Kevin DeYoung's Blog, page 113

Does Calvinism Teach Puppet Theology?

Earlier in the week I saw this quote from Wendell Berry go out on Twitter:

Just as a good man would not coerce the love of his wife, God does not coerce the love of His human creatures.

Knowing what I do about Berry, and considering the theological persuasion of those I see repeating the sentence, I wonder if people consider this line from Jayber Crow to be a repudiation of Calvinism. Many people would. I’ve encountered numerous Christians who object to Reformed theology because they can’t believe “we are puppets on a string,” or that God “made us as robots,” or to put it more elegantly like Berry, that God “would coerce the love of his human creatures.”

And yet, that’s not at all what Calvinism teaches. At least, that’s not what we should be teaching. It’s true that Calvin, like Augustine before him, believed the will of God to be the necessity of all things. But the Church’s leading theologians have always carefully distinguished between different kinds of necessity. Calvin, for example, though he held to the highest view of God’s sovereignty vehemently rejected any notion of necessity which entailed external coercion or compulsion. In this matter he was simply following Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and the entire tradition of Christian orthodoxy.

This is why the puppet and robot analogies don’t work, and no Calvinist should own them. While we believe that God’s grace is irresistible and flows from his electing love, we must be clear that this grace renews us from within. It does not coerce us from without. God is not a puppet master pulling on our strings so that we do what he wants apart from our own willing or doing. His will precedes our will, but it does not eradicate it.

Anyone familiar with the Canons of Dort should know that Calvinists do not believe that God works on his people by means of forcible coercion. Instead, we believe that God supernaturally, sovereignly, and irresistibly renews our hearts so that we can feel and choose and do what we ought.

However, just as by the fall man did not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will, and just as sin, which has spread through the whole human race, did not abolish the nature of the human race but distorted and spiritually killed it, so also this divine grace of regeneration does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones; nor does it abolish the will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and—in a manner at once pleasing and powerful—bends it back. (Third/Fourth Head, Article 16; emphasis added)

In short, Calvinists have no problem affirming that God does not coerce the love of his human creatures. Where we may differ with others is in our joyous affirmation that our love for God is only possible when God—by mercy alone, through sovereign grace, and by his eternal decree—chooses to love us first.

The Motivations for Faith

Whenever God is at work there will be genuine responses and counterfeit responses. We’d like it to be nice and neat, clean and easy. We’d like the difference between faith and not quite faith to be obvious. But there are always going to be weeds among the wheat. The question really is: What kind of faith do you have?

In Acts 8, for example, we see that Simon the Magician had a kind of faith. It just doesn’t appear to be saving faith.

Is your faith such that you want to use God? Is that why you go to church? Is that why you read your Bible? Is that why you’re a Christian? Sometimes we just want God were nothing more than a magician, a genie in a lamp. Give him a rub and watch him do his thing. Some of us are syncretistic like Simon. We’ll ladle up a little bit of Jesus as long as he fulfills our plans. Anything for a little more power or a little more improvement in our circumstances.

The walk of genuine faith is the walk of Calvary. It carries a cross, and it takes a lifetime. When we have “faith” like Simon we come to Christ to make our dreams come true. When we come to Christ with saving faith we come to him to call him Lord. We come as nobodies eager to worship a Somebody. In the end, Calvin says, “Simon proved to be a profane man such that had not tasted the first principles of godliness, for he is touched with no desire for God’s glory.” That’s the heart of the matter. God’s glory or ours?

The contrast in Acts 8 is striking. Simon is going around Samaria amazing people. He’s telling people he’s great and they believe it. He is preaching a message about the name of Simon. But then we see Phillip in verse 12 preaching good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. Do you want to know the most impressive thing about Phillip? It wasn’t the power he had that was greater than Simon’s power. It was the name he proclaimed that was greater than Simon’s name. Phillip had the attention of the crowds. He had power from on high. He was seeing great success. And yet the only name he came to proclaim was the name of Jesus.

What is your attraction to Christianity? Is it power? Is it prestige? Is it purpose? Or is it the person of Jesus Christ? Saving faith says with the psalmist: “Not to us O Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory.”

What Should We Do When We Visit the Sick?

John Calvin gives some great advice:

The greatest need which a man ever has of the spiritual doctrine of our Lord is when His hand visits him with afflictions, whether of disease or other evils, and especially at the hour of death, for then he feels more strongly than ever in his life before pressed in conscience, both by the judgment of God, to which he sees himself born to be called, and the assaults of the devil, who then uses all his efforts to beat down the poor person, and overwhelm him in confusion.

And therefore the duty of a minister is to visit the sick, and console them by the word of the Lord, showing them that all which they suffer and endure comes from the hand of God, and from his good providence, who sends nothing to believers except for their good and salvation. He will quote passages of Scripture suitable to this view.

