CalvinDude.com

“I hate flying,” said the woman two seats back and across the aisle. She was in her late 30s or early 40s, sitting next to a college sophomore, en route to Colorado Springs. “Planes always make me nervous.”

I have to admit, sometimes that’s the case for me too. The first few times I flew, I loved it. Looking out the window and watching the ground drop away on takeoff. Watching clouds as we traversed America. But lately I’ve grown less and less fond of airline travel. The “fun” wears off and it gets replaced with the simple fact that you’re stuck in a small metal tube for 2, 3 hours. However long it takes to reach your destination.

I’ve never really been afraid to fly, though. That’s not to say that I don’t think about it. Who doesn’t think about plane crashes at some point? Especially when you start thinking about how high you are, how cold it is outside, how fast you’re going. You know, all the stuff you have no idea of while you’re actually on the plane.

When I flew from Orlando to Houston, the plane helpfully provided all of those stats on the screen in front of me! I don’t know why I needed to know that at 467 miles per hour and 36,000 feet, the outside air temperature was -67 Fahrenheit. That’s almost cold enough to inspire a Jack London story: To Build a Parachute.

I have gotten to the point that I don’t like airports. Especially George Bush International Airport in Houston. We landed at Terminal C right on time. I had 45 minutes to get to my next flight, which was located at gate To Be Determined on my boarding pass. So I went to the “Departures” board and checked. Gate B84.

Those who have been to Gate B84 in Houston are crying already. Tears of mockery or tears of empathy, they are tears nonetheless.

Gate B84 doesn’t actually exist. I mean that. You get to the B terminal, get to the 80s. You’ll see gates for 80, 81, 82, 83, and 85. Then there’s a little sign saying: Gate 84 –>

If you follow that, you end up in something that looks like a bus terminal’s stepbrother. There are six doors there, helpfully numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. And up on the monitor, I saw the Colorado Springs flight at gate 84K.

Yes, K.

Using my fingers and a toe, I discovered that K is the 11th letter in the alphabet. Did I mention there are six doors? Using logic, I decided this made no sense, so I waited for the gate attendant to get off the phone and asked where the flight for Colorado Springs was located. She informed me that when they called for boarding, I’d go through the door behind her and wander around the tarmac for a bit before climbing on the plane “over there.”

Soon enough, she called “Now boarding for flight [whatever] going to Colorado Springs” and I climbed into the plane they had. It was an economy jet. One row of seats on the left side, two rows on the right. I took my seat there in row A (the single row, which was nice for space) and moments later, the aforementioned lady who was afraid to fly was seated two seats back and across the aisle. Given the state of the economy jet, I could understand her trepidation. I took some comfort in knowing that in Tajikistan, they fly these same airplanes and there aren’t any news stories about how often they’ve crashed into mountainsides, and American maintenance has to be better than Tajikistani maintenance. Although that’s tempered a bit when you realize our media couldn’t find Tajikistan on a map of Tajikistan, let alone care about anything not located in Washington, D.C. or New York City, so maybe they crash every week. Maybe “Tajikistan” translates to “burning piles of plane debris.”

Of course, the flight was better than the terminal. And by “better” I mean “I’m telling the opposite of what is true.” About an hour into the flight, there was a bit of a lull in the conversations. Things were quiet. There was just the dull roar of the engines dully roaring. Then: BANG!

We sat there in silence for a few seconds. Then, a small frail voice from two seats back and one over: “Is anyone going to ask what that was?”

No one said anything for another five second or so. That’s when we hit turbulence.

Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing. Or rather, it turned out to be something that could be identified. The flight attendant was doing beverage service when it happened, and when he got to our area, the frightened woman asked what had happened. Apparently, a kid had brought a pool toy, similar to a beach ball. It was inflated. The attendant said, “Normally I tell people not to load those because of how much space they take up, but I figured in this case it would be fine. I forgot about the altitude.”

Funny, that. I forget many things when I’m on a plane.

Altitude isn’t one of those things.

I just got back from a week-long conference (well, just under a week-long). But I see that William Birch has responded to my previous post. He actually misunderstood it exactly the way I had foreseen he would :-D

Birch writes:

But inherent in Peter’s confession here are at least two significations: 1) there is an admission that Calvinism must be taught; i.e., Calvinism is not the result of a plain reading of the text; and 2) Calvinism has a tendency to breed Gnostic proclivities in its adherents.

