CalvinDude.com

In keeping with Gene’s recent theme on Triablogue about reasons why we’re not Arminians, I’m going to add another one. I was looking at YouTube today (it was Saint & Sinner’s fault for providing the link to the Machine Video) and happened to stumble upon Ten Questions That Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer. It was put forth by http://whywontgodhealamputees.com. After the philosophical naivety that led off the video wherein we are told how wonderful our college education is and how it enables us all to think wonderfully (I really must wonder what this guy would do if he ran into a nihilist, let alone an empirical skeptic), we finally get to the questions which are, indeed, rather devastating.

If you’re an Arminian.

But for Calvinists there’s not a single problem with any of the questions posed by the video. In fact, the basic gist of the argument can be defused by one simple point: sin is real.

Arminians do understand this to some extent (thankfully), but it does take a Calvinist to understand just how bad sin is. We have this built in with the doctrine of Total Depravity. Sin is serious, and as a result a sinful world gets what a sinful world deserves.

Despite the fact that atheists will use it as an excuse that I’m avoiding the other “hard” questions, I’m only going to look at the main question, as found here. Why won’t God heal amputees?

The claim is made:

Does God answer prayers? According to believers, the answer is certainly yes.

For example, at any Christian bookstore you can find hundreds of books about the power of prayer. On the Internet you can find thousands of testimonials to the many ways that God works in our lives today. Even large city newspapers and national magazines run stories about answered prayers. God seems to be interacting with our world and answering millions of prayers on planet Earth every day.

It is indeed true that God answers prayers. However, I must point out from the start that most of the claims of answered prayers in the world are not true. That’s right, all those Internet testimonials and national news magazines…Christians shouldn’t put any more stock in them than atheists do.

In fact, God most certainly does not seem to be “interacting with our world and answering millions of prayers on planet Earth every day.” And logically no Christian should assume this is the case. After all, God has never promised to answer the prayers of the non-believer.

And this brings up another point. In the video, the last question asked was “Why do Christians divorce at the same rate as non-Christians?” The answer to this question is relevant here: they don’t. Instead, what you have is professed Christians divorcing at the same rate as non-professing Christians. If you instead correlate the divorce rate to how mature a Christian is in his or her faith (as evidenced by Church attendance, reading of the Bible, etc.) the divorce rate is far less. But given the fact that every American is de facto a Christian, this will automatically skew the data since everyone is a “Christian” even when they only attended Church once in 6th grade.

So already we see the question is posited on a false understanding of why God would answer prayers in the first place. The site continues, giving the example of Jeanna Giese, the first (known) person ever to recover from rabies without a vaccine. We’re told:

According to the article, a global prayer circle helped Jeanna survive. Once she got sick, Jeanna’s father called friends and asked them to pray for Jeanna. People around the world heard about her story through the press and by word of mouth. They prayed. They sent emails. They passed the word along. Millions of people heard about Jeanna’s plight and they said prayers for her.

And the prayer circle worked. Through the power of God, Jeanna recovered. Jeanna was the first human to survive rabies without the vaccine.

Of course, the “global prayer circle” didn’t work. Whether God was active in healing Jeanna or not is irrelevant to the number of people who were praying for her. God either did or did not heal Jeanna for His own purposes, which He is under no obligation to inform us about.

Now I do not blame the atheists for thinking that Christians believe the above. If I went by the tripe that was published in the Christian book stores and by those same articles on the Internet I’d come to the same conclusion that this is what Christians believe. Thankfully, however, I get my prayer theology from the Bible and not from Family Christian Bookstore. As a result, the proposed experiment that Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? proposes doesn’t phase me. The experiment is this:

For this experiment, we need to find a deserving person who has had both of his legs amputated. For example, find a sincere, devout veteran of the Iraqi war, or a person who was involved in a tragic automobile accident.

Now create a prayer circle like the one created for Jeanna Giese. The job of this prayer circle is simple: pray to God to restore the amputated legs of this deserving person. I do not mean to pray for a team of renowned surgeons to somehow graft the legs of a cadaver onto the soldier, nor for a team of renowned scientists to craft mechanical legs for him. Pray that God spontaneously and miraculously restores the soldier’s legs overnight, in the same way that God spontaneously and miraculously cured Jeanna Giese and Marilyn Hickey’s mother.

If possible, get millions of people all over the planet to join the prayer circle and pray their most fervent prayers. Get millions of people praying in unison for a single miracle for this one deserving amputee. Then stand back and watch.

