Is God the Author of Evil? Molinism has no better answer than Calvinism

In the book, Divine Foreknowledge: Four views (ed. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy, 2001), four evangelical Christians present different views on the meaning of Divine Foreknowledge. Greg Boyd presents the Open-Theism View, David Hunt, the Simple-Foreknowledge View, William Craig, The Middle-Foreknowledge View (aka, Molinism), and Paul Helm, the Augustinian-Calvinist (A-C) View. One of the criticisms often raised by those who oppose the latter view is that it makes God the author of sin. That is because it essentially makes no distinction between foreknowledge and foreordination. God foreknows what he does because he has foreordained it.

Craig expresses this criticism of  the A-C view:

The Augustinian-Calvinist perspective interprets the above passages to mean that foreknowledge is based upon foreordination. God knows what will happen because he makes it happen. Aware of the intentions of his will and his almighty power, God knows that all his purpose shall be accomplished. But his interpretation inevitably makes God the author of sin, since it is he who moved Judas, for example, to betray Christ, a sin that merits the hapless Judas everlasting perdition. But how can a holy God move people to ocmmit moral evil and, moreover, how can these people then be held morally responisble for acts over which they had no control. The Augustinian-Calvinist view seems, in effect, to turn God into the devil (p. 135).

Paul Helm, on the other hand, maintains that the Middle-Knowledge View (Molinism) of Bill Craig has the same problem:

On the question of the authoriship of evil, there's not a hairsbreadth bewteen the Augustinian-Calvinist perspective and Craig's Molinism. According to Craig's description of Molinism, "God decreed to create just those circumstances and just those people who would freely do what God willed to happen" (p. 134). While this description does not ential that God is the author of sin (any more than the A-C perspective does), it does entail that God decreed all sinful acts to happen and decreed them precisely as they have happened. If this is so, the God of Molina and Arminius seems to be as implicated in the fact of evil as much (or as little) as the God of the A-C perspective (p. 159).

I agree with Craig that the A-C view does make God the author of sin. Since everything that happens in the word was foreordained by God, then sin was foreordained by him as well. I also agree with Helm that Molinism does not solve this problem. It inserts "middle-knowledge" between foreknowledge and foreordination but the result is the same. If God chooses to actualize a word in which there will be evil and he knows there will be evil due to his middle-knowledge, then he is no less the author of sin than the Calvinist God is.

Furthermore, as John Feinberg points out, Molinism's attempt to safeguard "libertarian free will" also fails. He writes:

[M]iddle knowledge talks about what would happen, so once God chooses the possible world he wants to actualize, he knows in every situation what his creatures would freely do. Divine foreknoweldge is upheld. However, if incompatiblism is correct, how can he know what would happen if any given "x" occurred? That is, if "y" is an incompatibilistically free human action, it must be indeterminate, but if so, it is impossible for God to know in advance of our free choice which "y" would actually occur in any given "x" situation. In virtue of what would he know the particular "y" that would follow? In virtue of causal conditions that confront the agent at the time of decision making and move him to choose as he does? If so, that is determinism, not libertarian free will (The Many Faces of Evil, 2004, p. 113).

Another author, David Hunt, maintains that the Molinist view does not resolve the "soteriological problem of evil" either. He writes:

The Bible appears to teach that some (many? most?) human beings will spend eternity in hell. Whatever "eternity in hell" amounts to, it is certainly not the purpose for which God created the world--God does not desire this for anyone (2 Pet 3:9). but if he is equipped with middle knowledge, he knew exactly who would reject him prior to creating anyone; knowing this, he could easily have refrained from creating these people. Why didn't he do so? This is a more difficult question to answer for the Molinist than it is for the open theist (whose God lacks this knowledge) or the defender of simple foreknowledge (whose God knows the actual future but cannot use that knowledge to change the very thing he foreknows). This does not show that there are no reasons why God might create people he "middle-knows" would reject him, but the need to posit and defend such reasons is a cost not borne by the non-Molinst (Divine Foreknowledge, p. 152)

So, despite the poplularity among a number of Christian philosophers and apologists regarding middle-knowledge (many seem to think its a panacea for all the sticky issues facing Christianity), it doesn't seem to me that it offers any better solution to the problems than does pure Calvinism.

