"Christian(ism)" That Nasty Predestination Word

Christian(ism)s are a series that I will be walking through...not like...one after another but sporadically sprinkled amongst my other posts to spice stuff up.

These posts cover things good, bad, and stupid about my faith.

Today's topic: Predestination, or as the high school youth group calls it: "shut up Kevin!! we're not talking about this!!" (inside joke)

Needless to say, predestination is a dilly of a pickle for most Christians and it hits home rather obnoxiously at the church I attend.

So what is predestination? Predestination is defined as God "freely and unchangeably ordaining whatsoever comes to pass and the belief that God appointed the eternal destiny of some to salvation by grace, while leaving the remainder to receive eternal damnation for all their sins, even their original sin." (Calvinistcorner.com)

In other words, God is in control of everything, and as such, He chose some people to come to salvation and others He did not. If you're not of the "elect" (God's chosen people) then you're a member of the "reprobate" and basically just crap outta' luck.

Sound unfair? Yeah, we'll get to that too.

Needless to say a TON of people really don't agree with this notion.

At all.

Now when I first heard about it, I flipped out. Seriously I hated the thought of it and I rejected it outright. However it took the patience and reasoning of a youth pastor with a fine head of hair to help me legitimately understand this strange paradox in my faith.

But I'm getting ahead of myself I'll explain my stance on this later.

There are many different schools of thought in modern Christianity, but there are two very prevalent parties responsible for my headaches and they call themselves "Calvinists" and Wesleyans".

Calvinists follow the doctrines of a man named John Calvin.

 

John Calvin

I won't get into his life much beyond the fact that he basically developed an entire doctrine centered on the predestination of the elect.

He (or his followers I don't remember which) created a nifty 5-point list of what was believed true Christianity should be in the form of a nifty little acronym called TULIP and it goes as follows:

Total Depravity (also known as Total Inability and Original Sin)
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement (also known as Particular Atonement)
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints (also known as Once Saved Always Saved)

Now one of his contemporaries later on was a man named John Wesley...for some reason people back then loved naming their kids John I guess.

John Wesley

John Wesley was born well after Calvin had died but he studied Calvin's work and like many others, really disagreed with his views.

Now Wesley was not one for acronyms and apparently his followers weren't either because there are no lists of doctrines to be found from them. So in order to solidify their beliefs I'll just explain it simply:

Everything that Calvin and TULIP preached, Wesleyans believe the opposite.

Fundamentally they believe that humanity is depraved as Calvinists do, but that God calls all humanity to Him and that it is our job to accept His gift of salvation.

So basically they really harp on the free will of man as opposed to the complete control that is advocated by Calvinists.

However this argument branches far far back before these two began squabbling vicariously through their followers.

Let's go way back in time to understand where this entire argument came from.

In the Old Testament of the bible, there were two different schools of thought. These two schools over time took on the names "Pharisees" and "Sadducees".

They agreed on virtually nothing.

However one of the largest disagreements they had was over the topic of specific election of God's people. I.E. they fought over Predestination.

Sound familiar?

Needless to say this has lingered on and somehow managed to split the church in two all the way up to modern Christianity.

So now that I've brought you up to speed I'll lend a machete to this theological thicket.

The reason why both of these arguments have lasted for thousands of years is because both are grounded firmly in different parts of scripture.

Calvinism at its essence is founded on Romans 9:14 when it is stated "“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

There's way more to it than that but for brevity I'll just use that to start.

Other verses in the bible more than support the doctrine of the elect and big favorites to throw out in fights are:

John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day...Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me."

Romans 9:18 "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden."
 

Romans 8:21-30 " For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified."

So basically by scripture alone it would seem that Calvin was right. I mean, we can't fight with scripture right?

Well...here's where it gets crazy: The bible supports Welsey's claims as well.

Wesley's main argument is based in 1 John 5:1 when John writes:

"Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him."

Others that Wesleyans enjoy using are:

1 Timothy 2:3-6 "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.  For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. "

Matthew 11:28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

2 Peter 3:9 "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

And of course the token verse John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

So I'm betting you're pretty confused about now huh? Yeah I was too. But I'm sure you see now why both schools of thought have persisted through the years.

But now for my stance.

Whenever anyone asks me "So Jeremy, do you believe in free will or the predestination of the elect?"

My answer:

"Yes"

Yep. That's it! I believe in both.

Now before you flip out and accuse me of copping out, let me explain myself.

The reason why I believe both points is because the Bible says both.

The simple truth of the matter is that both Wesley and Calvin were sinful fallen men. Their doctrines were based on human deductions, human logic, and human reasoning. Therefore it is at its very core: flawed.

