Found here. Our comments in bold.
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This article was recommended by the author in another of his articles, which we critiqued here.
Where do we start? If the reader came here to discover why Calvin was correct in his teaching, you will not find it. If you were interested in a biblical commentary on Calvinistic doctrine, you're in the wrong place. If you wanted a biblical explanation of the topic promised in the title, it isn't here.
The author is actually writing to explain Calvinism, not the Bible. He wants to defend it against Arminian "zealots." Just so the reader knows, the author wants theology to be divided into two camps, the correct Calvinism, and the incorrect Arminianism.
Calvinists believe that God created and pre-ordained everything except sin and evil. Arminians point out that if God created and pre-ordained everything, then He must have created sin and evil as well.
We would like to meet some of these Arminians and find out what they actually believe, because the author certainly doesn't explain. But what you will find is the same assertions and denials repeated over and over, followed by some Calvin quotes, then some ridicule of Arminians for the conclusions they draw about Calvinism.
There are no relevant Bible quotes in this article. In fact, the Bible is actually irrelevant to the author's discussion. We therefore must deem this Bad Bible Teaching.
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Arminians (Undefined term.)
often insist that if "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass" (Westminster Confession of Faith, III.1) then He must be morally responsible for evil. If His decree caused everything that happens, they claim, that makes Him the Cause of evil, and that in turn contradicts James 1:13 and 1 John 1:5.
How have Calvinists responded to that charge?
Classic Calvinism does teach, of course, that God's eternal decree is a binding verdict that set everything in motion toward a predetermined end, and God remains sovereign in the outworking of His providence. (Providence speaks of His purposeful care and management of everything He created). The decree is eternal, meaning it was issued before the foundation of the world. It is God’s own sovereign fiat (authoritative edict). The word fiat is Latin for "let it be done."
But He ordained the means as well as the end.
In other words, God is not the direct cause ("the efficient cause") of all that He decreed. He is by no means a mere passive observer of unfolding events, nor is He subject to any higher or more determinate will than His own. But His "let it be done" is not necessarily the exact logical equivalent of "I Myself will do this." (See, for example, Job 1:12; 2:6.) (This is the premise for the author's position. He will repeat this many times.
Notice the rhetorical dodge. The author attempts to separate God's "predetermined end" from "the efficient cause." That is, God ordains everything but the evil done by people isn't God's fault.
He doesn't appeal to the Bible, but rather a sleight of hand, that God didn't claim "I Myself will do this." This is vapid nonsense.)
But isn't it still the case that God's decree ultimately causes "whatsoever comes to pass"?
Well, yes, in one sense. But there is more than one sense of the word cause. We rightly distinguish between efficient and final causes (sometimes labeled proximate and ultimate causes). These are not concepts made up on the fly for the benefit of dodging Arminian objections. (Well, it sure does seem like it.)
The distinctions between various kinds of causes are long-established differentiations—elementary concepts of truth and logic that go back at least as far as Aristotle. (Yes, of course. Aristotle. But Aristotle was a philosopher, not a theologian. He lived centuries before Jesus was incarnated, so of course he wasn't a Christian. His great contributions to knowledge and science do not necessarily recommend him to matters of Christian faith and doctrine.
The fact of the matter is, the author appeals to Aristotle because of the influence he had on logic and reasoning. Certain prominent Christian theologians like Aquinas, and of course Calvin, grafted Aristotle's system of reasoning atop their doctrines in order to resolve certain paradoxes.
Therefore, because of the author's Calvinistic doctrines create problems he needs a workaround. Thus he invokes the Aristotelian framework for understanding "cause," and in fact he will later get a bit hot under the collar when these categories of "cause" are violated by supposed "Arminian zealots."
It is the concept of Aristotelian "cause" upon which the author's case is built, not the Bible.)
