“For Torrance, we simply cannot explain why some people do not believe in Christ and end up in hell — but even if they do, that does not mean that Christ did not die for them as well.”
EC could not explain why, even if not some but ALL people end up in hell even though Christ died for all.For the ECs, it would be possible that the heaven is empty while hell is full. Can the ECs deny this possibility based on their theology that even though Christ died for all, ALL might end up in hell?
What do you think?
The above is sentiment voiced by a previous commenter (on this thread). I didn’t really provide a satisfactory answer to him, and I’m sure this continues to be an issue that causes problems for some of you as well.
1) I think the primary issue, which is no surprise, that drives the Classic Calvinist question here, is the idea that somehow sin or creation could thwart God’s sovereignty over said creation.
2) That there is really no functional difference between Arminianism, and EC.
The EC response to this, is that we ‘positively’ focus on the whole picture (both carnal and spiritual union grounded in the person of Christ). And the ‘why’ of ‘why don’t all believe’ is left unanswered (left to the inscrutible nature of sin) — but it is not unanswered in the sense that Jesus did not answer it at the cross. In other words, that’s the point of the EC understanding of a ‘Christ-conditioned’ election; he took our reprobation (in His humanity for us), and gave us His elect status as the eternal Son of the Father by the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The commenter turns this response on its head, and approaches it from the negative side — e.g. what guarantee is there that not all will end up in hell instead of heaven? And the answer to questions like that, for EC, is the fact that Jesus came. The guarantee that people will end up in heaven is that humanities humanity is in heaven anchored in Jesus’ humanity for us (cf. Heb. 7.25). What the commenter can’t accept, with this scenrio, is that there appears to be some space left over for the possibility for all or some to reject the atoning work of Christ for them. This may be true, in fact it is, according to Scripture (and experience), but this should not then lead to the idea that creation has something on God; instead, as classic EC’rs have said, these folks will experience Gospel Wrath. But this still won’t satisfy the interlocuter’s query. He wants to know why? If we just say because ‘sin is a mystery’ then it seems to him (logically) that sin has gotten over on God — that there is some sort of ontology to sin that is determinative and competitive with God’s sovereignty (a sort of ‘manichean’ dualism at work). But what the respondent won’t, apparently, accept is that EC is not saying that ‘sin’ has this kind of power (in fact EC says that grace has reversed the curse of sin and recreated all of reality through vicarious work of Jesus Christ); instead we’re just saying that applying a logical-causal framework to try and uncover something that remains ‘un-reaveled’ is ‘non-sequitir’ 🙂 .
What was Aristotle’s maxim? Something like, The last effected must be the first intended. I’ll have to look it up.
Basically Aristotle’s Perfect Being *had* to have intended the final state of affairs or else it’s not a “perfect” Being. And it’s interesting how that thought conditions so much discussion around hell…. “If there’s heaven and hell then God *must* have two wills, end of story.”
I think it’s useful to see Aristotle’s assumption at play. As soon as you say ‘the last effected’ is *not* ‘the first intended’ people respond in alarm, “This isn’t Aristotle’s Perfect Being!” – and they’re right. It’s the true and living God revealed in Jesus – the Saviour.
Amen, Glen! You are absolutely right, preach it! Aristotle is there, through and through; I’ve read enough Muller at this point to know that that’s exactly what he’s saying about the post-Reformed orthodox. That the primary ‘form’ that shapes ‘orthodoxy’ is Aristotelianism, albeit a Reformed version of Aristotle through a ‘reformed’ version of Thomas Aquinas (and Ramist and Agricola, et al). It doesn’t really matter how much someone wants to qualify it; we still have a ‘two-willed’ God, who has the ‘form’ of Aristotle’s actual infinite and Aquinas’ unmoved mover. The contours are self-evident. Or th proof is in the pudding. Thanks for highlighting the Aristotelian link, Glen, it’s still there, no matter what folks want to say (just as Muller).
Hi gents,
Causal chains aside, the God of the bible in one sense intends every state of affairs that occurs doesn’t he? Doesn’t Christ sustain every moment? Doesn’t he uphold the universe by the word of his power? Didn’t God intend the tragic events of Joseph’s life (the same ones his brothers intended for harm) for good? Didn’t Pilate and co. do what God had decided beforehand they would do?
Perfect being schmeing, it’s texts I’m concerned about.
Pete,
Absolutely, I’m not denying anything you just said. I just don’t want to use a Stoic like deterministic frame of causality in order to articulate that 🙂 .
Hi Pete,
A couple of thoughts.
