Beyond the extremes

One of the reasons I started this weblog was to develop a decent theology through writing and good feedback that will eventually land me somewhere between the two extremes of Reformed Theology (Calvinism) and liberal forms of Arminianism. Part of my quest for answers includes reading literature by authors who fall into the Reformed Theology camp who have beliefs that I am repulsed by. But, just in case I misunderstood the few men who I discussed the subject with, I thought I would go buy a book by one of the leaders of the movement and make sure I understand. I don’t want to be tripped up by semantic confusion.

I chose a book by R.C. Spraul, “What is Reformed Theology?” and read the chapter talking about why your eternal destiny is not your choice. Spraul is one of the foremost leaders of this theological movement, so if he says anything about the details of Calvinism, it holds a lot of weight with its adherents. On page 160, he says the following:

“God considers the mass of mankind in their fallen condition. He intervenes in the lives of the elect, while he does not intervene in the lives of the reprobate. One group receives mercy, while the other group receives justice.”

So what is the difference between elect and the reprobate? Apparently, God’s whim. Since men and women from both groups were destined for hell before they were even conceived, there appears to be no measure for why one person is elect and the other is not other than God rolling dice. It seems that God is ‘just’ in sending everyone to hell because all people who ever lived should rightly be sent there for simply existing, a tenant of Calvinism called total depravity. But God, in His mercy, decides to scoop down and save a few wretches by reaching into their brain and turning on the “God switch” which has no ‘off’ setting, a tenant known as unconditional election. Spraul says that this is a very reasonable way to think about God’s relationship with humankind. Reasonable? Compared with what other view, may I ask? He says, because there is a far worse one called ‘hyper-Calvinism’ which states that God influences the reprobate to do evil acts just to make their damnation sure. He describes this mindset and is horrified by it:

“Just as God intervenes in the lives of the elect to create faith in their hearts, so similarly, he works in the hearts of the reprobate to work unbelief.”

But I am confused. How is working unbelief in the hearts of the reprobate any different than creating them reprobate in the first place and never lifting a finger to help them? Is not inaction in effect a decision, thus making God responsible for their wickedness? Is anyone else confused?
So I guess I turn to the Bible to answer some of these questions. What did Jesus say about who he would reach out to and what he though of people righteous or reprobate:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (Jesus)

“But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” John 12:32 (Jesus)

“Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, house of Israel?'” Ezekiel 33:11 (God)

So I guess that I understand Calvinism after all. I discovered today that followers of Arminianism also believe in the concept of total depravity. On page 118 Spraul describes the concept:

“The term total depravity, as distinguished from utter depravity, refers to the effect of sin and corruption of the whole person. To be totally depraved is to suffer from corruption that pervades the whole person. Sin affects every aspect of our being: the body, the soul, the mind, the will, and so forth. The total or whole person is corrupted by sin. No vestigial “island of righteousness” escapes the influence of the fall. Sin reaches into every aspect of our lives, finding no shelter of isolated virtue.”

I don’t like the way this is worded at all, and I do not agree with it, regardless of how it is worded. I especially do not like the idea that that the only difference between the same act of will with the same motives for doing it will be considered an act of righteousness in one case, or damn me to Hell in another with the only difference being that I am a Christian or not. If I pull my child out of oncoming traffic what consequences will that have on my eternal destiny? If I am not a Christian, God will point to that act and tell me that it was responsible for me being sent to Hell. If I am a Christian, the same act with the same motives is praised by God, although not be what sends me to heaven. What was the difference? If the ‘good work’ does not cause a person to go to heaven, how will the same ‘good work’ be grounds for sending them to Hell? The only sensible conclusion is that the ‘good work’ in either case has no effect whatsoever on your eternal destiny. I suppose there will be an account you will have to give for all your actions someday, but if Christians are not sent to Heaven on account of their behavior, why would non-Christians be sent to Hell for theirs? There must be some other factor.

