God is good, all the time. And all the time, God is good.
That’s a statement that Christians of many stripes are apt to say. All Christians believe that God is good. And yet, different camps in Christianity will say that God is good for different reasons–sometimes opposite reasons.
Let’s look at how Jesus defined goodness in Mark 10 and if what Calvinists call good lines up with that.
As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
It seems clear from Jesus’ words to the rich young man here that goodness is found in the keeping of the commandments. And what did Jesus say that the commandments are all about?
Now let’s look at Matthew 28.
One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Here we can see that the commandments are about love. Combining these two statements from Jesus, we find that to be good and to follow the commandments is to love.
So, therefore, to be good is to love.
Jesus was not alone in this line of thinking. See Psalm 136.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.
Now, we might ask, what does it mean to “love”?
I think it goes beyond mere kindness, though that is often an attribute of love. We’re all familiar with the concept of “tough love” which might withhold some favor in order to teach a lesson. Or we might demonstrate tough love with punishment which is intended to educate or correct.
But, no matter how love manifests itself, it is always an action which is intended for the well-being of the other party.
If I love you, I am working for your well-being.
So, given the words of Jesus above, we can begin to interpret the actions of God based on the way He talked about goodness, the commandments, and love.
If we’re in doubt because there seem to be conflicting or even vague passages in scripture about the actions that God takes, we can look to these foundational statements about the nature of goodness that Jesus makes to help us understand and interpret.
Therefore, I assert that one of the problems with Calvinism is that because the framework says that God does things which are not good (He doesn’t work toward the well-being of most of his creatures), the framework is incorrect.
Here’s what I mean.
Problems with Calvinism: Competing Wills in God
Calvinists believe that there are different kinds of love. For starters, God loves Himself more than anything else. And that love of His own “glory” may trump the love He has for His creation.
In Calvinist circles, you will often hear of what is referred to as “common grace” and “special grace.”
God grants to every human a minimum of common grace by creating them and letting them live for a time on Earth. But He grants special grace to the elect by bestowing on them His “salvific will.” In other words, the reprobate unelect get common grace which results in a short period of an earthly life and the blessed elect get special grace which results in their eternal well-being.
So God loves, but He has different kinds of love for different people.
But, I maintain that the “common grace” and “love” that God shows the unelect is not love at all. Keep in mind, at all times in conversations with Calvinists, that God is not merely judge, but Creator. He formed all humans out of nothingness without their consent.
He does not say, “Would you like to be created?”
He just creates us.
He creates the unelect in a fallen state and leaves them in this state and they endure never-ending misery as the result.
This, I submit, is not grace or love.
Let me ask you another question. What would you do if you hated someone?
If you hated someone, you would let them see the light of day for a very short period so that they could remember it throughout the eons of their unbearable suffering so that it might make their suffering worse.
That is what the God of Calvinism does. Calvinists may call it “common grace” or some kind of love, but when you look at the concept for what it is, you can see past the empty words. This is hate.
You have a God-given conscience. Does this action not violate it to the deepest part? Does it not make your stomach churn with disgust?
Keep this in mind when you ask a Calvinist if God loves everyone. They will probably say yes, but they probably have something different in mind than you do when you ask the question. You often can’t even get a straight answer if you ask the question “Does God want to save everyone?” The answer might be yes, because they will say that in a sense He does. They might be forthright and volunteer that He has other “wants” which overrule his desire to save everyone.
The best question to ask a Calvinist on this topic is “Does God have a salvific will for every person?” The Calvinist will know what you mean when you use those words and the answer is no.
I suggest taking it a step further. Make it personal. “Can you guarantee that God has a salvific will for my child or grandchild whom He created and who is completely dependent on Him?”
Why should you make it personal? BECAUSE IT IS PERSONAL. If it isn’t personal to you yet, it will be one day.
Therefore, I maintain that the God of Calvinism is not Good because He does not ACT for the well-being of HIs creation. “Common grace”, therefore, is not the kind of action a God who is love can take. Therefore, the God of Calvinism isn’t real. Yet another reason Calvinism is wrong.