Now the first problem with this experiment is of course the fact that it is a logical fallacy to assume that because God does one thing one time that means that He must do the same thing another time. This is the same problem that we find in The Prayer of Jabez (just because God answered Jabez doesn’t mean He’ll answer you in the same way), so again the atheists can be excused for their misunderstanding. The experiment is flawed because it doesn’t treat God as an agent, but instead as a scientific law. That is, the experiment is predicated on the belief that God must be mechanistic and must respond to all prayers in the same way at the same time.

But think about people instead of laws. Suppose that you were told, “I e-mailed Bill Gates and asked for $100 and he gave it to me.” You say: “I don’t believe you. And I’ll prove you’re wrong by e-mailing Bill Gates and asking for $100 and showing he won’t give it to me.” You then e-mail Bill Gates and he does not give you $100. Does that prove Bill Gates did not give the other person $100?

Of course not. So the logic of the experiment is already flawed. But there is a deeper problem that Calvinists can immediately spot. The experiment is based on finding “a deserving person” for the healing. Now we’re dealing not only with groups of non-Christians whom God has never promised to answer, but we’re also dealing with a non-existent entity in a “deserving person.”

No one deserves healing from God. The fact of the matter is that the wages of sin is death, and part of death is the decay of our bodies in illness. A whole and complete body is not owed to anyone. God does not have to heal anyone at any time. If He does, it’s because of His mercy. But if He does not, He has not done any injustice. In fact, by simply using illnesses to slowly kill us, God is already acting mercifully by not instantly doling out justice. Instead, He is patient and slow, such that no one has an excuse for continuing in evil.

And it is this fact that healing is not owed to anyone wherein the atheist has made his largest mistake:

God has no reason to discriminate against amputees. If he is answering millions of other prayers like Jeanna’s every day, God should be answering the prayers of amputees too.

God should be answering the prayers of amputees too? Such language is grating on the nerves of the Calvinist!

So we see yet another reason why it’s a good thing to not be an Arminian.

FALSE HOPE, NY – In an unprecedented legal move today, Judge Ben Kryin-Lotts ordered his entire jury hanged over “a simple disagreement.”

“We should treat each other as Christians,” Judge Ben stated. “Not like those salacious, disrespectful, slanderous, ignorant, discordant, reprobate fools on Triablogue who substitute insult for substantial responses. But what do you expect from trash?”

After executing the jury, Judge Ben went on to ban Triabloguers from his courtroom forever, even while saying he would continue to respond to them for those who “still like to follow trash around.” Experts agree this probably refers to Arminians in general.

“I hereby decree all Triabloguers are Satan incarnate,” Ben stated, adding only: “Respectfully, of course.”

When asked for comment, one Triablogger responded with: “Isn’t Ben the ice cream guy? I wasn’t even aware he had a website.”

In unrelated news, Judge Ben Kryin-Lotts checked into Mount Sinai Rehab Clinic today after reports that he kicked sand in the face of a four-year-old on a playground were backed up by video evidence taken from his own cell phone camera. Additionally, the eviction notice his mother placed on his basement room door was found to be legally binding, and the judge in that case also ruled that Ben’s Nintendo system does in fact belong to his brother after all.

One of Ben’s spokesmen said Ben had suffered a “nervous breakdown brought on by lack of intestinal fortitude” but a source in the hospital said, “Ben read through Paul Manata’s last post and short circuited a few synapses.” The source asked to remain anonymous since Ben had not given J.C. Thibodaux permission to speak in public after his disastrous performance at last night’s Grammy Awards ceremony, where Thibodaux appeared wearing a skimpy outfit and a placard that said, “Britney Was Framed!”

Scene 1 – A coffee shop. SIMPLICIO is ordering a decaf nonfat latte when his friends SALVIATI and SAGREDO arrive.

SIMPLICIO: Salviati, I challenge you on a mathematical point!

SALVIATI: (to SAGREDO) This will be interesting.

SIMPLICIO: The other night I read in the Oxford Annotated Book of Math Theorems that the + sign indicates addition.

SALVIATI: Yes, that is correct.

SIMPLICIO: Therefore, proper exegesis of the OABMT shows us that 1 + 1 = 11 after all.

SALVIATI: (with a sigh) That’s not how you do addition.

SIMPLICIO: You only say that because you’re importing Reformed Mathedology into the text. But if you don’t start with your philosophy, you’ll see that I’m correct.

SAGREDO: Simplicio seems to have a point. I mean, what’s to keep 1 + 1 from being 11? God could certainly make 1 + 1 into 11.