I do not believe every act of will is tainted by sin. Going to the bathroom, eating, sleeping, and recoiling when touching a hot stove cannot be considered sinful behavior on any level. If I drop an apple on the floor and pick it up, how is that considered evil? I will add one more that I believe is without taint – to be drawn towards beauty and mystery in life and to willfully choose to pursue it. There seems to be an infinite number of actions like these that I could never imagine a person being considered evil for. I do believe that you can do good things badly, like eating or sleeping too much, but the simple act of doing these things can hardly be called evil.

So the question begs to be asked: what makes an act evil – is it the act itself or the motivation behind the act? I would say it is the motivation. The act of eating is not evil. The motivation to eat cannot possibly be evil either. Can eating ever be done badly? I would say it can. In what way could eating be harmful, and thus evil to me? The methods in how it is done. If I eat too much, the act is not wrong, the motivation is not wrong, but my choice to overindulge and bring damage to my body would be wrong. So it appears that there are methods to acting on good motivations that house potential danger to myself. So it appears that my first category of willful actions listed above are ones that have no inherent possible way to be wrongly motivated, but can be harmful when the methods to satisfy the reason for the motivation are bad.

But I am still not happy with this. Why was I motivated to eat in a harmful way? Is it unconscious? Is it for complex emotional reasons? It seems that my act of eating and my methods for satisfying hunger have nothing to do with eating at all, and more to do with some other area of my life which is far more complicated – possibly relating to poor self image or a chemical addiction or something else entirely that is unknown.

I use the example of eating to draw out the obvious fact that our acts of will are by no means black and white. Often times, our motivations are unknown to us, and might be caused by chemical imbalances, addictions, etc. I would imagine God being cruel and unreasonable to condemn me to Hell for overeating because my hypothalamus had malfunctioned and I never heard about Jesus to become a Christian in the first place.

On the flipside of things, it appears in most things I do, at best, or at worst, I do with mixed motivations, (good or bad unconscious, body-chemistry driven, good or bad conscious). There never is a time when I do most things without probably all of these motivators. Writing this post, for example is motivated for a desire to understand truth, but also by pieces of pride. I believe I will always be this way because at the core of my being, I am governed by a system of free choice and physical bodily realities that influence my every act of will. Most things I do (not all), in order to truly be free, will have within it bad motivations as well as good. Even if I were to do a very bad thing, there would still be tiny pieces of good motivations mixed in.

Now that we see the complexity in human behavior, is there any difference between the non-believer or believer in their actions? Not really. Do they both not have the same motivations? The Christian will now have additional motivators, but will not their old ones stay behind? I am still obviously motivated by pride, and a thousand other bad motivators, so I would emphatically say yes.

So I will conclude that not all my willful actions are tainted with sin, nor are the ones by non-Christians. Harmful actions may or may not even be the result of conscious bad motivations. So how am I to be judged? Would God throw out all my bad actions that were motivated by bad brain chemistry or unconscious things and just judge me on the willful, bad, conscious ones? But that doesn’t work either because I have just determined that everything I do consciously I do for mixed reasons. Whichever of my mixed reasons is the greatest, does that determine if an act were good or bad?

The Bible teaches that if anything is done for even the smallest bad reason, the whole act is evil. But the context is important – The reason it is deemed evil is not to discourage us from doing anything ever, but only to make it clear that it has no merit for getting you into heaven. The act itself God will approve or disapprove based on the many complex factors behind it, but that process and its reward or punishment is independent of a person’s eternal destiny. God knows that you are designed for free choice – and that kind of being is going to have to be a divided person in the context of every action they take. It is not by good works that God determines a person’s eternal destiny, but something else entirely – if it were on good works alone, we would all be guilty, both the Christian and the non-Christian, and would all be thrown into Hell, and God would be very strange and unreasonable for creating us in the first place.

So apparently, I do not fall between either theological system (Calvinism or Arminianism) but outside the acceptable limits of both. That’s a comfortable thought – I guess I pass the non-religious test by not blindly accepting any man-made system. 🙂