Reformed Theology Roundtable: Does the Author Analogy Succeed?

Last week, while multitudes of theology nerds were still digesting the Molinism vs Calvinism debate between William Lane Craig and James White, our friends at the Complete Sinner’s Guide brought us a fascinating deep-dive on the intricacies of Reformed Theology. Co-hosts Tyler Fowler and Joshua Davidson were joined by frequent guest Joshua Sherman and, to represent the Reformed position, Chris Date, Andrew Elliott, and Jeremiah Short. The purpose of this panel discussion was to clearly articulate the relationship between the Reformed/Calvinistic concepts of God’s eternal decree and man’s free will, as described by the philosophy of compatibilism. While all three affirm God’s meticulous determination of all history, each reject hard determinism and the idea that God is the author of sin. This was a central sticking point in the discussion, especially as Date proposed that their position is best compared to the relationship between an author and his story. I would like to do my best here to represent this view, and to show how I believe this analogy fails to remove God as the author of sin in the Calvinistic system. (Much of the discussion was led by Date, with Davidson doing most of the pressing for clarity. For this reason, I will primarily be addressing their interactions.)

Compatibilism Defined

The heart of the discussion begins about 15 minutes in as Date gives a succinct definition: “Compatibilism… is just the idea that… determinism is compatible with moral responsibility. The whole point of compatibilism is to affirm determinism.” Determinism, from a theological standpoint, is the idea that everything which happens, to the most minute detail, is by God’s determined will. This, of course, raises the question of how we factor in the idea that humans have free will. Date explains that “they have a sufficient degree of freedom as to be held morally responsible.” Elliott adds, “God determines all things, but He does it in such a manner that you will freely choose to do so.” 

This determination is made effective by God’s decree prior to creation. Biblical evidence is cited from Genesis 50:20 and Acts 4:27-28, which show God’s will being accomplished through the sinful acts of men. However, Molinists equally appeal to such passages for support. Like Calvinists, they affirm God’s decree of all things prior to creation. The key difference is that in Molinism, God’s decree is based in part on His foreknowledge of what human beings would do (allowing for libertarian free will), as opposed to His foreknowledge simply being what He has determined them to do in compatibilistic Calvinism.

The Author Analogy

From here, Date goes on to give his author analogy, as he explains how God’s decree plays out in space-time events in a comparable way to those of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.” The world imagined by Tolkien is actualized within those stories, but the characters experience them in their own sense of time with their own sense of agency. Date gives a good summary of his mission in this discussion when he says: “I want to encourage my fellow Calvinists to think of… the relationship between God and time as something analogous to the relationship between an author and a story, because I think that non-Calvinists are right to object if there is a meaningful sense in which God is causing people to sin.” He hopes to solidify the discussion around this analogy, as opposed to robot or puppet analogies (which he rejects), adding, “Let the battle happen on that ground.”

What then is the advantage of the author analogy? For Date, the difference is what he calls a “transcendence gap.” In other words, because God exists in the eternal realm and we live out His decree in space-time by our own thoughts and actions, God is not responsible for what we do. This transcendence gap is, in his words, “critical for maintaining moral culpability for humans.” The blame for sin then resides in humans, even though God has determined prior to our existence that we would sin. Since Date has admitted that non-Calvinists have good reason to object to the idea that God causes people to sin, the point of debate becomes clear. Does the eternal decree “cause” people to sin? If it does, compatibilism fails to defend the holiness of God. All three Reformed participants agree that the decree does not equate to “cause.” And this is where I am left genuinely perplexed.

Competing Views of Freedom

Representing the non-Calvinists in the audience, Davidson challenges this notion: “I think the disconnect is that if there is a first cause, and it is not the individual agent, that the freedom is then compromised.” To this Short responds, “You are presupposing incompatibilism.” This phrase will be repeated multiple times throughout the remainder of the discussion, as the Reformed participants take the position that the libertarian concept of free will makes false assumptions about freedom that the compatibilist successfully avoids. 

Date explains: “I come to the issue of freedom, and I try to make no assumptions about what that requires. And one of the assumptions I refuse to make is that in order for an agent’s choice to be free, their choice has to ultimately, full stop, originate with them.” At one point, Davidson seeks clarification: “It just needs to SEEM as though there could be the alternate possibility.” Date gladly affirms: “That’s great! I like that!” 

This exchange reveals that in compatibilism, the choice between competing options is an illusion. You may think you are making the choice, but it has been chosen for you. Yet you take responsibility for that choice because you are the one who performs it, believing you are making it. Date summarizes: “Their will is influenced by all sorts of factors including their genetics, their prenatal development, their upbringing, their life experiences, their addictions, everything. Their friends, their relationships, all of that influence the will, including their own desire, and the result of all that influence is that the will makes a choice. But… that choice has been pre-determined by God.” Wouldn’t all those factors be included in the eternal decree? 

