What We Mean and Don't Mean When We Talk About God's Sovereignty

A Non-Calvinist, Relational View of God’s Sovereignty

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/a-non-calivinist-relational-view-of-gods-sovereignty/

 

by Roger Olson

April 14, 2013

Comments

 

As I gave this talk at this week’s Missio Alliance gathering in Alexandria, Virginia. For those who are watching me carefully (from the Arminian camp) I must say I make no claim for this being “the” Arminian view. It is simply my view and I’m an Arminian. 

 

Comment

This subject has been long overdue and short on recognition until

now. Many thanks to Roger Olson for this post. Additionally, I will

post mine own comments as necessary through the body of this article.

- R.E. Slater (res)

 

 

My office phone rang and I answered it. A stern voice said “Is this Roger Olson?” who which I confessed. The man introduced himself as pastor of Baptist church in the state, implying that he was a constituent of the seminary where I teach. Anyway, I got the message. “I hear you don’t believe in God’s sovereignty,” he declared. I responded “Oh, really? What do you mean by ‘God’s sovereignty’?” He said “You, know. God is in control of everything.” I decided to play with him a little. “Oh, so you believe God caused the holocaust and every other evil event in human history? That God is the author of sin and evil?” There was a long pause. Then he said “Well, no.” “Then do you believe in God’s sovereignty?” I asked. He mumbled something about just wanting to “make sure” and hung up.

 

My experience, based on teaching Christian theology in churches and three Christian universities over thirty-one years, is that many, perhaps most, Christians don’t know what they mean when they talk about “God’s sovereignty”—beyond “God is in control.” My concern has been to help Christians think reflectively about God’s sovereignty and arrive at beliefs about it that are biblically sound and intelligible.

 

My own view of God’s sovereignty is what I call “relational.” I believe in God’s “relational sovereignty.” What I want to do here, today, is explain what I mean by that and invite you to consider it as an alternative to the view of God’s sovereignty currently enjoying great popularity—the Augustinian-Calvinist view that I call, for lack of any more descriptive term, “divine determinism.” It could rightly be called “non-relational sovereignty.” Thousands of Christian young people are adopting it, often without critically reflecting on what it implies and without knowing any alternatives to it.

 

I identify with a different movement in contemporary theology called “Relational Theology” or “Relational Theism.” There’s no single “guru” of the movement and it’s not nearly as popular or easy to identify and describe. But it also has biblical roots and historical precedents.

 

In 2012 thirty theologians, nearly all self-identified evangelicals, wrote chapters in a book entitled Relational Theology: A Contemporary Introduction edited by Brint Montgomery, Thomas Jay Oord, and Karen Winslow. It was published by Point Loma Press, an imprint of Wipf and Stock publishers. The volume covers many issues of Christian theology and practice from a “relational point of view.”

 

It’s an excellent little book and I can recommend it highly as an introduction to contemporary Relational Theology—especially that segment of it that is evangelical. Most of the authors, maybe all of them, are Wesleyans in the evangelical tradition (or evangelicals in the Wesleyan tradition). However, one weakness I find in the book is the lack of a chapter on God’s sovereignty from a relational perspective. That is a gap I hope to fill here.

 

Everyone familiar with current religious movements knows about the “Young, Restless, Reformed” movement led by John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler and Louie Giglio (among others). Some call its theology “neo-Calvinism.” It’s actually a contemporary form of the theology of Jonathan Edwards, John Piper’s favorite theologian. Anyone who has studied Edwards or Piper knows they have a distinctive view of God’s sovereignty. It’s enjoying great popularity, especially among twenty-something Christians. According to it, whatever happens is planned, ordained and governed by God. Another way of saying that is that God foreordains and renders certain everything that happens without exception. As John Piper has said, according to his view, if a dirty bomb were to land in downtown Minneapolis, that would be from God.

 

Many people simply believe this view is what is meant by “God’s sovereignty” and anything else is a denial of God’s sovereignty. If God is not the all-determining reality, then he is not sovereign. Or, as Reformed theologian R. C. Sproul likes to say, if there is one maverick molecule in the universe, God is not God. Or, as British Calvinist Paul Helm says, not only every atom and molecule but also every thought and intention is under the control of God.

 

My purpose today is not to expound this wildly popular view of God’s sovereignty or spend a lot of time critiquing it. I will do both briefly. My purpose is to expound and defend an alternative perspective on God’s sovereignty that I believe is more appealing—biblically, rationally and experientially. And it has historical appeal as well, even if it has been throughout much of Christian history a “minority report,” so to speak.

 

At risk of over simplifying, I will argue that there are three main views of God’s sovereignty in Christian theology. That is to say, in spite of many variations, all views tend to “come home” to one of these. Think of them as large tents under which people with different interpretations of them gather, talk, and debate. They are divine determinism, relational theism, and mediating views. The third, “mediating views,” have much in common with each other and so represent a single over-arching view even if they emphasize singular points differently.


Divine Determinism

 

I begin with divine determinism which I actually began describing above. According to all versions of it, all events are traceable back to God who controls history down to every detail according to a blueprint. God has never taken a risk. God micromanages history and individuals’ lives. Nothing surprises God. Nothing can happen that is contrary to God’s will.

 

Now, of course, there are many versions of divine determinism. Hardly any advocate of that view likes my label for it. Sproul, for example, adamantly rejects “determinism” as a descriptor of his view. However, a quick look at any major English dictionary will reveal why it’s a fair descriptor. By whatever means, even if through “secondary causes,” God determines what will happen and that determination is as Helm says “fine grained.” Nothing at all escapes it.

 

Some proponents of divine determinism make use of something called “middle knowledge” to attempt to reconcile it with free will. Others reject that tactic. Some attempt to define free will compatibilistically, that is as simply doing what you want to do even if you could not do otherwise. Others reject free will altogether. Some admit that this view makes God the author of sin and evil; others adamantly reject that, appealing to God’s permission rather than authorship of sin and evil. However, when pressed, they say that God’s permission of sin and evil is “effectual permission.” In any case, God still plans and renders them certain.