Now a good Calvinist will go out of his way to explain that all of the verses used to support free will are to be taken in context to predestination. And a good Wesleyan will go out of his way to explain that all the verses used to support predestination are either mistranslated or to be used in context to God's foreknowledge.

But as I see it...I'm really tired of making excuses for the bible.

Seriously, come on people, why are we so desperate to support a stance built on human reasoning that we are willing to negate the very Word of God that is supposed to transcend human claims?

I'll offer up a reason: pride.

We as humans being the annoying squishy meatbags that we are always strive to be God. We hate the thought of not being in control or perhaps not completely understanding something written in the bible.

For us it's not so much academic as it is us refusing to admit that God is unknowable because He is God and we are human. He is infinite, we are finite. It's really not a stretch to assume that there are things in God's word that we won't understand on this side of eternity.

For example: How is Jesus fully man and fully God? If God made man in His image, how could Adam sin? Did evil create Satan or did Lucifer create it when he rebelled?

All these questions, completely unknowable to our minds.

When I see Calvinists and Wesleyans fighting over this matter, I literally see children fighting over matters far beyond their reasoning. The simple truth that I've come to peace with, is that the bible says both. So I believe both.

As I said a youth pastor with a fine head of hair helped me to come to terms with this by saying a simple phrase:

"Jeremy, this is biblical fact, God predestined the elect and yet we have 100% free will. Does it make sense? No, but that's okay. God doesn't have to make sense to us."

ouch.

Kinda stings the pride doesn't it?

And finally: My opinion on Wesleyans and Calvinists.

This is where it could get ugly because to be honest, I respect neither. I see the damage that both have caused and how these two stances have literally brought entire ministries to a standstill and I find that I have very little patience for those who try to force their stance on others when to be honest, predestination is a very small issue.

For instance, the bible says we will know men by their fruit, so what about their ministries? Shouldn't we hold a ministry to the results of its existence as well?

So let's examine Wesleyanism:

Ultimately Wesleyans try to put the focus on man's free will. However in doing so they refute other parts of scripture and basically undermining the entire bible by focusing more on man than on God.

By removing God's sovereignty, we then remove the legitimacy of His word.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at my previous college where I literally was told by a professor this:

"If there is a Buddhist who devotes his life to living in the mountains, meditating and eating tofu and never hears about the Lord, I believe he is going to heaven."

I.E. There is more than one way to heaven than just Christ.

I'm sorry but to be perfectly honest...that's heresy.

And yet when we examine our Calvinist counterparts, I see blood on their hands as well.

Later on in John Calvin's life, he ended up being in a leadership position of the church in Geneva. He was so utterly obsessed with predestination at this point, that he literally believed that since God preordained certain people to come to Christ, then we as Christians have the right and the obligation to hate those who are not chosen.

So then he started the Geneva Society where a council would meet and decide if members of their city were of the elect or the reprobate. If you were deemed to be of the reprobate, then you were immediately banished from the city.

Men, women, children, infants. It didn't matter, if they decided you weren't "of the elect" you were banished.

Ultimately this lead to something called "double predestination" where you would be chosen by God to know who was chosen and who was not, and by that extent, God has predetermined your entire destiny and so you have no choice in any matter of your life.

In my opinion, this utterly blasphemes the character of God to say that he preordains the evil we perform on our own free will.

So in summary, the scripture is very clear: We are chosen by God and by that extent, predestined to accept Him.

Yet we also know we have complete free will. Seeing this world in the screwed up state that it's in shows our free will everywhere you look.

What matters most is soul winning and showing the love of Christ. Whether you believe that God chose us, we choose God, or both our mandate stays the same:

We are to minister to the lost and be Christ to the world

That's it. Unless our arguments are about Christ, the Trinity, and God being the King of the universe, then it really isn't very important.

Unfortunately, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I look at the church and in my opinion, one of the most destructive and divisive arguments out there today, is about predestination.

So in short, I disagree with both parties, but I also agree with both. They both have biblical merit, and yet they both have human flaws.

So if you're struggling with this, look into it for yourself! Do the research and come to your own conclusion! Like I said, none of us will go to hell for following Calvinism or Wesleyanism.

And finally, if you're a Wesleyan or Calvinist, I hope you realize I'm not here to change you. I'm fine with your views and as long as you're not militantly trying to force others to believe in your doctrine, then I am totally fine with you.

So this has indeed been quite a long comic hasn't it? lol In case you didn't notice, I had a lot to say about it and I've been tossing this around in my head for quite some time.

So in my traditional ending I'll say this: go do your own research, make your own opinions, sip some green tea and watch some Victorious! :)

Jeremy