Many have said that when they get to heaven, they want to ask God certain questions. I cannot personally think of anything I want to ask God — at least not at this point in my life. Perhaps I will one day feel the need to ask Him a question in heaven, but for now I am content to leave questions unanswered.
Applying the unanswered questions theme to Calvinism and Arminianism, each theological system has such questions. For Calvinists, the two questions are thus:
- Exactly how God can ordain that we do evil willingly, and yet God not be blamed for evil?
- Exactly how God can cause us to choose something willingly?
Wayne Grudem says of these two questions,
“To both, Calvinists would say that the answer is somehow to be found in an awareness of God’s infinite greatness, in the knowledge of the fact that he can do far more than we could ever think possible. So the effect of these unanswered questions is to increase our appreciation of the greatness of God.
On the other hand, Arminians must leave unanswered questions regarding God’s knowledge of the future, why he would allow evil when it is against his will, and whether he will certainly triumph over evil. Their failure to resolve these questions tends to diminish the greatness of God–his omniscience, his omnipotence, and the absolute reliability of his promises for the future. And these unanswered questions tend to exalt the greatness of man (his freedom to do what God does not want) and the power of evil (it comes and remains in the universe even though God does not want it). Moreover, by denying that God can make creatures who have real choices that are nevertheless caused by him, the Arminian position diminishes the wisdom and skill of God the Creator. (Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 350-1)
Grudem hits the nail on the head with the essential difference between Calvinism and Arminianism — the emphasis on the greatness of glory of God rather than the greatness of man. Something to think about.
18
May 09
“Like Waking Up From The Longest Dream…”
I’ve recently been reading Finally Alive by John Piper on the subject of the new birth. It is a great book and begins with the story of C.S. Lewis’ conversion/regeneration/new birth. Lewis states:
That description of the born again experience has stuck with me that past couple days and I recalled to mind an old Keith Green song that similarly bears the same truth. The following excerpt from Green’s “Your Love Broke Through” says basically the same thing Lewis said of his conversion experience:
In thinking about how waking up from a long sleep reflects the new birth experience, I have attempted to draw from my own “sleeping” experience. When asleep, I am not conscious of my body, soul, mind, even my very existence. I lie there in bed dead to all awareness or conciousness until the moment I wake. After waking I am fully aware of my existence and begin to “live” again.
The deadness of the unregenerate heart causes it to be unaware that it is spiritually dead. Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in trespasses and sins. Titus 3 says that we were saved when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared. We are dead in sins until God appears and wakes us up through regeneration, or the new birth. I do not want to diminish our dead and desperate condition before God by using the phrase “wakes us up.” We are dead in sin. The rigamortis has set in. We cannot nor will not make any move toward God and repentance until the Holy Spirit regenerates our dead hearts and breathes spiritual life into us. At that point, the conversion experience is like a new birth, like waking up from the longest sleep.
When I sleep, I have no awareness of time (indeed, by body’s internal clock works lest I should never wake up), therefore, I could sleep forever and not know it if it were possible. So it is with the spiritually dead — they are unaware that they are spiritually dead and were it not for the grace of God, they would never be aware of their spiritual deadness.
The ultimate point is that salvation/regeneration/the new birth etc. is all the work of God and not man. Soli Deo Gloria.