Relational Theism

 

The second view of God’s sovereignty, the one I plan to expound here, is relational theism. Oord, one of the editors and authors of Relational Theology, defines it this way: “At its core, relational theology affirms two key ideas: 1. God affects creatures in various ways. Instead of being aloof and detached, God is active and involved in relationship with others. God relates to us, and that makes an essential difference. 2. Creatures affect God in various ways. While God’s nature is unchanging, creatures influence the loving and living Creator of the universe. We relate to God, and creation makes a difference to God.” (p. 2) Another author, Barry Callen, says of relational theism (or theology) that it focuses on “the interactivity or mutuality of the God-human relationship. God is understood to be truly personal, loving, and not manipulative. The interaction of the wills of Creator and creature are real.” (p. 7)

 

Relational theism or [relational] theology comes in many varieties, some of them quite incompatible at points. All share in common, however, belief that creatures can and do actually affect God. The relationship between creatures, especially human persons, and God is two-way. God is, as Dutch theologian Hendrikus Berkhof said, the “defenseless superior power” within a genuine covenant relationship with us whose immutability is not impervious to influence but “changeable faithfulness.” According to relational theism, the God-human relationship is reciprocal, mutual, interactive. God is not Aristotle’s “Thought thinking Itself” or Aquinas’ “Pure Actuality” without potentiality. Rather, God is Pinnock’s “Most Moved Mover”—the superior power who allows creatures to resist him and becomes vulnerable and open to harm as well as joy

 

One of the best descriptions of relational theism, I believe, is found in Thomas Torrance’s little book Space, Time, and Incarnation:

 

The world…is made open to God through its intersection in the axis of Creation-Incarnation. … But what of the same relationship the other way round, in the openness of God for the world that He has made? Does the intersection of His reality with our this-worldly reality in Jesus Christ mean anything for God? We have noted already that it means that space and time are affirmed as real for God in the actuality of His relations with us, which binds us to space and time, so that neither we nor God can contract out of them. Does this not mean that God has so opened Himself to our world that our this-worldly experiences have import for Him in such a way, for example, that we must think of Him as taking our hurt and pain into Himself? (p. 74)

 

In sum, then, relational theology or theism is any view that imports the creation into the life of God so that God is in some way dependent on it for the whole or part of his experience [for which he designed and planned at the beginning of creation in order to establish living, willful, relationships with himself. Perhaps the word "dependent" is a bit harsh in view of God's all-glorious sovereignty, however, it is a very good, and necessary word to us, because it informs us that God is in a very real, two-way, living relationship with us. A relationship that calls forth the older, classical term of the "divine-human" cooperative. But rather than calling ourselves into a "cooperative" with the divine, God says "I love you," and because of this divine love, I wish to be in holy communion with you, where we each depend upon the other, according to the limiting sense of our being in relationship to his own.Where the infinite, all powerful One desires to limit himself in accordance to our own creative limitations bounded by sin and a corruptible free will. Where through Jesus the Creator becomes the Incarnated Creator, experiencing with us our own limitations, corruptibility, and life in general. Whose passion runs towards us even as our own passion runs to meet him, and holy fellowship, eternal and soaring, meet in lockstep with one another. This is what is meant by a dependent relationship. A relationship where each depends upon the other's love - both God and man. To one another's joy and boundless, living relationship. - res]....

 

... The implications of this for a view of God’s sovereignty are enormous and takes it away from divine determinism. As I will be spending the second half of this talk exploring this view of sovereignty I’ll settle now for what I have said about relational theism in general.


Mediating Sovereignty

 

The third main Christian view of God’s sovereignty is what I call, for lack of a better term, mediating. These are views that attempt to combine, usually with some appeal to paradox, divine determinism with relational theism. An excellent example is the late evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch. Throughout his career Bloesch boldly expressed and defended the paradoxical nature of Christianity following Kierkegaard and Barth. In his book The Evangelical Renaissance he declared that:

 

God knows the course of the future and the fulfillment of the future... (I prefer to think of God as actively bringing the future to fruition, so that he has an idea how this will occur - i.e., through his own sacrifice - but that the how, when and where of it is open to change and fulfillment. This then keeps to an Open definition of theology and not its more classical component of austere direction and non-relational force. - res)..., but this must not be taken to mean that He literally knows every single event even before it happens. It means that He knows every alternative and the way in which His children may well respond to the decisions that confront them. The plan of God is predetermined, but the way in which He realizes it is dependent partly on the free cooperation of His subjects. This does not detract from His omnipotence, for it means that He is so powerful that He is willing to attain His objectives by allowing a certain room for freedom of action on the part of man. (p. 53)

 

This may sound relational or deterministic and Bloesch reveled in that ambiguity. “The plan of God is predetermined” is deterministic; “The way in which He realizes it is dependent partly on the…cooperation of His subjects” is relational.

 

I think that many theologians and non-theologically trained Christians alike tend to embrace a kind of ambiguous, paradoxical view of God’s sovereignty. I often hear the same person say “Oh, well, God knows what he’s doing” and “People have free will, you know” in different circumstances—the former to comfort in grief and the latter to get God off the hook when evil raises its ugly head.

 

Relational theology or theism lends itself to a particular view of God’s sovereignty that is neither deterministic nor paradoxical. Divine determinism of any type cannot explain how God is good in any meaningful sense or how people are responsible for the evil they do. Mediating theology, theologies of paradox, cannot explain the consistency of God’s comprehensive, meticulous providence with genuine free will and prayer playing a role in the outworking of God’s plan. Relational sovereignty, which is what I will call the view of God’s sovereignty derived from relational theism, seeks and finds consistency and flexibility.

 

*I will further add the important, necessary component of Open theology as I had mentioned immediately above... "open theology" simply means that nothing is known for sure, and that the future is as open with God as it is with ourselves. However, what is known by God is his plan of redemption. A redemption that will be large enough, and flexible enough, to reform, renew, reclaim, revitalize, reform, and resurrect this old world back to its original design of uncorrupted communion with Himself.