Aristotle, for example, named four categories of cause:
1. The Final Cause—that for the sake of which something happens
2. The Efficient Cause—the agent whose action produces the effect
3. The Material Cause—the substance that gives being to the effect
4. The Formal Cause—the shape, pattern, definition, or species of the effect
From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's "Aristotle" entry:
The development of potentiality to actuality is one of the most important aspects of Aristotle's philosophy. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The actual vs. potential state of things is explained in terms of the causes which act on things. There are four causes:
1. Material cause, or the elements out of which an object is created;
2. Efficient cause, or the means by which it is created;
3. Formal cause, or the expression of what it is;
4. Final cause, or the end for which it is.
Take, for example, a bronze statue. Its material cause is the bronze itself. Its efficient cause is the sculptor, insofar has he forces the bronze into shape. The formal cause is the idea of the completed statue. The final cause is the idea of the statue as it prompts the sculptor to act on the bronze.
God is the final cause; not the efficient cause of evil.
To illustrate that someone or something can be the "final cause" of an evil act and yet not be held morally responsible for it, consider these examples:
1. My friend, without my consent, robs a bank to get money to help pay my medical bills. He is the efficient cause of the action. He is morally culpable. I am the final cause, the one for whose sake the thing was done, yet I am not morally culpable.
2. My enemy, in a fit of rage over something I have done or said, goes on a wanton spree of vandalism. He is arrested, tried, and found guilty, because he is the efficient cause. Yet he continues to blame me for the episode. Indeed, I am the final cause—for he did this because of me. But I am not morally culpable.
3. A car thief caught in a sting operation makes the futile plea that he is not guilty because he would never have stolen that car if the police had not left it unlocked with the keys in the ignition. Here the cops are absolutely the final cause, because they staged the opportunity for the crime in order to catch a ring of serial car thieves operating in the neighborhood. The thief himself is the efficient cause. He is also the only person in this scenario with evil intent.
Those are not perfect examples, because there is no exact parallel to a sovereign God, but those examples do clearly illustrate how someone can “cause” an evil action that he or she is not morally culpable for. (But, but. In each of these examples the characters are independent moral agents, not a Creator/created relationship. Remember, the author claimed earlier that "God's eternal decree is a binding verdict that set everything in motion toward a predetermined end..." That means God possesses full knowledge and control over every situation. However, the criminal in each of these examples is operating according to his own purpose, and without the knowledge or involvement of the person who is "the final cause."
These analogies fail completely because the premises and elements are entirely different.)
In examples 2 and 3, the perpetrator wants to transfer blame from himself, the efficient cause, to someone else, the final cause in each case. This is what Arminians typically try to do with God, pinning the moral responsibility for all evil on Him, as the Final Cause. But the blame for any evil thing lies first of all with the efficient cause. (This is what the author is obligated to explain, not just reassert. Why is the One who predetermines everything exempted from the evils perpetrated by the "efficient cause?)
I for one am willing to accept by faith what Scripture teaches: God is wholly sovereign and has decreed all things according to the sovereign counsel of his own will (Isaiah 46:9-10); (Let's quote it, since the author seems to be unable or unwilling to do so:
Is. 46:9 Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. Is. 46:10 I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
yet He is not to blame for the evil His creatures do. (The author will continually assert this. But the supplied verse does not contain this proviso.
Why is God not to blame? This is a problem created by Calvinism. If God controls everything and is wholly sovereign in the manner Calvinists believe, it is nothing more than intellectual posturing, a rhetorical dodge to invoke Aristotle's "efficient cause" to attempt to solve the problem.
And where does the Bible tell us this stuff? Please explain.)
Look again at paragraph III.1 from the Westminster Confession: (He can quote from a statement of faith, however.)
God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. (This is simply a summary statement, again without any sort of biblical documentation.)
Clearly, historic Calvinism has always recognized the necessary distinction between differing kinds of “causes.” Arminian arguments that deliberately or ignorantly equivocate on the meaning of the word cause are both facile and invalid. (Catch that? Because Calvinism has "always" distinguished between various kinds of cause, "Arminian" arguments are invalid. Why? The author never says.)
Would Calvin himself agree with this account of what Calvinism teaches?
Every now and then an Arminian zealot will try to claim that John Calvin’s own view of the decree was more rigid than that of confessional Calvinism. (The vitriol drips from the author's word processor.)
