Right now we're looking at Calvinism. So far, we've seen two distinct aspects of Calvinism's flaws. First, it leaves little room (if any) for the Christian tradition of evangelism, and second, it transforms Hell from being something to be dreaded and feared into just another destiny for human souls, that God actually delights in and enjoys, and it glorifies him. At that point, as I have said, Hell isn't something to be rescued from anymore, so the word "salvation" seems grossly misplaced in the case of Calvinistic elective predestination.
This week we'll be discussing God's role as the rescuer of mankind. Like I said last time, Calvinism (essentially) doesn't really make Hell out to be something to be rescued from to begin with, but let's concede for sake of argument that God's still somehow rescuing us from something in this post.
Many of you have probably seen the animated comedy known as Megamind. (Dreamworks, all rights reserved). For those who haven't, I'll briefly lay the premise.
The protagonist is actually a supervillain, called Megamind. In the beginning minutes of the film, this villain slays his nemesis, the hero, and proclaims himself overlord over his home city. He quickly becomes depressed, stating that his life has no purpose because there is no good to combat his evil. "I'm a Yin with no Yang," he tells another character. So he purposes to create a new superhero, using the DNA from the previous hero. In time, he accidentally injects an utter fool with cosmic powers, and the newfound demigod zooms off to sweep the woman of his dreams off his feet.
In this scene, the new hero arrives at the young lady's apartment balcony and seeks to woo her. Of course, she's completely taken aback by this eight-foot tall, five hundred pound mass of floating muscle - but he takes her along nonetheless, despite her vehement protests. He begins to understand her plight, as he remembers the supervillain's advice: If you want a woman to fall in love with you, all you have to do is rescue her.
So he drops her. She plummets five hundred feet or so, and he catches her just inches from the pavement. What a hero! What a magnificent display of young love! Oh, all heroes ought to aspire to such courage and grace!
I'm assuming that my exclamations are a little disconcerting. You've probably reached the conclusion that this young hero wasn't really a hero at all, but more akin to a self-centered, affection-starved creep. And you're on to something.
I wish to clarify that I do not compare the pair's conversation at the apartment to Calvinistic salvation. I'm not asserting that the God of Calvinism saves people despite their protests. My assertion has more to do with the symbology of the young hero placing the fair maiden into a dire situation, for the sole purpose of isolating himself as her only solution to this plight, so that he could be known as her rescuer. Human beings doing this: Creepy, and wrong. God doing this: apparently, it makes him awesome, loving and the ultimate example of mercy and kindness.
RC Sproul is a prominent leader in the Calvinist community (better known to themselves as Reformed Christians). He wrote a book some years ago called "Chosen by God." I own this book, and I've read it. It's a defense of the Reformed Faith (e.g. Calvinism), and honestly, one of the best examples I've ever seen of a privation of critical thinking masquerading as philosophy.
In the third chapter of his book, Sproul lays out his case for the Calvinist perspective on a concept he calls Original Sin. On pages 63 and 64, Sproul makes the argument that when Adam sinned,
all of mankind fell from grace as a result – that all of us are
automatically Hellbound at birth because of this. In this chapter, Sproul defines “original sin” as “a sinful
nature out of which particular sinful acts flow.” On page 66, Sproul says that as a result of Adam's sin: “after
the Fall man is no longer able to refrain from sinning.” No great contradiction for most Christians so far.
At the bottom of page 63, however, Sproul summed up the origin of
this human evil up quite succinctly: “Original sin is the
punishment God gives for the first sin.” So in Sproul's version of Calvinism, at least, Adam was able to
choose whether or not to obey God (despite the fact that even John
Calvin believed it was God's hand that brought Adam into sin – read
on, and I'll explain in the final chapter). But since Adam has made
the wrong choice, now Man is unable to obey God at all. Grace,
Calvinism says, is the only answer – namely, Irresistible Grace.
Since Man could never obey God's call to salvation anyway, and God
wants some of mankind to be saved (though not all – God forbid!),
then God has to make grace irresistible. Otherwise, no one
could ever be saved from Hell.
First of all, we've already seen that Calvinism can't truly believe
that people going to Hell need saving in the first place. Even the
word “salvation” seems grossly inappropriate.