 

And yet, God's plan of redemption does not lessen his relationship with us, as free willed beings, but enhances it, giving to it its living, unknown quality of formation. In itself, it was a plan as much known to Himself as was his plan of creation that included indeterminacy in its creative fabric, and human free will in its sentient aspect. Each aspect was accounted for, and planned for, including the corruption of sin that would surely come at the moment of its initialization. In effect, God knew that to create would, at the last, involve himself in his own creation through personal sacrifice and redemption (the "heart ache" side of it as expressed in relational terms, sic the book of Hosea).

 

Hence, by coupling relational theology with open theology (e.g., "the future is more open than it is known," in a sense) the paradoxical nature that Dr. Olson refers to can be appropriately removed. We live in an Open relationship and an Open future... just as real as any relationships we have in our own lives with loved ones, living organizations, ministries, and evolving friendships. At the same time, these concepts remove the more classical definition of unmoved, austere, sovereignty that bears with it a closed future already preknown and laid out deterministically without necessity of our intimate involvement. And because we have open relationships and open futures than our bible and our faith becomes open and evolving as well, requiring our necessary apprehension and interaction to each.

 

Finally, for more discussion on these subject matters, please refer to the sidebars along the right side of this web journal under "An Emerging Theology," "An Open Faith and Open Theology," and the several categories found under "Theism."

 

- res

 

Index to past articles on "An Emerging Theology"

 

Index to Past Articles on "An Open Faith and Open Theology"

 

[sidebars] Categories of Theism - Intro, Definitions, Open, Process, Relational

 
 

 

The Matter of Process Theology

 

... What I want to outline for you and recommend to you is a non-process, narrative-based, relational view of God’s sovereignty. It is not rooted in process theology which, while relational, detracts too much from God’s transcendence. Process theology is one form of relational theology, but not all relational theology is process. Process theology denies God’s omnipotence which is its main failing. From that flow other flaws such as its denial of any eschatological resolution to the struggles of history and eventual end to evil and innocent suffering. Process theology, in my opinion, sacrifices too much of the biblical portrait of God and, in the process, robs us of hope for the world. It is right in much of what it affirms but wrong in much of what it denies. It rightly affirms God’s vulnerability and the partial openness of the future; it wrongly denies God’s power to intervene in human affairs to rescue, heal and defeat evil.

 

*One may think of process theology as the extreme to Calvinistic doctrine, where relational/open theology would lie in the middle between both positions. For myself, the term "process" I like a lot... it gives to the Christian the idea of God's resident movement through time and history... but like Dr. Olson, I have mine own reservations of it. However, it was because of process theology that I became cognizant to the idea of relational theology. Apparently, there was a debate whether process theology should be known as "relational-process theology" back in the early days of its formation - and when discovering that aspect of it, I immediately grabbed hold of the revolutionizing idea of "relational theology" and began to develop it. Months later, I happily came to discover additional advocates of this same position (a point you will discover when reading of my journey through my past documents here on this site).

 

Overall, I find great sympathy towards Process Theology, but at the same time have found that it re-engineers a lot of past Christian orthodoxy - which is not necessarily a bad thing to do - but just how it is done and towards what ends it intends (similar to Dr. Olson's comment above). Along with process theology has come the many helpful ideas found in Emergent and Postmodern thought as well. Certainly foreign to classical thought, however, nonetheless relevant and important to discuss in our understanding of who God is, what he is doing through Christ, and what the mission of the church is and should be.

 

Especially so if the church is to continue to bear a contemporary, relevant gospel to the world.... Where old-line classicism must be updated and not left unscrutinized to a more historically mature and educated world. Hence, it is the task of today's theologian to do just that in today's global, industrialized, technological societies. Consequently, it is my intention to continue to sift through process theology to discover biblical fundamentals that may be kept, while disregarding any unnecessary corollaries, assumptions, or surmises, that are non-central to its overall structure (a syncretisim if you will to Christian orthodoxy). And with the overall mindset of creating a more relevant Christian theology giving to us a better understanding of our living faith and hope in Jesus our Lord and Savior.

 

- res

 

ps - "Narrative Theology" has also arise as one of those undated ideas to undertanding God and our faith as Dr. Olson goes on to explain.... More can be found on this under the sidebar "Hermeneutics as a Meta-Narrative."


The Matter of Narrative Theology

... No doubt some critics will regard my own non-process, narrative-based, relational view of God’s sovereignty as an unstable middle ground between divine determinism and process theology. I hope to show that it is not unstable or incoherent and preserves the best of both of those alternative perspectives while avoiding their fatal flaws.

 

Rather than focusing on proof texts of Scripture or philosophies, this relational view of God’s sovereignty arises out of and is justified by a synoptic, canonical, holistic vision of God drawn from the biblical narrative. Obviously I do not have time now even to summarize “narrative theology,” but I will mention a few of its major points.

 

Narrative theology regards stories and symbols as vehicles of truth. The Bible contains propositions, but it is not primarily a book of propositions. It is primarily a book of stories and symbols from which propositions can be drawn. The Bible is the story of one great “theodrama.” Its purpose is to identify God for us and transform us. Transformation is its first and highest purpose though it does also contain information.

 

Narrative theology refuses to treat the Bible as a “not-yet-systematized systematic theology” which is how I believe too much conservative evangelical theology treats it. No system can replace the Bible which always has new light to reveal and more truth into which to guide us.

 

Narrative theology resists too much philosophical speculation into matters beyond our possible experience and beyond the biblical narrative which is not about God-in-himself but about God-with-us. Narrative theology resists metaphysical compliments paid to God that cannot rest on the portrayal of God in his own story.

 

Finally, narrative theology insists on taking the whole biblical story into account when theology attempts to derive truth about God.

 

A relational view of God’s sovereignty begins not with philosophical a prioris such as “God is by definition the being greater than which none can be conceived” or “If there’s one maverick molecule in the universe, God is not God” but with God as the personal, loving, self-involving, passionate, relational Yahweh of Israel and Father of Jesus Christ.

