“Certum est quia impossibile est (It is certain because impossible)” (Tertullian)
“Now if… [Christ] has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But… [then] not even Christ has been raised; and… your faith also is vain. Moreover we are… false witnesses of God for if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; [but then]… your faith is worthless… [and] you are still in your sins… [and]… those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished [and]… we are of all men most to be pitied.” (1 Cor. 15:12-19)
Every game has rules. Rules help structure the game and define the game. They tell us what is part of the game, and what is not part of the game. Without rules there is no structure, and with no structure there are, in a sense, no walls to hold the roof up. In this sense, life is a game. Not only does life have rules for how we ought to behave, but life and reality itself is built around, into its very foundation, rules to structure and delimit existence from non-existence.
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine on the subject of Calvinism. Calvinism, in brief, is the view that the pre-destining of individuals for salvation is based not on anything in the individual, since we are radically depraved, but solely upon God’s mercy and mysterious will. Forgoing a wade through deep theological waters, consider the dilemma that we find when we read the Scriptures in a straightforward manner:
John 3:16 (and similar passages): “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Rom. 8:30 (and similar passages): “…and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Do you begin to see the apparent contradiction? Some Biblical passages seem to lay at least part of the burden and responsibility upon us to believe while other passages seem to affirm that it is God who chooses (predestines) individuals to believe, thus refuting our individual choice and responsibility to do the believing in the first place.
The faithful Calvinist must affirm a ‘both-and’ position. It is true that BOTH:
1: We do the choosing.
AND
2: God does the choosing.
It’s certainly a provocative position, and it certainly seems to do justice to our plainsense interpretation of the text, but can it really be both, and does it really do justice to the text? First, it cannot be both without changing the rules of the game. You can’t simply violate the rules of a game in order to get what you want. At least if you did, you would no longer really be playing the game, would you? And, second, if you cannot simply change the rules of the game to get what you want, then it cannot be doing justice to the text. Just as one cannot violate the law of gravity to fly, or ultimately avoid the consequences of our evil actions, so we cannot violate the fundamental rules of reality in order to get what we want. Consider this basic but monumental truth:
“Everything is what it is and not what it isn’t.”
This is why the kind of Calvinism that wants to affirm both A & ~A is never going to be able to have what it wants.
“Reality cannot both be what it is and isn’t at the same time in the same respect.“
This is what makes reality real. This is what makes truth true. For lack of a better way of saying it: this simply is what existence is about. No amount of ingenuinty, omnipotence, reflection, or revelation can ever make it not the case the reality is what it is and not what it is not, at the same time and in the same respect. To state a view is not to estabablish it. To claim a position is not to vindicate it. To claim the Bible is the Word of God while at the same time violating the rules under which the Bible operates automatically disqualifies oneself from the game of interpretation.
How do we resolve dilemmas like this in everyday life? Remove one horn of the dilemma, or else change the meaning of the terms. Removing horns would be to remove revealed truth. Changing the meaning of terms involves truth in context. Truth in context, in this case, either undermines belief or else undermines determinism of our beliefs. Which is more plausible? If the very fabric of human existence, moral responsibility, individual accountability, the divine image, the fall of man, the common-sense experience of life, and the very concept of mercy and love themselves are not enough to vindicate our basic intuitions that we are free agents, then we have to honestly ask ourselves if we are pursuing truth or fantasy. Reason and experience dictate that this shadowy notion of God’s pre-determined will should fall by the wayside. If the Calvinist truly wants to affirm mystery (that which is unknown or at worst unknowable), then why not leave the issue of divine determinism the greatest mystery of all? The problem is, I don’t think that the Calvinist knows how to affirm this. It usually comes out something like this: “we are free and God controls everything, but just how this can be is a mystery”. But this affirmation fails to do justice to one’s own faith, simply because it is, in principle, impossible to establish. To affirm it is to affirm a contradiction. So, how does one affirm God’s truth in light of this mystery? It looks something like this:
“I can’t explain this mystery, but I can tell you what it cannot be.”
“God is in control. I don’t know how, but I know this much: it cannot be in such a way that it undermines our individual choice.”
This position opens up several options for reconciliation and revises our understanding of the word ‘mystery’, putting it more in line with what the Bible actually teaches about the musterion of God. I think the honest Calvinist is one that is agnostic about the issue, but in being agnostic, one can no longer mantain Calvinism itself. One can only say ‘we are free, but beyond this I just don’t know’.
“Our faith in a good God is not based on what we do not understand about life, much less in our ability to make logical sense of it all. Our faith is based on grace moments that do indeed reveal God’s character…” (Ben Witherington, Not in the Wind)
WPF
