Calvinism and Arminianism:
Myths & Realities
The logic works like this. God cannot learn anything. Therefore God does not learn the thoughts of others, but determines all thoughts, and must necessarily know what He determined. Therefore, there is but one independent thinker in the cosmos, from which all thoughts arise, which is great for the good thoughts, but what about the others? Moreover, how does God know what any person will think next? Can God know what a person will think next, if He does not determine it for them? To a Calvinist, the answer is no. To a Calvinist, God would have to determine their thoughts for them, in order to know it, or else He must wait for them to think it, and then learn what it is. Now since God is omniscient throughout eternity, all thoughts throughout eternity must be prescripted as well. Now if God is thinking people’s thoughts for them, then what are they? Puppets. Now a Calvinist can argue that it is for His glory, but the result is the same. They’re puppets.
Dave Hunt: “Calvinism treats man as a puppet that God makes willing, yet the Bible gives man credit for having a willing heart as though the willingness were his own. The judgment seat of Christ, His promised rewards, the Great White Throne judgment, and the lake of fire are meaningless if all is of God and nothing is from the heart of man. The many statements about the person being willing from his heart become nonsensical.” (Debating Calvinism, p.339, emphasis mine)
Dave Hunt: “Surely love is the most important and most thrilling subject of all--and nothing is so beautiful as God’s love manifest in Jesus Christ. Tragically, Calvinism robs us of what ought to be ‘the greatest story ever told.’ It reduces God’s love to a form of favoritism without passion, and it denies man the capacity of responding from his heart, thereby robbing God of the joy of a genuine response from man and the glory it alone can bring.” (Debating Calvinism, p.255, emphasis mine)
Dave Hunts: “The entire history of mankind becomes a puppet show, with God the puppeteer. He looked down upon men and saw that ‘the wickedness of man was great…Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…. The earth also was corrupt…and…filled with violence’ (Genesis 6:5, 11). This situation ‘grieved [God] at his heart.’ But, if as Calvinism says, God caused every evil thought, word, and deed, why was He grieved? And how could God be grieved if He could have caused those living in Noah’s day to be saints rather than sinners but instead chose to damn them? Yet God is love?” (Debating Calvinism, p.314, emphasis mine)
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians:
“Petitionary prayer makes no sense on exhaustive
determinism. It cannot reasonably be considered even
a predetermined means to God’s answer, since it is a
special case of asking God to do something. It would
be like putting a sock puppet on one’s own hand and
having the sock puppet ask oneself to do something,
and then doing it, and insisting that the sock puppet’s
request was a means to oneself doing what was
requested. Say one desires to offer a drink of water to
a friend, and so one puts on the sock puppet and has
it ask oneself to offer the friend a drink of water. One
then offers the drink to the friend. The request from
the sock puppet cannot reasonably be considered a
means to offering the drink to the friend.”
Another member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “Whether Calvinists admit it or not, their system leads us to conclude that God is the Grand Puppet Master, pulling our every string. Another way of putting it is that we are essentially robots, doing only what we have been programmed to do.”
Another member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “I would say that it is perfectly acceptable and quite advisable for Arminians to point out that Calvinist theology entails that we are robots, and even that it logically demands it, though critically, Calvinists don’t hold that we are robots. It is just what their theology logically demands. It is a criticism of their theology, not a description of what it actually teaches, and we should trumpet this criticism because it is true and devastating, and it resonates with many people. Many, possibly most, people have an immediate response to hearing Calvinist theology for the first time by crying out, ‘That makes us robots!’ Amen.”
Erik Cooper explains: “Always inquire of the Lord. Always listen for His direction. Always submit to His desire and instruction. Make obedience the posture of your life. But I don’t think God is vying to become your puppet master. He wants a relationship, not the marionette strings.” (Is God’s Will a Wire-Thin Tightrope?)
Puppetry does seem to work against concept of a genuine relationship, and the matter of the “Stepford Wives” comes to mind.
Arminian Charge: Calvinism makes man into Puppets.
Myth or Reality: This is a frequent charge against exhaustive Determinism, and the logic is inescapable.