Force vs. Decree?

Date further explains: “Ultimately, they make a choice, and God has decreed that, but nothing is forcing their hand.” He goes on: “…there is no programming that is firing, in the world God has created, that brings about the action that God has decreed. So that’s what I mean by free. There is literally nothing forcing the agent’s hand to do what they nevertheless do, exactly as God has decreed.” 

In response, Davidson makes what I believe to be a fairly obvious point: technically, they are “forced.” Date asks what is forcing them, to which he responds, “the authorship.” And I have to ask, if the eternal decree of God is not powerful to “force” what happens in space-time, what is it good for? It seems to be simultaneously all-powerful and powerless. Anyone noticing a problem here? 

Date resorts to his escape hatch of the transcendence gap by insisting that the “authorship” doesn’t exist in time, therefore it doesn’t force individuals to act out the parts that have been written for them from eternity past. All that matters is that we “seem” to have a choice. That illusion of choice is sufficient to make each of us morally responsible, and it lets the God of Reformed theology off the hook. How convenient!

How the Analogy Fails

What the author analogy ultimately presents is an illusion of reality. Just as the choices of characters in a novel do not originate in themselves, but in the mind of the author, so too do the sinful thoughts, desires, and actions of human beings originate in the mind and will of God, according to compatibilism. Fictional characters are incapable of producing anything that doesn’t reside in their source. Just the same, human beings could not produce sinful thoughts and behaviors that did not originate in God. Fictional characters possess no actual agency, but we willfully adopt the illusion for the sake of the enjoyment of the story. In compatibilism, human agency is likewise a useful illusion. We are left to deceive ourselves into believing that we are actually making choices, and that we were able to have chosen differently than we did. Since all things that happen in space-time are included in God's decree, this illusion of free choice is also decreed from eternity past. 

The transcendence gap, as described by Date, only succeeds in separating reality from fiction. It effectively does the opposite of what he hopes by diminishing the sinfulness of sin. An author can write stories full of violence, death, and all sorts of sinful behaviors, yet himself retain innocence of those sins because those fictional characters are not actually sinning in real life. Their world carries no actual consequences for real individuals. They do not actually suffer pain or misery or death, so we do not hold the author accountable for any crimes or acts of cruelty committed within the story. Yet we know that what we experience is real. All the evils of this world are real. Our suffering is real, and we cannot be convinced otherwise. Likewise, our sin is real, and because it is, our guilt is real and deserving of judgment. And because all the evils of this world are real, the grace of God is every bit as real, possessing incomparable value.

Conclusion

If God has "authored" all history, He has inevitably written every aspect, including all the suffering and death that results from the sin that is within that story. To argue that God has meticulously authored every detail of the story and deny that He has authored sin is an irreconcilable contradiction. This analogy leaves us to conclude that either the “reality” we experience is pure fiction, or God is the author of real sin. The former does damage to God's power to create real beings made in His image. The latter is fatal to His holiness (Jeremiah 32:35). Neither option is acceptable, therefore we should reject the author analogy. If it is the best representation of compatibilism, we should reject compatibilism. If compatibilism is the best Reformed theology has to offer, we should reject Reformed theology. As Date said, “I think that non-Calvinists are right to object if there is a meaningful sense in which God is causing people to sin.” The author analogy cannot remove that meaningful sense, therefore we are right to maintain our objections.

Making Sense of Christianity 8 - Grace Through Faith

What I have presented in this series can be summed up in one simple phrase: “God is good!” This is the foundational truth of orthodox Christian theology, though we must be careful to ground our understanding of goodness in what God has revealed to us through the created world, Scripture, and most of all through Jesus Christ Himself. He has demonstrated what it means to do the will of the Father, loving God and others self-sacrificially. He has shown us what is good, and it is our responsibility to abide by His will. That being said, none of us have been able to do so perfectly. Our failure to live up to His perfect standard has left us in a seemingly hopeless state. Yet God has graciously provided a way for us to be righteous. If we are “in Christ,” we become like Him, just as He became like us (2 Corinthians 5:21). He graces us with His goodness when we place our faith in Him. This is the Good News. This is the Gospel of salvation.

The Paradox of Salvation

Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” These words from Paul’s letter to the church in Ephesus sum up the basics of salvation. By expressing our faith in Christ, we are given the free gift of eternal life. We do not obtain it through our efforts to live perfect lives because none of us are capable of doing so. The paradox at the heart of Christianity is that God’s goodness is so great that none of us are worthy to be in its presence. Yet because He is so good, His compassion towards us compels Him to graciously offer a way that is obtainable for us to become worthy. This way is by simply laying aside our own delusions of self-righteousness to place our trust in Jesus Christ as the one who is good, and who is able to save us from sin and death.