The God of Calvinism is, thank the really good God, a figment of our imaginations.
And, even if the God of Calvinism was a reality, He is certainly not the kind of God I can love and worship.
The Calvinist God is a monster.
Problems with Calvinism: Defining Justice
Another problem with Calvinism has to do with the idea of justice.
What does it mean to be just?
When we think of justice, we often think of a judge who favors no person above another, but holds each person responsible to the law according to what that person has done.
Justice carries with it the notion of fair play. A judge must not treat one person differently than another.
John Piper on the Injustice of the Calvinist God
The argument against Calvinism on the issue of justice is a fairly simple one. God creates two humans and favors one over the other before either are born. In this case, He is not impartial or free from favor.
He obviously treats one person differently than another.
Therefore, He is not just.
If the idea of bias or favor could be illustrated to the utmost degree, it would be for one person to be selected to enjoy bliss for all eternity, while the other person endures an unimaginable, never-ending nightmare.
This is not an argument with which Calvinists are unfamiliar. John Piper, a prominent leader in the Calvinist movement today, takes the argument head-on in a series of lectures focused on the book of Romans. I will condense his argument here, but, I hope, make a restatement with which he would agree. Listen to it free here yourself if you want the full version.
Piper, I think wisely, examines the apostle Paul’s argument against the injustice of election and reaches what he believes to be the apostle’s conclusion. Piper begins with Paul’s statement in Romans 9:13-15
Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
Piper admits that the argument on the surface has no direct rebuttal against our understanding of injustice. On the surface, this statement isn’t very helpful, so we must look for a deeper meaning.
Piper circles back through the books of Exodus, Psalms, and earlier chapters of Romans to reach the following conclusion as the deeper meaning of Paul’s argument:
Flipping Justice on Its Head
Here is Piper’s argument as he sums it up. This is copied from his text exactly.
Summary of the Argument
- The righteousness of God includes his allegiance to his own name and glory (Rom. 1:18-23, 3:23-25, Psa 143:11).
- God’s name and glory include his freedom to act without constraint from outside influences (Ex 3:15; 33:18-19).
- Therefore, God’s freedom in election, as part of his glory, is essential to his righteousness, and he is righteous to the elect unconditionally (Rom. 9:13-15).
One of the key phrases in Piper’s argument is “without constraint from outside influences.” He’s saying that there is nothing in God’s character which would make Him give fair play to His creatures. The notion of fairness is an “outside influence.”
Keep in mind when reading Piper that he (possibly unintentionally) uses a smoke screen of religious rhetoric to mask the ugliness of the thoughts. I’ll trim the phrasing down here to help us get a more clear understanding of what Piper is telling us.
- God’s righteousness is his devotion to Himself.
- He is free from outside influences which would keep Him from doing what He wants to do.
- Therefore, God is righteous precisely BECAUSE He is free to act in a way which we would consider unjust.
In answer to the allegation that his God acts unjustly, Piper answers that God is just because He acts unjustly toward humans. Your very accusation proves God’s justice.
Think of this for a minute. Piper tells us that God is good because He acts in what seems to us an evil way. What we would condemn as deplorable in a man, is exactly what makes God the most wonderful being imaginable.
Justice has just become a meaningless word. To Piper, what we consider just (fair play) is actually unjust.
This is the dark world into which Calvinism led me.
Light becomes darkness.
Good becomes evil.
Hope becomes despair.
I have a friend who says that Calvinism is nihilism (the rejection of all moral principles). And I think he’s right.
A Different Interpretation
I believe Piper’s interpretation of Paul is very much flawed in this instance. I believe that Paul understands that the argument against injustice must be answered on the same plane of morality which we work upon, not a different one.
He is working through those arguments throughout Romans 9-11, but has not reached their conclusion until the very ending of chapter of 11 when he states in verse 32: “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
He treats every man, woman, and child the same.
