God’s Sovereignty

Sovereignty of God

Published by Papa Giorgio

At EXAMINING CALVINISM you can read responses in this post to: James White, R.C. Sproul, Robert A. Peterson and Michael D. Williams,

… Some Calvinists have wrongly concluded that the non-Calvinist seeks to downplay the sovereignty of God and highlight the autonomy of man, when in reality we seek to maintain the right biblical understanding of man’s autonomy so as to better highlight the sovereignty, love and holiness of God.

Does God’s sovereignty terminate at the point of being able to create
autonomous beings who seek their own purposes?

Does God’s sovereignty terminate at the point of being able to offer
such beings an independent choice He does not determine?

If God must meticulously decree every thought, word and deed ever conceived in order to remain “sovereign,” then that wouldn’t say much for divine sovereignty. In contrast to Calvinism, God exhibits being all-wise, all-knowing and all-powerful when He governs without any strings attached. The contrasting Calvinist conception of divine sovereignty would make God out to be pretty mediocre.

All of scripture supports God’s “sovereignty.” The controversy is over how Calvinists try to redefine sovereignty to mean exhaustive, philosophical determinism, and the way that is accomplished is by citing the biblical word, “predestination.” However, the fact that God predestines some things does not necessarily mean that God predestines everything. Moreover, it is critical to correctly understand the manner in which God predestines things. For instance, God predestined to redeem good from evil, but that doesn’t necessarily mean He caused the evil He redeems.

God is the ultimate cause of everything that exists, meaning that without Him, nothing can come to pass, and this is something that all theists can affirm, so long as one incorporates a truly meaningful definition of divine permission, in which in addition to God’s own determinations, He also permits independent agents who possess autonomy of reason to conduct their own libertarianly free choices. The problem in Calvinism, however, is that divine permission is reduced to a matter of God allowing people to do what He exhaustively and meticulously rendered certain and necessary, thus spoiling the aforementioned definition of permission.

God is in control of all things, though He is not all-controlling. Calvinists, however, believe in a type of divine sovereignty which requires that God exhaustively predetermine everything that ever comes to pass, including every person’s thoughts, intentions and actions, for all eternity, including sinful thoughts, intentions and actions, thus drawing a sharp rebuke from non-Calvinists. This is what Calvinists term “predestination,” though the Bible does not teach predestination in such a way. Moreover, such a notion has historically drawn the criticism of being a form of Christian fatalism. Nonetheless, from the Calvinist perspective, an exhaustive eternal decree is necessary for God to truly be in control and to truly be omnipotent. It should be pointed out, however, that the Bible never talks about any such eternal decree. What Calvinists are referring to is just a systemic, doctrinal perspective, rather than something that is firmly taught in Scripture. A decree is simply something that God declares to be, and so if God declares for mankind to have free-will, which is what non-Calvinists hold to, then that’s what God decreed. For instance, non-Calvinists believe that God has decreed, not which choices that we will make, but rather that we would be free in making them. That’s a doctrinal perspective. So when we make free choices, it is understood that we are not countervailing the will of God, but rather we are acting in accordance with the ability God has granted.

Speaking frankly, Calvinistic determinism would mean that God cannot handle free-will, and it would gut all creation of true life. It would render God as a marionette, pulling the strings of dead things. It would be a worthless and humiliating endeavor for a truly glorious, all-powerful, all-knowing and all-wise God. …

Voddie Baucham on Sovereignty

Dr. Leighton Flowers responds to a short snippet from Dr. Voddie Baucham on the sovereignty of God

Ronnie W. Rogers, Reflections of a Disenchanted Calvinist,

CPHT 1, Sovereignty of God (PDF)

Sovereignty of God

  1. I affirm that God is sovereign over everything without exception; therefore, He is in total control; further, I believe that creating a world where men are given a real choice demonstrates God’s sovereignty rather than undermines it. By real free choice, I mean that by grace, God gave man the ability to believe the gospel or not to believe the gospel; as a result, the ones who believe could have not believed, and the ones who disbelieve could have believed unto salvation. Consequently, man’s consignment to hell is due to being born a sinner, sinning, and rejecting a real offer of the redemptive love and mercy of God, which he could have accepted; therefore he is in hell because he chose to be despite God’s provision and desire for him to be saved (2 Peter 3:9). This position does not in any sense minimize or waste the redemptive work of Christ and the power of the cross, or undermine or thwart the sovereignty of God. The work and power of the sacrifice of Christ was to provide salvation for all and secure it for all who would receive it by faith and by God’s gracious provision. I affirm that God’s sovereignty is not minimized because He sovereignly chose to provide a real choice for everyone to accept or reject the gospel. This includes deliverance from eternal hell, men’s just desert, for anyone and everyone who acts in concert with His grace enablement and follows Christ.

The means of this grace enablement include but are not limited to: Gods’ salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of His power so that all may know He is the Sovereign (Isaiah 45:21-22) and Creator (Romans 1:18-20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about Him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7-11), working ofthe Holy Spirit (Hebrews 6:1-6), enlightening of the Son ( John 1:9), God’s teaching ( John 6:45), God opening hearts (Acts 16:14), and the power of the gospel (Romans 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Romans 3:11). Further, I believe that man, because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, can choose to seek and find God (Jeremiah 29:13; Acts 17:11-12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all men, individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuo, is used in both verses. “About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.”5 Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

I also affirm that the permissive will of God is a part of His decretive will that permitted sin to enter the world and, for a time, continue.6 Holiness is always God’s standard and therefore sin is never God’s perfect, immediate or ultimate desire for His creation or man, but within His sovereign decretive will, He has purposefully permitted it. He commands man to obey, but permits him the freedom to disobey. The choice to disobey God’s commands results in man suffering the consequences of such choice. Thus, with regard to salvation, God desires that all come to salvation (2 Peter 3:9). Accordingly, He enables man to be able to be saved, and thereby permits man to freely choose to believe the gospel or to reject His grace and love and die in his sins. Without question, God’s permissive will does not preclude Him from ever intervening in the decision-making process of man if His purposes so require; however, neither does it necessitate that it be done in order to maintain sovereignty as long as He sovereignly chose to act in that particular way.

I further affirm that God’s full character and attributes, not just His sovereignty or justice, are to be considered when speaking of Him and His plans. This includes His infinity, justice, mercy, compassion, love, grace and power, which He possesses perfectly and infinitely. God is the sum of perfection. Lewis Sperry Chafer notes concerning this balance, “He is free to dispose of His creation as He will; but His will… is wholly guided by the true and benevolent features of His Person ….The attributes of God form an interwoven and interdependent communion of facts and forces which harmonize in the Person of God. An omission or slighting of any of these, or any disproportionate emphasis upon any one of them cannot but lead to fundamental error of immeasurable magnitude.”7

Moreover, I affirm that all of God’s attributes are more accurately reflected by accepting the truths of Scripture, which declare that salvation is provided and genuinely offered to everyone by God, and everyone can by “grace through faith” receive salvation, rather than by accepting the teaching of Calvinism that God only actually offers salvation to some because only that particular some can actually believe; those are the ones He monergistically causes to believe by changing their nature against their will. Calvinism teaches that regeneration is monergistic—God alone—and man has no part in it. After regeneration there becomes a synergistic relationship between God and man, and man exercises faith because he cannot choose to do otherwise. This is a disquieting reality.

Lastly, while some things about God are indeed a mystery because either they are not fully disclosed by God or understood by man or both (Deuteronomy 29:29), this is quite different than mysteries generated by Calvinism’s overemphasis upon certain attributes or concepts like justice or predestination and defining sovereignty to necessarily preclude real free choice. Actually, the Calvinist’s persistent mention of the sovereignty of God tells us nothing about the biblical loyalty of Calvinism since all believers with any biblical fidelity and understanding of God believe in His sovereignty. Further, disavowal of the Calvinist’s definition of sovereignty is not a denial or undermining of the sovereignty of God, but it is what it is, a denial of Calvinism’s definition.

  1. I disaffirm that salvation is monergistic, which means that God actively causes some to be saved by forced regeneration, and that act of regeneration is contrary to and against their sinful, rebellious nature, will, and choice, and that until regeneration, man is totally passive and becomes active only after regeneration. I disaffirm that there is nothing that can be done prior to regeneration with regard to salvation.8 I disaffirm that man is passive in regeneration.9 I further disaffirm that God selects to regenerate some and thereby either actively or passively chooses to leave some in their lost condition,10 and therefore irresistibly pre-determines some to be forever lost and damned to a place created for Satan (Matthew 25:41).

Calvinism asks us to believe that God chose eternal torment for the vast majority of His creation (Matthew 7: 1 3 —14). They want us to rejoice in a God who desires and chose for the vast majority of his creation to go to hell when He could have redeemed them. That is indeed God according to Calvinism, but not the God Scripture. This is a disquieting reality. Where is the plethora of Scripture where God expresses His desire for the vast majority of His creation to perish in eternal torment and this with equal clarity and abundance as those Scriptures that declare His indefatigable, sacrificial love and desire that all repent and be saved? I suggest that they do not exist and for good reason.

Monergism means that salvation is “[God’s] work alone”11, which is based upon the Calvinistic view that salvation depends upon God’s unconditional election to regenerate some prior to and quite apart from anything, even faith. However, if there is nothing that is a part of salvation and no one can do anything, even by the grace of God, to facilitate faith and thereby salvation, then why did Paul reason from the Scriptures in order to prove that Jesus was the Messiah? (e.g., Acts 17:2-4). Why did he attempt to “persuade men”? (2 Corinthians 5:11). Why did he beg people to be “reconciled to God”? (2 Corinthians 5:20). Why did God reconcile the “world”? (2 Corinthians 5:19). Why was Paul able to reason with the Jews concerning Christ, persuading some while others “would not believe”? (Acts 28:24). Notice it was not that they could not believe, but they would not believe. Why would Paul believe and say, “I have become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some”? (1 Corinthians 9:22).