SALVIATI: No He can’t. Addition isn’t the combining of symbols; it’s combining of numbers represented by those symbols.

SIMPLICIO: Aha! See, you import your Reformed Mathedology even now! Eisegesis!

SALVIATI: No, it’s exegesis straight out of the OABMT, chapter 1. It states: “Addition came about from the counting of items. Items in one pile were combined with items of another pile, and the total of both piles was the sum.”

SIMPLICIO: But we’re not talking about addition, we’re talking about the + sign.

SALVIATI: Which you agreed indicates addition.

SIMPLICIO: That’s not true! Besides, 1 + 1 = 11. Just look at it. The common sense reading shows you I’m right.

SAGREDO: Indeed, it does appear that 1 + 1 could form 11. Couldn’t this be an indication of looking at it from the wrong angle? Perhaps you need to read it in binary.

SIMPLICIO: Yes! Binary, exactly right!

SALVIATI: 1 + 1 = 10 in binary.

SIMPLICIO: No, it’s 11.

SALVIATI: Look, there are rules for math and you’re violating them. One and one is two regardless of the base you use. Two is represented by the numeral 2 in base 10, and by the number 10 in binary.

SIMPLICIO: Oh, so now 2 = 10! I told you those Reformed Mathedologies are incoherent!

SALVIATI: You’re not listening to what I’m saying.

SIMPLICIO: Sure I am. You’re spouting a lot of gibberish.

BARISTA: Your coffee is ready, sir.

Scene 10 – Outside the coffee shop ten minutes later.

SAGREDO: Salviati, I must confess that Simplicio has brought up some interesting points. I think he is right.

SIMPLICIO: Thank you, Sagredo. This is how true mathematicians behave, you see. We are unified.

SALVIATI: Whether you’re unified or not, you’re violating the rules of math. You say that 1 + 1 = 11. How is this possible?

SIMPLICIO: I’ve already explained it.

SALVIATI: No, you’ve stated it.

SIMPLICIO: Common sense shows us. I already told you this.

SALVIATI: But you haven’t shown how it works from the rules of math.

SIMPLICIO: Everything is rules to you. Why can’t you just let go and let God?

SALVIATI: That doesn’t even make sense.

SIMPLICIO: You need to understand binary. God is binary.

SALVIATI: I thought he was a Trinity.

SIMPLICIO: That too. But that’s beside the point, because 1 + 1 = 11.

SALVIATI: Repeating yourself is no substitute for proof.

SIMPLICIO: Why are you so demanding of proof? Have faith.

SALVIATI: The OABMT itself gives us the rules. It’s not God-honoring faith to ignore what He has given us. And you’re ignoring the rules here.

SIMPLICIO: Look, would you agree that 2 + 2 = 22?

SALVIATI: No, it equals 4.

SIMPLICIO: In binary, I mean.

SALVIATI: Binary doesn’t have the numeral 2. It’s only 1s and 0s. The binary four is represented by 100.

SIMPLICIO: Sheesh, do you have to correct EVERY LITTLE THING?

SALVIATI: When it’s wrong, yes.

SIMPLICIO: This is why I’ve argued that Reformed Mathedology divides!

SALVIATI: Well, yes that how fractions came about.

SIMPLICIO: What?

SALVIATI: A little joke.

SIMPLICIO: So now you mock me. You’re showing real character there.

SALVIATI: Actually I’ve given up on trying to convince you reality is real. Jokes are all that you deserve now.

SAGREDO: Don’t you think that’s a little harsh, Salviati?

SALVIATI: What’s harsh is his lack of exegetical skills and the inability to reason. There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and Simplicio.

SIMPLICIO: What’s that supposed to mean? Here I’ve presented my evidence and all you do is challenge little things. Why can’t I just make simple comments without having to defend every little thing?

SALVIATI: Um, you were the one who challenged me, remember?

SIMPLICIO: No I didn’t! I just made a simple comment and you have to pick it all apart. That’s so loving of you.

SALVIATI: Does your memory extend back further than 11 seconds?

SIMPLICIO: 1 + 1 = 11!

SALVIATI: Never mind.

SAGREDO: Salviati, I must object. You’re being overly mean here. This is completely uncalled for. In fact, I think the only thing you’re good for now is to be a contributor at Triablogue. As for me and Simplicio, farewell you Reformed meanie!

Perry, our Orthodox friend, has written a post about me titled Piking Peter. I’ll assume he’s trying to clever here, but Dawson Bethrick already beat Perry when he titled a post Pike’s Pique. Kinda takes the wind out of Perry’s attempt, doncha think? Even so, nice try, Perry!