Pride vs. Humility

Saving faith is not mere intellectual belief in the facts of who Jesus is and that He rose from the dead (James 2:19). True faith requires humility. The opposite of humility is pride, which is the fundamental sin of self-righteousness that lies at the heart of rebellion. Satan and his demons were prideful, and those who have joined the rebellion, refusing to bow their knees to God, are likewise defined by their self-righteousness.

In Luke 18:10-14, Jesus gives us a parable to illustrate the importance of humility before God: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

James 4:6-10 confirms this: “But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.” 

God’s grace is received through humility, which is an essential aspect of faith. When we recognize that we have sinned and need the mercy of God, He lifts us up with His grace. 

Faith that Pleases God

Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” A purely intellectual “faith” is no faith at all. We must seek after God, which requires the humility to admit that He is Lord of all, including our lives. Seeking Him necessarily involves the desire to please Him, which brings us to another paradox: Those of us who are Christians want to please God. We continually fail to do so in our thoughts and actions. Yet we do please Him through faith in Christ. God is gracious and compassionate toward us. Remember, because He became one of us, He can sympathize with us in our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). His perfect love compels Him to provide a way for us to be with Him. 

This is the depths of His goodness, that He would self-sacrificially love those who are suffering in sin, but wanting to be healed. He does not leave us without hope. He became our salvation by taking on our flesh, bearing the curse on the cross, and conquering death in His resurrection. Through faith in Him, we identify with His victory. We want that for ourselves, and He has promised to do it. John 6:40 says, “And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Seeking Him

Some Christians have argued on the basis of Romans 3:10-18 that “there is none who seeks after God,” implying that those who believe in Him only do so through a supernatural act of God overcoming the will of the sinner. In this view, those who reject salvation are not genuinely offered it to begin with. God has never intended to save them. While this is a stumbling block for many, I have found that other passages show that God has not left helpless any individual created in His image. 

Acts 17:26-27 says, “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.” I like to refer to this as the “meaning of life” passage, as Paul is explaining to the people of Athens why God has created us, and what He is calling us to do in response. What we learn here is that God hopes for each and every individual He has ever created to seek Him and find Him. The fact that “He is not far from each one of us” tells us that He can be sought and found by any and every human being. God has placed us where we are in time and space for this very reason. He wants us to be reconciled to Him, and through the atonement of Christ, has provided that gift for all who will receive it. 

What Scripture teaches is not that we can’t seek Him, but that He has sought us first. God has extended His hand of grace, but we must reach out and take hold of it. Titus 2:11-14 says: “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.” This is God’s teleological purpose for the human race, and His Church will ultimately fulfill it.

A Better End

In an earlier post, I introduced the idea that a world that includes the incarnation and atonement is better than a world that didn’t have those goods (“Felix Culpa”). The end will be far greater than the beginning. While we have experienced a great deal of physical and emotional suffering as the consequence of sin, God has taught us what it means to forgive. He has taught us what it means to show compassion to the hurting. He has demonstrated the greatest kind of love through His sacrificial death on the cross. He has taught us what it means to be restored. He has shown us grace. In so doing, we can likewise learn to forgive those who have wronged us. We can show compassion to those who suffer. We can lay aside our own interests to love others. We can lead others to reconciliation with God. We can show grace to those who, like us, do not deserve it. 

Because of what Christ has done for us, we, as His ambassadors, can demonstrate the love of Christ to a world that needs Him. As 2 Corinthians 5:17-20 says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.”

Grace and Love

The Good News is that the Creator of the universe loves each and every one of us, and through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus, He has provided a way for us to be restored to relationship with Him. As we receive Him, we become like Him. God is love, and those in Him will learn to truly love as He loves, as we become one with Christ as He is one with the Father (John 17:20-23). This love will pour out of us as we receive the grace of God through faith in Him. 

I would like to close with this passage from Luke 7:36-50, as it really captures the heart of the Christian message:

“Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Him weeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed them with the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he spoke to himself, saying, ‘This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner.’

And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’

So he said, ‘Teacher, say it.’

‘There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?’

Simon answered and said, ‘I suppose the one whom he forgave more.’

And He said to him, ‘You have rightly judged.’ Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.’ Then He said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’

And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’

Then He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.’”

Review 

Thank you for reading!

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith

Making Sense of Christianity 4: The Spiritual War

As I explained last time, the world is tainted by the effects of sin, but each of us are personally guilty of contributing to the mess. Human responsibility lies at the core of what is wrong with the world and why we see so much evil. However, the problem runs much deeper than the physical realm in which we choose to satisfy our skewed physical appetites. Underneath it all, there is a spiritual war for the souls of each and every human being.

