Question:
The Bible speaks of God's foreknowledge. Doesn't Election just mean that God
chose those whom He foreknew would choose Christ?
Answer:
It certainly is true that God could never have chosen us before the foundation of the
world if He didn't have any knowledge that we would exist. Obviously, He would have
to know about us in order to choose us. That is why 1 Peter 1:1 says that we are ..."elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..." So Calvinists agree completely
with the idea that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. However, the
Arminian view goes much farther than this. The Arminian wants the scriptures to say
more than they actually say. The scripture says that we are "elect according to the
foreknowledge of God..." and simply leaves it at that. The Arminian wants the passage
to say that we are ...elect according to the foreknowledge God had of our
faith. However, the passage simply does not say that. In fact, although the
Bible speaks of God's foreknowledge more than once, it never says anything about God
choosing us because He foreknew we would believe or because He foreknew we would
choose Christ or anything else along those lines. It is not good to read something into
scripture which isn't there. Besides, there are several passages in scripture which destroy
the Arminian interpretation of foreknowledge. The Arminian idea is that before time
began, the Lord simply looked down from Heaven and saw that some people were
willing to come to God whereas others were not. Thus, He chose those that were willing
and passed by the others. However, scripture tells us in the plainest of language that
when the Lord looked down upon men He didn't foresee anyone willing to seek
God. Psalm 14:2 says..."The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children
of men, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after
God. They have all turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is
none who does good, no, not one." We might as well cast aside any
idea which says that before the world began, God simply looked down from heaven
through time and foresaw that some people would understand the gospel and seek after
God and so He elected them instead of others. When the Lord looked down from heaven
He saw no such thing. What He saw was that no one understands spiritual things and no
one is willing to seek God. So the Arminian theory that God elected the ones that He did
based upon His foreknowledge of their goodness or their willingness to seek and come to
Jesus is unbiblical. The truth is, whenever the Bible speaks of election it always insists
that our goodness or actions or behavior had nothing to do with why we were elected. 2
Timothy 1:9 says that God..."has saved us and called us with a holy calling, NOT
ACCORDING TO OUR WORKS, but according to His own purpose and GRACE which
was GIVEN us in Christ Jesus BEFORE TIME BEGAN." Romans 11:5 says..."even so,
at this present time there is a remnant (of Jewish believers) according to the ELECTION
of GRACE and if by GRACE then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer
grace." So as you can see, we were not elected because God in His foreknowledge knew
that we would be good or seek God or anything else. We were chosen and saved by
GRACE.
Another case where the Bible uses the term foreknowledge is found in
Romans chapter eight which states..."whom He foreknew, He also predestined
to be conformed to the image of His Son..." As in the previous example, we notice that
the verse does not say what the Arminian would like for it to. It does not say..."the ones
God foreknew would believe and repent, were also predestined...etc." Instead it simply
says, ..."whom He foreknew, He also predestined...etc." Also, it is important to
understand the words "knew" and "knowledge" and "foreknowledge" in the way they
were understood by the writers of scripture. Those words do not refer to mere
knowledge. They also refer to love and intimacy. For example, in Genesis 4:1 we
read..."Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain..." This verse is
obviously not saying that Adam merely knew about the existence of Eve, and it certainly
isn't trying to tell us that Adam knew about the works or actions of Eve. It is saying that
Adam had an intimate love relationship with Eve. So in the Bible, the word "knew" often
has the idea of intimacy or love. Again, in Amos 3:2 God says to Israel, "You only have
I known of all the families of the earth." Now what was God saying? Was he
only saying "you are the only group of people I have any intellectual awareness of? No,
obviously not. God knows about all nations and groups. What He was saying is that
..."You only have I loved of all the families of the earth" Israel was the
only nation that God loved in a special way and chose to be His own in the Old
Testament era. So the word "know" in the Bible means to have an intimate love for, in
addition to merely knowing about. We see this in the New Testament too. In first
Corinthians 8:3 Paul comforts us with this beautiful promise..."If anyone loves God, this
one is known by Him." Now why is this promise so comforting? Is it because it lets us
know that if we love God it proves that He is aware of our existence? I think not!
Instead, it is comforting precisely because the word "known" is used as a synonym for
"love." The passage is saying..."If anyone loves God, this one is loved
by Him."!!! Again we find our blessed Lord Jesus using the word "knew" in this same
manner. In Matthew 7:23 we hear Jesus saying to the non-elect on Judgment day..."And
then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness." Now what is Jesus saying here? Is He saying, I never knew about your
actions so depart from Me? No. Is He saying, I never knew about your existence, so
depart from Me? No. He is saying..."I never loved you, depart from Me, you who
practice lawlessness." So we see that the Bible uses the words "knew" and "Knowledge"
etc. to refer to an intimate love of a person. So when we read in Romans eight that
"Whom He foreknew, He also predestined etc." we must understand it to mean,
"Whom He knew about and loved beforehand, He also predestined to be
conformed to the image of His Son"!! The passage clearly supports the Calvinistic
understanding rather than the Arminian one. It is not saying ...Whom the Lord foreknew
would repent and believe, He predestined. There is nothing whatsoever mentioned about
our faith or repentance or any other good action in the verse. The passage is saying
...whom the Lord knew about and loved beforehand, He predestined to be conformed...