A Six-Point Calvinist

HT: Blog on the Way

The Calvinist God and the Chilean Miners

I found an interesting post on a site called TheArminian.net. The author asks:

For the benefit of this post, I want to ask why fallen human beings, with regard to the 33 miners, sought every means possible to secure their rescue, but God does not do the same in the Calvinistic system? What is it within human beings, generally speaking, that seeks to rescue those in peril? Granted, the analogy will only carry so far, because Arminianism rejects the heresy of Universalism (cf. Matt. 7:21-23; Rev. 20:11-15) — all 33 miners were rescued. In spite of the Calvinist’s best efforts at explaining how God could in any genuine sense desire the salvation of all people (as Scripture explicitly teaches at 1 Timothy 2:4 et al.), since He has from eternity past, allegedly, already unconditionally selected to save only some (by bringing them to faith through regeneration), they pale in comparison to the words of Christ Jesus: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Matt. 23:37 NRSV)

The Chilean president stated that, whatever it takes, all miners would be rescued. His confident assertion and enthusiasm was inspiring. He and everyone else recognized that those men were in need, so they did what they could to secure their freedom. ...

As Calvinism has it, however, God is not interested in irresistibly saving every individual, nor does He genuinely love the world, contra Scripture (John 3:16). We are left wondering why human beings, in an effort to rescue all 33 miners, for example, retain more genuine love in their breast for other human beings than does the God of Calvinism?

The author makes an important observation. Human beings, seemingly, have more love and compassion than does the Calvinist God. Of course, the Calvinist would say that all men deserve nothing but wrath and judgment and the fact that God saves any is pure grace. Furthermore, God is wise and sovereign, who are we, the mere creature, to question the all-knowing Creator? Anticipating such a reply, a commenter who calls himself DrWayman remarks:

Imagine the outcry if the Prez of Chile, for his own good reasons, decided that only three of the miners would be saved and the rest were to perish. Of course, we would be upset with him but he decided that he did not need to share with us his reasoning for doing so. He told us to trust him, that his salvation of the three miners shows just how terrific he is. Everyone should be glad because he could have left them all to perish…

What would be the response of humanity to such a decree by the President of Chile? Would he be praised for his love and grace? Or would he be condemned as a heartless tyrant?

The Arminian is not off the hook, though, either. As the blogger said above, Arminianism does not hold to universalism. It teaches that some will be eternally lost. To follow the analogy, under Arminianism, some of the miners because of their stubborness would have refused to come out of the mine. The rescuers, respecting the free will of the miners, would have left them to perish.

Does that really make sense? If some of the miners had refused to come out of the mine, it would have been because they were not "thinking right." The trauma of being in the mine for such a long time would have caused some kind of psychological damage resulting in their refusal to come out of the mine. Similarly, in Arminian theology, sinners are not "thinking right." Their minds and their wills have been damaged by sin. They may refuse to cooperate with the grace of God and be saved. What should be done with such people?

In the case of the miners, if some had refused to come out, I tend to think they would have been rescued against their will. The argument would have been that these poor people have been traumatized to the point that they can no longer think rationally and it is the responiblity of the rescuers to override their will and bring them to safety.

How do you think the world would respond to such a scenario? I submit that the rescuers would have been praised for doing the right thing, the loving thing, the humane thing. But what about the fact that these stubborn miners had their free will violated? Isn't free will the ultimate good in the universe, even more than love? It seems so according to Arminianism.

Thus, neither Arminianism nor Calvinism really presents a truly loving God. They both put free will over love. In Calvinism, it is God's free choice that is supreme and in Arminianism it is man's free choice that is supreme.

A Calvinist Response to the Problem of Evil

Voddie Baucham provides the Calvinist answer to the problem of evil.




HT: Wes Widner

Who is the "Real" Calvinist?