Souls with Bodies

Orthodox Christians believe that human beings are not merely physical machines. While we have bodies, we are souls. This dual nature involves the interaction between the two, where the soul affects the body and the body affects the soul. They are not one and the same, but are both needed to live according to God’s design for our lives here on the earth. This dual nature is also reflected in the relationship between the brain and the mind. The two are not the same, but work in concert with each other. How we think and what information we choose to take in impacts the brain, and the condition of the brain impacts our ability to think (ie. brain trauma, Alzheimer’s). The immaterial part of ourselves, which we associate with our “hearts” and minds, is where our core identity resides. I can imagine my soul inhabiting a different body and still being the same person, but if I imagine a different soul inhabiting my body, I intuitively know that such a person would not be “me.” So it is self-evident that I am most essentially a spiritual being. Going back to what we said about the “image of God,” it only makes sense that we are most essentially spiritual in nature because God Himself is an immaterial, spiritual being. As Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John‬ ‭4:24‬) Therefore worship of God is not rooted in physical action, but spiritual submission to Him. 

Spiritual Beings

God has created us as spiritual beings who inhabit physical bodies, and God Himself is an immaterial, spiritual being who is not bound by any physical limitations. But are there any other beings that are spiritual in nature? There is some debate among Christians as to whether animals have souls, and I believe they do, though they are not created in the image of God (Ecclesiastes 3:21). If they have souls, then human beings are above them in a hierarchy of beings with God at the top. Yet Scripture teaches us that there are other created beings who are spiritual in nature, but are in at least some ways, superior to human beings (Hebrews 2:9). These are what we call “angels.”

Angels and Demons

Like human beings, it seems that angels possess all the qualities we attribute to the image of God. They are rational, moral beings, possessing the ability to choose to submit to or reject God’s purposes for them. Unlike human beings, they do not possess physical bodies, but seem to have some kind of “spiritual body” which allows them to interact with the physical world, but also inhabit the heavenly realm. Regardless of their relationship with God, their spiritual bodies are not under the curse of death, so it seems that they will go on living forever unless God willfully extinguishes their lives. This is not to say that they have existed for all eternity (only God has), but they were created at some point in the past to dwell in the presence of God. 

Like human beings, all angels were created good, but some of them turned against God in an act of rebellion. It is believed by many Christians that as many as 1/3 of all the angels rebelled against God and were cast out of His presence. The leader of this rebellion is called “Satan” or “the Devil.” Those angels, which we call “demons,” are in a continual state of rebellion, and they are actively working in our world to thwart God’s plans for His creation. When it comes to human beings, that means appealing to fellow moral agents to join their rebellion against our Creator. (See addendum below for my theory on why they rebelled.)

Hope for Humanity 

While the fate of Satan and the host of demons is set, ours is open-ended. We will die a physical death, but the destiny of our souls is a matter to be decided. For the angels, their sin is purely an act of the will. Being in the presence of a perfectly good, holy God and choosing to war against Him is something you don’t return from. There is nothing God can do to show Himself more worthy of their worship and devotion, so their decision is made. However, human beings have not known the fullness of the glory of God, therefore we are capable of seeing Him more clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). It is possible that those of us in a current state of sinful rebellion could come to know more about who God is, and learn that He is worthy of our love and devotion.

Demonic Strategy

Now we can begin to see the war raging all around us. Demons, though they are motivated by pure hatred of God and not physical desires for sin, know that we have those desires, and can influence us to obey them, knowing that doing so will begin to reshape our affections to be in opposition to God’s will for our lives. Hebrews 3:12-13 says, “Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” 

Sin’s Deception

How can sin be deceitful? Going back to what I said earlier, the body and soul are interconnected. What we do with our bodies has an impact on our souls. We can become hardened in unbelief by embracing the desires of our flesh. The demons know that if we indulge ourselves, we will become willing to join their rebellion against God. And this is what we see in Romans 1. “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” ‭‭(Romans‬ ‭1:24-25‬). 

Continuing in this thought from verse 28 onward: “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful;” (Romans‬ ‭1:28-31‬). 

What we see is a progression from physical disobedience to spiritual hostility. The culmination is in verse 32: “who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” At this stage, the individual has joined forces with Satan and the demonic host in waging war against God by encouraging others to join the rebellion. This is why no Christian can be in the business of calling sin “good.” To do so is “Satanic.”

Like Satan

People often get confused by Christians talking about things being Satanic. The assumption is that we are ascribing an intention in those who practice such things to worship Satan. Some Christians might believe this, but most of us do not. The truth is that what is Satanic (or “demonic”) has nothing to do with any conscious acknowledgment of Satan. An accurate definition would be to say that whatever is like Satan in its willful rebellion against God is Satanic. To live in opposition to God’s stated or teleological purposes is to do as Satan and his demons did. This is Satanic rebellion, and those who are “religious” can be be guilty of it, as Jesus makes clear in John 8:44: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.”