So when the Bible says that we are "elect according to the foreknowledge of
God" it is saying that we are ...elect according to the knowledge God had regarding our
existence prior to the beginning of time and also that we are elect according to
God's Sovereign Love. This is Grace with a capital G.
Question: Does Calvinism teach that man does not have free will? Surely
we have the freedom to do what we want to!
Answer: There is a big difference between free-will and free agency. All humans have free agency. Actually, there is no such thing as free will, there is only such a thing as free agency. Free agency means that a person is able to choose whatever he desires, but that his desires are determined by his nature. Free will means that a person's will can choose anything it wants regardless of what the person himself is like. All creatures have free-agency. That is, all creatures have the capacity to choose whatever they desire in any given situation. But their desires are determined by the type of creature that they are. Their desires are determined by their nature. For instance, a pig can choose to live a perfectly clean life or it can choose to live a life of wallowing in mud. It can choose whatever it desires. However, a pig cannot DESIRE to live a perfectly clean life. Pigs desire to wallow in mud because that is the nature of pigs. So, all things being equal, a pig will not choose to live a clean life... every time it is given a choice, it will choose to wallow in the mud, because, being a pig, it desires to wallow in mud. In the same way, the sinner can choose whatever he desires...he has free agency. But his desires are determined by his nature...which is sinful. So, left to himself, he will never choose Christ.
Now even God possesses free agency...not free-will. He can do whatever He desires, but being a righteous God, He never desires to do anything unrighteous. His desires are determined by His nature. He can choose whatever He desires, but, He cannot desire to do something evil. Titus chapter 1 verse 2 tells us that God cannot lie. Why can He not lie? Because as Jesus said "a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit." God has free-agency. He can do whatever He desires. But He cannot desire to tell a lie because His desires are determined by His nature. By nature He is a God of truth. It would be horrible if God had free-will. That would mean that even though He is a prefectly righteous God, His will, being altogether free, might suddenly choose evil. His will might suddenly choose to tell a lie. Yet the Arminian imagines that free will is a good thing! If the will is disconnected from the nature of the person, the person cannot be accountable for what he does. A man could commit a murder and then say that he is a good person, but that since his will is free, it choose to kill someone. That is the kind of nonsense that the concept of "free-will" leads to. Man doesn't have free-will, he has free agency. He has the ability to choose whatever He desires, but His desires are determined by his nature. Man has a sinful nature and thus, given the choice of seeking God or not seeking God, he will choose to not seek God. That is why Paul said that "there is none that seeketh after God." But if a man's nature is changed through the new-birth he will then desire to seek God, and, thus, he will choose to seek Him. If man had free will things would be really crazy. A christian man with a born again heart would not desire to forsake his faith in Christ, but his will, being free, might suddenly choose to do so. A wicked unregenerate man might desire to tell lies continually, but his will, being free, might continually choose to speak nothing but the truth. In that case should we reward the wicked man for telling the truth, or should we punish him for not wanting to even though he did?! Fortunately we don't have that dilemma because there is no such thing as free will. There is only free- agency.
Man has free-agency and God is sovereign. God in His sovereignty uses man's free-agency to control him. Ephesians 1:11 says that "God works all things according to the counsel of His own will". God uses man's free-agency to control everything man does. For instance, Christ came to die for our sins. But in order to die he needed someone to betray him. How did God bring that about? Well, out of the twelve men Christ chose, He deliberately chose one that was greedy. The bible says that Jesus "knew what was in men" so He had to have chosen a greedy man such as Judas on purpose. That brought about a situation in which He was sure to be betrayed. Judas had free agency. That is, he had the ability to choose whatever He desired, but his desires were determined by his nature, and his nature was that of a greedy man. So he was sure to choose to betray Jesus when given an opportunity. But since Judas was choosing the thing that he desired, He was justly held responsible for his choice. A person will always choose according to his strongest desire. For instance, if you tell me that I can choose to eat a piece of apple pie or I can choose to eat a plate of grass I will choose apple pie because, since I have the nature of a normal human being, I desire apple pie more than grass. However if you hold a gun to my head and tell me to choose the grass, I will choose the grass, because, being a normal human being, I have a stronger desire to live than I do to avoid eating grass. A person always chooses according to his strongest desire and his strongest desire is the result of his nature. In His providence, God is able to arrange situations which will ensure that, in light of our natures, we will choose whatever He has determined our choice to be. Now, since each man's nature is slightly different, each man sometimes desires different things and therefore chooses different things. However since all men possess a sinful and depraved nature, all men will desire sin and unbelief instead of Christ when given a choice, unless God changes their nature. That is why in John 6 when the Pharisees refused to believe in Christ, Christ explained that the reason they could not come to him in faith was because "no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by My Father". Unless God grants a change of nature through the new birth the sinner's strongest desire will be to avoid truly coming to Jesus for salvation and, thus, he will never choose to do so.