There is a resurgence of Calvinism among American evangelicals. Al Mohler, President of the flagship Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, John MacArthur, President of the Master's Seminary in Southern California, John Piper, Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis are some of the leaders of this "neo-Calvinism" (see "Young, Restless, Reformed: Calvinism is making a comeback—and shaking up the church," Christianity Today [September 2006]). (The movement even has T-shirts, see on the right).

Many of these folks are proud to identify themselves as Calvinists but are they "true" Calvinists? Would John Calvin have accepted them? Listen to Richard Muller, Professor of Historical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids:

I once met a minister who introduced himself to me as a "five-point Calvinist." I later learned that, in addition to being a self-confessed five-point Calvinist, he was also an anti-paedobaptist who assumed that the church was a voluntary association of adult believers, that the sacraments were not means of grace but were merely "ordinances" of the church, that there was more than one covenant offering salvation in the time between the Fall and the eschaton, and that the church could expect a thousand-year reign on earth after Christ's Second Coming but before the ultimate end of the world. He recognized no creeds or confessions of the church as binding in any way. I also found out that he regularly preached the "five points" in such a way as to indicate the difficulty of finding assurance of salvation: He often taught his congregation that they had to examine their repentance continually in order to determine whether they had exerted themselves enough in renouncing the world and in "accepting" Christ. This view of Christian life was totally in accord with his conception of the church as a visible, voluntary association of "born again" adults who had "a personal relationship with Jesus."

In retrospect, I recognize that I should not have been terribly surprised at the doctrinal context or at the practical application of the famous five points by this minister — although at the time I was astonished. After all, here was a person, proud to be a five-point Calvinist, whose doctrines would have been repudiated by Calvin. In fact, his doctrines would have gotten him tossed out of Geneva had he arrived there with his brand of "Calvinism" at any time during the late sixteenth or the seventeenth century. Perhaps more to the point, his beliefs stood outside of the theological limits presented by the great confessions of the Reformed churches—whether the Second Helvetic Confession of the Swiss Reformed church or the Belgic Confession and Heidelberg Catechism of the Dutch Reformed churches or the Westminster standards of the Presbyterian churches. He was, in short, an American evangelical ("How Many Points," Calvin Theological Journal, Vol. 28 (1993): 425-26).

I find it humorous that some Christians fight over "who is the real Calvinist" as if that was somehow a badge of honor. Personally, I find Calvin's theology to be demeaning to God (assuming for a moment that he really does exist). Calvin's God created the world in order to save a chosen few and damn the rest to hell for eternity. Why? Because it brings him glory (Romans 9:22-23) !  Roger Olson, Professor of Theology in the George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University says: "The God of Calvinism scares me; I'm not sure how to distinguish him from the devil." Thomas Jefferson said:

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god... his religion was Dæmonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5 points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin (Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823).

Most Calvinists that I have encountered are haughty and arrogant (see Tribalogue and Pyromaniacs). They and they alone have the truth and every other poor soul, including the majority of historical Christianity, is deluded.

Top Ten Signs You Might Be a Calvinist

 

(10) if your child’s first word was “Westminster"

(9) if you stubbed your toe and said: "Thank God that is over"

(8) if you have a portrait of Jonathan Edwards over your fireplace

(7) if you prefer black and white to all other color combinations

(6) if Pyromania makes you think of Phil Johnson, not Def Leppard

(5) if you use "Arminian" as a curse word

(4) if you’ve ever shouted “YES!” when the pastor says to turn to Romans 9

(3) if you’ve ever read parts of “The Bondage of the Will” to children under ten and prayed that it would change their lives

(2) if you send your mother tulips on Mother’s Day

(1) if you've come up with a working theory on how the Holocaust gives God glory

(These were assembled from across the web added with a couple of my own invention)

Thomas Jefferson on Calvinism

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was very blunt in his opinion of Calvinism. Here are excerpts from four letters he wrote near the end of his life.