Perhaps the title was written because Perry had nothing else to say and he was itching to look brilliant on the internet. We shall see, I suppose. Nothing in Perry’s post is very original, so I’ll not spend much time on it. Simple argumentation requires simple refutation.

Anyway, Perry has already been refuted (by Steve and others) a multitude of times. Gotta give him kudos for plugging away though. Again. If you ever needed a definition for “indefatigable” look no further than Perry! Nothing will change his mind, not even facts!

(By the way, I should point out to Touchstone that there’s a secret code in the above. Happy hunting. Now on to Perry’s post.)

I had asked Robert, since Robert acknowledges there are restrictions on free will (that man is not omnipotent), how many restrictions need to be in place before the will can no longer be considered free in the libertarian sense. Perry, in his infinite wisdom, said:

Per the missed point, too many restrictions would be positing conditions inconsistent with the idea. So far I can’t see how any of the restrictions you posited preclude LFW.

That’s so helpful. Aperrylently (see, I can pun too!) Perry doesn’t grasp the reason for the question, which is that I’m trying to grasp where, according to Libertarians, too many restrictions are too many restrictions. I gave specific examples here: a mugger who robs you has reduced your options to two. Yet two options are not one option. So that means when you choose to hand over your wallet, this is a libertarian free will choice, right?

I trust everyone who doesn’t have a libertarian axe to grind can already see where this one is headed.

Perry continues:

Given that the power to do otherwise is glossed counter-factually, I don’t see how this makes it illusory.

“I don’t see how” only shows you’re blind, Perry. But again, it’s been illustrated numerous times to you. You have no power to do otherwise. You can only do one (1) thing and one (1) thing only whenever you make a choice. You cannot go back in time and get a re-do. Therefore, you do not have the “power to do otherwise” at all. You have the power to do one (1) thing.

I hope that helps.

Perry says:

Deliberation has plenty to do with PAP and lots of philosophers have thought so.

Lots of philosophers have thought that God doesn’t exist too. But nice job on the vague appeal to authority there. I see no logical problems with that tactic at all.

You may not think so, but that just tells me that you’re not a Libertarian (or you need to read more professional philosophical literature and fewer villiage atheists) but we already knew that so at best you’re only begging the question.

You mean begging the question like saying: “In deliberation, I am staving off from making a decision, which on its face seems to require that I am choosing not to choose between alternatives, which also seems to entail PAP.” How is it that you can beg the question for PAP, but suddenly you get all up in arms when I point out that I don’t buy your philosophy?

You said:

In deliberation I have chosen between choosing and not choosing and I have here chosen between alternatives.

You have chosen between hypotheticals, yes. But on what basis do you choose? You weigh alternatives, but in the end your choice is going to be whatever you want to do with the most desire. You are incapable of doing otherwise, which means your choice is…ahem…necessary.

You said:

It doesn’t follow that simply because I can only choose one among many that the one I select is rendered inevitable by antecedent conditions.

Let us look at this logically for a moment. Suppose that whatever the decision making mechanism is inside you is simply labeled X. Is X the same in all people?

Well, Perry is Orthodox. I am a Calvinist. Why do we differ? If it is because the X is different, then our choices are made because of inevitable antecedent conditions. Our X is actually different, and those actual differences require us to choose different beliefs.

Is it something other than X? Suppose it’s because I learned exegesis while Perry only had tradition. This means that while our X remains the same, we both experienced antecedent conditions that were different and those differences resulted in our choosing differently from one another.

The only way that Perry can consistently argue that there are no antecedent conditions is if Perry argues that X is completely random. Only a random X can result in choices not based on antecedent conditions, via either the intrinsic design of X or the conditions by which X is used. But if our decision making is completely random, then A) that doesn’t fit the idea of deliberation at all and B) there can be no morality.

If desires and reasons were causes, one wouldn’t be weighing them.

An assertion in lieu of an argument. Desires have different intensities, that is why they are weighed mentally. I may want to eat an ice cream bar, but I may want to stay warm in the middle of a blizzard more than I want ice cream.

And if the choice simply is the strongest desire that wins out, why even talk about decisions?

Because desires are not behind-the-scenes. They are experienced. It’s not like these desires occur without the knowledge of the agent.

A decision occurs when various desires are examined and the strongest desire wins out. This can be difficult at times because often we can have two desires of nearly equal weight. Indeed, sometimes they can be of equal weight (which results in the paralysis of the agent).

