The Time piece explains the appeal of Calvinism this way:
John Calvin's 16th century reply to medieval Catholicism's buy-your-way-out-of-purgatory excesses is Evangelicalism's latest success story, complete with an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity, and the combination's logical consequence, predestination: the belief that before time's dawn, God decided whom he would save (or not), unaffected by any subsequent human action or decision.
I will probably provide a few blog entries on this subject over the next while, as several thoughts have come to mind that I haven't really seen covered elsewhere yet. In this first entry, let me briefly comment on the coherence of Calvinism.
I have heard Michael Metzger at the Clapham Institute repeatedly frame discussions in the context of "ought, is, can, and will." Creation tells us how things ought to be; after the fall we have to come to grips with how things are; redemption provides hope for what can be; and the eschaton provides the confidence that this hope will become real.
The comprehensive worldview inherent in Calvinism - rooting salvation in the sovereignty and will of God rather than the choice or activities of man -- brings coherence and consistency to life. Salvation does not become a life boat to deal with the reality of sin and death but is somehow disconnected from everyday life -- it places the entire world within a single context of purpose and meaning. The world is about God, not man. While this is a humbling truth for us to come to grips with, it is a liberating truth when it is realized and lived because there is a meaning far beyond ourselves.
To reformulate the Four-fold state of human nature (my preference over the more typical creation-fall-redemption framework commonly used in Christian worldview discussions):
1. The world has been made with a purpose and meaning. God existed before the world and He will exist after it and everything that exists and happens has an explanation.
2. The problem and reality of evil is dealt with. The world is not divided between good guys and bad guys (which is a hopeless scenario, given that when this is your worldview, all you can do is spend all of your life trying to become a good guy, which given the imperfection in each of us, leads to the angst-producing question of "How do I know my good is good enough?"
3. There is hope. God provides salvation and the accomplishment and application of it is His sovereign work. While I cannot rationalize fully how His sovereignty and my responsiblity co-exist, when I acknowledge my finiteness and His infinity, there is a rational explanation for my incomprehension and accepting my place in the world, it gives me reason to take Him at His word, have faith that His gospel offer is sincere and well-meant, and rely wholly on the work of Jesus Christ who not only paid the guilt of sin, but also provides the obedience so that my imperfections are not a hindrance to my acceptance.
4. There is future. God made the world for His glory and with a desire to commune with man as He did with Adam and Eve in the garden. Although sin has ruptured that relationship, we are heading to a future glory where the world will be refined and God will commune with His redeemed. There is a point to history - we are moving from the garden to the city.
5. Life matters. Since God made everything, everything matters. There is consequence and purpose to what we do. While Calvinism's critics suggest that the doctrine of sovereignty leaves us as pawns following fate, I find the opposite to be true. Within the framework of God's revelation about the world and its purpose, the calling and responsiblity of every person is clear and there is a context for living it out. It seems to me that the alternative worldview of an evolutionary mechanistic unfolding of life is a much more hopeless perspective. Then, we are subjected to forces beyond our control, for a life that may or may not last for about 80 years.
6. God is a person. It was God's desire in creating humanity to have fellowship with his created persons. He made man in His image, and as such, man can also commune with Him, do many "god-like" things (create, govern, reason, love, imagine), and realize full fellowship with Him.
Taken together, this provides a coherence and consistency that few other worldviews can compete with. Of course, to present it this way as simply a rationalistic worldview is to miss the heartbeat and vibrancy of faith -- something that Calvinism's logic tells us can only be realized through a miracle of grace worked by God, since by nature we are incapable of even choosing good and in fact "dead in our sins" such that promoting human spiritual agency makes as much sense as telling bodies in a cemetery to wake up. Still, in obedience to the command to preach, Calvinists preach, as irrational as such an activity seems to the logic of Calvinist theology, beleiving that the Spirit working through the word is the divinely-ordained means of regenerating life in dead sinners.
Nonetheless, it is the coherence of Calvinism which must be part of the consideration as we seek to understand why Time might see its influence. Ultimately its power and influence is deeply personal, as salvation is worked in the hearts of individuals, but its impact go far beyond the personal and impact social orders and society as a whole, including those who do not subscribe to Calvinism. A future post will make a few observations about Public Calvinism.
0 comments:
Post a Comment