It had been a couple of months since I had invented my own version of compatibilism (a way of resolving the apparent conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will), and the darkness in which I drove home every night was a lot like the darkness ahead for the ministry. It was frustrating that nobody seemed to understand, or even care very much, about the sovereignty issue, and I got “lumped” a lot instead of listened to. (Can’t stand the dangling preposition but I can’t think of a better way to put that.) I knew that soon we were going to have to find out whether all the nonsense about the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and Anglo-Israelism and so forth was actually true or not, and I was scared either way about that, but I had a suspicion that we were going to find that the teacher was wrong about these things, and what would we do? Being a professional world-class worrier, I worried like crazy.
I had taken to listening to the Bible Answer Man—that’s Hank Hanegraaff, president of Christian Research Institute and usually seen as one of the vanguards of inerrancy and conservative Christianity within Christian radio. I had stopped listening to him years before, because I disagreed with him about so many things and I couldn’t stomach his approach to answering questions. It seemed to me to be bull-headed, arrogant, and, of course, fatally ignorant of Hebraic Roots. When he was right, he was right, but when he was wrong—when he acted like somebody could actually know the truth about God and salvation and so forth—then he really touched a nerve with me. But that was then, and I had started to lean more toward his views on things as I learned more about Scripture and what Christian doctrine really comprised. He was (and is) on right when I’m driving home, so I could often hear much of his show if I was on time. I heard that he was going to have a sort of debate, between two people I had never heard of—George Bryson, author of a new book called The Dark Side of Calvinism, and James White, author of a recent book called The Potter’s Freedom: A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal of Norman Geisler’s “Chosen But Free.” This sounded very interesting to me: finally, a chance to really compare the two views on sovereignty, and (I must confess) see if their arguments for their sides were as good as mine was. There were going to be two hours of discussion and an hour of caller questions, moderated by Hank. I tuned in eagerly.
It is hard for me to describe how I felt as I listened to the first two hours. I started out listening eagerly, but as time went on I was more and more frustrated and depressed. I was looking for a champion, somebody to shake me up and wake me out of the fatalistic dream I was having, somebody to defend man’s free will Biblically, because I was now sure I couldn’t do it consistently without inventing the ridiculous theories I have mentioned in the past. George Bryson clearly was not that person. I agreed with much of what he said when he simply quoted Scripture, but he didn’t do that much; mostly he just wielded proof-texts with vast assumed meanings, much like Dave Hunt would do after him. He faltered over and over again, and Hank tried desperately to help him, going to bat for him on several occasions, but that other guy, that James White, was some kind of steamroller.
This is the first time I, who was supposed to be a pastor and was trying to develop a systematic theology, had ever heard of the Five Points of Calvinism, commonly delivered as TULIP. TULIP stands for:
- Total depravity
- Unconditional Election
- Limited Atonement
- Irresistible Grace
- Perseverance of the Saints
Three of the five points are named unfortunately, in my opinion (and that of many others). Total depravity doesn’t mean that a sinner is as bad as he can possibly be; it just means that his depravity is “radical,” to use R. C. Sproul’s term, infecting and twisting every part of his being. Limited atonement does limit the scope of the atonement, and teach that Christ only died in atonement for the sins of the elect, but believing that the atonement actually pays for everybody’s sins has the effect of limiting the power of that atonement to save—either that, or one becomes a universalist and believes that in fact Jesus died for everybody’s sins and nobody will be punished for them ever. Both views limit the atonement, though, and some have taken to calling this “particular redemption” to clear up the confusion. And irresistible grace sounds terrible, although one has to admit that if man is totally depraved, then the only grace that can save him is the irresistible kind. If one rejects total depravity then it is easy to see how one can confusedly assume that God overwhelms the elect soul and forces him to love Him—“divine rape” as Hank has put it. But total depravity makes it clear that God must change a person’s heart before that person is even capable of loving Him. It is not “divine rape” any more than pushing a blind man out of the path of a speeding car is “rape” because we imposed our will on them without first fully convincing them that a car was coming and that it was indeed dangerous. (Even that analogy is flawed, but it’s the best I can do on short notice.)
Dr. White seemed to be incapable of engaging in the rhetorical games that Hank loved to play—he had no brilliant sound bites like “doomed from the womb” or “divine rape.” No, White had this infuriating habit of going back to Scripture, reading the passage, pointing out its context, and then showing that his interpretation of it was the only one that could be correct under the circumstances. The best demonstration of this was from the book of John:
But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep.—John 10:26
This was a shock to me. Why don’t they believe? Because they are not of His sheep. White pointed out the cause and effect here: because they weren’t His sheep, they didn’t believe; it is specifically not saying that they are not His sheep because they didn’t believe. Bryson said that it really was meant to be read the other way around, that they aren’t His sheep because they don’t believe. White called on him to defend his response, since the language clearly states it the first way, not the second. The response?
“Read my book.”
This would be the point at which I started repeatedly hitting the steering wheel and—I admit it—swearing.
What kind of an answer was that? Did Bryson think that this was all just a teaser to sell books? Here we have a critical consultant on the 1995 update of the New American Standard Bible, telling us what a verse says and making its plain meaning clear, and then his opponent claims that cause and effect are reversed in that verse, and leaves us with a bare assertion and a demand to purchase his book so that we can understand… why Scripture apparently means the exact opposite of what it says.
I think we’ve heard this one before.
Before the first two hours were up, James White had asserted, and for my money proved, that salvation is of the Lord, that only a Calvinist can say that “Jesus saves” while an Arminian is left saying only that “Jesus makes men savable,” and that Calvinism is the most God-centric and God-honoring soteriology and theology in Christianity.
And I was left quivering, knowing that I could not unlearn what I had learned, knowing that in a moment the Lord had parted the curtain between me and Him again and demonstrated that He was holy and my righteousness—and man-centered theology—was filthy rags, and knowing that somehow my acquiescence to God’s real, true, and useful sovereignty was going to completely overturn the foundation of my life.
It wasn’t Calvinism, in the sense that it was following Calvin’s theology. It was a Biblical exegesis of the concept of grace as delivered to us by Paul, John, Peter, and through them, Christ. It was the very heart of the gospel—that I could do nothing to please God, not even repent or believe, without His doing it for me and in me. I had nothing in which I could boast. I was reduced to abject ruin and my picture of God was exploded in the presence of a glimpse of His divine power and mercy which endured forever.
I went home and told my wife that I was going to have to order some books. There was no point in ordering Bryson’s book; if the “Dark Side of Calvinism” was simply the fact that, in choosing only some to be saved, God is effectively choosing to allow the rest to be damned… well, I am left with Paul’s statement again:
On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it?—Rom. 9:20
The Bible Answer Man didn’t have an answer for what the Bible said. No, I was going to order James White’s book, but since he was only rebutting another book, I would order that one too, and read it first. Norman Geisler was a respected name in apologetics, and he thought that he could find a middle ground between God’s sovereignty and man’s sovereignty, so I would see if he had fared better than I had. My own philosophy was pulverized, but I hoped that Geisler would pull me back. I wasn’t nearing the precipice; I was over the edge, and at best now I was hanging on to a stray tree root before falling into the chasm of God’s will. But maybe, just maybe, Geisler could salvage this somehow. Maybe he could find a way.
I hoped so. I prayed like I had never prayed about doctrine before:
Oh, Lord, please don’t let me become a Calvinist.
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