Moreover, if he sees the sickness to be dangerous, he will give them consolation, which reaches farther, according as he sees them touched by their affliction; that is to say, if he sees them overwhelmed, with the fear of death, he will show them that it is no cause of dismay to believers, who having Jesus Christ for their guide and protector, will, by their affliction, be conducted to the life on which he has entered. By similar considerations he will remove the fear and terror which they may have of the judgment of God.

If he does not see them sufficiently oppressed and agonized by a conviction of their sins, he will declare to them the justice of God, before which they cannot stand, save through his mercy embracing Jesus Christ for their salvation.

On the contrary, seeing them afflicted in their consciences, and troubled for their offenses, he will exhibit Jesus Christ to the life, and show how in him all poor sinners who, distrusting themselves, repose in his goodness, find solace and refuge.

Moreover, a good and faithful minister will duly consider all means which it may be proper to take to console the distressed, according as he sees them affected: being guided in the whole by the word of the Lord.  Furthermore, if the minister has anything whereby he can console and give bodily relief to the afflicted poor, let him not spare, but show to all a true example of charity. (Catechism of the Church of Geneva)

In summary, then, Calvin encourages all Christians, and especially ministers, to keep several things in mind as they visit the sick.

People need the gospel more than ever when they are ill.
Remind the sick from the word of God that God is sovereign over their illness and has sent it for their good.
If the illness is severe, comfort the sick with the sure knowledge that those who die in the Lord have nothing to fear.
If the sick consider their sins to be light and trivial, teach them of the justice of God and call them to embrace the mercy of Christ.
If the sick are afflicted in their consciences, help them find rest in Christ.
Don’t be afraid to bring some small token of physical relief—books, flowers, balloons, games, movies, a homemade card.

Your Heart Matters More Than Your History

The world is full of bad reasoning, which is too bad because few people bother to learn logic anymore. What’s worse, the most common logical fallacies could be learned (and memorized) without too much trouble. This could save your life, your church, and your writing a lot of trouble.

For example, everyone should be familiar with the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. I say everyone should be familiar with this fallacy because everyone already is. We’ve all encountered this poor logic. I imagine we’ve all espoused it ourselves. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” It’s the fallacy that confuses temporal sequence with causation. Whenever we reason “A happened, then B; therefore A caused B,” and cite no other information to substantiate this claim, we are committing the post hoc fallacy.

We see this fallacy all the time in every day life. On Friday I was watching the Chicago Blackhawks come back to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets. Columbus was up by a goal when their goalie allowed a relatively easy shot to get by him. A minute later the Blackhawks scored again, causing the announcers to talk throughout the rest of the game about momentum and how that easy goal got the Blue Jackets out of sync, rattled their goalie, and opened the way for the next goal. But did the first goal in any way cause the second? Maybe Columbus let its guard down, but maybe Bryan Bickell fired off a wrister that would have got passed almost any goalie.

The same kind of illogic shows up in the news just as much. I’m always hearing “The markets are responding favorably to the President’s speech this morning,” as if something as volatile and complex as the worldwide global financial markets allow for such simple cause and effect. During presidential campaigns most of the coverage revolves around the horse race, with pundits confidently explaining where every tick up or down in the polls (all withing the margin of error mind you) is the result of this gaffe or that brilliant one liner.

We like to think we know why things are they way they are. But rarely can the complexities of campaigns and markets, let alone nations and centuries, be explained by simply noting what thing came before another thing.

The Post Hoc Problem in Personal Ministry

Our particular danger as Christians is that we like to explain people with the post hoc fallacy. Though our formal theology says otherwise, our practical theology often assumes that history is destiny. When trying to help people understand their struggles and their sins we tend to mistake prior personal experiences for causality. In other words, we approach present problems as if the most helpful course of actions is always to root around in past pain. Now to be sure, a good counselor (or friend or fellow Christian) will ask good questions about our personal histories.  Our past can effect the way we behave and experience reality in the present. But we mustn’t think the ways things were have determined the way things are.

In his excellent book Seeing with New Eyes, David Powlison tells the story of a young woman named Amelia. Since she was in elementary school, Amelia struggled with lesbian fantasies. She hated these fantasies and loved them at the same time. She was a Christian and figured she had to change or come out of the closet and forget about God. So she got some counseling. She discovered that she didn’t choose these desires, but they just happened to her. Her therapist accepted her (which helped) and explained the reasons for her lesbian attractions. Amelia’s father was an alcoholic and beat her and molested her. As a result, Amelia never learned to trust men. She looked to her mother for comfort, but she was helpless and passive. So Amelia has spent her life looking for a female love to fill the void her mother left inside her when Amelia needed her most. Years later, Amelia has learned that only Jesus can fill her deepest needs and she’s learning to resist her temptations more effectively.

