Charge: Arminians hate Predestination and Election
Calvinist Complaints: Arminians hate Predestination and Election
One Calvinist preacher ordered his congregation to repeat out loud: “Predestination!” Say it again. “Predestination!” Pondering why people hated Election so much, he also had them shout: “Election!” Say it again. “Election!”
The reality, however, is that Arminians have no hatred for either Predestination or Election. The Arminian teaching on Election is that it is founded in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-4), as the Father’s legal adoption of the redeemed in Christ. Similarly, the Arminian teaching on Predestination is that it is God’s eternal plan to make Christians like Jesus, in terms of His nature: “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” (2nd Peter 1:4) Predestination is also God’s plan to bring about certain events, such as The Cross. In fact, Acts 2:23 also reveals that such Predestination is guided by God’s Foreknowledge, as is Election. (1st Peter 1:1-2) So for Calvinists to suggest that Arminians hate either Predestination or Election, is nothing more than empty rhetoric, when the truth of the matter is that both Predestination and Election are understood differently:
Calvinist, R.C. Sproul, writes: “Predestination seems to cast a shadow on the very heart of human freedom.” (Chosen By God, p.51, emphasis mine)
That would be true only if you believe in the kind of Predestination taught by Calvinism.
Sproul continues: “If God has decided our destinies from all eternity, that strongly suggests that our free choices are but charades, empty exercises in predetermined playacting. It is as though God wrote the script for us in concrete and we are merely carrying out his scenario.” (Chosen By God, p.51, emphasis mine)
That’s the kind of Predestination taught by Calvinism, which is also known as Theistic Fatalism, or even Hard Determinism.
Sproul explains: “Determinism means that we are forced or coerced to do things by external forces.” (Chosen By God, p.59, emphasis mine)
Sproul will now contrast his view of Predestination with that of Hyper Calvinism:
Sproul writes: “The dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism is that it involves God is coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God’s character.” (Chosen By God, p.143, emphasis mine)
Predestination:
Adrian Rogers explains: “What is Predestination? Predestination is not God saying from eternity that one man’s going to heaven and another man is going to hell. Predestination deals primarily with what God intends to do for those who trust Him and what God will do for saved people. Predestination teaches me on the authority of God that when I’ve trusted Christ as my personal Savior and Lord, I will be like Jesus Christ.” (What We Have in the Lord Jesus, Ephesians 1:1-12, emphasis mine)
Election:
Adrian Rogers explains: “How do you get into the family of God? You are spiritually born into the family of God. You are legally adopted into the family of God. Now when you are born in to God’s family, that’s the new birth. That deals with your position in Christ. When you are adopted, that deals with your privilege in Christ, and in Christ, we have both birth and adoption and we are predestined to this adoption. Therefore, we are fully accepted.” (What We Have in the Lord Jesus, Ephesians 1:1-12, 1/18/95W)
In other words, we have an election with God the Father on account of our position in Christ and identification with Christ.
Question: How is it that on one hand, Sproul can characterize his view of Predestination and Determinism as a “script” of “predetermined playacting” in being “forced or coerced to do things by external forces,” while on the other hand, it is the dreadful error of hyper-Calvinism that scripts that very same thing? Is everything unfolding according to a “script” of “predetermined playacting” or not? Which is it? Calvinists such as R.C. Sproul walk a very fine line between their beliefs and that of the hyper-Calvinists they denounce.