1. Letter to Ezra Styles (June 25, 1819):

I am not [a Calvinist]. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know. I am not a Jew, and therefore do not adopt their theology, which supposes the God of infinite justice to punish the sins of the fathers upon their children, unto the third and fourth generation; and the benevolent and sublime reformer of that religion has told us only that God is good and perfect, but has not defined him. I am, therefore, of his theology, believing that we have neither words nor ideas adequate to that definition. And if we could all, after this example, leave the subject as undefinable, we should all be of one sect, doers of good, and eschewers of evil. No doctrines of his lead to schism. It is the speculations of crazy theologists which have made a Babel of a religion the most moral and sublime ever preached to man, and calculated to heal, and not to create differences. These religious animosities I impute to those who call themselves his ministers, and who engraft their casuistries on the stock of his simple precepts. I am sometimes more angry with them than is authorized by the blessed charities which he preaches.

2. Letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (June 26, 1822):

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man.

1. That there is one only God, and he all perfect.
2. That there is a future state of rewards and punishments.
3. That to love God with all thy heart and thy neighbor as thyself, is the sum of religion.

These are the great points on which he endeavored to reform the religion of the Jews. But compare with these the demoralizing dogmas of Calvin.

1. That there are three Gods.
2. That good works, or the love of our neighbor, are nothing.
3 That faith is every thing, and the more incomprehensible the proposition, the more merit in its faith.
4. That reason in religion is of unlawful use.
5. That God, from the beginning, elected certain individuals to be saved, and certain others to be damned; and that no crimes of the former can damn them; no virtues of the latter save.

Now, which of these is the true and charitable Christian? He who believes and acts on the simple doctrines of Jesus? Or the impious dogmatists, as Athanasius and Calvin? Verily I say these are the false shepherds foretold as to enter not by the door into the sheepfold, but to climb up some other way. They are mere usurpers of the Christian name, teaching a counter-religion made up of the deliria of crazy imaginations, as foreign from Christianity as is that of Mahomet. Their blasphemies have driven thinking men into infidelity, who have too hastily rejected the supposed author himself, with the horrors so falsely imputed to him. Had the doctrines of Jesus been preached always as pure as they came from his lips, the whole civilized world would now have been Christian. I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian.

3. Letter to William Short (April 13, 1820):

The Presbyterian clergy are loudest; the most intolerant of all sects, the most tyrannical and ambitious; ready at the word of the lawgiver, if such a word could be now obtained, to put the torch to the pile, and to rekindle in this virgin hemisphere, the flames in which their oracle Calvin consumed the poor Servetus, because he could not find in his Euclid the proposition which has demonstrated that three are one and one is three, nor subscribe to that of Calvin, that magistrates have a right to exterminate all heretics to Calvinistic Creed. They pant to re-establish, by law that holy inquisition, which they can now only infuse into public opinion.

4. Letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823):

I can never join Calvin in addressing his god... his religion was Dæmonism. If ever man worshipped a false god, he did. The being described in his 5 points is not the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore, the Creator and benevolent governor of the world; but a dæmon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no god at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin.

How Does a Believer Know the Bible is the Word of God?

I have often made the claim that evangelical Christians believe things in the Bible that they would reject in other ancient literature due to their prior faith commitment to the Bible as the Word of God. Christians typically do not come to believe because of evidence and arguments. They come to believe for a number of emotional, psychological and social reasons. Once they have made this commitment and especially if they have some religious experience connected with it, no amount of reason or evidence will convince them they are wrong. I have been criticized by some who say that their belief in the Bible is not due to a "faith commitment." But listen to what John Calvin taught:

Let it therefore be held as fixed, that those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit acquiesce implicitly in Scripture; that Scripture carrying its own evidence along with it, deigns not to submit to proofs and arguments, but owes the full conviction with which we ought to receive it to the testimony of the Spirit. Enlightened by him, we no longer believe, either on our own judgement or that of others, that the Scriptures are from God; but, in a way superior to human judgement, feel perfectly assured—as much so as if we beheld the divine image visibly impressed on it -that it came to us, by the instrumentality of men, from the very mouth of God. We ask not for proofs or probabilities on which to rest our judgement, but we subject our intellect and judgement to it as too transcendent for us to estimate. This, however, we do, not in the manner in which some are wont to fasten on an unknown object, which, as soon as known, displeases, but because we have a thorough conviction that, in holding it, we hold unassailable truth; not like miserable men, whose minds are enslaved by superstition, but because we feel a divine energy living and breathing in it—an energy by which we are drawn and animated to obey it, willingly indeed, and knowingly, but more vividly and effectually than could be done by human will or knowledge. (Institutes, 1.7.5)

While not all evangelical Christians may believe just because of some faith commitment or religious experience, I think the majority do. Once one has made this commitment then he or she will be determined to defend whatever is in the Bible. Even if they can't defend it, they will still believe, because the Spirit told them its true. One of the leading Christian apologists, William Lane Craig, admits as much.

Grasping at Straws Part Eight--Evangelicals Defend Genocide

A large percentage of contemporary evangelical Christians consider themselves to be Calvinists, meaning (among other things) that their theology emphasizes the total depravity of man and the absolute sovereignty of God. As a result of being the Creator, the Calvinist God owns his creation and is completely free to do with it whatever He pleases. As Paul is reported to have said in Romans 9:20-21: But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honored use and another for dishonorable use? (ESV)

Today, I want to look at John Calvin's take on the genocidal commands issued by Yahweh.

In his commentary on Joshua, which by the way was the last book written by Calvin before his death, he said with regard to chapter 6, verse 20:

The indiscriminate and promiscuous slaughter, making no distinction of age or sex, but including alike women and children, the aged and decrepit, might seem an inhuman massacre, had it not been executed by the command of God. But as he, in whose hands are life and death, had justly doomed those nations to destruction, this puts an end to all discussion (emphasis added).

Just as Paul had before him, Calvin argues that God has a right to do whatever he pleases and that this puts an end to all discussion of the topic. So, basically God can do anything and man must accept it as being good and right because God did it. If man questions God's actions, he is showing his rebellion against the ruler of the universe.

Calvin continues:

We may add, that they had been borne with for four hundred years, until their iniquity was complete. Who will now presume to complain of excessive rigor, after God had so long delayed to execute judgment? If any one object that children, at least, were still free from fault, it is easy to answer, that they perished justly, as the race was accursed and reprobated. Here then it ought always to be remembered, that it would have been barbarous and atrocious cruelty had the Israelites gratified their own lust and rage, in slaughtering mothers and their children, but that they are justly praised for their active piety and holy zeal, in executing the command of God, who was pleased in this way to purge the land of Canaan of the foul and loathsome defilement’s by which it had long been polluted.

Calvin gives us the old albi which is still used by evangelical apologists today that God was long-suffering and patient with the Canaanites as he allowed their sin to go on and increase for 400 years. As I have said before, I fail to see how someone delaying his criminal act in any way excuses the act once he does it. If I deal patiently with my neighbor's offenses for 40 years before I finally lose patience and kill him, am I any less guilty of murder?

In addition, there is no indication except the Bible writers own claim that the Canaanites sins had increased greatly over 400 years. What were their sins exactly anyway? Sexual sins and human sacrifice. Well Yahweh himself was practicing child sacrifice during this time in Egypt (Exodus 12:29).

Calvin comments on Joshua 10:40:

Here the divine authority is again interposed in order completely to acquit Joshua of any charge of cruelty. Had he proceeded of his own accord to commit an indiscriminate massacre of women and children, no excuse could have exculpated him from the guilt of detestable cruelty, cruelty surpassing anything of which we read as having been perpetrated by savage tribes scarcely raised above the level of the brutes (emphasis added). But that at which all would otherwise be justly horrified, it becomes them to embrace with reverence, as proceeding from God.

I think Calvin is to be commended for his honesty. While so many evangelical apologists try to downplay the atrocity of the Canaanite genocide, Calvin sees it for what it really is. He says it surpassed anything done by savage tribes acting like brute beasts. He is correct, but then suddenly, it becomes okay because God ordered it.

