“Why are you doing this, Cain?” It was not a
question of curiosity. Neither was it a question of a prey stalling for time,
looking for escapes. Huddled in a corner, he knew that no one could save him
from that pointed gun.
“You can still turn back,” he continued. It was the
question of a man trying to convince his brother.
“No, I can’t,” Cain replied.
“Yes you can,” he pleaded.
“The author made me this way,” Cain’s void, callous
eyes stared back at him.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I chose to.” Cain pulled the trigger.
---------------------------------------------
It’s been a while since I’ve last pondered about
this, so long ago that I have lost the awe of this great realization. Recently,
a very good thing has happened to me and I would like to go back to this. If
you are struggling with this idea then I suggest you still think about this on
your own, since it’s always so different when you realize it yourself.
If you are a theologically-inclined person then you
would first probably ask, “are you a Calvinist or an Arminian?” And to that I
answer, “I am a Christian; I would rather not be called by another name.” But
with regard to doctrine, I agree with Calvin. Some would say it is a pointless
thing to argue about these things because they’re not ‘fundamental,’ but
personally this has probably been my greatest source of awe and comfort.
What are Arminianism and Calvinism? There are five
main points of each camp and you can just read what they mean here if you want:
http://www.fivesolas.com/cal_arm.htm
Anyway, comparing and contrasting these two thoughts
has a danger of exclusivity (that is, excluding one idea from the other, or saying
that they cannot coexist). But the general train of thought is this:
Arminianism
– Humans choose whether to believe God or not. God predestines to heaven those
He foreknew will choose Him. Consequently, if one loses faith then they lose their
salvation.
Calvinism
– Christ’s death on the cross is not for everyone, but only to those who are
and will be called by the Holy Spirit. God predestines who will believe and who
will not, for reasons that are known only to Him. Since God predestines who
will believe, then consequently one cannot lose their salvation.
(There are a lot more things than that, but this is
the shortest summary where I can show the conflict.)
Depravity
Now at first glance Arminianism makes much more
sense. Wouldn’t that be a cruel God, to send humans to hell? That would be so unfair
of Him, to send some to heaven and damn others to hell!
Perhaps this is the greatest objection to the sovereignty
of God. But it is a funny thing to say, to measure God with human standards. But
there is an underlying assumption here; that humans don’t deserve hell. And
that is where Christians differ. Humans
don’t deserve heaven. You would hear it over and over again; in the
beginning of good news is bad news:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
“There is no one righteous, not even one”
(Here’s John Piper on it http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/piper/depravity.html
if you want more verses haha)
Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone is so
evil like they’re on drugs all the time and killing children and raping women
and robbing banks and all that. It means that even “our
righteous acts are like filthy rags” in God’s sight. When I am terribly
hungry you can give me a donut and I as a fellow hungry man would think that what
you did is good. But even the purest acts of kindness like that look wicked in
God’s sight. God is holy, and that holiness is very difficult to grasp in our
modern relativistic world.
Election
Humans have freewill. But on his own, man will
never choose God. “There is no one righteous, not even
one... There is no one who seeks God.” Jesus himself says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
them.” Humans don’t deserve heaven; left on their own they will never
choose God. Even if God sent everyone (including me of course) to hell He
wouldn’t have been wrong.
Now I know that this is an extreme assertion: that
man, left alone, is totally depraved. After all, we would rather believe that
children are tabula rasa. But we have
no way of proving that, although it might interest you to read up on the very
rare cases of feral children. So again, it boils down to whether you believe in
the Bible or not.
Yet God gave heaven Himself. Christ died on the
cross. In the same chapter (John 6) the Christ says, “Whoever
comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
And the beauty of it all: “whoever comes to me I will
never drive away.”
Who then, does the Father draw near? Does He call
everyone, or only a chosen few? How does He choose them? In Romans 9 the
apostle Paul quotes, “I will have mercy on whom I have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not,
therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” Then
he takes it to its natural conclusion: “Therefore God
has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to
harden.”
Responsibility
God hardens whom he wants to harden. He sends to
hell those he wants to send to hell. And He sends to heaven those He wants to
send to heaven. What a whimsical God! The apostle knew this, and so he
continued, “One of you will say to me: “Then why does
God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”
To this the apostle Paul says, “But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?... Does
not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel
for honor and another for dishonor?” He has every right to do whatever
to His creation.
“What if God, although
choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience
the objects of his wrath... What if he did this to make the riches of his glory
known to the objects of his mercy?” What ifs. Even Paul could not
comprehend the depth of God’s reasons.
Sovereignty
and Free Will
Is God Sovereign? Does He control everything?
And not
one of them [sparrow] falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will.
The king’s
heart is in the hand of the Lord, Like the rivers of water; He turns it
wherever He wishes.
If He controls everything including our choices,
then is it really our choice?
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
Yes.
And our choices have consequences. We have free will, but we are slaves. Once
slaves to sin, and now to righteousness.
8