The Great Deceiver

Satan is called “the father of lies,” and sin accompanies those lies. Just as the practice of sin can affect our thinking so that we believe lies to justify our sin, we may also first believe lies and proceed to sin in our flesh on the basis of those false beliefs. Remember, the body is dependent on the mind, and the mind is dependent on the body. This is why it is important to be grounded in the truth and to understand what we believe as Christians and why we believe it. 

How does Satan go about achieving his plan? As Jesus said, he is a liar. Through demonic influence, we are deceived into believing that rejection of God’s will is what is best for us. Consider how this played out in the Garden of Eden: “Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.” ‭‭(Genesis‬ ‭3:4-6‬) 

Just as Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 tells us that the serpent who deceived Adam and Even in the garden was Satan, we are also led on the path of sin through the deception of spiritual beings whose influence in the world can lead us to join their rebellion. 1 Peter 5:8 says: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”

Looking Ahead / Catching Up 

Putting all of this together, it would seem that we are in a hopeless situation. We have sinful appetites in our bodies working against us, and we have a whole host of beings more powerful than ourselves who are actively working to deceive and lead us to sin, which itself deceives us into believing the lies that they tell us. It’s a vicious cycle. Yet God has provided a way for us that leads to freedom from sin and death. This way is not dependent on our perfect obedience, for He knows what we are dealing with. This will be made evident next time, as we discuss “Atonement Through Incarnation.” 

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

Addendum

The following is my own speculation about why Satan and the demons rebelled against God. Scripture doesn’t give us an answer, so this is my best guess. Take it for what it’s worth. 

I think it could be that Satan resented that God created this world, and particularly that He created human beings in His image. As angels, they had a unique relationship to God as “sons of God” prior to our creation. God’s choice to create lower beings that also bore His image was something Satan found to be beneath Him and defiling to His holiness. As the first to object to God’s plan, Satan found other angels to join him in voicing their disapproval. Lacking trust in His wisdom, and thinking they knew better than the all-knowing, perfectly benevolent God, they sought to turn all of the heavenly host of angelic beings against Him. In response, God banished them from His presence, yet gave them the freedom to influence His created world. God would prove to him that He would succeed in His plan to bring human beings into a loving relationship with Him, and that Satan could try his hardest, but he would still lose. This plan would not only succeed in bringing in many human beings who willfully chose to worship God, but would also succeed in exposing those angels who had enjoyed His presence and worshiped Him in practice, yet did not truly submit to Him as their Lord. 

Now that the demons have been expelled, and certain judgment awaits them, their goal is to make a fool of God and show that His plan failed. They are committed to the task of destroying human flesh by deceiving us into trusting our physical desires above God’s intended design for our lives. Satan desires to annihilate the human race and prove that he was right and God was wrong. But God will win in the end!

Making Sense of Christianity 3: Sin and Death

If there’s one thing everyone can agree upon it is this: the world is not as it should be. While we all see significant problems, we offer vastly different and contradicting solutions to them. Much of our disagreement arises from where we believe the problems originate. The secular world often assigns the blame to external circumstances and accidents of nature, believing that human beings are victims of chance. Those who inflict harm on others do so because others inflicted harm on them, with the blame continually pushed back in an endless chain of prior causes. Christianity offers a different view. Evil exists in our world because we all sin. While each individual cannot change their circumstances, we always have a choice to do what is right or wrong. Therefore, the world is tainted by the effects of sin, but each of us are personally guilty of contributing to the mess. 

What is Sinful about Sin?

While the Christian belief in personal responsibility and the universal sinfulness of the human race is well known, what is not clearly understood by most, including those within the Church, is what makes a sin a sin. Many understand it in terms of “divine command theory.” That is to say, a sin is a sin because God declares it so. The Bible states that such and such behavior, thought, or belief is wrong, therefore it is sin. While God’s commands make it clear to us that such things are sinful, they don’t encompass all of what is sin, especially since Scripture is silent in many areas. While we can apply principles from certain commands to other situations, we cannot always arrive at a clear answer. Perhaps there is a better way to understand sin. I believe that better way is teleology.

Teleology

Teleology is the idea that there is purpose and design in nature. Many of us may be familiar with teleological arguments for a Creator God that show how “fine-tuned” the universe and our planet are to make life possible. We might consider the distance from the earth to the sun, or the strength of the gravitational force, or how we happen to have the water and food we need to survive, as well as the abiltity to reproduce to keep life going. These are a minuscule sampling of the various factors of what is required for us to live and sustain life, and they collectively make a powerful case for the conclusion that this world is not an accident, but the result of an intentional Creator. However, we often fail to make the connection to how we ought to live. If God has fine-tuned the universe for our existence, couldn’t He also have created us with functional purposes in mind? For many, the discussion of teleology stops short at what has been done for us. Doesn’t it also imply what WE should be doing?