It’s quite true that Calvin rejected the notion that God’s decree allowed for sin by bare permission. (The author will used this phrase five times but never plainly explain it. The general idea of permission seems to be important to the author as well, since the balance of his presentation is devoted to it. But he never seems to get around to actually explaining what it means or why it is important, beyond the necessity of applying it to Calvinism.)
He argued (as I have here) that God is by no means passive in the administration of His providence. God ordained whatever comes to pass, not unwillingly, but (as noted previously) by sovereign fiat. (These sentences contain words, but don't seem to mean anything. We think this means that God actively chose what He decided would happen as opposed to not choosing what would happen.)
We do sometimes use the use the use the use the use the language of permission to describe God’s sovereign control over evil (as in the case of Job, or Peter in Luke 22:31). But we are not appealing to “bare permission” in the sense Arminians use the expression—that is, making an artificial distinction between "will" and permission." (How do Arminians do this? Please explain.)
In other words, we are not portraying God as reluctantly suffering that which He is powerless to forestall. (Do Arminians think God is powerless? Please explain.)
In that regard, Calvinists affirm that divine predestination rendered Adam's fall necessary and certain. (Well, of course since it was pre-ordained. But it wasn't God's fault because of efficient something, secondary, um, permission...)
Calvin himself (Institutes 3.23.8) cites Augustine to this effect: (Ah, a quote from Calvin himself. But still no Bible quotes.)
I will not hesitate, therefore, simply to confess with Augustine that the will of God is necessity, and that every thing is necessary which he has willed; just as those things will certainly happen which he has foreseen (Augustine, De Genesi ad litterum, Lib. 6, c. 15.) (So the things God wills are necessary. Got it.)
Calvin, however, goes on to argue that the damnation of the wicked is still just, because the wicked are deserving of such a punishment. (The wicked deserve punishment, so their punishment is just. Profound.)
They themselves, not God, are the source of the evil for which they are condemned. (Um, yeah. This is the premise that needs to be demonstrated, not just asserted over and over.)
Calvin says, "Though their perdition depends on the predestination of God, the cause and matter of it is in themselves." That statement is the segue into this famous quotation:
A more readable translation may make the sense of Calvin’s statement clearer:
. . . The Lord had declared that "everything that he had made . . . was exceedingly good" [Gen. 1:31]. (Hooray, our first Bible quote. But the author didn't actually provide it, Calvin paraphrased the verse in the quote.)
Whence, then comes this wickedness to man, that he should fall away from his God? Lest we should think it comes from creation, God had put His stamp of approval on what had come forth from Himself. By his own evil intention, then, man corrupted the pure nature he had received from the Lord; and by his fall drew all his posterity with him into destruction. Accordingly, we should contemplate the evident cause of condemnation in the corrupt nature of humanity—which is closer to us—rather than seek a hidden and utterly incomprehensible cause in God's predestination. [Institutes 3.23.8] (This is just a reassertion of the premise.)
Clearly, when Calvin argues against "permission," he is not ruling out secondary causes, nor is he denying the liberty or contingency of sinful agents, nor is he making God the source and author of their sin. In other words, Calvin does not make God the efficient cause of everything. On the contrary contrary he emphatically denies that God is the source of the evil in fallen man. The sinner, not God, is the source of sin. (This is just a reassertion of the premise.)
But why does Calvin begin that very section of his Institutes [3.23.8] by objecting to the word permission? And Why does he include a whole section [1.18.1] titled “No mere ‘permission’!”?
Again, what Calvin objected to was “the distinction between will and permission.” Calvin argued powerfully against an incipient form of Arminianism which said God's sovereignty over evil goes no further than an inactive and unwilling permission. ("Powerfully?" Does "powerfully" mean continually restating one's premise without supplying additional explanation?)
The proto-Arminians (Unexplained term.)
were saying that God has somehow chosen to limit His sovereignty and therefore He has no sovereign control over evil. God is always and only passive with regard to evil, they said. (Is this really what Arminians believe? The author has yet to quote an Arminian, so we are relying on these pejorative characterizations.)