To respond, as Calvinists do, that God has established the means to salvation, and therefore this may be the means of salvation, which in reality according to monergism has no real effect upon conversion, is just simply not what is presented in the Scripture. The picture in Scripture is that these things do have an actual part in salvation. They play a part, as does faith, by the grace and plan of God. To say that Paul was doing and saying this all out of mere obedience, all the while knowing that the people to whom he reasoned and pleaded may be the ones who could not hear or respond any more than a blind person could see you wink, is not the picture that is presented ever so clearly Scripture. Nor is it the implication of most Calvinists’ messages on Paul’s behavior. This is a disquieting reality.

Moreover, according to monergism, if they ever did respond, it would have nothing to do with anything Paul or the respondent had done, which is obviously contrary to Paul’s words (1 Corinthians 10:33; 1 Thessalonians 2:16). Although Calvinists talk, at times, as though what we do matters in a person’s salvation, it is actually absolutely disallowed by their monergistic view of salvation. I do grant that the Calvinist can be disobedient to God’s process, but this disobedience neither hinders nor facilitates salvation—according to monergism.

Man’s passiveness is stated explicitly in The Westminster Confession. “This effectual call [to salvation] is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it.”12 (italics added) I add to this the clarification that he is not only enabled, but according to Calvinism, he is enabled against his will, and not only enabled to believe but made to only be able to believe rather than choose between believing and not believing. I maintain that God indeed has foreknowledge, even of the future, contingent, freewill choices of men and women, which is an indispensible part of His decrees and predestination. That is to say, contrary to Calvinism, He gave free will, paid everything necessary for the salvation of all, sent the call out to receive by faith, provided grace enablements and predestined to salvation those who would receive and respond to His grace.

Further, I disaffirm that the key to God’s sovereignty is causation, as the Calvinists seem to believe. Their definition of sovereignty is actually a product of defining sovereignty, as well as viewing Scriptures relating to sovereignty, through the Calvinist grid. Moreover, I disaffirm that it is possible for a Calvinist to demonstrate how an unfettered decision by God to give man the ability to have a real free choice undermines sovereignty. Finally, I disaffirm the legitimacy of using mystery to serve as a satisfactory alternative to the biblical balance of sovereignty and human responsibility and/or that the response “it is a mystery” is a satisfactory answer to the dilemma caused by the Calvinist teaching of selective regeneration preceding and necessarily resulting in faith. This is a disquieting reality.

Here is the dilemma caused by selective regeneration. If God monergistically selects to regenerate some and not to regenerate others, and all whom He regenerates will necessarily believe, and none whom He does not choose to regenerate can believe, then God is necessarily the one deciding to send the vast majority of sinners to hell. In other words, according to Calvinism’s monergism, everything necessary to save one sinner—God choosing to regenerate prior to faith—is sufficient to save all sinners. The only thing lacking is God choosing to regenerate certain sinners. Therefore, it is an inescapable reality, based on Calvinism, that people are in hell because God sovereignly chose not to regenerate them. God is the sole determiner that certain lost people cannot be saved and therefore must perish in hell. This is a disquieting reality. I maintain that the portrait of God painted by Calvinism is not the picture painted by Scripture.

When I have presented this reality to Calvinists, I am told not to take logic too far—i.e., it is a mystery. Of course they use logic all of the time. While I do agree with the Calvinists’ assertion that God would be just if He sent everyone to hell because everyone is a sinner, and it is grace if He chooses to redeem one; I disagree that this truth in any way answers this dilemma of Calvinism or satisfies the boundless, matchless, and majestic grace, love, and mercy of God presented throughout the Scripture.

It is rather perplexing to see how a Calvinist can sign the Baptist Faith and Message because it says of God, “He is fatherly in His attitude toward all men.”13 Since Calvinism teaches that God actively elected to withhold salvation from most of the lost people of the world, it seems fair to ask in what way is that fatherly. In other words, He chose to pass them by, thereby predestining them irrevocably to eternal torment, which action, according to Calvinism, pleased Him. To say they deserve it, or that God is just, misses the point. For the dilemma is not regarding their just due, but rather what kind of father is God, knowing that He could have exercised selective regeneration through irresistible grace and delivered them from such fate. This indisputably transmogrifies the affectionate and endearing word “fatherly” into something that is horrifyingly dreadful.

《《 《《  FOOTNOTES  》》》》

5. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. VII, Doctrinal Summarization, (Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 1948), 273-274.

6. I am using permissive for that which God decreed to command but not compel. Theologians often distinguish this from God’s decretive will with the term perceptive. Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, vol. I, Prolegomena, Bibliology, Theology Proper, (Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 209.

7. Chafer, Systematic Theology. vol. I, 223. This citation is not intended to indicate Chafer’s endorsement of my overall position, but rather to note the need for balance in handling the attributes of God, which I do not think Calvinists do.

8. Norman Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, Sin, Salvation (Minneapolis, Minn.: Bethany House, 2004), 192.

9. The Westminster Confession of Faith, A.D. 1646, chapter X, sections 1 and 2, found online at The Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics.

10. Either actively as Hyper-Calvinism and some other Calvinists maintain or passively as other Calvinists maintain.

11. Geisler, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, 192.

12. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), Chapter X, Section II.

13. The Baptist Faith and Message, 2000, II, A, (accessed 6/6/11).

Interview with Pastor Ronnie Rogers (1hr and 20-minutes)

This first audio is from A.W. Tozer regarding God’s sovereignty. I also include a partial excerpt from his book, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God. Their Meaning in the Christian Life, chapter 22 ~ “The Sovereignty of God” ~ of which the entire chapter is here.

Here is that partial chapter excerpt.

I changed a couple words as can not reads better as cannot:

… While a complete explanation of the origin of sin eludes us, there are a few things we do know. In His sovereign wisdom God has permitted evil to exist in carefully restricted areas of His creation, a kind of fugitive outlaw whose activities are temporary and limited in scope. In doing this God has acted according to His infinite wisdom and goodness. More than that no one knows at present; and more than that no one needs to know. The name of God is sufficient guarantee of the perfection of His works.

Another real problem created by the doctrine of the divine sovereignty has to do with the will of man. If God rules His universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise free choice? And if he cannot exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?

The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian church neatly into two camps which have borne the names of two distinguished theologians, Jacobus Arminius and John Calvin. Most Christians are content to get into one camp or the other and deny either sovereignty to God or free will to man. It appears possible, however, to reconcile these two positions without doing violence to either, although the effort that follows may prove deficient to partisans of one camp or the other.

Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, What doest thou? Mans will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

Perhaps a homely illustration might help us to understand. An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.

On board the liner are several scores of passengers. These are not in chains, neither are their activities determined for them by decree. They are completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please; but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.

Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not contradict each other. So it is, I believe, with mans freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of Gods sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. God moves undisturbed and unhindered toward the fulfilment of those eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. We do not know all that is included in those purposes, but enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of things to come and to give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being.

We know that God will fulfil every promise made to the prophets; we know that sinners will some day be cleansed out of the earth; we know that a ransomed company will enter into the joy of God and that the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of their Father; we know that Gods perfections will yet receive universal acclamation, that all created intelligences will own Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father, that the present imperfect order will be done away, and a new heaven and a new earth be established forever.

Toward all this God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision of action. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing turn Him aside from His plans. Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no accidents. As He is sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no breakdown in authority; and as He is omninpotent, there can be no want of power to achieve His chosen ends. God is sufficient unto Himself for all these things.

In the meanwhile things are not as smooth as this quick outline might suggest. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. Within the broad field of Gods sovereign, permissive will the deadly conflict of good with evil continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way in the whirlwind and the storm, but the storm and the whirlwind are here, and as responsible beings we must make our choice in the present moral situation.

Certain things have been decreed by the free determination of God, and one of these is the law of choice and consequences. God has decreed that all who willingly commit themselves to His Son Jesus Christ in the obedience of faith shall receive eternal life and become sons of God. He has also decreed that all who love darkness and continue in rebellion against the high authority of heaven shall remain in a state of spiritual alienation and suffer eternal death at last.

Reducing the whole matter to individual terms, we arrive at some vital and highly personal conclusions. In the moral conflict now raging around us whoever is on Gods side is on the winning side and cannot lose; whoever is on the other side is on the losing side and cannot win. Here there is no chance, no gamble. There is freedom to choose which side we shall be on but no freedom to negotiate the results of the choice once it is made. By the mercy of God we may repent a wrong choice and alter the consequences by making a new and right choice. Beyond that we cannot go.

The whole matter of moral choice centers around Jesus Christ. Christ stated it plainly: He that is not with me is against me, and No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. The gospel message embodies three distinct elements: an announcement, a command, and a call. It announces the good news of redemption accomplished in mercy; it commands all men everywhere to repent and it calls all men to surrender to the terms of grace by believing on Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

We must all choose whether we will obey the gospel or turn away in unbelief and reject its authority. Our choice is our own, but the consequences of the choice have already been determined by the sovereign will of God, and from this there is no appeal.

A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy: The Attributes of God
(San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1961), 110-111.

Calvinism: God Meticulously Controls Everything | even this post

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established. – Westminster Confession, III.I. 
  • Although in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly, yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. – Westminster Confession, V.II. 