‘Intend’, ‘sustain’ and ‘uphold’ language is not a bedrock providential activity of God to which we later add His saving activity. His redemption is what reveals His rule. (e.g. Jesus is declared Lord by resurrection). He is Lord in that He ‘redeems from all evil’ (Gen 48:16). This is a Lordship over evil that maintains His utter opposition to it. It’s not a Lordship that could in any way be co-ordinated with a will *for* damnation. It’s an eternal will *for* salvation (Torrance follows Barth in being ‘purified supralapsarian’ – I’d assume Bobby is too. ?? I know I am).
In Gen 50 and Acts 4 God wills all things for salvation. It’s not that God doesn’t order all things, it’s just that all things are towards salvation. His single intention is salvation. (2 Pet 3:9; Ezek 18:32; John 3:17)
Glen, yeah, that’s what ‘Christ-conditioned’ is all about. Of course it would want to qualify itself a little in re. to Barth’s/McCormack’s understanding of saying that His election constitutes His being (i.e. the “non-metaphysicalism” presented by the McCormack crew); but it is certainly there in re. to a ‘Christ-conditioned’ supra. And yes, you’re right, that creation has always been about redemption and its eschatologically orientation in the life of God in Christ (it’s all about Trinitarian love, which the resurrection and ascension inauguarate in the ‘now’ as it takes its shape from the ‘in-breaking’ of the Apocalyptic ‘not-yet’).
Hi, brothers.
The question remains still unanswered.
The question is not about whether God has one or two will(s), but whether the doctrine of the non-Aristotelian God, the EC doctrine of God, can deny the possibilty that ALL might end up in hell.
I know that EC has a different ontology from at least Aristotle’s. My question is: in that EC’s ontology, can the possibility be ruled out?
I want to see that you address this question, not “dance around it” or avoid this one and flee to another.
Maybe it is unanswerable for EC.
just want to hear what you bothers can say to this question, not to others.
SH
sorry, misspelling. bothers –> brothers
not intentionally
Thanks Glen, Bobby.
Indeed, he works all things for good etc. etc. I couldn’t agree more (not sure that classic ‘two wills’ wouldn’t agree either, but need to go do some checking up).
So, presumably this ordering of all things for salvation includes the unbelief/ rejection of the gospel by those who do so?
SH,
There are different “extremes” under the pale of EC; some will sound closer to a Westminster and others closer to a Barthian. So as someone else has asked, ‘isn’t EC just a mediating position between Calv and Arm; and I would say, NO! Amyrauldianism would be a mediatig position — working within the strictures of Classic Calvinism (when I say “Classic” Calvinism in some ways that’s code for Classical Theism, just to be clear).
I should say, EC, positively construed, should end up as ‘Universalism’, but the fact that it doesn’t leads to a non-starting question. The only answer to it, for some, is to posit ‘two-will’s (for you to say that that is of no matter, SH, is to miss the problem that that poses relative to a Doctrine of God — which is the question that you keep ‘dancing around’).
In one sense EC is ‘universalist’ in another it is ‘particular’. We know the ‘why’ we don’t know the ‘why not’ relative to who’s “in” who’s “out”. But, again, EC doesn’t feel constrained to put 2+2 together. ONly systems that are committed to a classical theistic construct have this persistent itch. SH, I can’t do better than that. So the answer to your question is: yes, EC can insure that not all will end up in hell; because all are elect in Christ, the fact that some do end up in hell is the question we’ll have answered in the “consummation.”
Westminsters will always look at EC’s as Arminians. EC’s will always look at Westminsters as semi-Pelagians with their interlocking system of primary, middle, and secondary causes; with their created and cooperative grace; with God subserviant and shaped by and predicated by His decrees.
Pick your poison.
Pete,
See my response to SH.
Thanks Bobby,
I think what I’d say to that is ‘but we do know at least part of the why not – scripture teaches us that God orders all things for good/ salvation.’ Unless, of course, the unbelief of the unbelieving is excluded from this?
I’m not saying we don’t know the proximate ‘why’ just the ‘ultimate or remote’ to borrow some of Calvin’s language.
I’m not trying to be elusive, just trying to be “positive” 😉 .
Thanks Bobby,
We don’t need to know more than the ‘proximate why’ when that pertains to the very question being asked. So, there might be loads more to say than ‘yes, God’s in charge of it and somehow it fits with his salvific will’ but if the question being asked is ‘the unbelief of unbelievers, is that outside God’s control or not?’ then that’s the right, biblical answer to that question, right?
In which case, how is your/ EC’s position not a de facto (albeit maybe softened or ‘chastened’)version of a doctrine of divine reprobation?
[Not tryin to be a pain in the you-know, honest 🙂 ]
My whole blog is trying to be a pain in the you-know-what to a whole system of theology . . . so no worries 😉 .