First off, the Gnostic comment is not only false, but inflammatorily so. Birch knows that to accuse a Christian of “Gnostic proclivities” is a strong charge, and needs to be strongly demonstrated. Am I to conclude that when he reads Deuteronomy 29:29, he concludes Moses was a Gnostic?

But that well-poisoning he has committed is irrelevant. My comment in no way is an “admission that Calvinism must be taught” – at least, not any more so than any other theology (see Romans 10, specifically verse 17). Rather, as I stated, my point was a response to the ridiculous claim that members of SEA have made, and which Birch continues to repeat, that one naturally reads Arminianism in the Bible.

(By the way, it really does annoy me that Birch and company seem to think that Christians are magically enabled to understand Scripture instantly without putting forth any study into it, and completely ignoring the rich history of Christian thought throughout the ages. I in no way deny the perspicuity of Scripture here, but the reality is that the Bible is a book and it takes thought to understand the passages presented. No one should doubt that the Ethiopian eunuch was an intelligent man—for he was literate in a time when most people were not, and was also a court official—yet he said to Philip, “How can I understand [Isaiah] unless someone explains it to me?” Furthermore, teaching is a gift of the Spirit. Not all are able to rightly divide the Word of truth. That Scripture is clear enough for any who hears it to be saved does not mean that it is clear enough for everyone who hears it to be Billy Graham, R.C. Sproul, Billy Birch, or James White. But enough of this tangent.)

I fear that Birch is in a bit of a bubble here, as are (sadly) most of the people I’ve interacted with at SEA. Because they are in an Arminian bubble, they view the world through their Arminian lenses. It is natural that they would believe the Bible teaches Arminianism, since they believe that to be the case. Yet, I’ve talked to several people (including on this conference I just attended), and the fact of the matter is that the average Christian does not find Arminianism in the Bible. Instead, what he finds can be summed up this way (to paraphrase my roommate at this convention): “I don’t know what I believe. I read passages on predestination and I start going, well, yeah, it’s in there. Then I read, ‘Whosoever will’ and swing back the other way. I just don’t know which way to go half the time.”

If Birch’s claim is even accurate (BTW: he asked me for my numbers when I was relating my anecdotal evidence to him; but I was responding to his anecdote, and he needs to bring forth some numbers showing all these supposed new Christians who immediately spout Arminianism), it is because A) most Christians haven’t read anything other than what has been cherry-picked for them to read by their pastor; B) they lack the context to understand Scripture.

I think it truly telling that the less Biblical knowledge that the average Christian has, as can be demonstrated from any Pew Poll you’d like to look at comparing Christians today with Christians 100 years ago, the smaller the Reformed movement gets per capita. You never find ignorant Christians creating something like Reformed theology. You find them creating emergent churches that worship free will, they start to deny the existence and reality of hell, they begin to doubt sin is real, etc. Nowhere do ignorant Christians manufacture Reformation theology.

In any case, I will have more to say later, but for now it’s time to wind down from my trip.

Earlier this morning, I found out that Michael Sudduth has renounced Christianity in favor of Hinduism. Sudduth was a Reformed philosopher. I did not know him personally, nor have I interacted much with him—if I have, it would have only been through a comment or two on Triablogue. As such, I won’t say much about his renunciation in particular.

It does bring to mind other conversions, however. I have read comments from some of the Arminians at SEA who have said that any new convert to Christianity who reads the Bible will automatically find Arminianism. Arminianism can be read in Scripture, they say, while Calvinism must be taught. (I would counter by asking why it is that we trust those who are least experienced in Christ, who have followed Him for only a short time and who have not developed a long relationship with Him, would have some kind of inside knowledge about Him that those who have travelled the path of sanctification for many years would somehow lack. That is, why trust the immature Christian to show us the truth as opposed to the elders in the Lord?)

The direction of conversion is fairly one-sided when it comes to Calvinists and Arminians. I can think of countless individuals who have converted from Arminianism to become Calvinists—indeed, I am one such individual myself. However, I only personally know one (Billy Birch) and can only think of just a few others, such as Clark Pinnock, who have gone from Calvinism to Arminianism (and Pinnock doesn’t really fit, since he then continued on far to the left of Arminianism, embracing Open Theism). This is not to say that I don’t know of some former Calvinists; just that Calvinists do not tend to convert to Arminianism. Instead, the former Calvinists who I know (other than Birch) are now almost all atheists, with a liberal Metropolitan Church goer (having embraced homosexuality), two Roman Catholics (a married couple), and now, with Dr. Sudduth, a Hindu too.