  • “So here I see that God’s command is that the sons of Eli ought to listen to and obey their father, yet the will of God was that they would not listen so that He would put them to death.” – Peter Pike
  • “Nothing has ever come to pass, or ever will, merely because God knew it. The cause of all things is the will of God.” – Arthur Pink
  • “The question, though, is whether God merely permits evil, or whether in addition he actually brings evil about in some sense. I think the latter is true. Scripture often says that God brings about sinful decisions of human beings… If evil comes from some source other than God, that would be pretty scary.” – John Frame
  • “That men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss or deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction, is proved by numberless passages of Scripture.” – John Calvin
  • “But where it is a matter of men’s counsels, wills, endeavours, and exertions, there is greater difficulty in seeing how the providence of God rules here too, so that nothing happens but by His assent and that men can deliberately do nothing unless He inspire it.” – John Calvin

John MacArthur Tells Us There Is No Free Will

God controls first as well as secondary causes… in the determinism that has infected the Christian church. This idea is extra Biblical, brought in by Augustinian gnosis and ramped up by Calvin.

Neoplatonism (ca. AD 250) had invented this crucial theodicy by appealing to the inscrutable secret counsels of God, who is fair by definition, regardless of whatever apparent evils he desires and ordains. Prior Christians had never required this implausible and disingenuous attempt at a defense for their God.

Page 235 of “Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique” (excerpt here)

I asked GROK the following:

Can you dumb this down like we are discussion this over coffee…

  • … how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. . . . It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. . . . Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.

John Calvin, The Eternal Predestination of God, 10:11

Here is GROK’s input:

Alright, let’s grab that coffee and talk this through like normal people—no big theology words unless we have to, and I’ll explain them right away.

So John Calvin (the 1500s guy who shaped a lot of Protestant thinking) is basically saying: “Look, some people try to defend God by saying He doesn’t want evil stuff to happen—He just kinda allows it or ‘permits’ it, like He’s hands-off. But that’s weak sauce, in Calvin’s view. He thinks the Bible shows God is way more involved: God actually wills (decides and makes happen) even the bad things, and in some sense He’s behind them as their ultimate ‘author’ or source.”

He calls the “God just permits it” idea a flimsy excuse (“frivolous refuge”) because Scripture (in his reading) pictures God actively steering everything—including hardening hearts, inclining people’s wills toward evil when they deserve it, and using wicked people to carry out His judgments.

The key bits:

  • God doesn’t just sit back and go “Eh, okay, let that sin happen if you want.” Nope—He actively works in people’s hearts to turn their desires one way or another.
  • For good people/actions: God does this out of mercy (He chooses to make someone want good).
  • For bad people/actions: He does it “according to their merits” (they deserve judgment, so He inclines them toward evil as part of punishing them fairly).
  • Even so, God still judges and punishes them for what they did—He rewards “according to desert” (what they deserve).

In coffee terms: Imagine you’re watching a movie where the director not only lets the villain do villainous things but actually scripts and directs every move the villain makes—down to the thoughts in their head. The villain is still 100% guilty and evil for choosing/doing it, but nothing happened outside the director’s plan. Calvin’s saying God is that ultimate Director over everything, including the evil plot twists. The “He just permitted it” line feels like downplaying how in control the Director really is.

This ties into his bigger idea of predestination: God has already decided from eternity who gets saved (by His mercy) and who doesn’t (left to their deserved fate), and He sovereignly shapes everything—including sins—to bring that about.

A lot of people (then and now) hear this and go “Whoa, that makes God sound like the author of evil!” Calvin would push back hard: No, because the evil comes from the person’s wicked heart and desires (they really want it, they’re not robots forced against their will). God just sovereignly uses and directs it for His purposes, without being tainted by it Himself. But yeah—he’s not shy about saying God is behind it all, not merely watching from the sidelines.

Modern Calvinists sometimes soften this a bit (they talk more about “permission” but insist it’s not “bare” or passive permission—God ordains what He permits). But Calvin himself? In this passage, he’s pretty blunt:

  • the permission idea is foolish if it pretends God isn’t willing and authoring these things in some real sense.

Heavy stuff over coffee, right? Makes you wonder about free will, justice, and how a good God runs a world with so much darkness. What’s your take—does that framing help, or does it still feel off?

In a wonderful article, I excerpt a long clip from the end of it:

  • Chapter 3 – The Calvinist Theological and Soteriological Doctrines

(from GOOD NEWS APOLOGETICS)

…. Predestination refers to what God will surely do for the believer once that choice is made. Believers are predestined to adoption, sanctification, salvation, and eternal life. Unbelievers are predestined to alienation from God, eternal death, and hell. God has not predestined or predetermined the “obedience of faith” for certain unconditionally elected individuals and the “love of darkness,” “rebellion,” “spiritual alienation,” and “eternal death” for all others.  No doubt, the Bible teaches that there are special divine predeterminations regarding God’s plans and purposes for the world, especially concerning salvation history.  God is personal.  Therefore, we would expect God to act personally in his world with creatures made in his image.  These divine predeterminations apply in special ways to certain individuals and groups.  These individuals are divinely appointed to certain tasks, as in the case of Jesus himself, to be the Christ, our Savior.  The nation of Israel was established by God through the revelation of Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (i.e., Israel) and therefore “chosen” by God to fulfill a certain role in salvation history.  Israel is spoken of as God’s “chosen people,” and yet the group was obviously comprised of individuals with free moral agency.  The church also is comprised of individuals designated as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…” (1 Pet. 2:9) because they believe in God and Christ as the way of salvation.  These believers are referred to in terminology corresponding to the descriptions used of Israel in the Old Testament. The relationship God had with Israel, of which Abraham’s faith is paradigmatic, is now applied to Gentiles who are of the faith of Abraham.  Only now Christ has come, and New Testament believers live on this side of an unfolding salvation history.  Therefore, these New Testament believers – both Jew and Gentile – are now among “the elect” by virtue of being “in Christ” by faith; a faith like that of Abraham, exercised freely upon hearing from God (OT) or the gospel message (NT).  These believers, spoken of in language reminiscent of Israel’s status in the Old Testament, were once “not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (I Pet. 2:10)  Sinners are among “the elect” because they believe in Christ who is the Chosen One, that is, as they “come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious…” (1 Pet. 2:4).

The point is that Scripture testifies to the fact that divine sovereignty cannot mean that God predetermined the minutest details of all human thought and action, along with each person’s eternal destiny, which lands us in an inevitable and nonsensical theistic determinism.  This is not the biblical meaning of “election” or “predestination.”  We know this by virtue of the logical and moral incoherence of the Calvinist interpretations.  An objective, rational, moral assessment of Scripture and human history, from the past to the present, makes evident that theistic determinism is false.  Rather than looking through the lens of theistic determinism, we can see that God’s purposes are realized through his divine actions in relation to submissive and cooperative persons as well as through indifferent or hostile persons.  All that occurs is not decreed to happen as it does by the will of God and therefore caused by God, for this would logically indict God as the author and doer of evil.  Rather, certain actions and events occur by the free decisions of human beings, especially evil doings.  But God is still sovereign.  He can incorporate what he sees fit into his ultimate plans and purposes for the world and mankind by either his direct intervention and spiritual activity and influence, or his final judgment. But the believer has this promise – “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Rom. 8:28, NIV). Those who love him are those who put their faith in God and Christ as savior when they heard the call of the message of “good news.”  Those “called according to his purpose” refer to all those who, having heard the “good news” of Jesus Christ, believed it, and have received eternal life. All this was the result of God’s purpose to save mankind in Christ.  It has been God’s purpose to save sinners by sending Christ to die and bring this good news to all from the very beginning (Gen. 3:15).  And this salvation is for everyone. “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.” (Rom. 11:32, NIV)

In addition, God will also bring about a final conquering of all his enemies.  Not all things are good, and God is not responsible for evil acts.  Therefore, God has not ordained “whatsoever comes to pass” as stated in the Westminster Confession of Faith.  This is evident in that at Christ’s second coming, he will judge, punish, and rectify evil and injustice.  Again, to believe that God predetermined and is the ultimate cause of the evil he will one day judge and punish would be nonsense.  Furthermore, it impugns the character of God.

The point to note is that divine sovereignty, election, predestination, and foreknowledge do not require theistic determinism.  The scriptures everywhere affirm both God’s sovereignty and substantial, meaningful human freedom and responsibility.  Therefore, God’s sovereignty, biblically defined, cannot be understood as divine determinism but rather should be understood as God’s personal and authoritative involvement in human affairs and his creation.  The scope of divine providence certainly extends to the minutest details regarding his care and concern for his creatures, especially believers.  But divine providence is not divine determinism.  Providence includes God’s ability to intervene in the affairs of this world and on behalf of believers as he wills.  It includes his ability to employ actions that are evil and wrong to serve his purposes (Gen. 50:15-31). This certainly is the biblical testimony regarding divine sovereignty and providence.  If there is “mystery” to be had, it lies here. It does not lie in accepting what we know to be incoherent, inconsistent, and contradictory interpretations of the Bible. That is just to ignore the God-given rules of logic and our moral intuitions in one’s hermeneutic. Hence, biblical sovereignty and providence cannot be defined as the universal divine causal determinism of Calvinism.  Therefore, Calvinism is untenable and a misinterpretation of Scripture. It is to be rejected.

