if I had wanted to exegetically engage his list of proof texts! That would be pretty hard considering the comments I left above were deemed too long for his combox. I then left a shorter message telling him that I would be addressing his comments at AP. Those comments never appeared since all comments must first be approved by him.

So I invite Mr. Murrell to make free use of my combox if he likes. I will not restrict the number of characters he can use. Maybe he will take the time to engage the following questions I posed here without lapsing into the language of libertarian free will:

1) How do you make sense of regrets if you do not have the power of contrary choice? Why does your conscience bother you when you sin, if you could not have avoided that sin?

2) If God causes all things, then how can you claim that God does not cause sin?

3) Where did the first impulse to sin come from in both Satan and Adam?

Note: Appeals to mystery are inadmissible. Appeals to "second" causes, etc. must be explained in such a way that they actually get God off the hook for causing sin. It does not help to say that we choose according to our desires, and therefore God is not responsible. If God causes all things, then He also causes our desires. If God is the only true actor in the universe, then all creatures are but passive instruments. If we are but passive creatures with no power of self-determination, then all our actions must be directly attributed to God.

Till then....

Sacrifice And The Nature Of Human Freedom

The word of God commands people to submit and surrender their wills to the will of God. This is inherent in the nature of sacrifice. Paul tells us to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. What does this mean?

My Pastor used to put it this way: “When our will comes in conflict with God’s will, our will dies.”
We can see a vivid illustration of this in the garden of Gethsemane where Christ says, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Here Christ surrendered His will to the will of the Father. This directly correlates to the cross and the impending sacrifice He would make there.

It seems to me that if we have no will of our own [i.e. no real control of our will], then it could not be considered sacrificial to surrender it to God. We would not even be capable of surrendering our will, because the nature of surrender implies that we have control over that thing which we surrender. If God ultimately controls our will, then it is nonsensical to speak of surrendering our wills to God. In other words, sacrifice implies the ability to surrender our will to God, and the ability to surrender our will implies that we have control over our wills. I think that self-determinism is also implied in the commands to deny self. We can only deny ourselves by surrendering our will to the will of God.

I think that the Arminian account of human will makes better sense of God’s commands to live sacrificially. I have a hard time understanding how we could truly surrender our wills to God if we understand human will within the Calvinistic context of determinism or compatibilism.

What do think?

Got Free Will?

My recent post [Struggling with Regrets] has caused quite a stir. Many have chimed in to attack the notion that man can have the God given power of self-determination. I am, quite honestly, surprised by the amount of interest this subject has generated. I am also surprised by the lack of answers to the questions posed in my post. Not a single advocate of determinism has yet to answer the question: How do you make sense of regrets in a deterministic world view? To be fair, one person made an attempt, but did not bother to defend his position when challenged.

It is one thing to attack libertarian freewill. It is quite another to defend determinism. JC and I have been defending our position against several attacks. I would now like to issue a bit of a challenge for those who are so convinced that libertarian free will is a myth, and that determinism is the Biblical doctrine. Until you answer the following questions, I would ask that you refrain from attacking the contrary position. To the determinist I ask:

1) How do you make sense of regrets if you do not have the power of contrary choice? Why does your conscience bother you when you sin, if you could not have avoided that sin?

2) If God causes all things, then how can you claim that God does not cause sin?

3) Where did the first impulse to sin come from in both Satan and Adam?

Note: Appeals to mystery are inadmissible. Appeals to "second" causes, etc. must be explained in such a way that they actually get God off the hook for causing sin. It does not help to say that we choose according to our desires, and therefore God is not responsible. If God causes all things, then He also causes our desires. If God is the only true actor in the universe, then all creatures are but passive instruments. If we are but passive creatures with no power of self-determination, then all our actions must be directly attributed to God.

Anyone commenting on Struggling With Regrets will be asked to address these questions before expecting any answers from either JC or myself.

Since it has become clear that this is such a sensitive issue, I will do a series on the difficulties of the determinist position. I will not be able to tackle this issue, however, until I complete my series on perseverance, which has been difficult due to the interaction generated by recent posts. In the meantime I direct any readers to Classical Arminianism where Billy is doing a series on how Arminius viewed free will.

Struggling With Regrets

Do you sometimes struggle with regrets? I certainly do.

Part of the glory of Christianity is the forgiveness we have in Christ Jesus. We should never cease to rejoice in the fact that the blood of Christ has cleansed us from the stain of past sins [2 Pet. 1:9]. This forgiveness does not, however, always alleviate consequences from the poor decisions we made prior to trusting in Christ, nor does it always relieve us of the consequences of sinful decisions that we make after conversion.

David is a stunning example. God forgave David for his sin with Bathsheba, and against Uriah, but he still had to suffer tremendous consequences for that sin. His child died, and his son, Absalom, rose up against him, and was killed as a result [2 Sam. 12; 15-18]. I would bet that David had regrets. He suffered the scars of his decisions for the rest of his life. Sin is devastating and regrets can be crippling.

While we all have regrets, we must not dwell on the past to the point of preventing us from growing. We cannot change the past, but we can still effect our future. We must learn from our mistakes and move on in the grace of God.

It would seem that regrets can only make sense, however, if we hold to a libertarian view of free will. Regrets are nonsensical if we believe that all of our actions are determined by decree and circumstances which are beyond our control. There is no point feeling regret for something you could not possibly have done otherwise; yet we still feel regret.

