Charge: Calvinism makes man into Puppets.
Arminian Complaint: Calvinism makes man into Puppets.
Dave Hunt explains: “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)
Another member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians states: “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.” (SEA)
Another member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians states: “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.” (SEA)
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?)
Puppety does seem to work against concept of a genuine relationship, and the matter of the “Stepford Wives” comes to mind.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians explains: “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.” (SEA)
