Jeremiah 44:4
“Yet I sent you all My servants the prophets, again and again, saying, ‘Oh, do not do this abominable thing which I hate.’”
John Calvin comments: “God intimates, in short, that it had not been through him that the Jews did not return from their errors to the right way, because he had stretched forth his hand to them, and had, as it were, suppliantly requested them to provide better for themselves, and not knowingly and willfully to seek their own destruction....” (Calvin’s Commentaries: Jeremiah and Lamentations, Vol.20, emphasis mine)
Yet, John Calvin also teaches:
Calvin writes: “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)
Dave Hunt comments: “God reminded His people of His pleas for repentance because He did not want to punish them: ‘I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate’ (Jeremiah 44:4). Of course, God never tells His people or even His prophets that He really wants Israel to sin and that He has predestined them to forsake Him, to go into idolatry, and to commit abominable wickedness so He can punish them. That revelation would have to wait until Augustine and Calvin. God calls Israel’s sin ‘this abominable thing that I hate’ (Jeremiah 44:4), yet we are called upon to believe that He foreordained it? We are to believe that God caused Israel to practice things that were abominations to Him?” (Debating Calvinism, p.313, emphasis mine)
Therefore, Jeremiah 44:4 is yet another instance where God’s spoken Word conflicts with the alleged “decree” purported by Calvinism.
Calvinist, James White, writes: “…God’s sovereign decree and man’s creaturely will coexist (compatibilism) and that since God judges on the basis of the intentions of the heart, there is in fact a ground for morality and justice.” (Debating Calvinism, p.320, emphasis mine)
Dave Hunt points out: “…Calvinism falsely says that He causes the intentions He judges.” (Debating Calvinism, p.327, emphasis mine)
Non-Calvinist, Jim Foster, explains: “The part of God’s sovereignty that Calvinists don’t understand is that in His sovereignty, He gave us free wills. We are the ones who have taken that free will and decided to commit sin. Otherwise, God is somehow linked to all the world’s atrocities from the beginning of time and is ultimately responsible for them. The idea that God would ordain evil is contrary to everything the Bible teaches about God. A Calvinist would be forced to conclude - if God is good and is responsible for all evil - then evil must be good.”
Question: So are we to believe what the Bible says that God “intimates” or are we to believe in Calvin’s theory of Theistic Fatalism?
Question: “If nothing happens other than what God decrees,” then are we not forced to conclude that God predestines what He finds “abominable” and “hates”? Is God saying to Israel, “Don’t do this abominable and hated thing that I have secretly and irrevocably decreed that you must do”?
Jesus states: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)
Question: Having created everything “good” (Genesis 1:31), how would it make sense to suggest that God would “decree” wicked things that He bitterly “hates”?