Now, I’m sure that part of this is due to the circles I run in. I know more Calvinists to begin with, so I’m sure some such as Billy Birch would know of more former Calvinists who are now Arminian. Yet it still strikes me that even Arminians would acknowledge that there are far more former-Arminian Calvinists around than former-Calvinist Arminians. And this would seem, to me, an indication of the direction of sanctification in the lives of a believer toward the Reformed position as one matures in Christ.

In what may seem to be a bit paradoxical, I also think this shows the truth of the Reformed position in the fact that former Calvinists so often will renounce Christianity altogether. After all, consider the following passage:

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Calvinism is Christianity. If I did not believe that, I would not be a Calvinist. This is not to say that Arminians are not Christians, however. Rather, I hold that Calvinism is simply a more consistent form of Christianity. If Arminians will grant me that (arguendo), consider this:

1. Calvinism is a more consistent form of Christianity.
2. Those who reject the more consistent form a Christianity have nowhere more consistent within Christianity to go toward.
3. Therefore, it is more likely that to reject the more consistent form of Christianity, one will reject Christianity as a whole.

This does seem, at least to me, to make sense. To abandon the more consistent form of Christianity results in the desire to abandon Christianity as a whole. One would not logically expect many to step back to a more inconsistent form of Christianity if they have trouble with Christian beliefs. And if you couple this with the belief that Christian sanctification will result in Christians becoming more consistent, we have two facts that seem to lead inexorably (or, dare I say, irresistibly) toward Calvinism.

1. More Arminians become Calvinists than vice versa, indicating the flow of sanctification.
2. More former Calvinists reject Christianity completely than convert to a different form of Christianity, indicating that Calvinism is the more consistent version of Christianity.

While the above is certainly not ironclad, relying on concepts that seem to be most plausible rather than formal logic, I think it ought to give food for thought to the Arminian. I would be quite interested in what the Arminian thinks of deconversions from Christianity.

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This is why █████████ in unison and support of ████████████!

You might be able to chalk this up to the category of “Stuff No One Else Thinks About” but I had an interesting thought regarding Scripture and the way that God has chosen to reveal Himself to mankind. It’s something that may or may not have any practical implications to our theology, but there are a few certain things about revelation that could make one pause (depending on one’s starting paradigm).

For instance, have you ever wondered why it took God “so long” (in human terms) to fully reveal who Christ was? That is, it’s generally accepted among Evangelicals that the first promise of Christ is found in Genesis 3, where God promises Eve that she will bear a Seed who will crush the serpent’s head (it is also promised that this Seed would be struck on the heel). Yet while that promise was immediately given after the Fall, it took several thousand years before Christ actually appeared on Earth to fulfill that promise.

Or consider the fact that Scripture was revealed in piecemeal over those thousands of years. God gave oblique references to Christ in prophetic passages that are sometimes difficult to understand even as we look back upon them now, rather than giving straightforward statements about who Christ is and what the nature of salvation would be. Indeed, it’s almost like God was intentionally obfuscating His message before the appearance of Christ.

Finally, consider also the order in which God revealed facts to us. Most simply, you can think of just the fact that the Old Testament came before the New Testament—and that the last of the Old Testament was penned about a half millennium before the New. Think about what information was given then, and what was withheld, in comparison to the New Testament. And further consider which books of the Old Testament preceded the other books. It’s possible that Job was the first book of the Bible to actually be penned (some speculate that Moses wrote it before he wrote the Pentateuch), but surely the first five books preceded the rest of the historical books. And the events described in them show the progressive nature of God’s revelation.

So with all that in mind, the natural question is: why? Why did God choose to reveal Himself in this manner? It certainly is difficult to square this slow, plodding type of revelation with many current concepts of Who God is, especially with those concepts that say God seeks to save as many people as possible. After all, why is that God, if He sought to be known by as many people as possible that as many as could possibly believe would believe—why would He reveal Himself to such a small, insignificant group of people as the Israelites, and why only a little bit at a time over so many hundreds of years?

See, I do not believe that God does anything by accident. There must be a good reason for Him to do everything He does. And while these questions about the nature of how God revealed Himself by no means serve as nails in the coffin of Arminian beliefs, they certainly function as a stone in the Arminian shoe, keeping one from being comfortable accepting Arminian presuppositions in other places. It is relatively easy for me to come up with Reformed reasons for why God reveals Himself in this manner and in this fashion, yet I cannot think of Arminian reasons for it. Although I know at least a few Arminians read this blog, and they can feel free giving me their thoughts.