Conclusions

We have seen that the Calvinists’ interpretation of the eternal divine decree and God’s sovereignty amounts to a universal divine causal determinism.  Hopefully, you may have begun to grasp the negative logical and moral implications of this theistic determinism.  In a world that is predetermined by God down to the minutest details, which includes everyone’s thoughts, beliefs, desires, and actions, what happens to human freedom, decision-making, and choices?  What happens to personal moral responsibility, culpability, judgment, and justice?  And what do we do with the fact that everyone’s eternal destiny is already decided unilaterally by God himself and has absolutely nothing to do with you, me, or anyone else?  What do human beings become in a world in which God predetermined every detail? Robots? Puppets? These analogies are appropriate. Furthermore, who is among the elect, and who is among the non-elect, remains unknown to us.  The Calvinist will respond that, regardless of these problematic implications, we need to accept these Calvinist tenets because the Bible teaches them.

But how do we know the Bible teaches them, especially when they do not square with the fact that the Bible overwhelmingly testifies to a contingent reality and human responsibility?  How do we know this is what the Bible teaches when theistic determinism wreaks logical and moral havoc with other things that this same Bible clearly teaches, especially regarding the definition of the gospel as “good news,” the nature of faith, and God’s character as loving and just? Where has the gospel gone? You may also be asking, if God is the sole agent and cause of everything that occurs, doesn’t that make him the source and doer of all evil?  If not, why not? Moreover, if you cannot know that God loves you, desires that you be saved, and has provided for your salvation, how does that influence your relationship to God and the meaning and purpose of life?  These questions are profound and therefore need answers. Calvinists need to answer them. We will deal with them in due course.

Having reviewed the Reformed Calvinist doctrines, we can conclude that Calvinism amounts to a theistic determinism.  That theistic determinism, by virtue of being a determinism, is contrary to Scripture. As such, Calvinism is unbiblical.

How Calvinists Get God’s Sovereignty Wrong
Leighton Flowers | Calvinism | Soteriology 101

Calvinists love to talk about God’s sovereignty, but do they define sovereignty correctly? Calvinists typically choose to define sovereignty as meticulous determinism, i.e. that God controls and/or brings about everything that happens…including all evil. Check out the full video here:    Calvinism is Determinism  

Of course there is a fatal flaw involved in this thinking, one “I” point out here in this post on Al Mohler… however, the flaw, in short, is this:

  • Thus in a world governed by meticulous, divine determinism, beliefs are not the product of examination, analysis, reason and contemplation whereby we search for truth and weigh various options and make informed decisions. Rather they are just the spin-offs of God’s universal, exhaustive, meticulous divine decrees. White would have to concede that a person who believes in meticulous, divine determinism does so for the same reason that another person disbelieves meticulous, divine determinism. It has nothing to do with evaluation, truth and reason—and everything to do with what has been determined for them to believe! — A Theology in Tension (hat-tip to SOTO 101, “Calvinism’s Greatest Fallacy“)

The following is with a Hat-Tip to Brian H.W. — adding to a thought I had:

Religio-Political Talk (RPT), Here’s enough that should get Calvinists to rethink! Unfortunately too many are now too heavily invested in defending it, their pride keeps them from rejecting it.

Those who call themselves “Calvinist” – On which of the following do you DISAGREE with Calvin… and why label yourself after the name of a fallible man? Would Jesus want you to?

  1. Evanescent Grace: God making some reprobates think they are elect to better convict them
  2. Impassibility: God did not grieve in his heart for the lost in Noah’s day
  3. Capital Punishment for heretics: Including those who write against his doctrine of predestination
  4. Born to Burn: Some are damned by God from birth, to be tormented in hell for God’s glory and pleasure.
  5. Scripture’s Description of God can not be known from His perspective: but only as a false one, not as He really is.
  6. Disproving Calvin’s predestination doctrine: according to Calvin is only attempted by those who think they are wiser than the Holy Spirit.

1) “… experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected in a way so similar to the elect, that even in their own judgment there is no difference between them. … a taste of heavenly gifts, … a temporary faith, is ascribed to them. Not that they truly perceive the power of spiritual grace and the sure light of faith; but the Lord, the better to convict them, and leave them without excuse, instills into their minds such a sense of his goodness as can be felt without the Spirit of adoption.” (Institutes – 3.2.11)

2) “The repentance which is here ascribed to God does not properly belong to him…. The same reasoning, and remark, applies to what follows, that God was affected with grief. Certainly God is not sorrowful or sad; but remains forever like himself in his celestial and happy repose….” (Comm. Gen 6:6)

3) In his letter to the church in Poitiers, #389 SLW6 – “…papers and books of his Castalion [former reformer in Geneva with Calvin], in which an attempt was made to impugn our doctrine touching predestination, have been condemned with a prohibition to publish them 👉on pain of death👈…. that indeed the least we can expect is that the Seigneurs, to whom have been entrusted the sword and authority, should not permit the faith in which they are instructed to be lightly spoken of in their own city. “

4) “…he arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are 👉doomed from the womb👈 to certain death and are to glorify him by their destruction.” (Institutes – 3.23.6) And – “We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was 👉his pleasure to doom👈 to destruction.” Calvin, ICR, 3.21.7

5) “…any description which we receive of him must be lowered to our capacity in order to be intelligible. And the mode of lowering is 👉to represent him not as he really is👈, but as we conceive of him.” (Institutes – 1.17.13)

6) “The observation with which I opened this discussion, I now repeat at its close: that no one will ever attempt to disprove the doctrine which I have set forth herein, but he who may imagine himself to be 👉wiser than the Spirit of God👈.” (Eternal Predestination of God, trans. Cole, p. 170, the translation by Reid says – “… no one can disprove…”, p.162)

The “Connective Tissue” Between Islam and Calvinism

Published by Papa Giorgio

In my [I guess now, 4-month study of the Augustinian influenced [Gnostic] Calvinism, I kept coming back to the connections with Islam’s “god” as a close comparison to Calvin’s “god”.

So I have found a couple videos I liked on the matter that expanded this connection that came to my mind. Enjoy

(Video Description) Is God the author and the cause of sin? Does God ordain and decree evil and wickedness? Is infant damnation real? We will look at several of these claims from Calvinists and show their similarities to statements made from Mohammed and Islam. John Edwards, Augustus Toplady, James White, John Piper, Justin Peters, RC Sproul, Theodore Zachariades, Gordon Clark, Edwin Palmer, G3, Scott Aniol, Ephesians 1:11, Proverbs 16:4, God’s sovereignty, Satan’s influence, biblical responsibility, Westminster confessions, Council of Dort.

There are other videos out there as well, many make some good points — but I wouldn’t recommend them as a whole. Consistent Calvinist has a decent video however. But I liked this video as it sent me searching for PDFs and text type sources… which will follow. (BTW, I assume the voices in this video are A.I. voices):

(Video Description) John Calvin’s theology exhibits a significant alignment with Islamic doctrine. The analysis focuses on shared tenets such as the denial of free will, the doctrine of double predestination, and the assertion that God ordains sin. By comparing Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion with the Quran and the writings of Islamic scholars, both theological systems emphasise God’s absolute sovereignty to the extent that it overrides human agency and traditional notions of divine justice. This Islamic basis undermines core biblical teachings regarding God’s nature and human responsibility.

A recommended read is what follows:

Islam and Calvinism: An Uncomfortable Comparison

… Determinism

The sovereignty of Allah in Islam and God in Calvinism is absolutely deterministic. They are the author of every action, word, and thought, including sin and evil. Moreover, they predetermined before time everything that shall occur in time including who will be given the gift of faith and eternal life, and who will not and be condemned to eternal death.

Calvinist church historian Phillip Schaff writes:

Calvinism…starts with a double decree of predestination, which antedates and is the divine program of human history. This program includes the successive stages of the creation of man, a universal fall and condemnation of the human race, a partial redemption and salvation: all for the glory of God and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice. History is only the execution of the original design… (History of the Christian Church 8.4.114).

Note that Schaff does not shy away from affirming that God Himself decreed the fall of man, and is therefore the author of sin!

The same view was affirmed by Calvin:

By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death (Institutes, 3.21.5).

Islam teaches the same doctrine as Calvinism. According to Islam, Allah is absolutely deterministic. As Caner and Caner write:

One of the foundational doctrines of Islam is the absolute sovereignty, to the point of determinism, of Allah. Allah knows everything, determines everything, decrees everything, and orders everything. Allah is even the cause of evil (Unveiling Islam, p. 109).

It follows that Allah predestines all who will be saved and all who will be eternally damned. Of those who cannot be saved, Surah 2:6-7 states:

It is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them; they will not believe. Allah has set a seal on their hearts and on their hearing. And on their eyes is a veil; Great is the chastisement they [incur].

Fatalism

It follows that Calvinism and Islam are both inherently fatalistic. In Calvinism, the sovereign God elects those who will be saved and rejects all others, as seen repeatedly in Calvin’s writings:

…some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of those ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or death (Institutes, 3.21.5).

[God] arranges all things by his sovereign counsel, in such a way that individuals are born, who are doomed from the womb to certain death…(Institutes, 3.23.6).

In the same way, Allah leads astray whom he wills, and saves whom he wills (Surah 14:4):

Allah is exalted and pleased as he sends people to hell: this is the fatalistic claim of Islam. Fatalism is a belief that events are fixed in advance for all time in such a manner that human beings are powerless to change them. In this case, Allah will send to heaven whomever he pleases, and send to hell whomever he pleases (Unveiling Islam, pp. 31-32).