He continues:

But as God had destined the swords of his people for the slaughter of the Amorites, Joshua could do nothing else than obey his command. By this fact, then, not only are all mouths stopped, but all minds also are restrained from presuming to pass censure. When any one hears it said that Joshua slew all who came in his way without distinction, although they threw down their arms and suppliantly begged for mercy, the calmest minds are aroused by the bare and simple statement, but when it is added, that so God had commanded, there is no more ground for obloquy against him, than there is against those who pronounce sentence on criminals.

Calvin goes on to say that even the children deserved the fate Yahweh commanded for them. He writes:

Though, in our judgment at least, the children and many of the women also were without blame, let us remember that the judgment-seat of heaven is not subject to our laws. Nay, rather when we see how the green plants are thus burned, let us, who are dry wood, fear a heavier judgment for ourselves. And certainly, any man who will thoroughly examine himself, will find that he is deserving of a hundred deaths. Why, then, should not the Lord perceive just ground for one death in any infant which has only passed from its mother’s womb? In vain shall we murmur or make noisy complaint, that he has doomed the whole offspring of an accursed race to the same destruction; the potter will nevertheless have absolute power over his own vessels, or rather over his own clay.

Calvin is consistent in the application of his theology. Rather than being guilty of sentimental compassion for the children and infants, he takes a bold stand with his God. Total depravity due to inherited sin, a foundational point in his theology, drives his conclusion. Every human being including those only one minute old deserve nothing but death and damnation from Calvin's thrice holy God.

He writes:

Hence, even infants bringing their condemnation with them from their mother’s womb, suffer not for another’s, but for their own defect. For although they have not yet produced the fruits of their own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted in them. Nay, their whole nature is, as it were, a seed-bed of sin, and therefore cannot but be odious and abominable to God (emphasis added) (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.1.8).

So for Calvin, and many of his followers today, the infants of Canaan just got what they deserved. Never mind that they didn't choose to be born into the world much less to be born to the Canaanites. Never mind that they had not even developed enough intellectually to talk or make any kind of moral decisions. Nope, they were dirty, rotten, sinners odious and abominable to God, according to Calvin and not only deserving of physical death but eternal damnation as well.

Is it any wonder that some have said that Calvin's god is worse than the devil? Yet, many popular evangelical authors and pastors today are adherents of Calvinism. Men such as John MacArthur, John Piper, R. C. Sproul, and a host of others. While these men are too diplomatic to state matters as bluntly as Calvin did, they nevertheless believe the same doctrines.

A problem to be faced by Calvinists and others who insist that "God's ways are not our ways" and the reasons for his actions are illusive to us (i.e., "God works in mysterious ways") is that if this is the case, how can we be sure that we can know anything about such a God? If his actions are mysterious and beyond our comprehension, then how can we say anything with any degree of certainty about Him?

As Ronald Goetz points out in Joshua, Calvin, and Genocide (Theology Today, vol. 32, no. 3; Oct. 1975, 263-274):

How can we speak of the ethical relevance of divine justice if we assert its subsistence in deeds which violate all the canons of human justice? Why bother to speak of God's essential being at all? Must we assert that God is just or, for that matter, loving? Can we not simply say that God is and doesn't give a damn whatever we think? Calvin would never wish to go in this nominalistic direction, for it would entail, among other things, an eventual denial of the very possibility of theology-a denial of any analogy between God's being, revealed in divine acts, and our categories of experience and comprehension. Nevertheless in appealing a priori to the incomprehensible fiats of God, on the one hand, and in so manifestly failing to make sense out of appeals to human conscience as justifying God on the other, Calvin lays out the ancient problem of evil in terms which are especially acute. These terms emerge from within and not outside the "theological circle" and in such a way as to open the question: "Can theology, to say nothing of theodicy, be justified at all?" If the acts of God tell us nothing of who God is, but only reflect mysterious illusiveness, then the divine revelation shows us only the divine incomprehensibility.