Happy Hell!

Hi, guys!

                I know, it's been a long time. I'm going to try to make myself post once a week from here on out. Had a baby back in March, and life's been hectic off and on ever since.

  The topic has been Calvinism and its assertion-essence gaps. Last post, I talked about Calvinism's problem of asserting evangelism while fundamentally making it not only unnecessary, but counterproductive.

  This time we'll be discussing Hell.

  In Calvinism, God is the only real decider of human destiny. He chooses who gets into Heaven and who does not. (Now, whether he acts actively or not in the case of someone going to Hell is nearly irrelevant, because ultimately he still decided that they would go there.)

  Happy Hell, everybody!

Does this sound like an oximoron to anyone else?

God is perfect and righteous and holy and just. His desires are perfect and righteous and holy and just. So how should we form our desires? How do we know what we should want and what should please us? Well, whatever pleases a perfectly holy, perfectly righteous, perfectly just God shares the aforementioned attributes, so if we want our desires to be holy, righteous, perfect and just, then logically, we should want what God wants.

Calvinism claims that God wants people to go to Hell, and them being there makes him happy. His desires and thoughts are perfect, righteous, holy and just – so if we think and desire the same thing, are our thoughts and desires also perfect, righteous, holy and just?

Calvinism would say no, but logically, the answer is yes. Truth is truth. Morality is morality. For God to be honest is morally identical to Man being honest. For God to fulfil a promise is morally identical to Man fulfilling a promise. What makes God just is just the same as what makes a man just – obeying and enforcing law. What makes God righteous is just the same as what makes a man righteous – unwavering adherance to moral law. When God expresses mercy, it is morally identical to when Man expresses mercy. The only exception that Calvinism attempts to make is the case of the concept of selective regeneration, unconditional election, irresistible grace and the like – concepts almost exclusive to Calvinism (and doctrines that are extremely similar). This is critically inconsistent.

Many times in the Bible, when God makes a command, he points it back at himself. “Be holy, for I am holy.” “Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” These exortations are placed, without exception, as conclusions to moral edicts. In other words, God is saying: “Do as I do, and be as I am.”

So if the reason God himself gives for our acting according to the moral code he has set out for us is: “so that you will be as I am,” it would seem that this code is how God himself behaves. This code is perfect, righteous, holy and just.

So if God wants these people to go to Hell, and is perfectly pleased – in fact, he's "delighted" according to many Calvinist theologians – that these people are going to Hell, and we're to live up to his character, shouldn't we also delight in the fact that so many see damnation and suffering?

So again, we have to be careful, because we have only three options in this case: 1) The Bible is wrong, and Man is not called to exemplify God's character, so we're not allowed to celebrate people's entry into Hell, or 2) The Bible is right, and man is called to be as God is, and God delights in Hell, so we should delight in Hell, or 3) The Bible is right, and man is called to be as God is, and God mourns the loss of lost souls into Hell, and so we should as well.

But we can't have it both ways. The Bible makes that pretty clear.

To be fair, this isn't really an argument against Calvinism - just a demonstration of a very ugly (and very necessary) side of it.