 

This God is not aloof or self-sufficient in himself or impassible. His deity, as Barth taught us, is no prison. And as Jürgen Moltmann has taught us, his death on the cross is not a contradiction of his deity but the most profound revelation of it. And that because this God is Love.

 

Does this all mean that God needs us? Not at all. This God could have lived forever satisfied with the communal love shared between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but he chose to become vulnerable in relation to the world he created out of the overflowing of that love. Is that just a metaphysical compliment unnecessarily paid to God or a truth necessary to the biblical story of God with us? I would argue it is the latter. A God who literally needs the world is a pathetic God hardly worthy of worship.

 

The key insight for a non-process relational view of God’s sovereignty is that God is sovereign over his sovereignty. The missio dei is God’s choice to involve himself intimately with the world so as to be affected by it. That choice is rooted in God’s love and desire for reciprocal love freely offered by his human creatures. None of this detracts in any way from God’s sovereignty because God is sovereign over his sovereignty. To say that God can’t be vulnerable, can’t limit himself, can’t restrain his power to make room for other powers, is, ironically, to deny God’s sovereignty.

 

Allow me to use the words of Torrance again to express this view of God and God’s sovereignty. Contrary to classical theism,

 

If God is merely impassible He has not made room for Himself in our agonied existence, and if He is merely immutable He has neither place nor time for frail evanescent creatures in His unchanging existence. But the God who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ as sharing our lot is the God who is really free to make Himself poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich, the God invariant in love but not impassible, constant in faithfulness but not immutable. (p. 75)

 

There is a doctrine of God’s sovereignty subtly included in those phrases about God’s vulnerability. Torrance’s vulnerable God cannot be the all-determining reality of classical theism and Calvinism. Such a God has not really made room for us in his existence, his life, whatever certain neo-Calvinists might say. Rather, the God of Torrance and relational theism is the God who makes himself partially dependent on his human partners so that our history becomes his, too.


Conclusion of the Matter

What does that mean, then, for God’s sovereignty? First, the relational God of the biblical story is not, to quote Baptist theologian E. Frank Tupper, a “do anything, anytime, anywhere kind of God.” (A Scandalous Providence, p. 335 ) Second, however, the relational God of the biblical story is a powerful God who lures, persuades, cajoles and occasionally overrides the wills of people. He is the “superior defenseless power” in the covenant relationship he has established with us.

 

I argue that such a view of God’s sovereignty, one that sees God as truly relational with us, that views us as genuine partners with and sometimes against God, can support and give impetus to commitment to participation in the mission of God. The picture of God as invulnerable, static, unmoved, all-determining derived from much traditional Reformed theology, for example, undermines participation in the mission of God towards God’s kingdom because it makes our participation with God superfluous. We are then seen as pawns rather than knights.

 

Am I, then, advocating so-called “open theism?” Not necessarily, although I think that’s far superior to classical theism in many ways. Relational theism and its attendant view of God’s sovereignty are larger than just open theism which is one form of relational theism. The view I have outlined here goes back at least to German mediating theologian I. A. Dorner in the middle of the 19^th century who helped Protestant theology complete the Reformation by reconstructing the doctrine of God inherited and left virtually untouched by the Reformers. According to Dorner, God is historical with us and we are created co-creators of history with God. Listen to Dorner after he has expressed his view of God’s ethical immutability in which he changes in relation to creatures, not in his nature but in his “thoughts and his will”:

 

To be sure, God does not hand over the reins of government to the faithful; but neither does he want to make them automatons [robots], beings resigned to a determined will. From the very beginning, he has preferred to give his friends a joint knowledge of what he wills to do…and to deal historico-temporally through them as his instruments, which as personalities may co-determine his will and counsel. (Quoted in Claude Welch, God and Incarnation, p. 116)

 

This is, so far as I have discovered, the best brief theological expression of a truly relational view of God’s sovereignty that I have found in Christian thought. The only correction I would offer is to the use of the word “instruments” for created personalities that “co-determine” God’s will and counsel. To contemporary ears, anyway, “instruments” sounds like “pawns” which is clearly not what Dorner intended.

 

Finally, in sum, then, a relational view of God’s sovereignty is one that regards God’s will as settled in terms of the intentions of his character but open and flexible in terms of the ways in which he acts because he allows himself to be acted upon. Only such a view of God’s sovereignty does justice to the whole of the biblical drama, to God as personal, to human persons as responsible actors and potential partners with God in God’s mission.

 

 

 

Election is For Everyone - Discussion of Election, Free Will, Predestination, & God's Sovereignty

 

A Plug for My Current Article on “Election” in Christianity Today

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/01/a-plug-for-my-current-article-on-election-in-christianity-today/

 

by Roger Olson

January 8, 2013

Comments

 

If you are able to, please read my article “Election Is for Everyone” in the current issue of Christianity Today and post your feedback here. There I call for Christians to emphasize more our common ground and less our differences. We all agree that salvation is solely God’s doing and not of works. We all believe in election and predestination. Reformed theology does not have a monopoly on these good biblical concepts. Obviously, we interpret them differently, but both Calvinists and Arminians (and Lutherans and Anabaptists) believe that God elects people. We do not elect ourselves. Please don’t respond to this abstract; read the article and respond to it (if you are able).

 

*all [bracketed] comments are mine own - R.E. Slater (res)

 

 

 

Election Is for Everyone
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/january-february/election-is-for-everyone.html?paging=off

 

by Roger Olson

February 5, 2013

 

However we interpret the controversial doctrine, it's clear

that salvation is never a human achievement.

 

When I was a kid my brother and I would sometimes spend part of Saturday handing out gospel tracts in our neighborhood. We were pastor's sons and probably felt some obligation to do it (as it was something promoted in Sunday school and youth group), but I can honestly say we also felt it was our contribution to the kingdom of God.

