The Danger of Extreme Calvinism

I know that my actions have consequences, . . . however, why do I so often seemed doomed to fail? How can God love me when I am just a pawn?

We can debate and convince and debate and convince. But when all is said and done . . . those nagging questions come right back. Why? Because our convincing is based on emotional surface logic rather than well-thought out truth.

Freewill. The first wrong argument downplays predestination by saying that God simply just knows the future and what we are going to do before we do it. Predestination is simply reduced to a prior knowledge, and that basically the real power lies within us. While this really makes us aware of our responsibility as people, it is heresy. We are told time and again of God's absolute power and complete authority over His creation. We can't just forget that for the sake of not making Him seem as terrible as He really is--even in the New Testament, God is still pretty terrifying. Revelation, anyone?

Predestination. The other side completely downplays our choice in the matter at all. They claim that God does it all and we have no real say. This makes logical sense. If a mouse were in a battle against a lion . . . there would be no battle to speak of. However . . . that's not the concept here. The only way we could make this analogy work is if the lion had created the mouse and allowed the mouse to have a freewill. This is the point I think pastors with this thinking skim over: It's not a matter of might. It's a matter of truth--God has told us that we have a choice. You'd think a good pastor would know that.

In truth, downplaying either side for the sake of the other is just plain wrong. Both sides cannot be denied. Even if it "makes good sense" to downplay freewill, it's wrong. We have responsibility for our actions, but God is in control of everything. However, it's not a matter of who does MORE work in my life--the Spirit or me?--as though you can break it down into percentages. As though God keeps a scoreboard. No. There is no scoreboard, b/c we would be nowhere on that board. If God were self-serving and a score-keeper, would He give His own Life for us? I suppose the sadists would say "Well, of course He would, and that's exactly why He did!" But think about that for a second. When you give something--expecting something in return--do you give EVERYTHING you have? No. We all withhold something. God didn't.

Becoming totally Calvinist (no freewill), I believe, is wrong-thinking b/c it scares people the wrong way. The only thing we are to fear is God--period. Nothing else. We are not supposed to fear whether or not we are the chosen. That is misplaced fear. Many times churches will use this misplaced fear to control their congregations. It's little wonder the world sees the church as it does--a closed-minded guilt forum. To sit and wonder, fret, and worry if we are chosen or not is not an issue. It's a fairy tale. It's like wondering what would have happened if we'd married our boyfriend in sixth grade. Who cares. It's fantasy. It's not real. It may be a provoking thought for five minutes, but it's not truth. If we understand God's salvation and we trust Him, then there is no more debate. We are chosen. End of story.

There is a fear that arises sometimes when we read passages about God dying for "the elect." I used to worry about this as a child. It used to keep me up all hours of the night. As though God only shed enough blood for those precious few, and none of the others. What if I wasn't elected? There are many things wrong with this thinking, and I will only cover a few. First of all, while there are many passages that say that God redeemed the chosen ones, there are just as many saying that God died for the entire world. God didn't just die for a percentage. That's human logic. If someone paid the bail for everyone in prison and you stayed, who would actually be redeemed? Well...the ones who took up the offer, of course! You wouldn't! You'd still be in jail--even though your crimes were paid in full. Redemption is a two-person transaction.

Secondly, if God has such a hand in His creation to reach down and save some and not others, isn't that diabolically sadistic of Him? Well, Paul talks about this in Romans when he talks about God loving Jacob and hating Esau. God can choose whomever He wants. The fact that God chooses some, when all deserve hell . . . well, . . . you get the idea.

But we still come back to this problem of how God could choose some and not others. Personally, I see that as a lie. I see it as a diversion from the real stakes. Let's use the jail analogy again. Do you remember word problems? Well, figure this one out: If you'd committed a crime and were thrown into prison along with 40 other people, and someone came and paid the bail for all of you, but only 3 people left the jail b/c the "payer" came and bodily grabbed them out of the cell and threw them into a limo that would take them to a new house, but everyone else stayed--even though to stay would mean the electric chair, . . . could you really use the excuse, "well, why should I leave when there are 37 other people getting the electric chair? Why didn't the bail payer come and grab all of us?"

Now let's talk about the convincing argument. As Christians, I think many times we go down the Hallmark Family Movie aisle b/c those are the only "kid-tested/mother-approved" things to watch and then we apply that touchy-feeliness into our apologetics. For some reason, that kind of argument works for a lot of people and they never question the logic, b/c they feel their faith is all they need. This is to their credit. However . . . not all the world thinks like that--especially not those who fancy themselves to be "intelligent."