HT: Patrick Chan

Recently, a local radio DJ played Breaking Benjamin’s song Blow Me Away. One of the phrases in the song is, “Only the strongest will survive.” The song was originally written for the game Halo 2, so that lyric is somewhat fitting.

However, I got to thinking about that lyric a bit, and me being me I also merged those thoughts with a couple of other thoughts I’ve had. See, I enjoy foreign languages even though I would never claim to be fluent in anything other than English (and sometimes, not even that!). Most recently I’ve been brushing up on my Latin and Koine Greek. One of the things that finally “clicked” in my head about languages is how you need to think conceptually instead of trying to map phrases one-to-one. That’s not to say I didn’t know that already, but rather that it finally fully set in my mind that meaning transcends individual words.

In fact, when I recently read through Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, he made a comment about how originally people thought we could make great progress toward mechanical interpretations of texts using computers. Then, as we tried to do that and failed spectacularly, it became obvious that interpretation is more than just a substitution of words.

Just for fun, and to demonstrate my point, I ran the above paragraph through Google’s translate feature, translating it from English to Latin and then back to English again and it gave me this:

For when he recently read through Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter made to the mechanical devices of the people who first how we could make great progress of computers and using the interpretation of the texts. Then, as he could and the efforts of is to do spectacularly, so be it is a clear correlation of interpretation of speeches.

Not only is that mostly gibberish on par with the emails I get from those generous Nigerian princes, but if I try to piece together the meaning from the words presented it seems to me that it actually reverses my original meaning in the last sentence!

Now, some people are very strict with how they define and interpret words. Word X means concepts A, B, or C, period. If I were to make an analogy, I’d imagine these people as viewing the meaning of words similar to islands in the ocean. There is the water of chaos that swirls around, but when you get to the word itself, the definition stands strong and immobile. It is fixed, no matter what the ocean does.

However, I have become more and more convinced, over time, that words are more like clouds in the sky. That is, they are still distinct units, but their edges are a bit fuzzier and a little malleable. Note that I do not maintain that postmodern concepts of deconstructionism are sound, or that words have no actual meaning at all—anymore than I would say that a cloud has no shape or that a cloud could also be a fox. Rather, it’s just that the definitions of words are “fuzzy” at times, as opposed to fixed islands of meaning.

Thus, I realize more and more that translation is at the conceptual level rather than the word level. Some of the most difficult aspects of learning a foreign language is beginning to think like the native speaker. Take just the simple example of word order. In English, word order is critical; but in Latin, it is not important at all. However, Latin does still have some preference for word order, such as having the verb come at the end of the sentence (English is typically subject-verb-object; Latin tends to subject-object-verb).

To give an example of that in English, examine: “Susan goes to the bank.” Here, “Susan” is the subject, “goes” is the verb, and “the bank” is the object (here, a prepositional phrase). Latin word order would typically render it as “Susan, to the bank, goes.” That makes sense in English, but it is awkward. If every sentence was written that way, it would make English difficult to comprehend.

Since the structure of sentences helps to convey the meaning of the sentences in some languages (such as English), and falls into patterns of use in other languages, you can actually look at the structure of languages to see what information cultures think are most relevant. In English, we want to know first who or what is doing the action of the sentence, then we want to know what they are doing, and finally we want to know what they are doing that action to. In Latin, they wanted to know who or what was doing the action, then they wanted to know who or what the action was being done to, and only then did they want to know what action was being done.

Now, of course, this happens very quickly in speech. Nevertheless, there is a preference for the order of information, and adjusting how information comes can cause some amount of mental stress when one is learning a foreign language.

So what does this have to do with Breaking Benjamin then and the line “only the strongest will survive” that I talked about clear at the beginning of this piece? I’m glad you asked! Consider these two sentences side-by-side:

Only the strongest will survive.
Only the strongest will survives.

There is only one letter different between the two sentences, yet that one letter also determines whether or not the word “will” is a noun or a verb. And the best part? The letter that makes the determination is the absolute last letter in the sentence, and it’s not even part of the word that is changed! In the first sentence, “will survive” is the verb, but in the second, “strongest will” is the noun.

Now the question that I find interesting is this. If you were given those two sentences at different times in a conversation, at what point do you know whether “will” is a noun or a verb? Granted, you would typically have a lot more context than just one of those two sentences. Example: “You have to have a strong will to make it in the world. Weak-willed people just cannot cut it. Only the strongest will survives.” Here, the surrounding context would most likely make you think “will” is a noun the instant it comes up.