Recall what I said in the previous post: “If He (God) IS love, then love is in accordance with what is good, which is in accordance with what is rational, which is in accordance with the will of God. And if this is so, the perfect expression of our love is to be in submission to His will for our lives, and to encourage others to do the same.” From this we can logically infer that sin is that which is not in submission to God’s will, which is ultimately irrational, not good, and unloving. From a teleological perspective, sin is the willful rejection of God’s design for human beings to flourish. Having this framework for our definition of sin helps to bring clarity to the issue. On divine command theory, God’s rules may be arbitrary. Theoretically, He can command us to do things that we know intuitively to be morally wrong. From a teleological perspective, He only commands us to do what is good for us collectively and helps us to function properly in this world. This proper function is based on God’s knowledge of His creation and how it is designed to work. Instead of merely “because God says so,” we want to obey Him because it is good for us to do so. Living according to the purpose for which we are created is the way that we flourish. When we disobey, there are negative consequences for us and for others. 

Another advantage teleology provides is that it helps make sense of sin as a universal problem for humankind. For much of humanity prior to Christ, and continuing today, access to Scripture and the stated commands of God is either forbidden or has yet to be obtained. There are corners of the world where the Gospel has yet to be preached and the Scriptures have yet to be delivered to the people. Are those who have not heard accountable for commands they haven’t received? 

Breaking From the Design

Romans 1:18-32 details the universal sin problem, and shows how sin is not rooted in arbitrary commands, but is associated with rebellion against God’s design for human nature. Those who have not heard the specific commands we find in Scripture still have knowledge of God as revealed in the natural world. They have enough of this knowledge that verses 19-20 says, “what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” What follows is an explanation of how detachment from God-given design and purpose leads to our affections being for created things, and our behaviors deviating from the form and function for which we exist. Verses 26-27 illustrate the degree to which teleology is rejected. “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.” The example Paul uses here may trigger our modern sensibilities, but it is a clear example of sin being defined as a break from God’s intended design for human beings. Following desire over design leads to destruction.

God’s Right to Life

Teleology stands in sharp contrast to our culture’s commitment to autonomy. While we value our own right to do whatever we want with our own bodies, God requires that we submit ourselves to His will. Disobedience is disfunction, and it leads us to destruction. While Christians defend the “right to life,” we often fail to see that it is first and foremost God’s right, and it applies to each and every one of us. Our lives belong to God as our Creator and the one who gives us our purpose. We are accountable to Him. He has the right to give us life and the right to take it away. 

The Consequences of Sin

This brings us to the reality of death. As Scripture records in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they brought damage to God’s perfect design. The thing about sin is that it takes root in the body of the sinner and skews its desires, making the sinner prone to keep on sinning. Once that first sin was introduced to the human race, it began a cycle of sin that was then passed on to the children of the first couple as they inherited the fallen flesh of their parents with its sinful appetites. The human body was misaligned with its perfect design, and would be incapable of restoring itself to its original condition. 

To be in unity with God is to be in perfect alignment with His will. We have each “fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and have incurred the penalty of death as the “wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). As God warned Adam and Eve, “in the day you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17).

The Mercy of Death

Through sin, suffering and death were introduced into the world. The “curse” of death is often seen as punishment, but what is often overlooked is the mercy of God. We are told that God set angels at the Gates of Eden to block entry so they would not have access to the tree of life. The lesson here is that it is not God’s will for the human race to exist eternally in a sinful state. Death is required to free us from our fallen condition. But death is not God’s ultimate desire for us. His desire is that we live forever free of sin. We cannot do so in our present state. 

Looking Ahead / Catching Up

We love to do things our own way, and to make matters worse, there are powerful forces at work to lead us down that path. I will turn my attention to those next time as we discuss “The Spiritual War.”

