Support the Podcast
Want to support the podcast? You can do so here:
Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Does Calvinism Make God the "Author of Sin"?
A common objection to Calvinism is that the anti-Calvinist believes it makes God the “author of sin,” (which I will call “AoS objection”), in which it is proposed that if God is the author of sin, the God is inappropriately related to the existence of sin such that he is somehow blameworthy for it. There are numerous responses to this objection that I think easily dispatch the problem by correctly understanding the Reformed view of God’s sovereignty and decrees in relationship to creation. Guillome Bignon’s book Excusing Sinners, Blaming God is a good example of this. The line of response typified by Bignon, is, basically, that the term “author of sin” is left too vague and ill-defined to pose a meaningful objection to Calvinism and Reformed dogma. That is, “author of sin” could mean several different things and could hide several assumptions about the relationship between God and creation, and a certain view of Libertarian Freedom, that are not present in Calvinism. Because the AoS is a variety of internal critique (i.e. “IF Calvinism is true, then God would be the author of sin…”), bringing in assumptions, principles, and views that are not intrinsic to Calvinism means that objection fails – it no longer is evaluating Calvinism qua Calvinism, but rather is objecting to a misconstrued strawman of Calvinism slanted and distorted by extra-Calvinistic principles. This does not mean Calvinism is true, but merely that this objection often fails for that reason.
There are other responses that could be given as well from views concerning the non-moral goodness of God such that God just is the good and as such, has no moral obligations to any moral standard like we humans do. This would mean that whatever God did for his own reasons would be good for God to do precisely because God does it. This is complex and would take too long to explicate here, but I wanted to atleast give a nod in that direction so many of my readers who would make such an argument (myself included) can rest assured that I am aware of its viability.
However, in addition to the above responses, I recently saw another rejoinder to the AoS that I had not seen before and found interesting. I have not thought about it long enough to think of all the ins and outs so I’d like to throw it open to everyone here to weigh in on its merits (if any). It goes like this:
One of the assumptions of the AoS, is that if God is the author of sin, it means that he is becomes the sole actor and only responsible party – that God being the “author of sin” removes the human component, even if they freely chose to act upon their desire to act sinfully. That is, that God would be monergistically responsible for the existence of sin, and man’s choice is not considered sufficiently free enough to be blameworthy or causally determinative. They argue that this just is what “author” means. This then, in conjunction with the first rejoinder above, a set of horns on a dilemma.
Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus the “author” of our faith. If we take the meaning needed to make the anti-Calvinistic objection to work, that “author of…” just means a monergistic work where God becomes the only responsible party eliminating the volitional role of the human, then we would also need Hebrews 12:2 to mean that. That would mean that in order to press the objection against Calvinists, the anti-Calvinist would need to affirm the Calvinistic notion of monergism with respect to the existence of faith in the believer – that God in Christ is the one solely responsible for the existence of what he is the author of and that man was determined and thus not praiseworthy for their own faith – they chose because God “authored” them to it.
In order to avoid this, the anti-Calvinist will need to then equivocate on the term “author” and say that author can and does in some instances mean something other than the responsible agent for the existence of some feature of what they authored, if they authored it with the secondary cause of human action and choice. However, the instant that they do this, then they have shown that Bignon’s rejoinder above properly dispatches their original objection.
This means that the AoS objection either proves too much and inadvertently proves the Calvinistic doctrine of monergistic salvation, or else it does not prove enough to sustain its case because it requires a concept of authorship that the Calvinist would not affirm (and that they themselves do not affirm in analogous cases).
Therefore, the AoS objection fails because the anti-Calvinist cannot have his book and eat it too.
For more on Reformed Theology and Calvinism, please visit the collection here.
There are other responses that could be given as well from views concerning the non-moral goodness of God such that God just is the good and as such, has no moral obligations to any moral standard like we humans do. This would mean that whatever God did for his own reasons would be good for God to do precisely because God does it. This is complex and would take too long to explicate here, but I wanted to atleast give a nod in that direction so many of my readers who would make such an argument (myself included) can rest assured that I am aware of its viability.
However, in addition to the above responses, I recently saw another rejoinder to the AoS that I had not seen before and found interesting. I have not thought about it long enough to think of all the ins and outs so I’d like to throw it open to everyone here to weigh in on its merits (if any). It goes like this:
One of the assumptions of the AoS, is that if God is the author of sin, it means that he is becomes the sole actor and only responsible party – that God being the “author of sin” removes the human component, even if they freely chose to act upon their desire to act sinfully. That is, that God would be monergistically responsible for the existence of sin, and man’s choice is not considered sufficiently free enough to be blameworthy or causally determinative. They argue that this just is what “author” means. This then, in conjunction with the first rejoinder above, a set of horns on a dilemma.
Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus the “author” of our faith. If we take the meaning needed to make the anti-Calvinistic objection to work, that “author of…” just means a monergistic work where God becomes the only responsible party eliminating the volitional role of the human, then we would also need Hebrews 12:2 to mean that. That would mean that in order to press the objection against Calvinists, the anti-Calvinist would need to affirm the Calvinistic notion of monergism with respect to the existence of faith in the believer – that God in Christ is the one solely responsible for the existence of what he is the author of and that man was determined and thus not praiseworthy for their own faith – they chose because God “authored” them to it.
In order to avoid this, the anti-Calvinist will need to then equivocate on the term “author” and say that author can and does in some instances mean something other than the responsible agent for the existence of some feature of what they authored, if they authored it with the secondary cause of human action and choice. However, the instant that they do this, then they have shown that Bignon’s rejoinder above properly dispatches their original objection.
This means that the AoS objection either proves too much and inadvertently proves the Calvinistic doctrine of monergistic salvation, or else it does not prove enough to sustain its case because it requires a concept of authorship that the Calvinist would not affirm (and that they themselves do not affirm in analogous cases).
Therefore, the AoS objection fails because the anti-Calvinist cannot have his book and eat it too.
For more on Reformed Theology and Calvinism, please visit the collection here.
Monday, October 7, 2019
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)