 

One of our favorite tracts pictured a voting ballot. The great preacher Herschel Hobbs, known among Southern Baptists as "Mr. Baptist," preached a famous sermon based on that tract on The Baptist Hour in October 1967. His sermon was "God's Election Day," and its main point was:

 

"The devil and God held an election to determine whether or not you would be saved or lost. The devil voted against you and God voted for you. So the vote was a tie. It is up to you to cast the deciding vote."

 

Without doubt that concept of the doctrine of election has become popular among Christians. After all, we Americans prize our right and freedom to vote. But is that what Scripture means by election? Is the gospel that God votes for our salvation, Satan votes against it, and we—individually, freely—cast the vote that decides our eternal destiny?

 

Probably not. Some biblical scholars and theologians would say, "Definitely not!" It does seem to trivialize the concept of election and especially God's sovereignty in our salvation. On the other hand, there may be some truth in this way of conceiving the issue, even if it does not do justice to the profundity of the biblical doctrine of election.

 

Unfortunately, the "doctrine of election" has come to be associated especially, even uniquely, with one particular branch of Christian theology—the one people know as "Reformed." It descends from the Swiss Reformation of the 16th century and most notably from the French reformer John Calvin, who lived in and spiritually led the Swiss city Geneva. Too often, "election" is identified as the distinctive doctrine of Calvinism—as if no other branch of Christianity believes in it.

 

In fact, it would be impossible to be a Bible-believing Christian without affirming God's electing grace and having a doctrine of election. The same could be said about predestination, often thought of as a synonym for election. The Bible is filled with references to God's choice of people, both individuals and groups. Abraham was not just "called" by God but also "chosen" or "elected" to be the father of God's "chosen people," God's elect nation of Israel (Gen. 12:1-3; Isa. 45:4). The church is the elect of God, chosen for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:5). Paul was clearly chosen by God for apostleship (Acts 9).

 

It would be no stretch of truth to say that God's election of people is central to the biblical message, to the gospel. And it can safely be said that people's election is God's grace, not human achievement. Nowhere does the Bible even hint that people elect themselves.

 

'Touched by an Angel' Theology

 

That brings us back to the gospel tract and Hobbs's sermon. All Christians, not only Calvinists, ought to reject the underlying message that election is a human act or achievement. Theologians have a term for that belief: semi-Pelagianism. It is arguably the default view of both salvation and service among American Christians, especially younger Christians. But all branches of Christianity have condemned it as heresy, because it completely contradicts Scripture.

 

[The unbiblical idea of] Semi-Pelagianism is the idea that human beings take the initiative in their salvation and service to God. We decide whether to be saved or enter into God's service completely by ourselves, without prevenient (or necessary) grace. (Prevenient grace is grace that convicts, calls, illumines, and enables. Christian theologians disagree about whether it is resistible [(Arminianism)] or irresistible [(Calvinism)], but all evangelical theologians agree it is necessary for the first exercise of a good will toward God.) Some years ago, a popular television series featured angels in human disguise helping people in distress turn to God. In one episode, a beautiful young angel with a Scottish accent counseled a man to "reach up to God as far as you can, and then he'll reach down and take you the rest of the way." I call that "Touched by an Angel theology." By itself, without careful biblical and theological clarification, it expresses semi-Pelagianism, [that is, personal self-election].

 

Contrary to what many think, both Calvinist and Arminian traditions of Protestant Christianity have always emphasized God's initiative in salvation and service. (Arminianism is the theological tradition named after Jacob Arminius, a 17th-century Dutch theologian who affirmed human free will.) That is, if any person or group finds reconciliation with God and/or a role in God's mission, it is due to God's electing grace and not to human decision or achievement alone.

 

Unfortunately, the doctrine of election has become a battleground among evangelical Protestants. Three main viewpoints vie for attention and belief. All three appeal to Scripture. All three claim the other two fall short of biblical and theological correctness. Occasionally advocates of the three views fall into nasty verbal combat with each other. Advocates of all three need to realize they share much in common, specifically belief in the divine initiative—that God is the electing one, the one whose grace is necessary to every good thing a person does, including the first movement of the will toward God.

 

The first view is classical, traditional Calvinism. It was not invented by Calvin but came to be associated with his name in English lands through the Puritans. Earlier reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli held much the same belief about election.

 

According to Calvin, election, which is the same as predestination and foreordination, refers to "God's eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man …. [E]ternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others" (Institutes of the Christian Religion III.XXI.5). Many people refer to this as "double predestination." Calvin based it on Romans 9 and other passages that emphasize God's sovereignty in everything, including each individual's eternal destiny.

 

The second view is classical, traditional Arminianism. It is named after the theologian Jacob Arminius, but the basic outlines of the view predate him. Perhaps the most influential Arminian was John Wesley, founder of the Methodist tradition, who is also revered by Christians in the holiness and Pentecostal traditions.

 

According to Wesley's essay "On Predestination," faithfully following Arminius, election (pre-destination) means that "God foreknew those in every nation, who would believe, from the beginning of the world to the consummation of all things." He based this on Romans 8, especially verses 29 and 30. Like all Arminians (and many who do not use that label but agree with its essential doctrine of election), Wesley affirmed free will, enabled by [prevenient] grace, because otherwise, "[I]f man were not free, he could not be accountable either for his thoughts, words, or actions."

 

Mountains of Verses

 

Most contemporary evangelical Christians lean one way or the other—toward either Calvin's or Wesley's view of election. All agree that God elects people to service; all agree that God chooses (through corporate election) to have a people. The flashpoint of controversy is election to salvation - is it unconditional and irresistible, or does it depend on one's willingness to accept it?

 

The divide is over individual salvation and especially whether God predestines some people to hell. Arminians find that abhorrent and damaging to God's reputation, based on passages such as John 3:16, 2 Peter 3:9, and 1 Timothy 2:4. Calvinists argue that allowing humans to resist and thwart God's will limits God's sovereignty and, however unintentionally, diminishes his deity. If sinners can freely contribute to their own salvation, then grace is not the only factor.

 

Both sides in this debate can pile up mountains of verses and arguments to support their view. It seems doubtful that equally God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving Christians will ever reach consensus about the matter. But consensus already exists in this: whatever role humans play in their salvation, salvation is God's work. Even Arminians, at their best and truest, believe sinners receive saving grace only because God enables them to receive it with the free response of faith.