Do Calvinists feel regret? How do they work such feelings into their worldview? Do they temporally shelve their worldview when confronted with the experiences of daily human life? Do they somehow train themselves to have no regrets so as to conform their feelings with their belief in determinism? I am curious to know.

I used to enjoy listening to Calvinist Greg Bahnsen's lectures on apologetics. His approach was presuppositional and he used this approach to demonstrate the incoherence of materialistic atheist thought. He would often point out that atheists do not live in harmony with the world view that they claim. They believe we are merely animals, for instance, yet honor their dead as if they have value beyond that which we would assign to animals. They deny absolute truths, yet are quite certain about their own belief systems, and very critical of others, etc. The atheist lives according to presuppositions that reveal the very God he or she denies.

I wonder that Greg Bahnsen seemed oblivious to such inconsistency in his own Calvinistic world view. I wonder what Greg Bahnsen thought of regrets. That we have regrets should tell us something about our presuppositions. I firmly believe that if we are honest with these presuppositions we will discover that only an Arminian account of free will and responsibility can make sense of the universal human experience of regret.

I am an Arminian primarily because I believe the word of God reveals the basic theological assumptions of Arminian theology. My convictions are based foremost on what I consider to be a more responsible exegesis of the Biblical data on salvation. That is not to say that our personal experiences have no worth or bearing on how we understand God's word. Paul taught that men are accountable to God because creation is an undeniable testimony to his existence [Rom. 1:18-22]. Bahnsen rightly noted that unbelievers actively repress this knowledge [Rom. 1:18].

I remember playing in my pool as a child and enjoying holding an air filled ball under water. I would hold it down as far as I could and then release it. I was amused by the way the ball would quickly rise to the surface and explode out of the water. I think that is what unbelievers do. They hold down the truth of God's revelation. Every now and then they lose their grip and God's truth explodes up into their face. When this happens, they can either respond to that revelation or quickly submerge the truth again.

I wonder how Calvinists can hold to their worldview without constantly struggling to re submerge the ball of reality that confronts them in everyday practical life. I believe that regrets are just one facet of reality that Calvinists should honestly deal with and examine.

I have many regrets. I regret that I turned from the Lord as a young teenager and was useless to him during that stage in my life. I regret that I never shared the truth with those who later took their lives during that time of rebellion in my life. I regret that I have often been disobedient to my Lord as a believer, and have often thwarted His efforts to use me and sanctify me. I regret when I have failed to restrain my tongue; or spoke before thinking, and allowed the words that passed from my lips to harm another human being. I regret that I did not boldly share the gospel with the strangers I sat next to at the laundry mat yesterday afternoon. I have many regrets. I do not focus on them to the point of being unhealthy, but I cannot help but to have them. I have them because I know that I am to blame for my actions, and should have done otherwise than I did.

I cannot get around the logical implication that "should have" implies "could have". We can develop a philosophy that says otherwise, but I do not know how we can keep the ball from ever coming to the surface again. If Calvinistic determinism be true, then I simply should not have regrets. All that I have done is just as God intended and decreed. Why should I regret that?

Quick Questions For My Calvinist Friends

Calvinists contend that the elect believe due to the influence of irresistible grace. Arminius and the Remonstrants rejected this partly due to the fact that the Bible plainly says that some do indeed resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51).

The Calvinist tends to retort that this is true only of reprobates. They also divide grace into two categories to alleviate the tension. They call one category "common grace" which has various meanings depending on which Calvinist you ask. The general definition comes from Matt. 5:47, where Jesus says that the Father sends rain on both the just and the unjust. The other kind of grace is "regenerating grace" which is always effectual and only for the elect. Calvinist James White makes some rather dismissive statements concerning this issue in Debating Calvinism,

"The doctrine [of irresistible grace] has nothing to do with the fact that sinners "resist" the common grace of God and the Holy Spirit (they do) or that Christians do not live perfectly in light of God's grace." [197]

He end notes this sentence with the following comment,

"Hence the irrelevance of citing passages such as Acts 7:51." [ibid. 207]

I personally find Mr. White's comments extremely unsatisfying. Just how does one resist "common grace"? Would one of my Calvinist friends please explain? Just how is Acts 7:51 a reference to "common grace"? Such a definition as that given in Matt. 5:47 does not fit the context of Acts 7:51.

So my question is rather simple. When a reprobate resists the Holy Spirit just what exactly is he resisting? If the Holy Spirit has no intentions of regenerating the reprobate and has instead decided to "pass him by", then what on earth is the reprobate resisting? Do you really believe you can resolve the difficulty by saying that he or she is resisting common grace? Just how does one resist the rain? And how does such an interpretation harmonize with the context of Acts 7:51? I invite anyone to explain this to me.

I also want to ask my Calvinist friends how they can harmonize their doctrine of irresistible grace with Isaiah 5:1-4,

"Let me sing now for my well-beloved a song of my beloved concerning his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. He dug it all around, removed its stones, and planted it with the choices vine. And he built a tower in the middle of it and also hewn out a wine vat in it; then he expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only worthless ones."

"And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done for it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?" [NASB]

So according to the Lord Himself, He had done all He could do to His vineyard, and yet it still did not produce acceptable fruit. Shouldn't we be able to answer the Lord, "Sorry, but you obviously didn't do all that you could have done Lord. You could have irresistibly caused your vineyard to produce good grapes." The Calvinist, to be consistent with his doctrine, could object in such a way. So here are my last two questions for my Calvinist friends. Would you feel comfortable saying such a thing to the Lord? Would you contend that God did not give sufficient grace for the Israelites to produce acceptable fruit?