What are we to make of this testimony? Powlison calls Amelia an “ambiguously cured soul.” Some good has certainly taken place, but there are some problems in Amelia’s story too. Her history, while crucial, is not as determinative as she thinks. Powlison notes that a woman with the same family history could have ended up with at least six different choices and habits. She could long for lesbian love, like Amelia, trying to fill the void her mother left. She could also have become promiscuous with men, having a distrust of women from her absent mother and a fascination with men from her overly sexual father. She could have become anti-social, figuring it’s not safe to relate to anyone because of her background. She could have become an addict, choosing to drown her pain in alcohol or drugs. She could have married an abusive man, repeating what happened to her growing up. Or she could have grown to love and value godliness in marriage after having seen such ungodliness growing up. Powlison concludes, “Knowledge of a person’s history may be important for many reasons (compassion, understanding, knowledge of characteristic temptations), but it never determines the hearts inclinations.”

There’s no doubt that where we’ve been has an effect on who we are. Sanctified common sense tells us not to ignore the past. But the post hoc fallacy warns us against giving too much power to the past. According to the Scriptures, the most important stuff in life flows inexorably from the human heart, not from our human histories. For all of us there’s A before B in our personal stories, but the notion that therefore A has caused B is not only illogical, it’s unbiblical.

Monday Morning Humor

Sick With the Stick

Patrick Kane scored the tying goal with two minutes to play in regulation and then got the game winner in the overtime shootout. The Blackhawks point streak is now at 22 games to open the season.

And this was last year against the Red Wings.

And one more for good measure.

Freedom Does Not Imply the Negation of Limits

Gilles Bernheim, Chief Rabbi of France, writes in the current issue First Things about “homosexual marriage” as a “Trojan horse” which will be used to “deny natural sexuality” and “erase sexual differences.” Here’s his conclusion:

I am one of those who believe that a human being is not an autonomous construction with no given structure, order, status, or role. I believe that the affirmation of freedom does not imply the negation of limits and that the affirmation of equality does not imply the leveling of differences. I believe that the powers of technology and of the imagination do not require that we forget that being is a gift, that life is prior to all of us, and that it has its own laws.

I long for a society in which modernity would have its full place but without implying the denial of elementary principles of human and familial ecology; for a society in which the diversity of ways of being, of living, and of desiring is accepted as fortunate, without allowing this diversity to be diluted in the reduction to the lowest common denominator, which effaces all differentiation; for a society in which, despite the technological deployment of virtual realities and the free play of critical intelligence, the simplest words—father, mother, spouse, parents—retain their meaning, at once symbolic and embodied; for a society in which children are welcomed and find their place, their whole place, without becoming objects that must be possessed at all costs, or pawns in a power struggle.

I long for a society in which the extraordinary dynamic that is at work in the encounter between a man and a woman continues to be established, under a specific name.

Read the whole article.

In Danger of Friendly Fire

Much neglected as fine expositions of classic Reformed theology, John Witherspoon’s treatises on Justification and Regeneration are worth reconsidering. In particular, Witherspoon’s discussion of how we defend justification too carelessly can speak to our day.

At the beginning of his treatise on Justification Witherspoon explains the one of the reasons for his work is to counter not only “the calumnies of enemies” but “the weakness or treachery of professed friends.” He notes two ways in which friends of justification injure the truth of justification.

Some speak in such a manner as to confirm and harden enemies in their opposition to it: they use such rash and uncautious expressions, as do indeed justify the objection which the apostle rejects with so great abhorrence; and in the heat of their zeal against the self-righteous legalist, seem to state themselves as enemies, in every respect, to the law of God, which is holy, just and good.

Others, on the contrary, defend it in such a manner, as to destroy the doctrine itself, and give such interpretations of the word of God as if they were just, and known to be so, the objection would never have been made, because there would not have been so much as an occasion given to it.

Do you see the contemporary relevance? Witherspoon argues that some Christians are so eager to rout the legalist and glory in justification that they use “uncautious” expressions which make it sound like they have no place for the law or obedience. And on the other hand, some Christians are so eager to defend justification from its detractors that they take away its scandal such that no one would ever dare ask the “shall we go on sinning” questions they seemed to ask Paul. Both dangers are examples of friendly fire missing their mark and punching holes in the gospel instead.

A Beginner’s Guide to Reading Over Your Head

I got an unusual number of personal responses from last week’s post about reading over your head. One pastor in particular asked a terrific question: what books do you recommend? I love to talk books so I thought I’d answer his question with another blog post. I’ll limit myself to contemporary authors and roughly contemporary books that feel a notch or two (or three) above the popular level.