His point, in this treatise on election, is that just as we saw in the model of Jacob and Esau, election is not a decision to show mercy to some and not others, but a decision to show mercy to some before others. God “loved” Jacob because he showed mercy on him first. But Jacob and Esau are reconciled at the end of the story, not separated.
If God “hates” any of us in the same way he hated Esau, we have little to fear. In the same way, I believe Paul is saying that the end of the human story is reconciliation, not separation.
In the end, God is just because He treats each of his beings the same. Don’t stop reading until you reach the end of Paul’s letter where he climbs the final few steps of the mountainous argument he has been building. This is the glorious summation of the revelation of God’s character, which Piper tragically stops well short of.
He is good in a way that we can understand.
Our Father is calling us to be just like Him, not His opposite. Jesus taught us to love every man, regardless of his actions toward us. In this way, we must “be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:45-48.
His morality is our morality.
His image is our image.
His good is our good.
His perfection is our perfection.
Oh, John Piper! If you would only keep reading to the end of the book! My heart hurts for you and those you instruct.
“He has mercy on them all.”
Tim Keller on the Injustice of the Calvinist God
How does popular Calvinist/Reformed pastor and author Tim Keller work through the dissonance between our common understanding of justice and the doctrine of limited election?
From his book Romans 8-16 For You, Keller quotes the skeptic’s version of this question as:
“I believe the Bible and I see all the teaching about election, but why do I still dislike it so?”
He answers: My theory is that the biblical gospel is so supernatural that it always combines qualities that by natural reason and culture we cannot keep together.
Keller does not say so, but I think most of us can agree that the reason his hypothetical skeptic “dislikes it [limited election] so” is that it is biased or unjust.
Is Limited Election The Gospel?
It is important to note the linguistic substitutions Keller makes in his answer. The subject of the question is “the teaching about election.” And when Keller answers, he says “the biblical gospel is …”
By using this substitution, Keller says that the “biblical gospel” IS “the teaching about election.” To Keller, the good news of Christianity is that God chooses some for salvation and not others.
Is that really good news?
I believe this is also a (subtle?) attempt to bolster his view of election. By equating limited election and the biblical gospel, Keller proclaims divine authority over his view. Limited election is “the biblical gospel,” according to Keller.
What else can we learn from Keller’s answer? Let’s trim it down a bit to see the bones of the argument.
“The gospel is so supernatural that human reason can’t hold it together.”
Here we get logic which is similar to Piper’s. This seems to indicate that “supernatural” God works on a different moral plane than we do. As humans, we can’t apply our reason and reconcile our notion of justice and God’s limited election.
Later, in the conclusion of Keller’s answer, he says:
We must remember the prejudices we bring with us to the Scripture.
So, our sense of justice and fairness is a prejudice which must be abandoned as it relates to “the biblical gospel.” He agrees with Piper that fairness is “an outside influence” which is not present in the heart of God.
Keller Defeats His Own Argument
But he does not stick to that argument consistently. I believe Keller unknowingly defeats his own logic in a separate writing. When you combine the two, it seems that Keller has effectually proven that limited election ISN’T the gospel.
In a pamphlet titled What is Common Grace?, Keller writes:
God’s law is written on the heart of every human being (Romans 2:14-15), and every person is born with an innate sense of honesty, justice, and love so that we are “without excuse” (Romans 1:20).
Here, Keller paraphrases the apostle Paul by saying that God has written HIS law on every human heart. That law is honesty, justice, and love.
Thus, according to Keller in this passage, our common understanding of justice is not a prejudice which can’t be reconciled with the supernatural gospel as he said in Romains 8-16 For You; it is God’s law itself built into us, not the result of fallen human nature.
So, if God has written on our hearts a common sense of justice, we are “without excuse” if we do not apply that sense to grasp the truth of the gospel itself.
The skeptic is troubled with “Why do I dislike limited election so?” because the skeptic is listening to that God-given sense of justice.