An old joke tells of a Calvinist who fell down the stairs, got up, and said, “Thank God that’s over!” Interestingly, Caner and Caner recount from their Islamic childhood:

Our father used to say, “If you fall and break your leg, say, ‘Allah wills it,’ because he caused it to happen” (Unveiling Islam, p. 109).

The Love of God

Perhaps the most fundamental of all aspects of God’s character is love. “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8). “For God so loved the world…” (John 3:16) “God demonstrates His own love toward us…” (Rom 5:8). These are just a few of the numerous Biblical texts which affirm the universal, sacrificial, eternal, personal, and unconditional love of God for all mankind. No character of God is more central to the message of the gospel. The incarnation and substitutionary atonement shout it. Everything in God’s saving action toward mankind declares it. But what do we see in Islam and Calvinism?

Love De-Emphasized

In Islam, Allah is virtually devoid of love. Caner and Caner list 99 names of Allah, and only one includes a reference to love (and this only to those who are “his own”). They write:

When Allah is discussed within the Islamic community, the absence of intimacy, atonement, and omnibenevolence becomes apparent. In all the terms and titles of Allah, one does not encounter terms of intimacy. . . Even the most faithful and devout Muslim refers to Allah only as servant to master; Allah is a distant sovereign (Unveiling Islam, p. 117).

But what do we find in Calvinism? God’s sovereignty—His power and holiness—are emphasized at the expense of His love. Dave Hunt observes:

But where is God’s love? Not once in the nearly thirteen hundred pages of his Institutes does Calvin extol God’s love for mankind. This one-sided emphasis reveals Calvinism’s primary defect: the unbiblical limitations it places upon God’s most glorious attribute. . . Something is radically amiss at the very foundation of this unbiblical doctrine (Debating Calvinism, p. 47).

Limited Love

As we look closer, we find reasons for this muting of God’s love in Islam and Calvinism. For example, Calvin’s God and Islam’s Allah are both bereft of unconditional love for everyone.

Allah’s heart is set against the infidel (kafir). He has no love for the unbeliever, nor is it the task of the Muslim to “evangelize” the unbelieving world (Unveiling Islam, p. 118).

Caner and Caner note, “This is why so many Muslims quickly disown children who have converted to another religion, especially Christianity. Why love them when almighty Allah will never love them?” (Unveiling Islam, p. 33).

But is this any different than Calvinism? Dave Hunt puts it bluntly:

Never forget that the ultimate aim of Calvinism…is to prove that God does not love everyone, is not merciful to all, and is pleased to damn billions. If that is the God of the Bible, Calvinism is true. If that is not the God of the Bible, who “is love” (1 John 4:8), Calvinism is false. The central issue is God’s love and character in relation to mankind, as presented in Scripture (Debating Calvinism, p. 21).

Conditional Love

While Calvinists (but not Muslims) would object to the idea their God has a conditional love, that is the effect of their doctrine.

This doctrine is openly announced in Islam: “Allah loves not transgressors” (Qur’an 2:190). “For [Allah] loves not any ungrateful sinner” (Qur’an 2:276). “For Allah loves not those who do wrong” (Qur’an 3:57). “For Allah loves not the arrogant, the vainglorious” (Qur’an 4:36).

Within Calvinism, God’s love is declared to be unconditional because He has given it “unconditionally”—i.e., not in response to anything we do. But whether or not one is actually loved in this “salvific” way is ultimately determined by what we do. This fact is enshrined by the last of the Five Points of Calvinism, i.e., the Perseverance of the Saints. Since all who are saved will inevitably persevere in living a faithful life, God’s saving love, in the end, is determined by our works.

Notably, as is always the result with synergism (i.e., salvation by faith and works), no amount of good works can give you assurance of salvation.

Insecure Love

It is impossible in Calvinism and Islam to know that you are loved by God. While Calvinists proclaim their belief in eternal security, what they mean is if you are really saved (which you cannot know with absolute certainty until you die), then you will never lose your salvation. But how can you know that? Based on your works. However, the threat of falling into some sin, and thus finding out that you were never really saved in the first place, is a possibility hanging over the head of every Calvinist.

Similarly, and blatantly, Islam teaches this same doctrine:

The Qur’an hints that the believer in Allah can be confident of his or her eternal destiny, but there is no guarantee, even for the most righteous. . . In Islam, the answer to the question, “What must I do to go to heaven?” is “mysterious and complex. . . Islamic tradition argues that the guarantee ofheaven is as impossible to find as a chaste virgin and pure speech. Consequently, the devoutMuslim makes every effort to please Allah and thereby obtain heaven. But fate (kismet) in the hands of the all-powerful Allah will decide the outcome (Unveiling Islam, p. 144).

Clearly, the love of God is at best compromised in both Islam and Calvinism.

…READ IT ALL…

This next piece is a clip from a Facebook Post… Here is the title of this post

“Calvinism Is Just Islam Repackaged”

Comparing the Calvinist God and the God of Islam

At first glance, Calvinism and Islam may seem vastly different due to their theological and cultural contexts. However, when examining the portrayal of God in Calvinist theology and Islamic theology, striking similarities emerge. Both traditions emphasize God’s absolute sovereignty, but in ways that challenge concepts of divine love, justice, and human freedom as revealed in the Bible. Here is a comparison of the Calvinist God and the God of Islam:

  1. Absolute Sovereignty and Determinism

Calvinist God:

  • Calvinism teaches that God’s sovereignty means He unconditionally decrees all events, including human actions, sin, and salvation. This leads to the doctrine of double predestination, where some are chosen for salvation and others are predestined for damnation, entirely apart from human free will.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah’s sovereignty is also absolute and deterministic. The Quran states that Allah guides whom He wills and leads astray whom He wills (Surah 14:4, Surah 16:93). Human actions, both good and evil, are believed to occur because Allah has willed them.

Comparison:

Both the Calvinist God and Allah are depicted as sovereign in ways that minimize or negate genuine human free will. This deterministic framework portrays God as the ultimate cause of sin and unbelief, raising serious questions about divine justice and human accountability.

  1. Justice and Predestination

Calvinist God:

  • According to Calvinism, God’s justice allows Him to predestine some to eternal damnation without any consideration of their actions or choices. This is often defended as a “mystery” of God’s will, though it conflicts with the notion of a just and impartial God.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah is described as just but is not bound by human notions of justice. Allah may forgive or punish as He pleases, and there is no guarantee of salvation even for the most devout believer. Salvation depends entirely on Allah’s arbitrary will.

Comparison:

In both systems, God’s justice is portrayed as inscrutable or arbitrary, leading to a sense of fear and uncertainty. The Calvinist doctrine of reprobation and the Islamic belief in Allah’s arbitrary judgment both suggest a God whose actions are beyond moral comprehension.

  1. Love and Mercy

Calvinist God:

  • Calvinism teaches that God’s love is limited to the elect. Christ’s atonement is “limited” and applies only to those predestined for salvation. The reprobate, by contrast, are excluded from God’s saving love and are created solely to demonstrate His wrath.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, Allah is described as merciful (Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim), but His mercy is conditional. Allah does not love sinners or unbelievers (Surah 3:31-32). His mercy is reserved for those who obey Him and follow His commands.

Comparison:

Both the Calvinist God and Allah show love and mercy only to a select group—either the elect in Calvinism or the obedient in Islam. This stands in stark contrast to the biblical God, who loves all people and desires the salvation of everyone (1 Timothy 2:4, John 3:16).

  1. Human Freedom and Responsibility

Calvinist God:

  • Human free will is effectively denied in Calvinism. People are bound by their sinful nature and cannot choose God unless they are regenerated first. Even their “choices” are ultimately determined by God’s eternal decree.

Islamic God (Allah):

  • In Islam, humans have limited free will, but their actions are ultimately determined by Allah’s will. The Quran repeatedly emphasizes that Allah guides or leads astray whomever He wills (Surah 6:125).

Comparison:

In both systems, human freedom is subordinated to divine sovereignty, resulting in a deterministic worldview. This undermines the biblical teaching that humans are created in the image of God with the capacity to freely love and respond to Him (Genesis 1:27, Deuteronomy 30:19).

[….]

Conclusion: The Biblical God Is Distinct

While the Calvinist God and the God of Islam share similarities in their emphasis on sovereignty and determinism, they both fall short of the biblical portrayal of God. The God of the Bible is sovereign, but His sovereignty is expressed through love, justice, and respect for human freedom. He desires the salvation of all, offers grace universally, and seeks a personal relationship with every human being.

The biblical God is not arbitrary or partial but perfectly just, merciful, and relational. His love is unconditional, and His gospel is genuinely good news for all people. This is the God revealed in Jesus Christ, who came to save the world, not just a select few (John 3:17).

Just an additional thought on Calvinism by this wonderful sermon that includes an excellent analogous story showing how absurd Calvinistic Reformed thinking is.

The Absurdity of Reformed Theology

Nov. 6, 2022, Adult Sunday School at Truth Baptist Church. 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

Is God the “devil” Behind Satan? | Sovereign Puppeteer (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I sent a friend the video of Dr. Theodore Zachariades stating that God wills [causes, not just permits] a man to be unfaithful to his wife.

  • God works all things after the Council of His will. Even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so! And when He wants to, he orders those to commit adultery when he wants to! (Video)

My friend dismissed this person as a hyper-Calvinist. But as the video below notes, using his definition of a “hyper Calvinist,” A.W. Pink, John Piper, Jeff Durbin, James White, and many-many more, would thus be considered the same. Because of the age restriction, the video must be watch on YouTube, link in pic.

