Here is the text of an email I sent in response to a question I had.
A church member said they had family/friends who were talking about “election” and trying to explain it.
They asked me what my view was and so this is the email I wrote.
I didn’t edit it or follow any outline, just a “stream of consciousness” type free flowing thought kind of thing.
Maybe others would like to know as well, so here you go:
Let me give you my (hopefully) quick answer to this question.
This comes down to “Free Will” and God’s “sovereignty”
The side of those you mentioned would be considered “Calvinists” “Reformed” holding to “The Doctrines of Grace” will use terms like “Predestination” and “election” (though that is unfair, we all believe in predestination and election, it’s just a matter of what is the basis for that predestination and election).
I think the best way to answer is with the “big picture” and maybe give an example of a verse and how I would understand it.
And even before that, I’d want to say this is an issue that good people have been debating for generations, it is a mystery. Anyone who claims they’ve got it all figured out and it should be obvious to anyone is simply not informed on all the issues at play.
Ok, big picture:
We either have “free will” and we are able to choose, or God determines everything and this makes our choices an illusion.
What would be the point of so many places in the Bible where we are commanded to do this or that? We have no choice. Why are we commanded to repent and believe if we can’t choose that or choose to reject that? What is even the point of writing the Bible at all if free will is merely an illusion and God is simply acting out a play and we’re his puppets. I just cannot believe, based on the language of the Bible, this is the case. The Bible is written as though we do have free will. It is written as though we do have a choice. Calvinists would have to admit it is an “illusion” because it sure does seem that way.
God is not one to hide things and trick us. That’s just not who He is. If Calvinism is true, then God is not the God presented in the Bible, as far as I can tell.
So where does the confusion come in? It’s because God is unlike anyone or anything else. Everything in the world, absolutely everything in the known world, exists in time and space. God does not. We cannot comprehend that. His ways are higher and greater than ours (Isaiah 55:9). We simply can’t understand what that means. This means that God sees all of time at once… even that’s not accurate, because “at once” itself talks about time, and God is beyond time… it’s mind-blowing.
Calvinism, I believe, is an attempt to understand the unknowable aspects of an infinite God. It is to put Him into an understandable box so that we can describe Him in our terms. Most of Calvinism is based on philosophy and logical assumptions. It’s a system that gives neat answers and gives people great peace because it has answers. God is not so simple.
The Bible tells us that it is not God’s will that any should perish (2Peter 3:9) yet people do perish, most people perish (Matthew 7:13). So, according to the Bible God doesn’t always get His will accomplished… how can this be!?
Here’s the thing about Calvinism, they will say that God always gets His way (which, actually I agree with) yet they will deny that His will could be that He desires to allow us a choice more than anything else.
Matthew 23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
God is never presented as saving anyone against their willingness to believe in Him, yet we are told He wants everyone to be saved. There is no contradiction. He wants us to have free will more than he wants us to be saved no matter what.
I want to eat ice cream for every meal, but I want to live longer and not weigh 400 lbs more. I can want both, but do only one.
The Calvinist will affirm that God chooses people according to His mysterious will and nothing else, but they also deny that it is His will to give us Free Will and to choose us based on our choices.
With God it is not a matter of time… so He can choose those who choose Him without respect to “before” or “after.” 2Peter 3:8 says “a day is like 1,000 years and 1,000 years is like a day” to God. It does not say only one way or the other, but both. Time has no meaning for God. He sees all of history like a string balled up, all “at once” (but even that term isn’t accurate because that speaks to time).
Ephesians 1:4 says that “He chose us in Him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world…” This, Calvinists would say, says that we have nothing to do with our Salvation because God did it before the world was made… but it also means He chose us “before” time was made too. There is no time relative to God. It’s simply that those of us who are “in Christ” (a very common phrase in the New Testament) have been chosen by God. It doesn’t say He chose us and so we got “in” it says He chose those who are “in.”
An analogy (every analogy is going to break down somewhere when you’re talking about God). Our founding fathers chose every US citizen to experience the blessings of liberty protected by the US Constitution. They didn’t know me, yet they chose me because I’m a US citizen. One difference is, God does know me.
He lets us choose. Could He force some to heaven and some to hell? Sure. But that’s not what He wants to do, clearly.
Calvinism is logical and very well thought out. It’s balanced and answers a lot of questions people have about God… the only problem is, I don’t believe the Bible teaches it. In fact, several verses I think explicitly teach against it.
John 3:16 tells us that God loved the WORLD by sending Jesus to die for us all. The Calvinist will say God does not love the world, only the elect. I just cannot interpret the Bible that way. 1John 2:2 says that Jesus is the “atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the WHOLE WORLD.” Calvinism demands that Jesus only died for those who are saved, because (they say) if Jesus died for someone who was not saved, then they would be saved, because they deny that we have a choice in the matter… yet we clearly do, otherwise these verses make no sense.
Calvinists have to take the regular meaning of words, like “whole world” and say “well, ‘whole world’ doesn’t really mean the whole world…” yes, it does. They have to change the meaning of words in order for the Bible to fit what they believe. I believe that’s bad theology. Rather, we need to read the Bible as it is presented and change our beliefs to fit God’s Word.
God is Sovereign. That means He can do whatever He wants, including giving us free will. The Calvinist claims to believe in a more powerful God than me… but I don’t see it that way. My God can do anything including giving me a choice and still be in charge of everything.
If Free Will is an illusion, then we have no choices including whether or not we sin. We are held responsible for choices we have no choice in making, but it’s all an illusion anyway. All the commands to repent and believe, all the commands to go and preach the gospel, every command to do this or not do that… all, when it comes right down to it, is just pretend…
There’s a Greek word I learned for that in seminary: βολογνα
I hope that helps some. People will want to get off into the weeds and argue about this verse or that verse and do backflips to make words mean something other than what they usually mean to show it’s possible for their theology to be true and how it’s really the only way to believe, but you’d have to have a PhD in philosophy to understand the Bible and I don’t believe God hides from us like that.
Let me know if I can help any more, or if you’d like to talk in person I’m all for it.
I have a lot of Calvinist friends, I love them, but they’re wrong (in my opinion).