Fortunately, God covers His bases . . . unfortunately, it's hard to see those bases when so many people blindly follow and cannot give an argument any more convincing than, "Well, Jesus said it! So that settles it!" This may be true . . . but Jesus never answered anyone like that. Who do we think we are when we say it?

Now, you may be able to convince and explain predestination/freewill away in your own mind without coming to grips with post-modern humanistic thinking, but let me tell you something. The graduate student down the street studying Nietzsche doesn't agree. And let me tell you something else. God loves that graduate student and wants you to be able to talk to him. If your logic has one little hole in it, some may let themselves buy it, but many will not listen.

Sooner or later, people figure things out. For instance, if you tell someone, "you have the power inside you to overcome anything!" that may empower them for the time being--and it's a nice Disney thing to say; however, once they start to see how limited their "power" actually is, they will see the flaw in the logic and may not trust your advice again. I believe this is the greatest cause of clinical depression--nothing works, nowhere to turn, and I've tried everything.

Unfortunately, people will use this same "empowering" logic and call it God--which is how Christians get depressed. When they don't feel empowered by God, they turn against Him b/c "He didn't work." But . . . He does work. Perhaps the problem is not that God doesn't work, but rather that people don't actually need empowering. Maybe people just need to trust God whether or not they have some kind of "successful" or "happy" life. God never commands us to be successful; He commands us to trust Him. God never commands us to be happy; He commands us to be content.

Instead of feeling the "i can do anything!" mentality, which will eventually fail, maybe we should think, "Jesus died for my sins, so anything good I get from this life is bonus!"

If you really sit and think about it . . . you come to the realization that trusting God and being content is actually much more freeing than being successful and happy.

The reason is because of limits. Success is not something that can be measured. The most "successful" person may feel successful for 99% of the time, but . . . that nagging one percent . . . that nagging one percent. It doesn't go away, b/c success is something we continually desire in greater and greater amounts. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we really only feel successful when we compare ourselves to those we don't find as successful. And there is another word for that: pathetic.

The same goes for happiness. Think of the last thing that made you happy. Now picture doing that all the time. At first, that notion may seem like heaven on earth . . . however, human nature gets bored with anything. I think of that "De Motivational Poster" with the guy sitting next to a beautiful girl and looking really bored. The caption says something like, "next to every beautiful girl sits a bored average-looking guy who would have killed just to be near her three months ago."

Really, success and happiness are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are chains. They just cause more and more problems. However, if we trust God and are content, we can be truly free. If we trust God and are content even when it seems He's destined us to fail and have hard times, nothing can touch us. I'm not talking about a "good ship Lollipop" mentality. That is just faking happiness. I'm talking about true trust and contentment. The kind of contentment that caused Horatio Spafford to pen the words to "It is Well with My Soul" in the wake of losing not only his finances but nearly everyone dear to him. The kind of trust that gave the blind hymn writer, Fanny Crosby, the faith that she would one day see her Savior's face. Compare these with celebrities today and then tell me who has contentment and who is just faking happiness. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the truth.

Perhaps, just like we don't need empowering, we also don't need to know everything. You know what? It's probably not even that we don't need to so much we just can't. We can't know everything, b/c we live within time. We can only know the past and the present. Anything about the future we know b/c God loves us enough to tell us. If we knew all the future, we'd go insane. We don't like being left in the dark and we like to think that God is a big mean ogre for doing that to us . . . but look what we do with money. Look what we do with our children. Look what we do with power. Do we really think we can be trusted with knowledge of everything? Doesn't it make more sense to trust in a Perfect Being who has everything laid out and planned and allows us to make free choices within His plan?

This is why we need to be serious when talking about predestination and freewill. People can see through the argument when you side with one or the other. People can see that there are consequences to their actions, so predestination sounds like a lie. People also can see that sometimes, circumstances are beyond their control, so predestination seems like an inescapable frustration. Above all, people are choosing to die and we feel we can simply WATCH them b/c of "predestination"??? We cannot simply say one or the other. They BOTH need consideration. Don't bring holy things down to our level and then sugar-coat them, b/c that has proven to be wrong thinking. Predestination and freewill are both present. They are both true. Stop fitting God into a little box of patriotism so you and your golfing buddies can have something to make you proud of discussing. God isn't the Olympics.