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Unconditional Election
Again from www.Reformed.com:
Pardon my sarcasm, but the idea that God is in heaven, playing a cosmic and catastrophic game of divine "eeny, meeny, miney, mo," really is impossible for me to accept. The above doctrine insists upon arbitrary selection (since God cannot take into account the 'merit' of any person). Let's hang out for a while on this concept of "arbitrary." The idea of an 'arbitrary' selection is something like this: you go to the grocery store to pick up a bag of tortilla chips. You get to the aisle, and there are somewhere around 20 bags of each particular variety of torilla chip. You personally don't have any preferences as to which brand you buy, so you arbitrarily choose Tostitos. Furthermore, you decide to pick out one bag of Tostitos out of the twenty on the shelf. This selection, too, is arbitrary. There is no rhyme or reason to your selection. You might have picked a different brand of tortilla chips, or you might have selected a different bag of Tostitos, say, the one directly to the left. It doesn't matter. The choice was arbitrary.Unconditional Election is the doctrine which states that God chose those whom he was pleased to bring to a knowledge of himself, not based upon any merit shown by the object of his grace and not based upon his looking forward to discover who would "accept" the offer of the gospel. God has elected, based solely upon the counsel of his own will, some for glory and others for damnation (Romans 9:15,21). He has done this act before the foundations of the world (Ephesians 1:4-8).
This doctrine does not rule out, however, man's responsibility to believe in the redeeming work of God the Son (John 3:16-18). Scripture presents a tension between God's sovereignty in salvation, and man's responsibility to believe which it does not try to resolve. Both are true -- to deny man's responsibility is to affirm an unbiblical hyper-calvinism; to deny God's sovereignty is to affirm an unbiblical Arminianism.
The doctrine of Unconditional Election insists that God's foreordination of people for salvation work the same way. He might have picked the kid next door, but he picked me. Some will protest this idea by saying, "His selection isn't arbitrary! He chooses people as He wills His choices are according to what pleases Him." However, this is frankly a non-answer. The child who calls out, "Goose," instead of "Duck," did so "according to his will," but the choice was nevertheless arbitrary.
The fact that individual merit cannot be factored into the equation, insists that God be arbitrary in His selection. But this causes us to define "merit." The above definition of the doctrine includes this statement, "...not based upon his looking forward to discover who would 'accept' the offer of the gospel." Later in the definition, the author stresses the importance of personal faith, saying that this is the 'responsibility' of the believer. I commend the author for conceding this point, but can't help but to see a significant contradiction here. If God does not select people by looking ahead to see who will 'accept' the Gospel (a.k.a. believe the Gospel), why is it the responsibility of the individual to believe, since without that initial, arbitrary election from God, they would never believe in the first place (and though we haven't gotten there yet, Calvinism also says that everyone who is elected, WILL believe). So, according to Calvinism, individual faith is the believer's responsibility, and also the necessary evntuality of election. The author used the word "tension," to describe the tenuous relationship between God's sovereignty, and man's responsibility. I actually do acknowledge this tension, but I think in this particular instance, it is being used as a cover for inherent contradiction, not tension.
Lastly, the Bible is very clear that faith is non-meritorious. For a Calvinist to say that God takes no merit into account when He predestines a person for salvation, not even looking forward to see who will believe, they are saying that somehow faith itself constitutes merit on the part of the individual. But over and over, Paul says, "You are saved by grace through faith." If faith can be reckoned as meritorious, then this frequent statement of Paul is nonsense. If we are saved by God's unmerited favor, through the meritorious act of faith, then we're not really saved by grace at all! But instead, Paul clearly says, "It is of faith, that it might be by grace..." God chose to save people through faith, so that no merit could be ascribed to the saved individual. Why? Because when we believe, we aren't actually doing anything - we are embracing what was already done by Christ for us.
And for good measure, the Bible is also clear that God predestines "according to His foreknowledge." See 1 Peter 1:1-2, and Romans 8:29. This means He chooses based on what He knows.
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1 comment:
I'm a bit confused at this point. It seems that you are arguing that if God makes a choice based on His own preference and not on some external values, He is being "arbitrary" by definition. That is, if He chooses to save some for reasons of His own and not for reasons found in the person, that is by definition and of necessity "arbitrary".
Now, I looked up "arbitrary". It has a few meanings. (Ain't English grand?) One is "contingent solely upon one's discretion". I would argue that God chooses solely on His discretion. Wouldn't you? Another is "having unlimited power". I would argue that God has unlimited power. Wouldn't you? However, most people who use the term "arbitrary" mean it this way: "capricious; unreasonable; unsupported." If you are arguing that God, choosing based on His own reasons without regard to the merit of the person, is "capricious; unreasonable; unsupported," I would suggest your logic is faulty.
And when you say "The fact that individual merit cannot be factored into the equation, insists that God be arbitrary in His selection," aren't you you arguing exactly for merit? Aren't you arguing that those whom God chooses (since He obviously doesn't choose based on how "Calvinists" say He chooses) He chooses based on merit? And if He chooses on merit, however small, isn't there room, however small, for boasting? And if you argue against merit ("non-meritorious" was your term), then why are you arguing that it is not based on some merit in the person?
Here's the question I can't get past. "Why did you choose Christ and your neighbor did not?" If it is by any means something I did, I cannot avoid some room for boasting. If I was smarter or wiser or more spiritually aware or ... whatever made me do the right thing and my neighbor not ... if it is a product of me, it is room for boasting, something God expressly denies.
One other thing. Review Eph. 2:8-9. There is an explicit "gift of God". Paul says, "that not of yourselves". What is "that"? It seems to me that the "grace" is not of yourself -- quite obviously. So ... the salvation is? No, no, we'd agree that that is also "not of yourself". So why is it that "faith" is of yourself, but the entire rest of the phrase is not? Wouldn't it make more sense to conclude that the entire phrase, "by grace you have been saved through faith" be "that" which is "a gift from God"? Some would say "No", but I don't know on what basis, especially considering the multiple references to "faith" being a gift.
I just offer these as things to consider. Please don't let my disagreement with the ideas you are offering come across as a disagreement with you or as ... what was your term ... "passionate". I'm simply trying to discuss with a fellow believer a perspective that is different than my fellow believer's.
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