Read whatever you can in the New Studies in Biblical Theology Series (edited by D.A. Carson). I’ve read Alan Thompson on Acts, Tim Laniak on pastoral ministry, Kostenberger and O’Brien on mission, Craig Blomberg on money and possessions, Mark Seifrid on the righteousness of God, David Peterson on holiness, and Mark Thompson on the clarity of Scripture.

In the same genre, but more all encompassing, try Greg Beale’s magnum opus, A New Testament Biblical Theology.

Also, read everything in the IVP Contours of Theology Series. Pure gold. I have Bray on the doctrine of God, Letham on the work of Christ, Helm on providence, Ferguson on the Holy Spirit, MacLeod on the person of Christ, and Clowney on the Church.

For big books on mission, you’ll learn a lot from Eckhard Schnabel (both Early Christian Mission and Paul the Missionary). And speaking of mission, the best full length treatment I know of on the Insider Movement is Doug Coleman’s dissertation A Theological Analysis of the Insider Movement Paradigm.

I have all seven volumes of Hughes Oliphant Old’s magisterial work The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures in the Worship of the Christian Church. I’ve read one or two volumes most of the way through and have enjoyed dipping into the others. A great reference work and not hard to read.

Every pastor should read David Wells. Start with either the first or the last of his five theological-sociological works: No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland, Losing our Virtue, Above All Earthly Pow’rs, The Courage to be Protestant.

The next time you get an itch to read a biography, try one of the more scholarly ones (even if you don’t agree with every thing). Maybe Marsden on Jonathan Edwards or Oberman on Luther or Bruce Gordon on Calvin.

Gary Dorrien’s three volume work on The Making of American Liberal Theology is invaluable.

The “Cambridge Companion” volumes are helpful, like the Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment and the one on The Puritans.

Mike Horton has a heady four volume theology series which is much less well known than his popular works. The volumes are Covenant and Eschatology, Lord and Servant, Covenant and Salvation, and People and Place.

Robert George and Jean Bethke Elshtain have edited an important book on The Meaning of Marriage. You may also want to read the new book What Is Marriage by Gergis, Anderson, and George. And for the world’s expert on homosexuality in the Bible, pick up Robert Gagnon’s masterpiece The Bible and Homosexual Practice.

Okay, it’s getting too difficult for me to categorize everything, so here we go with a haphazard list of some deep-end books. I trust the title will give you an idea as to the content of each:

Peter Toon, The Emergence of Hyper-Calvinism in English Nonconformity, 1689-1765

Robert Letham, The Wesminster Assembly

Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity

Lyle Bierma, An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism

Nicolaas Grootjes, The Belgic Confession

Oliver Crip and Doug Sweeney (eds.), After Jonathan Edwards

Michael McClymond and Gerald McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Paul Helseth, Right Reason and the Princeton Mind

Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar

Carl Trueman and R. Scott Clark (eds.), Protestant Scholasticism

Paul Helm and Carl Trueman (eds.), The Trustworthiness of God

David Van Drunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms

Richard Fletcher, The Barbarian Conversion

Fred Zaspel, The Theology of B.B. Warfield

William Van Doodewaard, The Marrow Controversy and Seceder Tradition

Thomas Weinandy, Does God Suffer?

Rob Lister, God Is Impassible and Impassioned

And of course, don’t forget about the two books I mentioned last week, Scott Manetsch on Calvin’s Company of Pastors and Richard Muller on Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics.

This isn’t everything I would recommend, let alone the tiniest fraction of all the good stuff out there. This is just what I came up with glancing around the bookshelves in my study. If you have a great scholarly book to recommend, feel free to mention it in the comments.

Not By Might, So It Just Might Work

I think one of the main reasons we struggle to tell people about Jesus is that deep down we just don’t think it will ever work. We think we’ve already tried to share with people before and nobody was interested. We imagine sharing our faith to be nothing but muscling up our strength to go do our duty and embrace failure. We soldier on, expecting fruitlessness, so we can say, “I did it, pastor.”

Most of us lack faith that God actually has people prepared for us who will listen. This is where the doctrine of predestination is the best news in the world. We have not yet exhausted the number of God’s elect. God has more people to be saved, so keep on sharing.

When Spurgeon was asked why he kept preaching the gospel when he believed in election, he replied, “Because the elect don’t have yellow stripes down their back.” In other words, he could not see who was elect and who was not, so he had to keep sharing, believing that God had more people who would listen.

The sovereignty of God is the greatest motivation for mission. God still has people, preordained from the beginning of time to be responsive to the gospel message. You may think that you have already shared with everyone who would possibly be interested in the gospel, but it is not so. Remember: that the Spirit of God goes before you. As the it says in Zachariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”

God is more interested in saving people than we are in telling people how to be saved. So as we keep sharing, he will keep providing some to be saved.