1. The Creator God
2. Personhood & the Image of God

3. Sin & Death

4. The Spiritual War

5. Atonement Through Incarnation

6. Atonement Through Sacrifice

7. Resurrection

8. Grace Through Faith 

A Feisty Fall Debate: McGrew vs Slick Reviewed

I must confess that recently I’ve grown weary of the never-ending arguments over Calvinism. The behavior of many on social media from any and every side of each point of the TULIP can be discouraging and tiresome. While there is much division in the Church at large over a wide variety of doctrines and practices, it seems to reach another level when it comes to soteriology. Passions run high, and it’s not hard to see why. These issues are of significant importance as they affect our view of God and His relationship to us. When it comes to secondary issues of the faith, I’m not sure there is anything more important. After catching Warren McGrew’s interview with Leighton Flowers a few weeks ago, my own interest was rekindled. As a former Calvinist, his personal testimony of the effects of reading the Bible from Genesis forward with fresh eyes and finding that the “doctrines of grace” were not to be found was very compelling, and helped to renew in me a desire to write on the subject. Having recently debated Matt Slick of CARM.org, one of the leading voices in Calvinism on the internet, they reviewed what was a very contentious, but also enlightening, discussion on the topic, “Is Total Depravity True?” Being inspired to go back and see it for myself, I thought I would share some points that stood out for me. There is much more that could be said, but for the sake of brevity, I will focus on one key thematic point from each side. Before I do, I will allow its defender (Slick) to define the subject of the debate.

Total Depravity:

 

“Man is completely touched by sin in all of what he is... so his heart, soul, mind, strength... has been affected by sin. That is not to say that he is as bad as he can be... we can always be worse in our sin. Total depravity is still retained upon regeneration, but we (Christians) are regenerate and we war against the flesh... The unregenerate will not of their own free, sinful state freely choose to receive Christ because their hearts are desperately wicked... and they are enslaved to sin. They cannot receive spiritual things. They are dead in their sins. They are by nature children of wrath. They are at enmity with God. They can do no good.” 

1. Slick: All humans are naturally irrational in spiritual matters.

Key Scripture:

“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”‭‭ (I Corinthians‬ ‭2:14‬)

While Slick concedes that humans are rational beings, he asserts that such rationality doesn’t apply to spiritual things. When it comes to spiritual matters, everyone will reject these truths unless God regenerates them and causes them to receive them. McGrew counters that the “natural man” in the above passage is someone who is not synonymous with “unbeliever,” but is “carnal,” specifically pursuing sin. In this sense, it is possible for an unbeliever to positively receive spiritual truths if they are not driven by selfish pursuits. It is also possible for a believer to reject them if they are hung up in sinful behaviors. He uses the example of children, perhaps up to young adulthood, as being in the former category. They may not yet believe the gospel, but they may still be receptive to it because they are not willfully submitting to sin. McGrew argues that we are created as rational beings in the image of God, there is no reason to believe that our rationality is impaired from birth in spiritual matters, and that Scripture doesn’t make this claim. While he argues that rationality can point us to God’s truth, Slick accuses him of elevating rationality to the level of Scripture. 

This is where Slick’s argument falls apart. If only Scripture can be relied upon for truth, then any interpretation of Scripture (which each of Calvinism’s doctrines of grace happen to be) is unreliable, and cannot also be taken for truth. To do so would be to put them on the same level, by Slick’s own standard. While he can argue that the regenerate believer can be made to understand and believe spiritual things, he must then either say that all regenerate believers will be made to understand spiritual things, like the doctrine of total depravity, or that some regenerate believers will be able to understand only some spiritual things. Therefore, either the only true believers are Calvinists who agree unanimously on all other spiritually discerned matters, or Calvinists are simply superior models of regeneration. The non-Calvinist is a partially regenerated, inferior Christian. Slick seems to suggest the latter, as he says that it is possible for Christians to not fully submit to receiving the things of the Spirit of God, pointing to McGrew as an example of such a Christian. While claiming to elevate the authority of Scripture, Slick only elevates his own. He is sure to remind us that he has a Masters of Divinity from a Calvinist university, and has been teaching Calvinism for 30 years. Surely he is a reliable source of truth on these matters!

Such appeals to extra-biblical authority are all too common among those who shout loudest about “Sola Scriptura.” The Calvinist routinely appeals to his confessions and councils. What conflicts with either is denounced as “heresy.” I counted at least a dozen uses of some form of the “H” word from Slick in this debate, and I honestly lost count on “Pelagian.” Does the Christian have the right to denounce heresies where they are found? Sure, if we allow for rationality to lead us to truths not stated plainly in Scripture. In this debate, only McGrew can do so without undercutting his own argument. 

2. McGrew: The incarnation is devalued by total depravity.

Key Scripture:

 “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.”‭‭ (Hebrews‬ ‭2:14-18‬)

Of all the points made in this debate, this one is likely to stir up the most discussion. I don’t recall ever hearing this line of argument in a formal debate before, though it is something I have chewed on in my own mind. What does it mean that “in all things He had to be made like His brethren?” There seems to be a strong connection between the incarnation and the atonement, and it raises the question of how Christ can be a proper representative of the human race. McGrew argues that He had to be made like us, not only in His appearance, but also in His nature. If we are born with a sinful nature, as total depravity says we are, then for Christ to be like us in every way would mean that He would be born with a sinful nature. Yet Christ was without sin, therefore He wasn’t born with a sinful nature. Since He was like us, then we likewise were not born with a sinful nature. 

