One of the greatest debates behind the doors of the church today is in regards to God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Typically, this debate is divided into two camps: Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Calvinists are rightly quick to defend the providence of God; however, in the process, their case eradicates human freedom and genuine responsibility. Arminians are usually quick to defend human responsibility for sin as this makes sense of hell and it prevents God from ultimately being charged with evil. However, many Arminians wind up diminishing God’s sovereignty in the process.
Years ago I struggled between these two ideas, as the Bible seemed to affirm both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. I ultimately adopted the Calvinist position because all of my pastoral influences at the time were Calvinists and biblical passages like Romans 9 seemed to seal the deal.[1] I went on to not just label myself a Calvinist, I embraced it wholeheartedly; I believed it, bought it, taught it, preached it, prayed it, and lived it! I became an ardent “5-Point Calvinist.”

If you aren’t familiar with “5-Point Calvinism,” it is based on the acronym T.U.L.I.P.

Total Depravity
Unconditional Election
Limited Atonement
Irresistible Grace
Perseverance of the Saints

After teaching these points to my youth group students several years ago, this philosophy started to seem unsettling. Moreover, around that time I really started getting into apologetics. Ironically, a Calvinistic pastoral colleague of mine introduced me to the work of Dr. William Lane Craig. I started watching his debates, and in November of 2010, I watched the video of Dr. Craig debating Christopher Hitchens at Biola University.[2] I was starting to love this guy until he made a passing comment that he didn’t agree with Calvinism.

WOAH! Stop the presses! Did this guy who is systematically destroying all of these atheistic arguments just denounce Calvinism? I immediately did what any good aspiring theologian would do and turned to Google! Pretty soon I stumbled upon the doctrine of “middle knowledge,” a.k.a. “Molinism.” In a nutshell, this view basically attempts to logically reconcile God’s sovereignty with human freedom and responsibility by stating, “God chose to create a world in which He knew with omniscient certainty how humans would freely choose.”[3]

It soon occurred to me that the dichotomy between Calvinism and Arminianism is a false one. That is to say, there are other possible options to consider; namely, Open Theism and Molinism. I began studying all four of these views and comparing and contrasting all of their claims and affirmations.

Initially, I was bent on disproving these other views because of my commitment to Calvinism. I honestly studied them almost every single day for over a year to demonstrate why they were wrong and why Calvinism was true. One day I was driving home from the church office, after scrutinizing Molinism all day, and I called me wife and said, “I think I’m losing my faith – in Calvinism!” I freely chose to label myself a bona fide Molinist!

Since that time, I have grown to abhor the Calvinistic teachings as the view is not only logically incoherent, but unbiblical as well! This is primarily due to the “I” in TULIP and the belief that humans are not genuinely responsible for our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. That is to say, a consistent Calvinist denies that humanity possesses libertarian free will to choose or do anything. Calvinists typically affirm that God creates us all with a spiritually dead nature (we are not responsible for this), and only God can change our nature to be spiritually alive (we are not responsible for this).

The focus of my master’s thesis was to prove atheistic naturalism false by logically proving the human soul exists. I did just that by logically proving that humans possess libertarian freedom, and this is only possible if we are more than merely physical beings. That is to say, there must be some immaterial aspect of our existence (i.e., the soul) that allows us this freedom in a deterministic cause and effect material universe.[4]

My thesis systematically destroyed atheistic naturalism just as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 10:5, but there was also significant collateral damage to Calvinism. In fact, Calvinistic determinism was destroyed in the process of destroying naturalistic determinism. I have developed several logic-based arguments demonstrating the fallaciousness of Calvinism and I am planning on sharing all of them in the future, but as for now, I will focus on one of them that I call the Omni-Argument Against Calvinism. It looks like this:

1- If Calvinism is true, whomever God provides “irresistible grace” to will go to Heaven and not suffer eternal Hell.

2- If God is omnibenevolent, He would not desire to, nor would He, send anyone to suffer eternal Hell for choices they were powerless to make without God’s irresistible grace.

3- If God is omnipotent, he could provide irresistible grace to all people.

4- If God is omniscient, he would know how to provide irresistible grace to all people.