 

All evangelicals agree that salvation is God's work and not ours. Our good works, even our free decisions or signs of grace, amount to nothing when compared with God's electing grace and power.

 

A third view appears among contemporary evangelical Christians. Whether it leans closer to the classical Calvinist or Arminian doctrine of election is much debated. So-called "evangelical Calvinism" is championed by followers of Scottish theologians Thomas and James Torrance. They, in turn, were influenced by Swiss theologian Karl Barth and, before Barth, by Scottish theologians John McLeod Campbell and P. T. Forsyth. This view has recently been spelled out and defended by 12 leading evangelical theologians in Evangelical Calvinism: Essays Resourcing the Continuing Reformation of the Church.

 

According to evangelical Calvinism (something of a misnomer, as all Calvinists consider themselves evangelical in some sense), Christ must be central to election as both its object and its subject. God elects Jesus Christ to be the Savior, and then elects people only "in him." In Jesus and his cross, God has said, "Yes!" to all people; there is no corresponding divine "No!" If anyone has been elected to salvation, it is because God first elected Jesus Christ and then, by grace, included sinners in that election. If anyone rejects their inclusion in Christ's election, it is solely because of their inexplicable rejection of the grace God extended to them in Jesus Christ.

 

The editors of Evangelical Calvinism affirm that "[A]ll are included in Christ's salvific work, and … salvation is by grace alone and Christ alone." Election to salvation is good news, because it is not dependent on the frail and faltering free will of sinners, and no one is excluded except those who willfully exclude themselves [in Christ].

 

Classical Calvinists and Arminians agree with much in evangelical Calvinism, but both find it inconsistent at certain crucial points. Their main common complaint is that it falls into contradiction. How, they ask, can one affirm the universality of electing grace and deny free will with regard to being elected [Arminianism], while also affirming free will to reject the truth of one's election [Calvinism]? Evangelical Calvinists, on the other hand, find both alternative views of election problematic in that each, in its own way, seems to impugn the goodness of God's character.

 

Evangelical books about the doctrine of election abound. Unfortunately, most of them are polemical—spending more time arguing against another view than underscoring and explaining common ground. Especially in the past two to three decades, the doctrine of election has become a cause of division more than of unity among evangelicals. More attention needs to be given to areas of broad and profound agreement, and less to areas of diversity. Evangelical Christians, at their best, share a common doctrine of election. The devil is in the details, especially when they become points of polemical accusation and opportunities for charges of heresy or biblical infidelity.

 

All evangelicals agree that salvation is God's work and not ours. Our good works, even our free decisions or signs of grace, amount to nothing when compared with God's electing grace and power.... They're like the deceptive pillars English architect Christopher Wren installed to reassure the city fathers who doubted his scheme for supporting the second floor of Windsor's town hall. Wren had in fact left space between the pillars' tops and the ceiling of the first story. But the space was so miniscule as to be invisible, and it wasn't until years later, when workmen built scaffolds to clean the ceiling, that the ruse was discovered. The pillars, which had seemed so important to the architectural design, were revealed (like our outwardly impressive good works) as meaningless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

'God Will Find a Way'

 

If a sinner comes to Christ and receives salvation, all evangelicals agree, it is due to God's electing grace and not at all due to any meritorious work. They also agree that God is sovereign in salvation; election is one biblical way of expressing that sovereignty. The whole of Ephesians 1 extols God's sovereign election of his people. There, as elsewhere, however, it is possible to interpret election corporately [as well as it should be, esp. in Ephesians! - res]. All evangelicals agree that God's election of a people, Israel and the church, is unconditional. God chooses to have a people for his name and for his glory. He chooses to have a people on whom to lavish his love. He chooses to have a people to be a light to the nations and a testimony of God's greatness and goodness to the spiritual beings that populate the invisible world.

 

Evangelicals can and do disagree about whether individuals' inclusion in God's elect people involves any level of free will, but all agree that the existence of the people of God is not dependent on human choice. As a famous line from Jurassic Park says, "Life finds a way." Evangelical faith of all types and tribes agrees that "God will find a way" to have a people for his name.

 

Calvinists, Arminians, and evangelical Calvinists tend to find each other's positions inconsistent. But inconsistency is not heresy. Perhaps evangelicals divided over the details of the doctrine of election could rally around a prayer. The great English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon, saved in a Methodist church but a passionate Calvinist, frequently prayed a seemingly inconsistent prayer at his church's evening prayer meetings: "God, call out your elect. And then elect some more." Evangelicals of varying opinions may cringe at the apparent contradiction, but all can rejoice at the spirit of generosity and hope that pervaded Spurgeon's appeal.

 

- R.O.

 

*Roger Olson is professor of theology at Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary, and the author, most recently, of Against Calvinism (Zondervan).

 

 

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

 

Luther and “Double Predestination”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/04/luther-and-double-predestination/

 

by Roger Olson

April 10, 2013

Comments

 

So, my article on “election” was published in Christianity Today’s January/February issue (2013). Predictably, a letter responding was published in the current issue of CT (April). The letter writers (a Lutheran pastor in Iowa) takes issue with my claim that Martin Luther held a view of election similar to that of the Reformed theologians Zwingli and Calvin. The writer says (“The Way to Election,” pp. 55-56) that Luther did not believe in “double predestination” He describes my claim as “a serious mischaracterization” and argues that Luther “rejected the idea of God’s electing to condemnation.”

 

So, to refresh my memory, I have been reading Luther and Luther scholars for the last few days. Here is one article available on line that presents a persuasive argument that Luther did believe in double predestination: http://www.contra-mundum.org/essays/mattson/Luther-predestination.pdf. Here, as elsewhere on line, the following statement is attributed to Luther (and the sole source cited is Lorraine Boettner who doesn’t cite “chapter or verse” in Luther’s Commentary on Romans):

 

“All things whatever arise from, and depend on, the divine appointment; whereby

it was foreordained who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve

it; who should be delivered from their sins and who should be hardened in them;

and who should be justified and who should be condemned.”