Second of all, I would like to repeat Sproul's words: “Original
sin is the punishment God gives for the first sin.” According
to Sproul, Man's inability to obey God, our inborn, core nature of
evil and sin, came from God himself. God made us this way. To
punish whom? Us? Hardly! This sort of punishment could only logically
apply to Adam – but he's already dead, and presumably in Heaven.
Why in the world would he be getting punished?
“Oh, no,” Calvinism says, “It is we who are to be punished.” I hardly think this is the case, since it's not really provable that we were there, and it seems far more likely, given that the predominant thought throughout Christian history is that people are created individually at conception, not corporately at Creation, that we were not involved in Adam's decision at all. And if we were not involved in his crime, I hardly think we're being directly punished for his crime.
(The word "directly" is key here. I accept that the Creation groans and laments, and that Nature is no longer perfect as a result of Sin - but that constitutes an indirect effect upon mankind at large, not a direct effect.)
There is a second "Reformed" theory, and that is that Adam's tendency to sin, taken on at the Fall, has been passed down into his descendants, causing us to sin (not making sin possible: actually causing) - and it is this individual sin for which we are being punished. The problem with this theory is that mankind is still left unable to refuse sin (which would seemingly contradict I Cor. 10:13), which means that we aren't committing a crime so much as being the wrong thing. God punishing us for our family tree amounts, by definition, to racism, because he is meting out negative treatment, not based on what we have done, but what we are as people. Another problem with this theory is that it reduces Sin to merely a hereditary disorder, or a genetic disease - something to be pitied and rectified, not condemned and tortured. The Bible makes it perfectly clear that God is angry with us, and that he seeks to satisfy Justice by either saving or damning us (both of which are Just solutions to this problem). But the greatest flaw to this assertion is that it makes God both the source of the greatest plight of mankind and the solution to said plight.
Let's say you're walking down the sidewalk, and a random man pulls a gun on you and shoots you at point blank. You're lying there now, bleeding out on the concrete while the ambulance begins its trek to your location. The man who shot you now stoops beside you, asking if you need help. He then offers to dress the wound for you. Now, are you going to trust this person to help you, when he's the one that shot you in the first place? I don't think so. In fact, I think that most of us would hope that standers-by would prevent him from interacting with you any further. His offer doesn't make him seem like a "Good Samaritan" - it makes him seem more like a deranged villain from a TV drama.
When all of this gets to court, do you think it will matter that the man who shot you is a trained medical responder, or that he offered to dress your wound for you? "You don't understand!" he may protest. "I was trying to save his/her life!" And what will the judge say? "Oh, you're right. How silly or us." Or, more likely, "You trying to help this person means little to the court in light of the fact that you deliberately injured them in order to provide yourself with such an opportunity to be of service to them."
So basically, the theory that Calvinism puts forward about human evil is that God himself arranges for us to go to Hell, simply for being what he made us, and then decides to save a few - just because.
Calvinists protest at this. I don't know why. They claim that Calvinism doesn't teach that God causes mankind to sin. Both Calvin and Augustine took this view (that God causes human sin). Of course, as time has gone on, theologians have successfully demonstrated that this is an unacceptable view of God, so Calvinism has evolved to meet this standard. The problem, however, is that the essence of Calvinism remains. One of its assertions has been altered, but the basic essence of Calvinism remains the same in this regard - namely that God is the author of (at least) most (though more likely, all) human sin, decides that all humanity will go to Hell, because he gave them sin, which he hates, and then decided to save a few for some unknown reason. Our best guess is that at the end of it all, he wanted to be seen as a hero. But I'm sorry. A man who shoots a person and then wants to be remembered only for dressing the wound is in for a very rude awakening.
So in summary: Calvinism claims that Man is perfectly responsible for his own sin, despite its other claims that God himself places irresistible sin in the hearts of all mankind (except, perhaps, for Adam and Eve), and punishes human beings for what they are rather than what they do. Finally, God is in a poor position to be praised as Savior when he's the one responsible for putting us in this situation to begin with. At best, we might thank him for undoing his unfortunate error, but we really oughtn't to call such a god "Savior."
Thanks for reading! I hope it's been informative for you as the Reader. Come back for next week's post here on Christianity and Philosophy.