Slick’s counter to this is that Christ was not like us in His nature because He didn’t have a human father, and that McGrew is a Pelagian. There was much back-and-forth about the definition of a Pelagian, and whether McGrew met Slick’s previously stated definition, but none of that is particularly important. At this moment in time, Slick has effectively defined Pelagianism as the denial of original sin, which is understood as the imputation of the guilt of Adam’s sin to each human from the moment of conception. So if you believe that babies in the womb are innocent until they personally choose to sin, then you are also a Pelagian, which makes you a heretic! I would be too. The actual definition is hard to agree upon, since we only know what Pelagius taught through Augustine and other second-hand sources. Did he teach that men were capable of living sinless lives? Did he believe man makes the first move to God to be saved? Or did he simply believe that human beings were not born guilty of sin? 

Now, while I believe McGrew is on the right track in his argument, I do believe where he goes with it opens him up to these accusations of Pelagianism. By arguing that Christ did not have a sinful nature, therefore we are not born with a sinful nature, he is making a claim about humanity that runs counter to the position of both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism (both rooted in Augustine’s teachings on the subject) throughout history up to the present. This might be consistent with Eastern Orthodoxy, which has never affirmed original sin. Since I was unsure of McGrew’s exact position, I went to his YouTube series on the topic. I found this quote of his in the comments under the video on “Hypostatic Union,” which brings clarity to his view of the sin nature:

“I don’t believe human nature is sinful. It merely possesses God given drives, appetites and ambitions which can be used to sin or in obedience. The term Original Sin is an Augustinian doctrine asserting our flesh, will, mind and soul are stained by sin, and possessed of concupiscence, therein deserving hell upon coming into existence. The term sinful nature can be used to refer to the effects of Original Sin, or a nature developed through personal sinning.” 

If I understand McGrew correctly, he believes a sin nature is something we develop through our own individual practice of sin once we are mature enough to consciously know what we are doing. In this way, he affirms that all adult humans throughout history (the mentally disabled possibly excepted) have had a sin nature. While Jesus was born like us without a sin nature, He never developed one because He never sinned. All humans suffer pain and die, including children, because of the curse. Jesus also suffered and died because of the curse. 

What I don’t see in his position is anything that makes us more prone to sin than Adam and Eve were before the Fall. Yet we all sin eventually, right? Were Adam and Eve replaceable with any of us? Would we all choose to sin without a prior inclination to do so? Maybe, but I am not sure that our own lived experience, or the full revelation of Scripture, fit this scenario. (I believe there is a better solution, and I will provide that in my next post: “Making Sense of the Fall.” Stay tuned!)

All of this is a stark contrast to Slick’s position of total depravity from conception, which led to his assessment of McGrew’s opening statement as a “heresy-fest.” But even assuming they are “Pelagian,” how does Slick justify calling them heretical? He must appeal to the extra-biblical declarations of men in centuries past in various councils. There is no biblical passage that outlines the “heresy” of Pelagianism. So appealing to the opinions of fallible men is to cut the legs out from his affirmation of Sola Scriptura. If I were McGrew, I would let Slick call him a Pelagian and demand that he justify the claims that Pelagianism (as he has defined it) is heresy without appealing to post-biblical church history. If those councils were not equally inspired as Scripture, then they cannot be held up as infallible. If we assume that they got everything right, then we are guilty of the heresy of raising their opinions to the level of Scripture, according to Slick’s logic.

Closing Thoughts:

One lesson I’ve learned in recent years through much debate in social media is that every Christian is a heretic in the eyes of another. Whether it be the Protestant vs Catholic divide, Calvinism vs Arminianism or Provisionism, or any other hot-button issue within the broader umbrella of Christianity, there are many who consider those on the other side to be heretics destined for hell if they don’t repent of their ideological sins. The divisions in the Church are an opportunity for us to display the grace and kindness of our Savior, but we often choose to drive a wedge between us so as to elevate ourselves above others. 

What viewers of this debate are most likely to come away with, more than a contrast of ideas, is a contrast of demeanors. Slick was uncharitable, impatient, and unwilling to show grace to a brother who disagrees. McGrew on the other hand, while at times clearly frustrated, was eager to embrace Slick as a brother, even thanking him for how his ministry has helped him in the past. His demonstration of grace was striking in the face of its absence. How we treat each other matters greatly, and its impact is felt outside the walls of the church. We never know who is looking in, and we also do not know who is on the inside looking out. My hope is that this debate will lead us to consider how we reflect Christ in our differences, that we might not be a clanging cymbal, but speak truth in love.