5- Some people suffer eternal Hell.

6- Therefore, either God is not omnibenevolent, or not omnipotent, or not omniscient (pick at least one), or irresistible grace (and Calvinism) is false.

For my fellow logic geeks out there, here is my argument in symbolic form:[5]

1 – C –> ∃P: I & ¬ H(P)
2 – G ≡ OB –> (desire) ∀P ¬ H(P)
3 – G ≡ OP –> (could) ∀P I(P)
4 – G ≡ OS –> (know how) ∀P I(P)
5 – ∃P H(P)
6 – ∴ ¬OB v ¬OP v ¬OS v ¬C

This symbolic form demonstrates the structure of my argument is valid, and the conclusion logically follows from the premises. If one is committed to reject the logical conclusion, they must demonstrate which premise is false to show my argument is unsound. A Universalist (one who denies eternal Hell exists) could reject (5) and thus deny the conclusion. That would lead to a debate where I would have to demonstrate that eternal Hell probably does exist. I am more than happy to use not only Holy Scripture, but straight-up logic alone to demonstrate the truth of the fifth premise (stay tuned for an upcoming article on the untruth of Universalism).

Now, if the committed Calvinist affirms that eternal Hell does exist, since the structure is valid and the conclusion follows, they must deny one of God’s omni attributes, or argue that one of his omni attributes does not imply what I think it implies. The premise that is usually attacked by those committed to their Calvinistic presuppositions is (2). Translated from the symbols above, (2) is read as:

“God is defined as omnibenevolent which implies that for all people, He would desire all people to not suffer eternal Hell.”

[*Note: In defense of this premise I would add the qualifier to the argument here such as, “unjustly,” “through no fault of their own,” or “for ‘choices’ they were powerless to make.”]

This seems intuitively obvious, as we simply know that good judges do not give people death sentences for crimes they are not responsible for. Moreover, I don’t even need to appeal to logical intuition to support premise (2) as I can appeal to Holy Scripture itself! Paul affirms this premise himself in 1 Timothy 2:4 “(God) desires *ALL* people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” I don’t know how it can get much more clear than that!

Therefore, if one affirms that God possesses His omni attributes maximally, and that 1st Timothy 2:4 is true, and that some people do suffer eternal Hell, then it logically follows that they must reject Calvinism. That is to say, if God is a Maximally Great Being and eternal hell is a reality, then Calvinism is false! To affirm all of these things simultaneously is logically incoherent. If we care about TRUTH, and if we claim that Christianity is TRUE, then we must avoid logical incoherence like the plague as affirming that Christianity is logically incoherent is the same as stating, “Christianity is NOT true!”[6]

After understanding God’s omniscient middle knowledge and the difference between logically possible and feasible worlds, one can (and should) logically drop the “I” of TULIP and Calvinism itself.[7] I think Molinism provides a superior explanation of reality. According to my friend, Randy Everist, “If you believe you have free will and that God does not force you to do all that you do, and if you believe God knows everything that could happen, will actually happen, and would have happened in any other circumstances, then you are a Molinist” (if you realize it or not).

Stay reasonable (Philippians 4:5)!

Tim Stratton

 

Notes:

[1] Here is an article I wrote regarding hermeneutical interpretation of Romans 9 and other scripture: http://freakengministries.com/free-will-calvinism-romans-9/

[2] Craig vs Hitchens debate: https://youtu.be/4KBx4vvlbZ8

[3] Read more on Molinism vs. Calvinism from William Lane Craig here: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-vs-calvinism

[4] Read more about my Freethinking Argument Against Naturalism here: http://freakengministries.com/stephen-fry-humanism-incoherence/

[5] A special thanks to Steve Williams and Randy Everist for helping me translate my argument into logical symbolic form. Randy mapped it out in much more depth and detail, but the form above saves space.

[6] “Christianity is Not True!” http://freakengministries.com/christianity-is-not-true/

[7] I’d like to thank Mike Licona for giving me the idea of the title of this article (and maybe a future book).

[8] I’d like to thank Peter Byrom and Sean Hays for helping me strengthen this argument. Indeed, “As iron sharpens iron, one man (or two) sharpens another!”