Answer: In II Peter 3 the argument used by Peter is that although it seems that Christ is taking a long time to return, He isn't just being lax, but rather, He is providing time for people to repent so that they will not perish.
Now the Arminian or non-calvinistic interpretation is that Peter is speaking about the world or mankind in general and he is saying that the Lord is delaying His return because He is longsuffering toward the world not willing that any in the world should perish.
There are a couple of serious errors with this interpretation. First, it fails to notice who Peter is addressing. Peter is addressing Christian groups and Churches. In First Peter we see that Peter is addressing the elect......I Peter 1:1 says "Peter...to the pilgrims...elect.... " ect. Second Peter is also addressed to Christian groups...2 Peter 1:1 says "Simon Peter...To those who have obtained like precious faith..."
So in both letters Peter is addressing either the elect or Churches. It is in that context that Peter says that God is longsuffering toward "US". Christ is delaying His return because God is longsuffering toward US (the elect) not willing that any (any of us, the elect) should perish but is waiting until all of us repent. Peter is not addressing the lost world in general when He says God is longsuffering toward US. He is addressing the Church, He is addressing the elect and IN THAT CONTEXT He states that God is longsuffering toward US. So the teaching of Peter is that Christ would not return until all of the elect of the age are converted. Peter is saying that when the last elect person repents the return of Christ need be delayed no longer.
The greek word for US is "hemas" and it literally means just that...US. Now some versions say that in some early manuscripts the word is "you" rather than "us" but since Peter is addressing the Elect and the Churches that change wouldn't make any difference because in that instance he would be saying Christ hasn't returned because God is longsuffering toward you (the elect) and is not willing that any (any of you) should perish but that all (all of you) should come to repentance. Same difference.
Now, as I said, the Arminian interpretation makes two huge mistakes. 1. It ignores the audience Peter is addressing and thus ignores the context in which Peter makes His statement. This is unacceptable. We are never justified in taking a statement out of context and ignoring the question of who is being addressed.
2. The Arminian interpretation simply doesn't make sense. They say that Christ is delaying His coming because He is waiting for everyone everywhere to repent. If that is true then when is Christ ever going to be able to return? Never. There are always people being born and always people reaching an age at which they are responsible to repent. So there will always be someone that will cause Christ to have to wait. While Christ is waiting on one person to repent someone else reaches an age that he needs to repent also. And so on. In the mean time, while Christ is waiting, generation after generation is going to hell. The more He delays His coming so that no one will perish the more millions and millions die and go to hell. That interpretation is absurd.
The truth is that there is a certain group of people which God elected before the beginning of time and it is a limited number. When the last elect person repents there is no reason to continue the age.
If the elect are predestined, why do they need repentance? Well first of all, God doesn't just choose persons to go to heaven, He also chooses them to be given faith and repentance and to receive justification and sanctification and to be conformed to the image of Christ. Before the foundation of the world, God elected certain persons for eternal life. But He also elected them to be converted and made Christlike. He elected us to be holy as well as happy.
Now some people in the world today are of the elect and have also experienced faith and repentance. Others are of the elect but the predestined time of their conversion has not yet arrived. They haven't been converted yet but they most certainly will be. There are probably many children in many christian homes who were elected by God before the world began but they are not yet converted and thus, have not yet experienced faith and repentance. Now as for the passage in 2 Peter, I think that Peter was writing to church groups. Now church groups are made up of mostly elect people, some are converted adults and some are unconverted teenagers and children but are nevertheless elect. In time they will become christians too. So Peter was writing to just such people. He wrote to the church which was probably mostly comprised of the elect of God even though some, because of their youth or whatever, were not yet converted. So to THOSE GROUPS Peter said that God is Longsuffering TO US, (the elect) not willing that any should perish. Peter is just telling the church that Christ is not going to return before any of the elect among us are brought to repentance. That is a comforting thought. But if He cannot return before everyone everywhere repents then He may never return, especially since, according to arminianism, He cannot bring about anyone's salvation because their free will is the deciding factor. All He can do is sit back and hope that everyone will repent so that He can return.
Some more answers to other objections against Calvinism will be on here in the near future.
How Does Calvinism Fit into Church History?