It may be true that I am unable to deliberate without reasons and desires, but showing that the latter are necessary conditions for the former isn’t tantamount to showing that the conflict between desires and reasons just is deliberation.

At least I’ve shown necessary conditions for deliberation, whereas all you’ve done is assert that there must be something more. Why? Because otherwise you’d be wrong. And your strongest desire is to be right, so you’d rather not contemplate that…

Experience seems to indicate to me at least that my deliberation is more than a conflict, it is a putting them down and comparing options and contrasting them in a variety of ways.

You can compare and contrast all the live long day, and you’ll still do that which is your strongest desire.

Of course you could prove me wrong by demonstrating even one occurrence where the desire that wasn’t the strongest is the one that prevailed. C’mon, Perry. Own up.

It is true that there are many antecedents states that carry me along the wave of life, but I am not a mere conduit for them.

So again I ask what is it that makes you different than me? You say that there is something else besides these antecedent states. How is that not itself an antecedent state? And why should whatever that is be different in you than it is in me?

Moreover, such conditions may circumscribe options available to me, but while my genes dispose and incline me to consume food, I don’t have to eat. I can choose to die. Lots of people have done it. Jesus fasted after all. Don’t you?

Yes, and they do so because they desire to abstain from food more than they desire food. What is fasting if not an outward expression of your desire to hold God more important than bodily need? If you fasted for no reason, then you have no reason to fast (apparently the reason you don’t grasp this tautology is because it’s blindingly obvious). Do you seriously think Jesus fasted because He randomly decided to fast one day? Of course not: He had a purpose for it. He had a desire for a particular end, and He acted toward that end.

In this case, the antecedent spiritual desire overwhelms the antecedent physical desire. Really, Perry, this isn’t as difficult as you make it out to be.

If you think that moral responsibility is compatible with determinism, I’d really like to see a coherent sketch from you personally on how moral responsibility is incompatible with cases of external covert manipulation of an agents choices.

I have done so in the past already. I will do so again…as soon as you show me how an arbitrary random decision can have moral weight.

Well, Spencer has already responded to my previous post. He says in essence that he doesn’t want to get involved in a discussion with me on the topic.

Hey, if you don’t want to get in a discussion, don’t accuse me of hubris and condescension in the first place, Michael.

In any case, he quotes someone from Australia named Lynn. It begins thus:

Sorry, but I just had to comment on this .. it’s in a whole class of its own! Is Peter Pike seriously suggesting that Arminians don’t believe in the sovereignty of God? Well, I suppose if you turn over every rock you’ll find one somewhere that fits his criteria, but, at least round here, it’s gonna take a LOT of digging!

I cannot figure out what blog post Lynn read. It obviously wasn’t the one that I penned, as anyone who understands context and syntax could easily see. Allow me to re-quote the relevant portion of my first post.

Thankfully, most Arminians have a faith that is inconsistent with their stated beliefs. They know that God is sovereign, even though their beliefs logically must lead them to a non-sovereign Lord.

I added the emphasis above. The second sentence begins with the word “They.” This pronoun refers back to the latest people group mentioned, which just so happens to be “Arminians.” I fail to see how it is so difficult to understand that I specifically said that Arminians “know that God is sovereign.”

Hello. How much clearer do I need to be?

And yes, the Arminian belief in sovereignty is inconsistent with Arminianism as a whole, something that Lynn admits: “God has a different motivation — love! He actually constrains His sovereignty for a higher purpose when it comes to dealing with the human soul” (emphasis added). Tell me again where my post missed the mark on Arminianism and God’s sovereignty?

No one has yet responded to the reasons and the rationale given by my argument. Instead, I am simply accused of hubris. I can only conclude that if you had any arguments you would have presented them by now. No arguments have been presented. Therefore, you don’t have any arguments.

Instead I have pointed out a truthful statement and, because you wish to deny the charge, you have to put up a smokescreen and pretended that somehow I was slighting the victims of New Life Church. This is a pathetic dodge on your part, and as I pointed out earlier it is you, not me, who is using the tragedy for argumentative gain. You use the dead bodies as a shield to keep you from having to defend your weak position. It is you, Michael Spencer and Lynn from Australia, who are behaving despicably here.