It is precisely BECAUSE our God-given sense of justice is violated by the limited election version of the gospel that we must reject that version. Otherwise, we are “without excuse.”
Does Justice = Punishment?
Another component often tied to the term “just” or “justice” is that deserved punishment must be doled out for crimes committed. “We’ll bring the perpetrators to justice” is a phrase often heard in the fight against terrorism.
In the legal system, the just punishment is one which fits the crime. It is not more or less harsh than we have decided the crime merits.
Does the God of Calvinism deal out punishments which fit the crime?
The Calvinist will tell you that it is His justice which makes Him consign some people to never-ending torment in hell. He can’t let a bunch of people slide by. He can’t overlook sin.
Calvinist theologian R.C. Sproul said it this way:
God grants the mercy of election to some and justice to others. No one is the victim of injustice. To fail to receive mercy is not to be treated unjustly.
What would be the difference between that statement and the following?
God grants the mercy of election to whites and justice to blacks. No one is the victim of injustice.
Keep in mind that I’m not saying Sproul is racially prejudiced. I’m just asking what the differences are in those two ideas as it pertains to the moral concept of injustice. If you substitute one arbitrary group for another, does that fundamentally change the idea and make the first statement just and the second unjust?
Do we all get the same shot in life?
Which parent looks at his three children and says “My kids are all screw-ups. I’m going to show mercy to one of them, but I’m going to torture the other two.”
“Wait!” the Calvinist says. “Our relation to God is not that of a father to his children. He is our creator, but He is not a parent to all of His creatures. There’s a difference!”
True.
Rather than an argument to bolster the stance, I believe that distinction is a refutation of Calvinism.
The relation of God to His creatures is not that of a parent. It is higher and more profound than that.
Which parent formed their child in the womb? Which carefully constructed their noses, fingers, widow’s peak, and elbows? Which drew them forth out of nothingness into being?
A common jump which Calvinists make when talking about the justice of God is that of non-responsibility. If you listen carefully, they talk as if God was walking through the universe one day and stumbled into planet earth where He found a bunch of humans raping, killing, lying, stealing, molesting, torturing, and starving each other. So He has to come in and clean things up.
Let’s take one of Tim Keller’s statements as a good example of skipping the act of creation as it relates to justice. In his book Romans 8-16 For You, Keller answers an objection to the fairness of limited election:
“But it isn’t fair for God to elect some and not others.“
It is one thing for a doctor to see five patients and only choose to treat two. That would be unjust, because as a doctor he owes care to all, and all have a right to be treated. But if a judge condemns a number of criminals and pardons some, it is merciful, for he owes nothing to any of them.”
So, to Keller, God owes nothing to any of us because He is acting as judge, but if He were our doctor, we would have a right to complain if He didn’t treat us.
But this argument quickly breaks down. God is not simply our judge. He is our creator. The criminal is not dependent on the judge for his well-being in the same way that we are dependent on God.
The act of creation is MORE intimate than that of earthly parentage, not less. That puts MORE obligation on the Creator than that of an earthly parent, not less.
Each human being is created by and wholly dependent on God for our well-being. Yet God does not provide what we need most.
Are We Stuck?
But, wait! This isn’t just a problem for the Calvinist. The Arminian believes that God’s justice requires never-ending torment because that’s what most people get. So, no matter which side you choose, you would say that God is unjust if the end result is never-ending suffering.
This is precisely what Tim Keller argues. He argues that Calvinism is true because it’s a better choice than the only other alternative he sees.
“The best reason for accepting the doctrine [of election] is that every alternative creates even more problems and difficulties … The question still remains, therefore: Why [doesn’t God save everyone]? That is the ultimate mystery, but abandoning the doctrine of election does not answer it.”
But there is a view which holds to the authority of scriptures and reconciles a literal (though not eternal) hell and mercy–a view which was held by many prominent leaders of the church in the first five centuries. There is a view which does not portray God as having competing wills. There is a view in which God is whole and not conflicted.
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