Dave, you are to be commended on seeing the issue of divine election and human choice as an extreme paradox or antimony, not a contradiction or absurdity. God’s word teaches God chose us and we chose God.

The pendulum swung too far in the not-so-distant Evangelical past with too much emphasis on human free will. Today it is swinging to the other extreme to the exclusion of any human choice. The biblical balance of embracing the paradox of both parties having a choice is rare.

The Bible teaches “Calvaminianism.”

In the trilogy of parables—the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, Jesus brilliantly presents this paradox of God’s sovereign loving choice in rescuing us and our choice of coming to God. In the first parable the shepherd goes and gets the lost sheep. In the second, the lady seeks and finds the lost coin, and coins have no will or ability to choose. But the final and climatic story is of the prodigal son who leaves in rebellion and in an unexpected dramatic change from the previous two parables–the loving Father waits. One great theologian has called this parable, “The Waiting Father.” In time, the rebel son hits bottom after wasting his inheritance, comes to his senses while feeding pigs, and makes the choice to humbly return. The father runs to embrace him as he sees his son return, but he did not go after him to force him to return or even try to persuade him to return. The Father left that choice to his son.

One more biblical example of this paradox. Upon entering Jerusalem, Jesus cried out, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37 NIV) The Greek word for willing is the same word translated “wants” (NIV) or “wills” (NKJV) in Romans 9:18: “Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.” (NKJV) Our will matters. God’s will matters.

But be prepared to be hit from both sides of the debate. Just as Jesus was attacked by the Pharisees who added to God’s Word and the Sadducees who subtracted from God’s Word, the “Calvaminian” will be hit hard by the Calvinists and Arminians.

The move toward Calvinism removes love. Love ALWAYS includes choice. God did not force anyone to love him. I reject as totally unbiblical the Calvinist’s idea that our divine election was a “holy rape of the soul.” Yet, some form of spiritual rape is what happens if we have no choice in rejecting the love of God. But the whole of Scripture does not teach a God of love forced himself on us until we enjoyed it.

Another way to describe Calvinism is to see humanity as robots. It looks something like this. We were born bad robots who cannot chose or reject God. God then flips the switch on some of us to be good robots. That good switch is located in the middle of our backs, and we cannot see it or reach it. God does not flip the switch on most of the bad robots who go to the furnace of the metal melting pot. When God flips the switch on our backs, it then reveals a new switch on our belly and we are automatically preprogrammed to want to flip our switch to be good robots. But we never had the possibility or actual choice in flipping our front switch once God flipped his good switch first.

Timothy Keller, a Presbyterian Pastor, presents a great illustration that God is not a Stepford God:

“The husbands of Stepford, Connecticut, decided to have their wives turned into robots who never cross the wills of their husbands. A Stepford wife was wonderfully compliant and beautiful, but no one would describe such a relationship as intimate or personal. Now what happens when you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibilities and crosses your will? If you pick and chose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you have a God who contradicts you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction.” – The Reason for God (pp.113-14)

Now comes a valid follow-up question—is the Lord’s bride, the church, a Stepford wife? No! Just as we have no Stepford God, God has no Stepford bride. We, who are the Lord’s bride, are not “robots to never cross the will” of our husband, Christ. While our “husband” is perfect, we, his bride, are not. Our Lord’s directives in His word often “offend our sensibilities and cross our will.” We are often not compliant to Him, and stubbornly unsubmissive. Neither of us are robotic Stepfords. With choice we have the wonderful possibility of a mutual loving relationship that is “intimate and personal.”

If we are not robots, what are we? We are persons. Persons have choice, most importantly spiritual choice. Animals have instinct, and no spiritual choice whatsoever. God is three persons in one. Angels are persons. Humans are persons. None of the rest of God’s living creation are persons. Angels were given the choice to follow Satan or God. One third of the angelic host made the wrong choice and God prepared the lake of fire primarily for them. We as human beings who have been created in the image of God also have a choice. We have a choice to respond to God’s general call of his love. After we say yes to God’s call, we have the choice to love and obey him as a believer. Even after our new spiritual birth, God does not force us to always love and obey.

Yes, love requires that we have a choice in our relationship with God. On the other hand, God chose whomever he wished before the foundation of the world. We dare not remove God’s choice! Therein lies the paradox.

I like to summarize and illustrate this dual choice paradox with my “courting” of my wife that brought us to the alter of marriage. Here is how it happened—I chased her until she caught me.

Let’s embrace the paradox of mutual choice in love.

© 2009 David W. Miller, permission usually granted if authorship is acknowledged.

Or Google Calvin’s legacy of Cruelty and Joy at religiondispatches.org.

I don’t know much about how whatever branch of “Calvinism” it is that exists in Baptist circles.

All I can say is this. My wife and I attended a study session on Reformed Theology at a RCA (Reformed Chruch in America) church. The class meet once a week for about four months. The author of the textbook we used was Dr. Shirley Guthrie [he is a man] – Professor Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary.

We got involved in this because of interactions I had with guys I met at Western Baptist Seminary who were members of that RCA congregation. I know this is far out, but one of those guys became the pastor of that RCA chruch.

In actual practice, Calvinism in the RCA is very fluid. For example regarding predestination Guthrie says:

DOUBLE PREDESTINATION

Some are included and some are excluded. This interpretation of predestination is often considered the one position you are supposed to believe if you are a good Presbyterian or Reformed Christian. Calvin himself taught it (see chapters 21-24 of book 3 of the INSTITUTES), and it is strongly affirmed in the Westminster Confession of Faith and in the Canons of the Synod of Dort. But other Reformed confessions such as Calvin’s own Geneva Catechism, the Scots Confession, and Second Helvetic Confession, and the Heidelberg Catechism do not teach it. It is only one of several possible views in the Reformed tradition.

Guthrie, Shirley, CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE — Revised Edition 1994
page 120

Other topics in the book discuss how Reformed tradition and Calvinism are always a “work in progress”. Guthrie says any creed or theological system is limited in scope and/or subject to change because (a) it is subordinate to the higher authority of the Bible, and (b) it is a product of fallible men, and (c) it is subject to new understanding because implicit in the Reformed tradition is “sempre reformada” which means that Christians are always open to new insights as a result the Holy Spirit illuminating the text to them.

I don’t know any one at that RCA church, including anyone on the staff, that claims to adhere to any number of “points” of Calvinism whether 0,1,2,3,4 or 5. That type of rigid construct is just foreign to them. They just don’t consider that discussion to be relevant.

It must be the case that whatever type of Calvinism it is that is espoused by some in the SBC is much more rigid.

RCA churches I know have various creeds pasted in the inside of their hymnals. (Yeah, they still use hymnals). They have the Heidelburg confession, the Geneva confession, etc. But they don’t avoid examination of the scriptures to directly inform them.

They don’t teach that there is any “correct” theological system — Calvinism or anything else except the Bible.

Calvin led the way by doing a systematic study of the Bible void of eclestical apparatus. The RCA congregations that I know about try to emulate this today so the “guy in the pew” sees an “unvarnished” view of the Bible. The RCA would say their understanding is “informed” by Calvin and the creeds but is not defined by these.

Roger K. Simpson
Oklahoma City OK