Nevertheless, I would wager that if I started an essay with “Only the strongest will survives” and another one with “Only the strongest will survive”, you would read both of those essays and automatically adjust the meaning in your mind, most likely without even noticing you’d done so. Indeed, I suspect that your brain provisionally holds a definition for the word “will” when it first encounters it, and then later on when it gains the rest of the knowledge needed, it “settles” on the grammatically correct interpretation. All without you consciously wondering whether “will” is a noun or verb.

Ultimately, the word “will” as used above must be a fuzzy word as it is being used. Your brain has to hold two potential meanings at the same time, and those meanings are in two different categories of words (noun and verb).

This brings to mind the dictionary argument too. When we are asked, “What does such-and-so word mean?” we go the dictionary. But dictionaries do not create meaning, rather they tell us how words are already being used. And the danger someone can fall into is thinking that the primary definition of a word is how the word must be used in every instance. (This is especially dangerous for first year Greek students who find Strongs’ Concordance.)

I thought of an illustration of the “dictionary fallacy.” Suppose someone pulls up an English text—let’s use Stephen King’s The Stand since it’s got significant length. This person randomly searches through the book and selects, again at random, one letter from one word. This person says, “I will give you $1,000,000 if you guess what letter was randomly selected.” In order to have the best shot at gaining the million dollars, what letter should you select?

By far, the most common letter in English is the letter “e.” Hands down, your choice should be “e.” But what are the odds that you would win the million dollars? According to a study done at Cornell, you would have only a 12.02% chance of winning the million dollars. That means that even though the letter “e” is most frequent, if you pick “e” you will be wrong nearly 88% of the time.

The same thing most certainly happens with definitions too, especially with words like “will.” For instance, look at the use of the word will here: “I will, of my own free will, that the will will be executed by Will.” Indeed, this reminds me of the famous grammatically-correct sentence involving the word “buffalo”: Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo (you can click the link to read the article about how it works out).

Translation, therefore, isn’t simply a substitution of the most commonly used definitions. Words have their meaning by use, and people use words very loosely. In the end, while it may serve to set analytical minds at ease if words were islands in the sea, conventionally words will always remain clouds in the sky.

A belief popular amongst some philosophers, especially in the Molinist camp, is the idea of Trans-World Depravity. Put very simplistically, TWD is the idea that if agents have libertarian freedom, then there is no possible world in which there will not be at least one free agent who chooses to sin. This is usually brought forth in theological arguments between Molinists and Calvinists, but is also used a great deal in Arminian theodicies.

I believe that the idea of Trans-World Depravity actually may work very well to help neutralize moral arguments Arminians use against Calvinism, when one couples the existence of TWD with the effects of Total Depravity and study the effects of what it means in terms of God foreordaining evil. Since these are all big subjects, I will take a few moments to unwrap what I am saying here.

(As a side note, I’ve been thinking about some of this for many years—specifically a variation of the concept of TWD—although I only recently was able to sit down and put through my first attempt at a cohesive concept when responding to William Birch on his blog. Sadly, the comments were closed before I could get very deep into it, which is why I’m writing this blog post now.)

First, let’s look a bit more into at least one concept of TWD. I propose, for the sake of argument, that it is impossible for a free agent, who has libertarian free will, to continue in that state indefinitely. For a brief explanation of what that is the case, let us suppose the usual concepts of freedom of the will involved. An agent is presented with a choice to either sin or not sin. And let us presume that the moral agent is upright and righteous, but yet still retains a non-zero chance of choosing evil for all the classical reasons non-Calvinists give (e.g., “It’s not true freedom unless there’s some risk that the agent chooses what you do not wish him to choose”, which is a paraphrase of an argument I read from C.S. Lewis in the notes of an old Study Bible).

So we have a free agent with a non-zero chance of choosing to do evil. Now, this non-zero chance can be very, very low. Let us say that it’s extremely low. Suppose only one chance in a billion. However, the kicker is this: the moral agent is not making just one choice.

Consider the Garden of Eden. Adam was told not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This was a standing order. That means that Adam had to continually follow it. If there was ever a time when Adam broke that command, then he would be a sinner. So this means that each time he’s presented with a choice, he has a one-in-a-billion chance that he will sin, according to how it’s been set up. The longer Adam is in Eden, the more likely it becomes that Adam will actually sin, to the point that given a long enough timeline it becomes a guarantee that Adam will sin.

