Calvinism distorts the glory of God
Arminian Complaint: Calvinism distorts the glory of God.
Calvinist, John Piper, explains: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. And I don’t want to turn that against the fact that God does indeed glorify his wrath by punishing justly those who refuse to be satisfied in him.” (Desiring God)
If according to Calvinism, “whatsoever comes to pass,” both righteousness and wickedness, are predetermined by the hand of God (i.e. Determinism), proceeding from an eternal and immutable Script, where each and every person in the world, plays out their assigned fate, predetermined by God, then it raises a much more complicated question over what glorifies God the most. If you are not content that Calvinism teaches such a thing as Determinism, consider the following:
John Calvin writes: “…the reason why God elects some and rejects others is to be found in His purpose alone. … before men are born their lot is assigned to each of them by the secret will of God. … the salvation or the destruction of men depends on His free election.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Romans and Thessalonians, p.203, emphasis mine)
Calvin on God’s eternal Decree: “We also note that we should consider the creation of the world so that we may realize that everything is subject to God and ruled by his will and that when the world has done what it may, nothing happens other than what God decrees.” (Acts: Calvin, The Crossway Classic Commentaries, p.66, emphasis mine)
Calvin writes: “First, the eternal predestination of God, by which before the fall of Adam He decreed what should take place concerning the whole human race and every individual, was fixed and determined.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.121, emphasis mine)
Calvin explains: “God had no doubt decreed before the foundation of the world what He would do with every one of us and had assigned to everyone by His secret counsel his part in life.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, p.20, emphasis mine)
Calvin adds: “At this point in particular the flesh rages when it hears that the predestination to death of those who perish is referred to the will of God.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries: Romans and Thessalonians, p.208, emphasis mine)
Calvin writes: “But here he runs full sail against God for determining some from their very creation to destruction.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.78, emphasis mine)
Calvin writes: “...the secret counsel of God whereby He chooses some to salvation and destines others for eternal destruction.” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, p.53, emphasis mine)
Piper states: “When I say ‘God is most glorified in us’ I mean: if your aim is to glorify God, you will do it most by being satisfied in him. Now this question raises something that I’m not answering, namely, What if you don’t give a rip about glorifying God and you plan to go to hell and be an unbeliever and an atheist to the end? In that case ‘God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him’ doesn’t even work. It doesn’t even have a bearing on that person.” (Desiring God)
Calvinist, James White, comments: “The punishment of deserving sinners glorifies Him in the demonstration of His holiness and righteousness.” (Debating Calvinism, p.269, emphasis mine)
And there is it. According to Calvinism, God is glorified some certain people (allegedly) go to Hell.
White adds: “God is all-sufficient, and all life, glory, goodness and blessedness are found in Him and in Him alone. He does not stand in need of any of the creatures that He has made, nor does He derive any part of His glory from them. On the contrary, He manifests His own glory in and by them.” (Debating Calvinism, p.35, emphasis mine)
What this is all going to boil down to, is a teaching that God gets the most amount of glory by displaying His attributes, rather than getting more glory by people being “satisfied in Him” or not.
White continues: “The truth is that the Bible speaks much of free will-God’s free will, that is, not man’s. The utter freedom of God to do with His creation as He sees fit, not as His creatures see fit, is a constant theme. God’s purpose rules over all, not just in the ‘big things’ but in all things. This is the basis of the Christian doctrine of God’s eternal decree: that in creating all that exists, God does so for a purpose, that being His own glorification.” (Debating Calvinism, p.36, emphasis mine)
White would have been more accurate to have simply called it a Calvinist doctrine. By calling it a “Christian” doctrine, he is simply trying to re-package Calvinism as Christianity.
White continues: “The complete freedom of God, combined with God’s role as the divine King who rules over His creation, provide the irrefutable foundation of God’s sovereign decree.” (Debating Calvinism, p.38, emphasis mine)
James White often does declare victory whenever he hears himself speak.
White concludes: “In the final analysis, all things lead to the glorification of God.” (Debating Calvinism, p.45, emphasis mine)
Now consider the responce by Dave Hunt:
Dave Hunt responds: “...God sovereignly endued man with a free will so that he could love God and his fellows from his heart. Man’s will is no threat to God’s sovereignty. Instead, it brings greater glory to God, who wins the love and praise of those who are free to choose otherwise.” (Debating Calvinism, p.49, emphasis mine)
Hunt concludes: “We have quoted leading Calvinists to the effect that God is the cause of the evil in each heart. If so, in preventing evil, wouldn’t God be restraining Himself? What is the point, and how would that bring Him glory? The sovereignty White elevates above all else turns out to rule over a theatre of meaningless marionettes.” (Debating Calvinism, p.51, emphasis mine)
God is most glorified when people love and worship Him, and spend eternity with Him in Heaven, and less glory when people reject and forsake Him, and spend eternity apart from Him in Hell. But for God’s part, as much as it depends upon Him, He is willing the former, but will allow man to experience the latter, if that is what they will. Nevertheless, in the end, God will still have the last word, when “every knee will bow.” (Philippians 2:10)
Question: If God is “most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him,” then does that mean that when God (allegedly) predetermined that the vast majority of mankind would reject and forsake Him, He intentionally predetermined less glory for Himself?
Question: Is God “most glorified” when people love and worship Him, or is God most glorified when people reject and forsake Him?
Answer: It appears that according to Calvinism, the answer depends upon whether they are elect or non-elect.
Question: If God predetermined that a person would live such a life to not “give a rip about glorifying God,” then did God predetermine less glory for Himself?
Answer: Reading between the lines, Piper’s statement only applies to the Calvinistically elect. For the rest, God did indeed predetermine the most amount of glory for Himself because God gets more glory by creating the (alleged) non-elect to spend eternity in Hell, in order for God to display the full breadth of His own attributes, and hence that is what gives God the “most amount of glory” in the Calvinist paradigm.