When I asked him: “Question RW, is Piper, Calvin, White and Durbin hyper-Calvinists?” He simply replied “Fishing Bait.” But this is an interesting phenomena… and after decades of encountering Mormons and J-Dubs, the disconnect is the same. I get links and not actualizing on statements made when challenged. When shown a person who follows to the end the logical conclusion of theistic determinism found in Calvinism, the person who is the Calvinist is dismissed as a “hyper-Calvinist” by their fellow Calvinist’s if they are challenged. When that label is then applied rightly to others for the same reason — meaning, using RW’s definition of what a hyper-Calvinist is — then all these others have said worse; and would be by definition, hyper-Calvinists.

Two quick examples. 1st John Calvin, then, John Piper:

John CALVIN:

… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. . . . It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. . . . Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.

John Calvin, “The Eternal Predestination of God,” 10:11

John Piper:

Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ

“works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Here the Greek word for “works” is energeø, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child: “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov. 16:4, NASB ).14 “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Eccl. 7:14, NIV).

John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42. (FULLER QUOTE VIA THIS PDF)

John Lennox notes in his wonderful book,  “Determined to Believe? The Sovereignty of God, Freedom, Faith, and Human Responsibility,” that Martin Luther struggled with the consequences of this form of thought:

Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation. In his book The Bondage of the Will, written in response to Erasmus’ essay On Free Will, Luther said:

[The] omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of “free-will”… Doubtless it gives the greatest possible offence to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace.)

In this passage Luther seems to be aware that there is a deep moral problem with aspects of his view… [RPT: before redefining “grace” that is – almost like what is, is.]

Calvinism’s [T.U.L.I.P.] Logical Conclusion Displayed

In a reference in that above book is this paper: “I Believe In Divine Sovereignty,” by Thomas H. McCall in Trinity Journal (TRINJ 29:2 [Fall 2008]), 209-210. Of which I excerpt:

… He [John Piper] works long and hard to illustrate this [theistic determinism] from Rom 9:1-23, which he concludes is about the purposes of God being preserved “by means of the predestination of individuals to their respective eternal destines.”11 And we are not to think that God is righteous in spite of such action—instead we are to see that God is righteous because of this action, for the “heart of Paul’s defense” is this: “in choosing unconditionally those on whom he will have mercy and those whom he will harden God is not unrighteous, for in this ‘electing purpose’ he is acting out of a full allegiance to his name and esteem of his glory.”12

This all-determining action of God notably includes predestination and election, but it extends far beyond—it extends to everything. God determines all events that occur in the universe, including all demonic and satanic action.13 As Mark R. Talbot puts it, God creates, sends, instigates, and moves others to do evil, because “nothing that exists or occurs falls outside God’s ordaining will.”14 Talbot makes the point with relentless and unmistakable clarity:

Nothing, including no evil person or thing or event or deed. God’s foreordination is the ultimate reason why everything comes about, including the existence of all evil persons and things and the occurrence of any evil acts or events.15

Make no mistake: “when even the worst of evils befall us, they do not ultimately come from anywhere other than God’s hand.”16 …

NOTES:

11. John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993), 218, cf. 56-73.

12. Ibid., 219.

13. On this see John Piper, “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God: Ten Aspects of God’s Sovereignty Over Satan and Satan’s Hand in It,” in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, 19-30. Piper here uses the rather confusing (given his determinism) language of “permission.” By my lights, what he means when he says that God “permits” something is this (a) God determines it to occur and then (b) does not act so as to override his previous ordination. Regarding talk of “permission,” I think that John Calvin’s approach is more consistent, [….]  see John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I.xviii.1, and John S. Feinberg, No One Like Him: The Doctrine of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 696.

14. Mark R. Talbot, “‘All the Good That Is Ours in Christ: Seeing God’s Gracious Hand in the Hurts Others Do to Us,” in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, 43 (41-43), emphasis original.

15. Ibid., 43-44.

16. lbid., 47.

Dave Hunt is right to say that Calvin uses unbiblical positions in dealing with this Augustinian determinism:

There is yet another question that troubles many: If man is free to choose between options, would that not in itself deny both God’s sovereignty and His foreknowledge? Luther claimed that this question was the very heart of the Reformation and of the gospel itself. In fact, Luther dogmatically insisted that it was impossible for God to foreknow the future and for man at the same time to be a free agent to act as he wills.

Believing firmly in God’s foreknowledge, Luther wrote an entire book titled The Bondage of the Will, to prove that the very idea of man’s free will is a fallacy and an illusion. Several reasons have already been given as to why Luther was wrong on this point, and that issue will be dealt with further in the next chapter.

Though Calvin took so much from Augustine, like Luther he also rejected the Augustinian belief that God could foreknow the future, while at the same time man could have a free will. According to Calvin, foreknowledge leaves no room whatsoever for free will, because foreknowledge is the same as predestination:

If God merely foresaw human events, and did not also arrange and dispose of them at his pleasure, there might be room for agitating the question [of free will] … but since he foresees the things which are to happen, simply because he has decreed them, they are so to happen, it is vain to debate about prescience. …

If this frigid fiction [of free will] is received, where will be the omnipotence of God, by which, according to his secret counsel on which everything depends, he rules over all? (Calvin, Institutes, III: xxiii, 6–7.)

Calvin repeatedly uses such unbiblical and utterly fallacious reasoning.

The Calvinist assumes a contradiction between sovereignty and free will that doesn’t exist. The fact that God is able to allow man freedom of choice, while still effecting His purposes unhindered, is all the more glorifying to His sovereign wisdom, power, and foreknowledge.

And one last point on this via MONERGISM.COM:

  • In order to understand this better theologians have come up with the term “compatibilism” to describe the concurrence of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Compatibilism is a form of determinism and it should be noted that this position is no less deterministic than hard determinism. — John Hendryx (John Hendryx is the creator and editor of Monergism.com | SEE: “We are not Determinists!” for more)

Here is A.W. Tozer’s take of the above:

  • Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, What doest thou? Mans will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

Tozer is saying that the Calvinist God is too small. Something I run through with Mormon Elders if they decide to come into my home to discuss further their “mission.” In a similar vein, philosophical determinism (atheism/evolutionary paradigms). In what follows — quote’wise — if this is true fore secular forms of determinism, then so to it applies to THEISTIC DETERMINISM:

Atheists reject evidence as illusory…

Why?

Because they “have to.”

Donald C. Abel in his book, Fifty Readings in Philosophy, asks us to imagine for a moment that you walking along and come to a fork in the road. One street is called Divinity Avenue, the other Oxford Street. Assuming you have to walk down one of them, there is a confrontation of choice.  Continuing he says,

  • Now, I ask you seriously to suppose that this ambiguity of my choice is real; and then to make the impossible hypothesis that the choice is made twice over, and each time falls on a different street. In other words, imagine that I first walk through Divinity Avenue, and then imagine that the powers governing the universe annihilate ten minutes of time with all that it contained, and set me back at the door of this hall just as I was before the choice was made. Imagine then that, everything else being the same, I now make a different choice and traverse Oxford Street. You, as passive spectators, look on and see the two alternative universes; one of them with me walking through Divinity Avenue in it, the other with the same me walking through Oxford Street. Now, if you are determinists, you believe one of these universes eternally impossible, because of the intrinsic irrationality or accidentality somewhere involved in it. However, looking outwardly at these universes, can you say which is the impossible and accidental one, and which the rational and necessary one?

Donald C. Abel, Fifty Readings in Philosophy (New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1994), 296.

  • “He thus acknowledged the need for any theory to allow that humans have genuine freedom to recognize the truth. He (again, correctly) saw that if all thought, belief, feeling, and choice are determined (i.e., forced on humans by outside conditions) then so is the determinists’ acceptance of the theory of determinism forced on them by those same conditions. In that case they could never claim to know their theory is true since the theory making that claim would be self-referentially incoherent. In other words, the theory requires that no belief is ever a free judgment made on the basis of experience or reason, but is always a compulsion over which the believer has no control.”

Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2005), 174.

The implications of strict naturalism are grim or even counterintuitive. For example, Bertrand Russell affirmed that any philosophy hoping to stand must ultimately take for granted the (naturalistic) picture of unguided causes and accidental collocations of atoms and must be built on the “firm foundation of unyielding despair.” When it comes to naturalism’s implications for morality, naturalist Kai Nielsen contends that reason can’t bring us to morality; this picture ”is not a pleasant one,” and that reflecting on it ”depresses me.” When it comes to consciousness, naturalist Daniel Dennett considers it an illusion- -something fellow-atheist Thomas Nagel finds utterly confused:

  • You may well ask how consciousness can be an illusion, since every illusion is itself a conscious experience …. So it cannot appear to me that I am conscious though I am not … the reality of my own consciousness is the one thing I cannot be deluded about …. The view [of Dennett] is so unnatural that it is hard to convey …. Dennett asks us to turn our backs on what is glaringly obvious. … And he asks us to do this because the reality of such phenomena is incompatible with the scientific materialism that in his view sets the outer bounds of reality. He is, in Aristotle’s words, ”maintaining a thesis at all costs.”

Jaegwon Kim acknowledges the stark picture painted by the naturalistic brush. Naturalism is ”imperialistic; it demands ‘full coverage’ … and exacts a terribly high ontological price.”

Paul Copan and Charles Taliaferro (editors), The Naturalness of Belief: New Essays on Theism’s Rationality (New York, NY: Lexington Books, 2019), viii

I could go on, but you get the point. To fashion the issue for you to see, Jaegwon Kim could have said:

  • Theistic determinism is ”imperialistic; it demands ‘full coverage’ … and exacts a terribly high ontological price.” (added for emphasis) 

What is this price? Here is just one example… God vs. God:

Here is a Facebook post I recently posted:

  • “What is there for God to harden, provoke, or restrain if not the autonomous will of creatures?”