Even with odds such as one in a billion, since Adam would not die and since the command would presumably never be revoked, then the mere existence of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil guarantees man will fall into sin, even on Molinist/Arminian grounds.

Let us now couple that with the effects of Total Depravity. As Classical Arminians, such as William Birch, are quick to point out, Arminians also believe in Total Depravity of the same kind that Calvinists do. Once Adam sinned, all men are born depraved as a result of Original Sin. However, Arminians usually posit some form of prevenient grace, whereas Calvinists speak of common grace. The idea is that God’s grace must be granted toward the sinner—even to sinners who do not turn to Christ—in order to keep the sinner from being as evil as he or she would have been without that grace.

So let us stick with this concept of depravity—as I said, one that both Arminians and Calvinists can agree on since we’re not talking about how one becomes saved. The result is this: we are depraved and corrupted in all our ways, but God’s grace keeps us from being as evil as we otherwise would be. God’s grace serves as a buffer to keep us more righteous than we otherwise would be, even for the non-believer.

Under this view, what is hardening (such as when God hardens Pharaoh’s heart)? It is the removal of that grace, such that the depravity shows all the more obviously. Again, Arminians and Calvinists will agree that God did not make Pharaoh sin when God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Rather, Pharaoh did not deserve the grace of God and God chose to remove that grace, and the result was that Pharaoh’s true evil nature was unrestrained and ran rampant. The same thing can be seen in passages such as Romans 1, where Paul writes that God gives over sinful men to the lusts of their flesh. That is, He removes the restraining grace and allows them to fall deeper into sin.

Now, if both of these concepts are true—if it is the case that it is impossible for a moral agent who has a non-zero chance of sinning in any given choice meaning the necessity of Trans-World Depravity; and if the penalty for sin is that one’s offspring are born depraved such that they need the grace of God to be less evil than they would have been—then at this point, there is no longer any basis to say that God is committing evil when He foreordains sin in the world.

Consider the following example. Let us stipulate an arbitrary scale, that 100 is the maximum amount of evil that any given person could do. Let us further suppose that, given depravity, we would all be sinners at 100 Evil on the scale. That would be absolutely ruinous—in fact, that is where sinners end up in hell when God removes all His grace completely from them.

Now given the depths of evil that 100 would be, it’s quite likely that the absolute worst person on Earth was really only something like a 10 on the Evil scale, but let’s make it a bit more drastic. Let’s put Hitler at 75 on the scale. Finally, let us stipulate that God foreordained that Hitler would be a 75 on the Evil scale.

What are the ramifications of that? Arminians are quick to say that Calvinism has God forcing Hitler to commit sin to be at that 75. But that is to ignore the reality of depravity. God is not forcing Hitler up to 75 Evil; He is forcing Hitler DOWN to 75 Evil from 100 Evil. In other words, God is actively ensuring that His will be done, yes, but He is doing so in a way that is preventing more evil from occurring. In other words, by God foreordaining that Hitler would be a 75 Evil, He is keeping Hitler from being a 100 Evil. Yet, because most of us are higher on the scale, and because we assume that where we’re at is the status quo, it is easy for us to say that God is forcing Hitler to be more evil than Hitler would have been. The reality is the opposite. God is forcing us to be less evil than we would have been, and He is not forcing Hitler as much.

TWD and Depravity combine to take away any reasonable argument that Arminians have that the Calvinist God is forcing anyone to do evil, even when God foreordains sin. Because we would be maximally evil if we could be, and because it is necessary that morally free agents will sin, then any act we do less than 100 Evil has been tempered by undeserved grace.

To consider an analogy, look at the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This is a necessary feature of physics. In closed systems, entropy will necessarily increase. I maintain that it is not only possible, but certain that this type of thing is true of righteousness too. That is, without God actively and constantly exerting His own power to grant grace, any agent will necessarily fall. Therefore, just as it is impossible for God to make a square circle, I maintain that it is impossible for God to make any moral being who could stand righteously on his or her own power. Therefore, God could allow Adam to make any decision within Adam’s power, and the determined result would still be sin, and this would be no more unrighteous for God than it is for God to now withhold grace and harden sinners, as we know He does in Scripture.

Had this little couplet pop into my mind:

Everything that is, when seen through time’s lens,
Was built on the ashes of all our might-have-beens.

Seems to be a truism. Or, as The Offspring might say, a Half-Truism.