 

So, yesterday I read through Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (trans., J. Theodore Mueller, Zondervan, 1954). I did not find that quote there. However, the volume lacks the all important Preface (!) so I read that at CCEL.org. Here is a statement I found there:

 

“St. Paul teaches us about the eternal providence of God. It is the original source which

determines who would believe and who wouldn’t, who can be set free from sin sin and who

cannot. Such matters have been taken out of our hands and are put into God’s hand….”

(This may be found in the Preface where Luther is previewing Romans 9.)

 

However, in the main body of the Commentary Luther, in the chapter on chapter 8 and on page 115 of the volume cited above, Luther writes thus about predestination:

 

“A fourth objection [to the doctrine of election as Luther believes it is taught in Romans]

is this: God hardens the will of man so that he desires to transgress the divine Law all the

more. Hence, God is the cause of why men sin and are condemned. This is the strongest and

most weighty objection. But the Apostle meets it by saying that so it is God’s will, and that if

God so wills He does not act unjustly, for all things belong to Him as the clay belongs to the

potter. He thus establishes His law in order that the elect may obey it, but the reprobates may

may be caught in it, and so He may show both His wrath and His mercy.”

 

Now, of course, someone (perhaps the letter writer) may argue that this was written in 1515 and therefore hardly represents the mature Luther’s thinking about the matter. Well, neither I nor the letter writer said anything about WHEN Luther believed in or didn’t believe in double predestination. In "Table Talk," Luther virtually forbids any discussion of predestination because it leads into all kinds of speculation and fear. So the issue is not WHEN Luther believed or did not believe in double predestination but whether Luther EVER believed in it.

 

Here is a quote from Alister McGrath: “Luther explicitly teaches a doctrine of double predestination….” (Iustitia Dei, Second Ed., p. 203)

 

I own this marvelous book entitled "What Luther Says" (Concordia Press, 1959). It contains pages of quotes from Luther about election. None of them explicitly express double predestination, but the editors (two Lutheran theologians) include a footnote that says “Luther had not always spoken like this. [viz., that there is no explanation for why God does not save everyone when he obviously could] While lecturing on Romans in 1515-1516, he was still teaching particular grace and predestinated reprobation…and his earlier lectures on the Psalms, 1513-1515, reveal the same point of view….” (p. 455)

 

Finally, I come to Luther’s debate with Erasmus in "The Bondage of the Will." I don’t see how anyone can read this c.1525 essay and not come away thinking Luther believed in “single predestination” rather than double predestination. Here Luther distinguishes between two aspects of God–God “hidden” and God “revealed.” It is imperative to pay attention to this distinction when talking about what Luther believed God does and does not will and do. It is part of God’s revealed will (“God revealed”) that all be saved. (All references here are to the following edition: Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation [The Library of Christian Classics] eds. Rupp, Marlow, Watson, Drewery [Westminster Press, 1969].)

 

But the “hidden God” wills and works everything. Commenting on Ezekiel 33:11 (which Erasmus used to argue that God does not will the condemnation of anyone) Luther writes that “It is this that God as he is preached is concerned with, namely, that sin and death should be taken away and we should be saved. … But God hidden in his majesty neither deplores nor takes away death, but works life, death, and all in all. … God does many things that he does not disclose to us in his word; he also wills many things which he does not disclose himself as willing in his word. Thus he does not will the death of a sinner, according to his word; but he wills it according to that inscrutable will of his. It is our business, however, to pay attention to the word and leave that inscrutable will alone….” (p. 201) (Lest anyone quibble here, the context makes clear that by “death” in this passage Luther is referring to eternal death, condemnation, hell.)

 

Later Luther writes about why God does not change the wills of wicked people when he could. “It therefore remains for someone to ask why God does not cease from the very motion of omnipotence by which the will of the ungodly is moved to go on being evil and becoming worse. … Why does he not…change the evil wills that he moves?” (p. 236) Here is one place where Luther’s nominalism/voluntarism pops out: “He is God, and for his will there is no cause or reason….” (p. 236)

 

Throughout the essay Luther ridicules and blasts belief in free will. And he makes abundantly clear that everything that happens, no exceptions, are willed and brought about by the hidden God–even evil. HOWEVER, people can argue that Luther did NOT believe God foreordains evil or sin or condemnation BECAUSE (although they rarely mention this) Luther DID deny that to “God revealed.” At least some of the time, and certainly in his response to Erasmus, Luther viewed God as Janus-like–with two “faces.”

 

So, it seems right to me to say that, for Luther, when speaking about God hidden in his majesty, God the all-determining reality, nothing escapes God’s foreordaining will and power–including reprobation. When people who know Luther well claim that he did NOT believe in double predestination, they MUST be talking about Luther’s “God revealed in his word.”

 

When I say that Luther believed in double predestination I mean (!) he believed God hidden in his majesty, the deus absconditus, foreordains and brings about (even if only indirectly through withdrawing his preserving grace) every sin and evil will and act of every creature including the reprobates’ condemnation.

 

Admittedly, later in his career, Luther shied away from this and stopped talking in that way and came close to forbidding “speculation” about predestination.

 

 

continue to -

 

Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"

 

 




 

A Final Farewell by Clark Pinnock and Tribute to Open Theology

Pinnock, Alzheimer’s, and Open Theology

http://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/pinnock_alzheimers_and_open_theology/#.UXBqrKKsiSo

 

by Thomas Jay Oord

March 24, 2013

 

I received sad news in an email recently: Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:

 

Dear Tom and John:

 

I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer’s. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I've enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I'll meet you over Jordan if not before.

 

You are free to make this news known.

 

With love,

 

Clark

 

Clark Pinnock is a theological giant in our day. His influence has been great, especially in Evangelical circles. This news of Alzheimer’s disease indicates that his active contribution to theology will now diminish if not cease.