If God knows the future because He planned the future [Sproul, Piper, MacArthur, etc.], when God hardens, provokes, or restraines…. is He working against Himself?

If the “T” of TULIP [total depravity] is a reality, wouldn’t hardening, provoking, or restraining someone be the same thing as digging up bodies in a cemetery and putting blindfolds on the rotting cadavers?

In other words, does He plan the abuse of a child just to redeem that act in some way to bring glory to Himself? Is Satan superfluous?

Are all the prescriptions in the Bible making God out to be duplicitous – since he has planned our actions thru determinitive means?

You could not argue that “evil” is really “evil.” Eastern philosophies run into the same problems as the atheist’s/evolutionist’s I just noted above. The Calvinist runs into the same issue. And it is a distortion of Christianity (T.U.L.I.P.):

(Eph 1:11) “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Here the Greek word for “works” is 𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑔𝑒ø, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child: “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov. 16:4, NASB ).14 “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Eccl. 7:14, NIV).

John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42.

Or…

Is it more like Tozer notes — which lowers man’s position by making him/her responsible to God’s law; and keeps God’s holiness and glory intact as He truly redeems or judges such actions (is He judging Himself in Calvinism? Working against His own will? Secretly?)

TOZER:

God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What doest thou?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

There is an analogy of two chess players. As you walk up on one professional chess player, he is sitting on one side of the bench, and at the end of his move he gets up walks to the other side, sits down, thinks a moment and makes his move. This process is repeated until the game is over and the chess player wins.

Guaranteed.

When you ask him why he is playing chess alone, he says to ensure his victory. Or as Piper notes in his book astonished by God: “…the reason God knows the future is because he plans the future and accomplishes it.”

You wouldn’t think too highly of his skills, would you? As you walk down the road a bit further, you come across another chess master. This time however, there is a line of players, world famous chess players, lined up as far as the eye could see. As you watched, the one chess player was handily beating every player that sat before him. Player after player.

With whom would you be more impressed with?

And it is this perceived contradiction that leads Calvinists to a polluting of God’s character, which A.W. Tozer tackles in his book, Knowledge of the Holy. Here is a excerpt…. I changed a couple words to read better:

… While a complete explanation of the origin of sin eludes us, there are a few things we do know. In His sovereign wisdom God has permitted evil to exist in carefully restricted areas of His creation, a kind of fugitive outlaw whose activities are temporary and limited in scope. In doing this God has acted according to His infinite wisdom and goodness. More than that no one knows at present; and more than that no one needs to know. The name of God is sufficient guarantee of the perfection of His works.

Another real problem created by the doctrine of the divine sovereignty has to do with the will of man. If God rules His universe by His sovereign decrees, how is it possible for man to exercise free choice? And if he cannot exercise freedom of choice, how can he be held responsible for his conduct? Is he not a mere puppet whose actions are determined by a behind-the-scenes God who pulls the strings as it pleases Him?

The attempt to answer these questions has divided the Christian church neatly into two camps which have borne the names of two distinguished theologians, Jacobus Arminius and John Calvin. Most Christians are content to get into one camp or the other and deny either sovereignty to God or free will to man. It appears possible, however, to reconcile these two positions without doing violence to either, although the effort that follows may prove deficient to partisans of one camp or the other.

Here is my view: God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, What doest thou? Mans will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.

Perhaps a homely illustration might help us to understand. An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.

On board the liner are several scores of passengers. These are not in chains, neither are their activities determined for them by decree. They are completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please; but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.

Both freedom and sovereignty are present here and they do not contradict each other. So it is, I believe, with mans freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of Gods sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history. God moves undisturbed and unhindered toward the fulfilment of those eternal purposes which He purposed in Christ Jesus before the world began. We do not know all that is included in those purposes, but enough has been disclosed to furnish us with a broad outline of things to come and to give us good hope and firm assurance of future well-being.

We know that God will fulfil every promise made to the prophets; we know that sinners will some day be cleansed out of the earth; we know that a ransomed company will enter into the joy of God and that the righteous will shine forth in the kingdom of their Father; we know that Gods perfections will yet receive universal acclamation, that all created intelligences will own Jesus Christ Lord to the glory of God the Father, that the present imperfect order will be done away, and a new heaven and a new earth be established forever.

Toward all this God is moving with infinite wisdom and perfect precision of action. No one can dissuade Him from His purposes; nothing turn Him aside from His plans. Since He is omniscient, there can be no unforeseen circumstances, no accidents. As He is sovereign, there can be no countermanded orders, no breakdown in authority; and as He is omninpotent, there can be no want of power to achieve His chosen ends. God is sufficient unto Himself for all these things.

In the meanwhile things are not as smooth as this quick outline might suggest. The mystery of iniquity doth already work. Within the broad field of Gods sovereign, permissive will the deadly conflict of good with evil continues with increasing fury. God will yet have His way in the whirlwind and the storm, but the storm and the whirlwind are here, and as responsible beings we must make our choice in the present moral situation.

Certain things have been decreed by the free determination of God, and one of these is the law of choice and consequences. God has decreed that all who willingly commit themselves to His Son Jesus Christ in the obedience of faith shall receive eternal life and become sons of God. He has also decreed that all who love darkness and continue in rebellion against the high authority of heaven shall remain in a state of spiritual alienation and suffer eternal death at last.

Reducing the whole matter to individual terms, we arrive at some vital and highly personal conclusions. In the moral conflict now raging around us whoever is on Gods side is on the winning side and cannot lose; whoever is on the other side is on the losing side and cannot win. Here there is no chance, no gamble. There is freedom to choose which side we shall be on but no freedom to negotiate the results of the choice once it is made. By the mercy of God we may repent a wrong choice and alter the consequences by making a new and right choice. Beyond that we cannot go.

The whole matter of moral choice centers around Jesus Christ. Christ stated it plainly: He that is not with me is against me, and No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. The gospel message embodies three distinct elements: an announcement, a command, and a call. It announces the good news of redemption accomplished in mercy; it commands all men everywhere to repent and it calls all men to surrender to the terms of grace by believing on Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

We must all choose whether we will obey the gospel or turn away in unbelief and reject its authority. Our choice is our own, but the consequences of the choice have already been determined by the sovereign will of God, and from this there is no appeal.

Ravi Zacharias (RPT’s Tribute) | UPDATED w/ RAVI’s FALL

Published by Papa Giorgio

ADDITIONAL VIDEOS:

ALISA CHILDERS

Part of my testimony is that when I was drowning in doubt, I asked God to send me a lifeboat. I’ve stated publicly that one of the earliest and most significant “lifeboats” was the apologetics message of Ravi Zacharias. With allegations of sexual misconduct being brought against him, I’m asking the question, what do you do when Christian leaders fail…when your “lifeboat” springs a leak?

MIKE LICONA

“The Report of Independent Investigation into Sexual Misconduct of Ravi Zacharias” was released to the public on February 11, 2021. It revealed that Ravi Zacharias led a double life: one as a minister of the gospel, the other being guilty of multiple accounts of sexual misconduct and abuse. In this video, Dr. Mike Licona lays out 3 important points for Christians to keep in mind in light of the disturbing report.

A SAD UPDATE TO THIS TRIBUTE:

Mike Winger does the best job at Biblically dealing with this issue — head on! Sadly

This is not a video I’m looking forward to. But this is why I’m doing it.

1) Ravi’s victims need vindication. In particular, Lori Anne Thompson has been continually maligned and horribly treated because she brought TRUE accusations against Ravi. I believed the worst about her because of the comments from Ravi and the echoes of those comments from RZIM. This only made her a continual victim. We need to clear her name.
2) Ravi’s sins have left a lot of open wounds that need tending. Both in the body of Christ and in RZIM. Believers need to be reminded of how to process all this as a follower of Christ, of how true Christ remains regardless of this tragedy and how to handle this situation so that we don’t wrongly treat RZIM staff, Ravi’s family or continue to make the error of ignoring red flags that may still lead to more discoveries. I’ve seen every kind of wrong response online already. I pray to God that I would have wisdom to help us all to have wisdom here. If you are reading this before I go live then please stop and pray for me as I prepare for this video.
3) Scripture commands us to openly deal with a leader who persists in sin, which is proven by evidence, by telling the local body so that other leaders can properly fear their own falling (1 Tim 5:19-20). Since Ravi was a leader in worldwide Christianity with personal character endorsements from countless other leaders this command can only be fulfilled by taking the truth as public as his endorsements were.
4) If we as the body of Christ do not deal with this issue openly then I feel that we implicate ourselves in some sort of complicity at this point. The witness of Christ in the world has been harmed by Ravi’s sin and we do need to publicly deal with it. Due to my own place in ministry as a public figure I do feel compelled to speak on this.

Like many of you I am angry and I’m sad. But we can’t respond with conspiracy theories that deny the overwhelming evidence of persistent sin, abuse of power, abuse of ministry funds, abuse of women and how calculated and deliberate it all was. The facts are in, all that is left is to face them and try to respond in ways that honor Christ.

To Ravi’s family, I’m really sorry I am making a video about your father/husband/relative. It breaks my heart and I hate the idea of adding hurt to what you are going through. Please know that I don’t mean you harm and I’m not on the bandwagon of heartless crowds. I am compelled that this must be done and I pray that you will find, in some way, some help in it as well.