I should preface this post by pointing out that I enjoy playing chess. But while I enjoy chess, I’m not the greatest at the game. Chess aficionados know that there are two types of chess strategies, and the masters can do both with ease. There is the methodical calculator who can add up 16 moves in his head. They are able to map out various moves and the ramifications of those moves, all in their head. Then there are positional players, who can look at a board and have an intuitive “feel” that black’s position is better than white’s. It doesn’t mean black will win, because the end game is all about calculations. But it does mean that black should win, all things being equal.

When I write blog posts, I do it from a positional standpoint. I write so that my main point is well-defended, but also so that alternate points of attack are secured. I write trying to anticipate objections, and sometimes I write hoping that someone will make a specific challenge to my position.

It’s called setting a trap. Today, I caught a wild boar.

Michael Spencer, at the Boar’s Head Tavern, took umbrage with my recent posts on Calvinism and Arminianism. Here is the totality of his statement:

Peter Pike at Triablogue says prayer only makes sense in reformed theology. This follows his post that the shootings at New Life Church- now revealed to be by a disgruntled ex-YWAM member- should make you a Calvinist.

Is there any astonishment left for the hubris and condescension in these kinds of statements? When an Arminian or non-Calvinist says the reverse of these sorts of things, the walls come down under the crush of internet theologians trying to get their 2 cents in to show how offended they are.

Now first I must note that I never said the shootings at New Life Church “should make you a Calvinist.” If Spencer is going to get upset at me, he should at least get upset for something I actually wrote. I said that the response to the shootings at New Life Church demonstrated that Arminians were closet Calvinists. It didn’t make them Calvinists, it demonstrated that they held Calvinists views without realizing it.

Again, anyone can refer to my posts to see I actually presented an argument. Spencer gave us feigned indignation, as if that were a valid response. All Spencer offers is ad hominem, but that’s to be expected from the iMonk.

Spencer claims that I have exerted “hubris and condescension in these kind of statements” yet he offers no evidence as to why that would be the case. I guess my fatal flaw was looking at an event and stating what I thought was true about it. I guess we’re not supposed to worry about truth these days, since apparently keeping the offended in Hell is more important.

Anyone can look at my argument and see that New Life Church played no part in it. It set the stage for what I wrote, but it had nothing to do with the reasons I provided. Indeed, the tragedy involved could have been anything, and as such was an objective argument that was not limited to any one particular event. I only mentioned New Life because A) it just happened and B) it happened near me.

In fact, it is Spencer who bends to hubris here. Notice how Spencer goes out of his way to inform us that the shooter has been revealed to be a former YWAM member? I only ask: why does this information matter? Why should your argument change depending on who the shooter was? If what you stand for changes because of something as trivial as this, then how pathetic is your argument in the first place?

It certainly didn’t matter to my argument who the shooter was. It could have been Dick Cheney for all it would have affected my position. Spencer brings this up because it is he who is attempting to use the violence at New Life in a hubristic and condescending manner. He is using the murders there to stifle the presentation of the truth.

I should note that I have Biblical precedent for using a tragedy as a lunching point for a theological discussion. Jesus Himself said:

And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:2-5)

Oh, the hubris and condescension Christ displayed toward those 18 victims when that tower fell! How dare He “exploit” this tragedy in such a manner.

One final note should be brought forth. Michael Spencer has himself recently stated of John Piper: “There’s something about that level of rhetoric that always makes me think of the zealous rhetoric of Islam, and I have to wonder at what point the tone of things becomes a clue to how the Bible is being used and how Jesus Christ himself is being proclaimed” (emphasis added).

Centuri0n has gone over this in great detail already. But one must seriously wonder how it is possible for my pointing out (with actual argumentation!) that Arminians had to retreat to Calvinistic positions is “hubris” and “condescending” and yet comparing John Piper to “the zealous rhetoric of Islam” is cotton candy.

But I’ll give Spencer another chance. Since he didn’t bother to look at any of the arguments I presented the first time around, why doesn’t he do so now? I would have gladly left a comment on his blog asking him to do just that, but apparently he’s too afraid of those who deign to disagree with the mighty boar’s head to suffer comments. Well we’ve unmasked your boar’s head, Michael, and it’s the Lord of the Flies.

I would like to piggy-back off some of my earlier comments to clarify what I mean about how Arminians become Calvinists during times of crisis. In reality, it is more often than that: it occurs almost every time prayers are offered.

In order to demonstrate this, it is necessary for me to first go through a quick overview of the purpose and design of prayer so as to keep the atheist detractors at bay. Prayer is not a cosmic wish-list of wants. God is not Santa Claus, nor is He a genie in the bottle who will grant us our three wishes so long as we use the magic phrase “In Jesus’ Name” at the end. Prayer is first and foremost an act of worship.