Or, to employ Calvin's exact words, they denied the doctrine of providence (What is the doctrine of providence? Previously the author wrote, "Providence speaks of His purposeful care and management of everything He created." This is rather vague, so we wonder, How do Arminians deny this doctrine? Will the author actually explain anything?)
and "subtitute[d] a bare permission for the providence of God, as if he sat in a watch-tower waiting for fortuitous events, his judgements meanwhile depending on the will of man" [Institutes 1.18.1].
Notice: what Calvin attacked was "bare permission," described by Calvin himself as the notion that God is passive and at the mercy of others' choices. (Are there Christians who really believe this? This characterization seems outlandish to us.)
Calvin replied to the free-will zealots of his era (Are these Arminians, Arminian zealots, or proto-Arminians?
The author still has a chip on his shoulder for some reason.)
by pointing out two ways in which God by pointing out two ways in which God exercises an active sovereignty over evil [Institutes 2.4.3]:
1. By deserting them. He sometimes sometimes withdraws His restraining influence from evil agents when it suits His purposes to do so
2. By delivering them over to Satan. He sometimes governs employs the activities of evil agents to achieve His own holy ends
In neither case—and in no other case—is God ever the the the effectual cause or the agent of evil. (This is just a reassertion of the premise.)
Now, Arminians (and extreme hyper-Calvinists) (Unexplained term.)
sometimes cite Calvin's arguments against bare (passive, unwilling) permission and claim Calvin actually meant to teach that Calvinists should never use the word permission to describe how God sovereignly works. In effect, they are claiming that God, if sovereign, must always be the effectual agent and immediate cause of every action. They moreover sometimes claim that this idea is either standard mainstream Calvinist teaching—or that it’s a necessary inference from Calvinist doctrines.
That is an utterly absurd claim on the face of it, for if God never acted by permission in any sense, there would be no such thing as “second causes"—a phrase found in practically all classic Calvinist confessions. (??? This is astounding. The author shouts "absurd" at the idea that God controlling everything means God actually controls everything. Why is it absurd? He says it's because Calvinists believe in "second causes," a phrase that has been previously mentioned but never defined.
So, how does believing in "second causes" render the "zealot" accusation to be absurd? We ask this because one needs to believe "second causes" to be a Calvinist. The author therefore appeals to one Calvinist belief to bolster another.
We now have abandoned the possibility that the author is a Bible teacher of some competence.)
One other quote from Calvin will serve to show where the Reformer stood on the question of whether God is author or efficient cause of evil. This is from Calvin’s comments on Isaiah 45:7 (“ I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things”): (Our second Bible verse, but it does not come to bear on the author's doctrine.)
Fanatics torture this word evil, as if God were the author of evil, that is, of sin; but it is very obvious how ridiculously they abuse this passage of the Prophet. . . we ought not to reject the ordinary distinction, that God is the author of the “evil” punishment, but God is not of the “evil” guilt . (This is just a summary denial, once again.)
In other words, God creates calamity and misfortune for evildoers, but not ontological evil per se. (This is just a reassertion of the premise.)
Never does Calvin suggest that God forces, coerces, or constrains anyone to sin via an active, efficient agency. (New phrase.)
Indeed, he emphatically denies all such thinking.
Here is the bottom line: The matter and guilt of evil lie in man, not God. (This is just a reassertion of the premise.
Will the author ever discuss where we find these things in the Bible? Oh. He won't.)
He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. He cannot be tempted; neither does He tempt any man. The fact of God's sovereignty does not alter any this; nor does it make God morally responsible for evil. To suggest otherwise is to be guilty of high blasphemy. (Well of course. No one is suggesting that God is morally responsible for evil. But it is Calvinism that raises the specter of God creating evil, resulting from Calvinist assertions regarding predestination. This creates the need to tack on explanations about secondary causes, permissions, and all sorts of obfuscating explanations.)
Is this indeed the common teaching of classic Calvinism?
The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches the very same view I have defended here:
The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin. [WCF V.4] (Wow this is a single sentence, yet again restating the premise.)
That’s what Calvin himself taught, and that’s what authentic Calvinism has always stressed. (Sigh. This is just a reassertion of the premise.)
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