EC grounds both election and reprobation in Christ. When I used Calvin’s language of proximate it was not appealing to any sort of causal thinking (metaphysically, that is) . . . instead it was to provide a huerism in order to placate your question (but not disingenuously).
The only doctrine of reprobation that EC has is a supralapsarian one that is grounded in a ‘Christ-conditioned’ version of said lapsarian view; wherein He is both elect and reprobate at once for us in His one person. This way everything revolves around him, instead of particularizing it in a number of persons apart from Him.
The problem is, is that I am trying to answer questions from one set of categories (like your’s and SH’s) with another set of categories that has really tried to reify (and thus in some ways abandon) the ‘former’ categories (yours). This poses a problem, a language barrier of sorts. EC wants to start with a ‘Doctrine of God’ when engaging these kinds of questions and Westminster style wants to start with a ‘Doctrine of Salvation’ (which the order of the TULIP for example illustrates — albeit I realize that the ‘orthodox Reformed faith’ is not slavishly attached to the TULIP, per se; yet it does signify fundamental beliefs and approach [in truth, anecdotally so]).
This is a hard discussion, who can have it 😉 ?
Thanks Bobby.
I guess (and this is where I often get to in discussions here) the thing is that I think these questions are valid as they are provoked by the text of scripture. What does it mean for the unbelief of the unbeliever that Christ sustains every moment, that God intends everything, that he works all things together for good, etc.? Why is it a valid assumption that this simply cannot amount to a doctrine of reprobation? Is EC’s definition of ‘Christ-conditioned’ (assuming it’s right at some level) too narrow and therefore incapable of coping with how the scriptures seem to cash these things out and describe reality?
Now, I know that we all read texts within the system we’ve got, I’m not claiming some kind of neutral biblicism on my part. But without some examples of how EC might ‘read’ some of these texts (such that they really don’t provoke or allow for the sort of questions that a CC reading does) I’m left without some fairly important apparatus for assessing the whole thing.
One can talk about reprobation being Christ-conditioned and necessarily so because of what we know of the Triune God’s inner life, but I guess I’d still like to know how EC deals with texts that seem to me to teach that how that pans out involves God’s intending every event in his world including the unbelief of those who reject the gospel. Otherwise I’m left wondering whether in actual fact EC doesn’t need to redefine itself in order to deal with the actual data of scripture.
🙂
Pete,
I totally agree, Scripture is the standard for how we think this through.
The reality is, is that we still live in the “not-yet” of the kingdom (middle earth, so to speak). Thus the reality and irrationality of sin is still present. That seems simple enough of a response, and fully accounts for ‘why’ folks are rejecting the supremacy of Christ’s life in their lives (so instead He’s their judge instead of Savior).
It’s also good to bear in mind that “EC” is a constructive and developing project, in many ways.
Thanks Bobby,
I hear you on EC being in development. Good point.
I have to say though, my issue isn’t that I think the (CC) doctrine of divine reprobation helpfully explains sin despite its irrationality. It’s more that I currently see it as taught by scripture and necessarily entailed by several passages. It’s not that I’m concerned whether or not EC can find an explanation within its system for sin, but that I’m yet to see what EC ‘does’ with those passages which I currently think demand what CC teaches on these things.
Anyway, the ‘developing’ thing is a fair point, so maybe I’ll just have to wait and see. 🙂
And for that, Pete, I appreciate your penetrating questions. I don’t want to go outside of the boundaries of the implications of God’s life in Christ; subsequently, I/we need to stay within the ‘witness’ of God’s words in Scripture.
At certain levels both EC and CC have issues where the irrationality of sin is the answer (i.e. like the Classic answer of relegating sin and reprobation to God’s “providence” and election and righteousness to God’s grace and electing will — this introduces two wills or purposes into God’s person and activity, EC wants to stick to our guns and say that God has one purpose one will and this is all personalised in the person of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit). It is this kinds of questions, that remain behind the back of the kinds of things we are discussing on sin and belief that EC seeks to rectify by bringing it all to the forefront by grounding EVERYTHING in Jesus and God’s Trinitarian and personal life. We don’t want to talk about God’s “will and purpose” apart from talking about that as actualised and realized in and through His gracious act in Christ. These will be the on-going “talking-points” that EC will continue to bang; but hopefully in ways that are continually more and more sensitive and thus consonant with how Scripture discloses things . . . the presupposition is, for EC, is that the words of Scripture hang together as they find their inherance in the logic of grace and Christ’s life [this is axiomatic for EC’s “theological exegesis” of the text]).
Pete, I’m really glad that you’re willing to put up with all of this; and I’m glad that you continue to hang around here and press things the way that you do, I really enjoy it 🙂 . . . thanks, brother!