Jesus gives us some instructions on prayer. We know from the Lord’s Prayer, found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11, that before we pray for “our daily bread” we first pray “thy will be done.” Indeed, the focus on the will of God being done is exemplified when Christ prayed in the garden before His death, saying: “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).

Proper prayer, therefore, must begin with its roots in the sovereign will of God. Indeed, no matter what we plan, it is God’s will that shall prevail:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:13-15).
Prayer does not inform God of new information. In fact, immediately before presenting us with the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus tells us: “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (Matthew 6:8). Indeed, this is repeated in verse 32 of the same chapter, when Christ tells us not to worry over our basic needs: “your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.”

What is the purpose of prayer then? Again, it is primarily our act of worship whereby we acknowledge the source of all that we have and are. We acknowledge the sovereignty of God by admitting our dependence upon Him.

But prayer is also a means that God uses to enact His will. For instance, James informs us: “You do not have, because you do not ask” (James 4:2). However, he also cautions: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). God uses prayers to bless His people, but He will not do so with wrongly motivated prayers. Again, prayer is not a magic formula to get rich quick. It is worship first, and asking for things out of wrongful passion will not gain you anything.

When we ask God for anything, we must always temper it with “thy will be done.” That God uses prayer as a means to His ordained ends does not mean He will grant you everything you wish willy-nilly. In the end, His will is done, and we, as godly Christians, must submit to His plans and purposes.

The sovereignty of God is absolute, and this is where we find the inconsistency in Arminianism. While virtually all Arminians will gladly say they believe in a sovereign God, they likewise maintain that God cannot do certain things unless we do things first. For instance, God cannot save someone unless that person, of his own volition, desires to be saved first. And while many Arminians temper this by saying it is not that God can not, it is that He will not, the fact remains that if the Arminian argument is right, then if God wills to save despite man’s heart then God violates man’s freedom and God becomes the author of evil while man becomes a robot. In other words, the argument that Arminians use only makes sense if God literally cannot save people He desires to save, and therefore it is a case that God cannot save those whom He desires to save.

Yet despite this stated argument, Arminians (in general) have no problem at all praying that God save lost people. I work with many Arminians, as I’ve mentioned before, and none of them have a problem praying: “Lord, open the hearts of those who are ministering to that they may turn toward you.”

They do not realize that this prayer only makes sense in a Calvinist framework. God cannot “open the hearts” of anyone without violating their libertarian free will, if the Arminian position is correct. And He certainly cannot do it if the prayer comes from someone else.

In short, the above prayer (so common even in the most stringent of Arminian churches) is a prayer that God violate free will. It is a Calvinistic prayer, one that acknowledges that God is sovereign and “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Proverbs 16:9).

As most already know, there was a shooting earlier today at New Life Church here in Colorado Springs. Because I work for a Christian non-profit organization, I happen to work with quite a few people who attend New Life. Thus far, the reports say that there is one fatality as well as the shooter, and between three and five wounded. Naturally, my thoughts run to co-workers who go there.

The church is quite large–around 10,000 members, and according to reports there were 7,000 people there at the time of the shooting. Odds are that no one I knew personally was killed or wounded. But I also know people who are high in the leadership staff of that church, and regardless of whether they were injured or not they will be dealing with this issue now.

The New Life community will be going through a major process now, to put it mildly. Everyone will try to make sense of the issue as best they can. Sadly, for many, this will be a much more difficult task than it ought to be.

I know at times that readers may wonder why I choose to dwell on a certain theological point when I write blog entries. Sometimes the theological issues appear to be quite minor quibbles (and sometimes they are). But the fact remains that it is times like these that the theological points that seem trivial bear their full weight.

I am a Calvinist. While I have a great number of friends who are not (indeed, one of my best friends is a Wesleyan), I simply do not understand how anyone who is not Reformed could deal with this situation without falling into despair. Without the sure knowledge of the overall sovereignty of God, how can one rest in the promise of Romans 8 that all things will work for the good of those who love Christ and are called according to His purposes? It is easy for all Christians to acknowledge God’s sovereignty when good things happen (although all too often they do not acknowledge it even then), but as soon as a situation such as this occurs we hear: “God did not want this to happen.”

But if things can happen that God did not want, at some level, to have happen, how can we trust anything He has promised? How is He able to bring about His plan if events like this can thwart His purposes?