 

Pinnock’s personal theological journey has been intriguing. He moved from affirming a more or less conventional and/or fundamentalist view of God to the Open view he considers more faithful to the biblical witness.

 

In this journey, Pinnock consistently considered the Bible his primary source for theology. He gave particular weight to biblical narrative and the language of personal relationships found in Scripture. Although he rejected a Fundamentalist view of the Bible, he remained committed to honoring the Bible as his principal authority for theology.

 

Open theology offers a coherent doctrine of God, says Pinnock, in which each divine attribute “should be compatible with one another and with the vision of God as a whole.” For instance, Pinnock wishes to offer a vision of the God who “combines love and power perfectly.” Unless the portrait of God compels, he says, the “credibility of belief in God is bound to decline.”

 

Open theology as Pinnock presents it depicts God as a self-sufficient, though relational, Trinitarian being. God graciously relates to the world as one self-limited out of respect for the genuine freedom of creatures. Creatures genuinely influence God. God is transcendent and immanent, has changing and unchanging aspects, gives to and receives from others, is present to all things, and has supreme power. God’s love, says Pinnock, includes responsiveness, generosity, sensitivity, openness, and vulnerability.

 

Open theology rejects traditional theologies that portray God as an aloof monarch. Influential theologians of yesteryear often portrayed God as completely unchangeable, ultimately all determining, and irresistible. By contrast, Pinnock says the biblical vision presents a loving God who seeks relationship with free creatures. “The Christian life involves a genuine interaction between God and human beings,” he says. “We respond to God’s gracious initiatives and God responds to our responses... and on it goes.”

 

The future is not entirely settled, according to Open theology. This means that while God knows all possibilities, God does not know with certainty what free creatures will actually do until creatures act. Classic views of God’s foreknowledge are incompatible with creaturely freedom, says Pinnock. “If choices are real and freedom significant,” he argues, “future decisions cannot be exhaustively known.”

 

Open theology does affirm that God is all knowing. God knows all things knowable. Believers should not understand divine omniscience as the idea God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge of all future events, says Pinnock. After all, future possible events are not yet actual.

 

Biblical evidence for Open theology’s view of omniscience comes in many forms. Dozens of biblical passages, for instance, record God saying “perhaps.” This uncertainty [allowance for free will interaction on the part of man - res] on God’s part means the future remains open, and not completely certain [knowable; nor is it necessary that it be knowable - res]. The Bible also says God makes various covenants. These covenants suggest God does not know with certainty everything to occur in the future. God often asks Israel to choose one course of action over another.

 

For instance, Jeremiah records God offering two possible futures for Israel: “If you will indeed obey this word, then through the gates of this house shall enter kings who sit on the throne of David…. But if you will not heed these words, I will swear by myself, says the LORD, that this house shall become a desolation” (Jer. 22: 4-5). God’s particular course of future action depends in part upon Israel’s choice. God apparently does not know with certainty what Israel’s choice will be. Other Old Testament passages exhibit covenant language in which the future is yet to be decided, and God does not know with certainty what will actually occur.

 

God cannot be in all ways timeless, say Open theologians. We best conceive of God’s experience as temporally everlasting rather than timelessly eternal. To say God is in all ways timeless implies God is totally actualized, immutable, impassible, and outside of time and sequence. Such a God is static and aloof, says Pinnock, not relational and responsive. The temporally everlasting Lord is the Living God of the Bible.

 

Those who embrace conventional theology have difficulty accepting Open theology. This difficulty arises because Open theology challenges certain well-established traditions, argues Pinnock, not because it opposes the Bible. Open theology themes appear throughout the biblical witness: “the idea of God taking risks, of God’s will being thwarted, of God being flexible, of grace being resistible, of God having a temporal dimension, of God being impacted by the creature, and of God not knowing the entire future as certain.”

 

One of Open theology’s greatest assets is its fit with Christian experience. It addresses well the demands of ordinary life and practices of the saints. “It is no small point in favor of the openness model,” Pinnock argues, “that it is difficult to live life in any other way than the way it describes.”

 

Open theology releases people to live their lives meaningfully, says Pinnock. “As individuals we are significant in God’s eyes… the things we do and say, the decisions and choices we make, and our prayers all help shape the future.” Our lives and life-decisions really matter.

 

Open theology is preferable in other ways. It points to a friendship with God possible in cooperative relationship. Most conventional theologies implicitly or explicitly reject friendship with God. Open theology emphasizes the reality of freedom we all presuppose. Many conventional theologies directly or indirectly reject creaturely freedom vis-à-vis God.

 

Open theology corresponds with our intuition that love ought to be persuasive rather than coercive. It emphasizes sanctification in the sense of growth in grace and decisive moments. Open theology corresponds with the view that God calls and empowers growth in Christ-likeness.

 

Christians should especially prefer Open theology to conventional theology on the issue of petitionary prayer. Most Christians believe their prayers make a difference to God, including influencing at least sometimes how God acts. Pinnock argues that petitionary prayer does not genuinely influence now the God who foreordains and/or foreknows all things. Petitionary prayer cannot change an already settled future.

 

“People pray passionately when they see purpose in it, when they think prayer can make a difference and that God may act because of it,” argues Pinnock. “There would not be much urgency in our praying if we thought God’s decrees could not be changed and/or that the future is entirely settled.”

 

Above all, Open theology emphasizes love as God’s chief attribute and priority for theological construction. “God created the world out of love and with the goal of acquiring a people who would, like a bride, freely participate in his love.” Love was God’s goal, and giving freedom the means to that goal. “God is inviting us to join in his own ongoing Trinitarian communion and conversation,” says Pinnock. God “wants us to join in and share the intimacy of his own divine life.”

 

God’s loving nature is unchanging, but God’s experience, knowledge, and action change in the divine give-and-take of interactive loving relationship. “The living God is . . . the God of the Bible,” says Pinnock, “the one who is genuinely related to the world, whose nature is the power of love, and whose relationship with the world is that of a most moved, not unmoved, Mover.”

 

Because of this, Open theology “is a model of love.”

 

 

*Comments mine own - R.E. Slater (res)