Why (High) Calvinism Is Impossible (with Special Reference to Romans 9)

Last updated on: October 11, 2015 at 7:51 am by Roger E. Olson

Why (High) Calvinism Is Impossible (with Special Reference to Romans 9) 2015-10-11T07:51:21-05:00 Roger E. Olson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is a talk I gave to a group of outstanding students at Samford University October 7 (2015)–part of the Holley-Hull Lecture series I delivered there that week. I will post other lectures of the series over the next week.

Why (High) Calvinism Is Impossible

In one of his sermons against Calvinism, Methodist founder John Wesley famously remarked about the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 that “Whatever it means, it cannot mean that.” I think many people, especially committed Calvinists, believers in so-called “double predestination,” misunderstand Wesley’s comment. I have heard from them that Wesley, and I, simply bring to the Bible philosophical and theological presuppositions that predetermine what it can mean. There’s a partial truth to that criticism, although I remind my (and Wesley’s) Calvinist critics that influential Reformed theologian Charles Hodge, in his influential three volume Systematic Theology, published in the 1870s, upon which many contemporary Calvinist systematic theologies are based, affirmed certain necessary a prioris, common sense principles, with which one must start in interpreting the Bible and theology. One of them is that God cannot do wrong. The context of his statement, which is found in the early chapters of Volume 1 of his Systematic Theology, makes clear that he means we must presuppose that God cannot do what is truly morally wrong. He did not mean, with some nominalists-voluntarists such as medieval theologian Duns Scotus, the “subtle doctor,” that whatever God would do would automatically be right just because God does it. Rather, he was basing his pre-conditioning claim on Thomas Reid’s “Scottish Common Sense Realism” for which there are certain universal ideas that only insane people would deny—such as the existence of other minds.

I take Wesley’s claim about Romans 9 farther and claim that it not only cannot mean “double predestination”—that God, from all eternity, foreordained certain individuals to be damned to hell for his glory and rendered it certain that they would be so damned—but that that Calvinist doctrine is logically impossible in the sense of being self-referentially defeating.

By “impossible” I don’t mean, of course, “doesn’t exist.” I mean “exists but doesn’t work.” By “doesn’t work” I mean “cannot be believed consistently and coherently.” Believing it undermines the very basis for believing it.

In brief, my argument is that belief in the Bible as God’s Word and motivation to engage in its exegesis presupposes belief that God is trustworthy, that God cannot deceive. But this assumes that God has a stable, enduring, eternal character that is “good” in a way analogous to our highest and best intuitions of “goodness”—whatever their source may be.

Put another way, negatively, if one believes that God’s goodness is nothing like our best intuitions of goodness, that God’s goodness is possibly compatible with anything capable of being put into words (i.e., ultimately and finally mysterious), then there is no good reason to trust him. Trust in a person, even God, necessarily requires belief that the person is good and belief that the person is good necessarily requires some content and not that “good” is merely a cipher for something totally beyond comprehension and unlike anything else we call “good.”

Put in technical language, if “good” applied to God is equivocal and not even analogical, then it is useless for describing God. If “God is good” is qualified with “but his goodness is completely different from ours” (meaning our highest and best ideas of goodness), then it is meaningless.

Not all Calvinists say that God’s goodness is completely different from ours. Paul Helm, for example, in The Providence of God, argues that “goodness” attributed to God cannot be totally other than goodness attributed to human beings (even as an impossible ideal). Unfortunately for him, I believe, he does not follow that insight through consistently but undermines it by attempting to combine assertion of God’s essential goodness with belief in double predestination.

I argue that belief in double predestination is simply logically incompatible with the claim that God is good—unless “good” is emptied of all meaning so that it is a useless cipher for something we don’t know.

But if God is not good in some way analogous to our highest and best intuitions, insights, into “goodness,” then there is no reason to trust the Bible. And if there is no reason to trust the Bible (because God, being not good in any sense meaningful to us, might be deceiving us), then there is no clear motive for intense biblical exegesis.

Every devout, evangelical Christian believer I have ever met or heard of approaches Bible reading and study (including exegesis) with the assumption that the Bible is true (even if not strictly inerrant)—that it does not misidentify God and God’s will for us. But built into that assumption is that God, the Bible’s author (by inspiration of the human authors) is good (which is why he is trustworthy and cannot deceive). But belief that God “designs, foreordains, and governs” hell for the reprobate who are unconditionally chosen by God for hell for his glory without regard to any truly free choices they make undermines belief in God’s goodness. So does belief that God “passes over” some he could easily save (because election to salvation is unconditional and saving grace is irresistible), damning them to hell, for his glory.

There is no conceivable analogous human behavior that we would call “good.” The very concept of “good” rules out such behavior. (To say nothing of Jesus’ own goodness and the New Testament’s commands for us to love our enemies and do good to them.)

My point is, of course, that there exists a contradiction between two Calvinist beliefs: 1) that the Bible is inherently and unconditionally trustworthy, and 2) that God, its author, is not good in any sense meaningful to us. Belief “1” assumes that God is good in a sense meaningful to us—comparable with our highest and best intuitions of goodness. Belief “2” (necessarily implied by double predestination) empties belief “1” of foundation.

Therefore, any exegesis of the Bible that ends up portraying God as not good, which high Calvinism (belief in double predestination) inexorably does, cannot be believed because it self-referentially turns back against the very reason for believing the Bible. In order to be consistent one must choose between belief in the Bible as God’s Word and belief in double predestination.

This is why I say with John Wesley about the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 9 “Whatever it means it cannot mean that.”

Uncategorized

Previous Post

October 9, 2015

My Holley-Hull Lectures at Samford University

Next Post

October 12, 2015 Outrageous "Justification" of Shooting of Black Child in Cleveland, Ohio

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Lo-Ammi" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Not My People The Lord is My Salvation Exiled Chosen One