MIKE WINGER

J. WARNER & JIMMY WALLACE

It’s been over a year since the final report about Ravi Zacharias was released. What can we learn from the scandal? What can we do to prevent others from falling in a similar way? J. Warner and Jimmy Wallace discuss recent news articles in this episode of the NRBtv Cold-Case Christianity Broadcast.

DAVID WOOD (OUR CHRISTIAN PSYCHOPATH)

After a team of investigators hired by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries recently announced that they had uncovered significant evidence of sexual misconduct by Ravi Zacharias, many of Ravi’s fans are confused, angry, and devastated by the allegations. But there’s an important lesson to be learned here, one the church can no longer continue to ignore. Ravi’s final message to the world may be his most important. David Wood discusses the issue.

OLD POST

(Almost all the videos or audios below are from my YouTube Channel. I recovered many of them from my Vimeo account and my MRCTV account. Enjoy, I have worked all day on fixing audio and video to make them more presentable)

  • If C.S. Lewis was the greatest Christian expositor of the 20th century, Ravi Zacharias might well go down in history as the greatest of the 21st century. Both are often described as “apologists,” but that sounds defensive to the modern ear. (WASHINGTON TIMES)
  • “To my friend, my mentor and a great hero of the faith [Ravi Zacharias] — Thank you,” Tim Tebow wrote. “I know I’ll see you again and I look forward to that day. Love you brother.” (PJ-MEDIA)

First, let me say, I am a fan of Ravi Zacharias. A huge fan. He has impacted me in countless ways, and thus, he has impacted my family. As a three-time felon, I benefited from his insights into what a Christian worldview should look like, and how a Christian should present himself. But he is a man — in need of a savior and prone to missteps and falls. Like any of us. His statement via CHRISTIANITY TODAY makes note of this:

  • “I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal,” Zacharias said. “I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues.”

Ravi, like many a person I know (myself included), will always make claims not in line with reality to lift ourselves up to a greater status in life to impress others. It is almost a default of our prideful nature. I acknowledge all these faults in Ravi, and in my own life — it is a long and complex life filled with spiritual falls, scrapes, wounds, and battles. Ravi’s message of how the Christian worldview is coherent whereas others are not is not changed by his faults and missteps. God’s truth is unchangeable. As imperfect vessels, we imperfectly reflect His perfection. As you can see one of Ravi’s misstatements is made in the following video… but that retelling of flawed history by Ravi has no impact on the truth of his response in showing the self-deleting assumption of the questioner:

With that being said, Ravi passed from this place to the next. In March 2020, it was revealed that Zacharias had been diagnosed with a malignant and rare cancer within his spine. If one wants a book by him that shows the elegance of his thought and skills as a writer, his book “The Grand Weaver: How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives” is the book I recommend the most. A portion of this book in audio form has been used by myself in a presentation while filling in at an adult Bible study at church (Grace Baptist). the Below is an older post of mine (updated a bit) discussing this section of the book where God’s design of our life doesn’t end with Him knitting us together in the womb — along with the mentioned audio:

BEAUTY IS MORE THAN SKIN DEEP

In this presentation Ravi Zacharias takes his time explaining a talk he was present at where Dr. Francis S. Collins (WIKI) compares a cross section of DNA to a stained-glass Rose window from Yorkminster Cathedral. The design is apparent and Collins mentions it a huge boost to his faith.

At The Veritas Forum at Caltech, Francis Collins shares two images representing the scientific worldview and the spiritual worldview. He asks whether there is a way to merge science & faith, and suggests that his experience is that these two perspectives are not in conflict. (The full presentation can be seen HERE):

RAVI WRITES:

“The picture (of the DNA) did more that take away one’s breath; it was awesome in the profoundest sense of the term – not just beautiful but overwhelming. And it almost mirrored the pattern of the Rose window… The intricacy of the DNA’s design, which pointed to the Transcendant One, astonished those who are themselves the design and who have been created semitranscendant by design. We see ourselves only partially, but through our Creator’s eyes, we see our transcendence. In looking at our own DNA, the subject and the object come together.”

TO WIT…

 

END of POST

I have other uploads as well I have used in conversation over the years as well that are instructive to the armchair apologist. Here they are (some recently imported from my VIMEO account:

AUDIO/VIDEO

Ravi Zacharias responds with “precise language” to a written question. With his patented charm and clarity, Ravi responds to the challenge of exclusivity in Christianity that skeptics challenge us with.

A student asks a question of Ravi Zacharias about God condemning people [atheists] to hell. This Q&A occurred after a presentation Ravi gave at Harvard University, and is now one of his most well-known responses in the apologetic sub-culture. This is an updated version to my original upload. I truncated the beginning as well as editing the volume of the initial question. I also added graphics and text quotes into the audio presentation.

A Muslim student at Michigan University challenges Ravi Zacharias on Christianities seemingly lack of ability in keeping the “law” like Islam and Judaism do so well. How can Christianity be true if it isn’t doing that which God demands? (I have recently enhanced, greatly, the audio in the file from my original VIMEO upload… and reconfigured slightly the visual presentation.)

 

(February 12, 2014) This is for a group of men that are going through Gregory Koukl’s book, “Tactics.” Often times a person merely need to ask his accuser questions to better open up what they mean by their questioning.

✂ Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” AND WHEN HE HAD SAID THIS, HE WENT OUT AGAIN…. (NASB – emphasis added)

One example of this “Socratic Method” can be seen here: “Socratic Method ~ Falling On Their Own Sword (Origins Myths)” The students start out sounding like experts and often times the Christians will shy away from conversation when in fact the person is basing their assumptions on a self-refuting idea[s], and all that is needed to bring it out are a few questions.

(March 31, 2013) Ravi Zacharias does a great job in explaining what pornography does to shame, the Holy, and the insatiable fire of not being able to satisfy men’s archetype they build in their minds eye.

(February 11, 2014) A quick witted response brings a light heart to a serious subject. This comes from an event today from the University of Pennsylvania, titled, “Is Truth Real?” Ravi Zacharias International Ministry has the longer version here.

 

Hard Hearts & God’s Sovereignty

Published by Papa Giorgio

Pastor Todd of Crossroads Community Church deals with a very tough theological thorn of free-will and God’s sovereignty. Yes. I have believed this for years and consider it somewhat of a mystery, just like the Trinity. I added some graphics (Scripture verses read) for the casual viewer so they can follow along with Todd. As an unimportant aside, the first time Scripture explicitly mentions Pharaoh hardening his heart is in Exodus 8:15.

Here are two quotes that came to mind during the sermon:

4:21 The Bible teaches that human beings are free to make choices (Gn 2:19; 4:7; Ezk 18:2–32). God is good (Ps 25:8; 34:8; 100:5) and always acts consistently with His nature. Yet people can choose to rebel against God’s goodness, and consistent rebellion can lead to their hearts being “hardened.” As the saying goes, “The same sun that melts butter also hardens clay.” Egyptian pharaohs believed they were divine, and Pharaoh would never have been inclined to submit to the Israelites’ God. Each time God placed a demand on him, he became more determined to resist. Thus it was both God’s demands and Pharaoh’s own pride-motivated stubbornness (Ex 8:15, 32; 9:34) that led to his hardened heart. God would use Pharaoh’s stubbornness for a good end, to demonstrate His power and extend His reputation (9:16).

The Apologetics Study Bible: Real Questions, Straight Answers, Stronger Faith (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2007), 91–92.

partII. GOD THE REDEEMER OF SINNERS

While reiterating the teaching of nature as to the existence and character of the personal Creator and Lord of all, the Scriptures lay their stress upon the grace or the undeserved love of God, as exhibited in his dealings with his sinful and wrath-deserving creatures. So little, however, is the consummate divine attribute of love advanced, in the scriptural revelation, at the expense of the other moral attributes of God, that it is thrown into prominence only upon a background of the strongest assertion and fullest manifestation of its companion attributes, especially of the divine righteousness and holiness, and is exhibited as acting only along with and in entire harmony with them. God is not represented in the Scriptures as forgiving sin because he really cares very little about sin; nor yet because he is so exclusively or predominatingly the God of love, that all other attributes shrink into desuetude in the presence of his illimitable benevolence. He is rather represented as moved to deliver sinful man from his guilt and pollution because he pities the creatures of his hand, immeshed in sin, with an intensity which is born of the vehemence of his holy abhorrence of sin and his righteous determination to visit it with intolerable retribution; and by a mode which brings as complete satisfaction to his infinite justice and holiness as to his unbounded love itself. The biblical presentation of the God of grace includes thus the richest development of all his moral attributes, and the God of the Bible is consequently set forth, in the completeness of that idea, as above everything else the ethical God. And that is as much as to say that there is ascribed to him a moral sense so sensitive and true that it estimates with unfailing accuracy the exact moral character of every person or deed presented for its contemplation, and responds to it with the precisely appropriate degree of satisfaction or reprobation. The infinitude of his love is exhibited to us precisely in that while we were yet sinners he loved us, though with all the force of his infinite nature he reacted against our sin with illimitable abhorrence and indignation. The mystery of grace resides just in the impulse of a sin-hating God to show mercy to such guilty wretches; and the supreme revelation of God as the God of holy love is made in the disclosure of the mode of his procedure in redemption, by which alone he might remain just while justifying the ungodly. For in this procedure there was involved the mighty paradox of the infinitely just Judge himself becoming the sinner’s substitute before his own law and the infinitely blessed God receiving in his own person the penalty of sin.

B.B. Warfield, Selected Short Writings of Benjamin B. Warfield (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 1970), 71-72.