Thankfully, most Arminians have a faith that is inconsistent with their stated beliefs. They know that God is sovereign, even though their beliefs logically must lead them to a non-sovereign Lord. And when a crime such as this one comes about, we see many Arminians fall back onto their Calvinistic heritage.

“Pray for New Life,” they say, and rightly so.

We do pray for New Life. We pray because we do believe in a sovereign God who can do as He pleases in His world. And we pray because we know that He will make all things work out for the good of His people, just as He has promised.

The distinctions between Calvinists and Arminians are not just minor quibbles. In times like this, Arminians become Calvinists or they jettison the faith altogether. Being rooted in the truth of Reformed Doctrine is the only way to make sense of what is insensible to the Arminian.

If only it didn’t take incidents like this one to demonstrate it.

While most non-atheists do think I’m a fairly intelligent person, I am the first to point out that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, nor the brightest bulb in the socket. Even if I were the smartest person in the world, as I was recently given permission to be, most Christians would fully agree that God must be much, much smarter than I. Or me. (God would know which word to use there, for instance.)

But if the Arminian God happens to be the real God, it turns out that God isn’t really all that intelligent after all. Our recent discussions with EgoMarkarios have highlighted the importance of freedom in the Arminian universe, and I won’t go over those details again. Instead, I will now point out a few simple things, starting with an analogy.

Suppose there is a young college student, Bill, who is studying in the library one day when he spots a young female college student likewise studying. Bill is immediately attracted to this woman, and he goes over to introduce himself. Since he’s never seen the inside of a Gap and is instead wearing a John Loftus cowboy hat, she naturally tells him to get lost.

This obviously disappoints our poor college student, but he’s a clever individual. He sees that the young woman’s friends are with her and he recognizes one of them as someone from his 20th Century Postmodern Feminist Shakespearean Hermeneutics class. He meets with the friend of his crush the very next day and asks her for details on the woman, who’s name turns out to be Sue (only fitting as she is a lawyer). It turns out that Sue prefers men who bring her flowers, who dress in Armani, and who believe Dennis Kucinich really saw a UFO.

Bill really wants to go out with Sue. As a result, he ditches his Loftusian cowboy hat and buys an Armani suit. He purchases a dozen roses, and he tries as hard as he can to believe Kucinich saw a UFO. He gives up and decides that he can at least lie about that. Bill returns to the woman.

Sue rejects him yet again, but this time she says, “Nice try” without the sneer.

“What more can I do to get you to like me?” Bill asks.

“You can help me with my Abacus class.”

Bill doesn’t know anything about abacuses, but he decides right there that by the next day he will be the world’s expert on abacuses. And sure enough, he succeeds. Sue gets an A on her test, and slowly she begins to realize that Bill is a nice individual after all.

Eventually they marry, have 2.3 kids, and live happily ever after in a house with 1.7 bathrooms.

Class Discussion: In what way were homosexuals discriminated against in this example?

Now as ought to be plain to see, Bill really wanted Sue to fall in love with him. But Sue initially rejected Bill. If Bill were the Arminian God, he would have given up at this point as Sue’s free will could not be overcome. Instead, Bill reasoned that he could present himself attractively to Sue until she finally saw that he was exactly what she wanted in a man. So he did just that.

Bill learned things about Sue from Sue’s friend, and he used what he learned to slowly change Sue’s mind. Sue’s will was originally to shun Bill forever, but eventually she became persuaded to marry him. Bill could do that…why can’t God?

In fact, doesn’t God know who we are even better than we do ourselves? Isn’t it true that the Creator who formed us in the womb and knows us intimately would know exactly what was needed to convince us that He is real? Ask atheists and most of them will say, “If God rearranged the stars in the sky to spell Jesus Is Lord, I’d believe.” Yet God doesn’t do so.

Why not? God has the power, and simply acquiescing to such a request would not be a violation of the atheist’s free will. He would, in fact, be doing what the atheist requested of his own free will, wouldn’t He?

Now surely if I am smart enough to see this is true, God must know it too, for He is wiser than I am. He knows what everyone needs, and He is able to present Himself to everyone exactly as they are needed. Why, then, doesn’t He do so?

Apparently the Arminian God is either too stupid to understand this…or He doesn’t actually care about saving all (means all!) the world after all (still means all!). Surely God isn’t an omnipotent Forest Gump, so what’s the explanation?

Perhaps men are simply so evil that God knows rearranging the stars wouldn’t convince atheists He existed…but no, that’s too much like total depravity, and we can’t have that if we want to preserve freedom.

So we must conclude that the Arminian God really is just plain ol’ stupid is as stupid does.