Question:  Dear Greg,

            I have a question for you.  It concerns this whole predestination thing.  I realize that God is Holy and that he can’t accept sinners without a substitute, so I don’t understand why he would even bother sending Jesus if he were already planning on saving just a select “few” regardless of whether they would have chosen him on their own or not.  It’s hard for me to trust a God who might just create you to send you to hell for reasons entirely of his own.  It seems to go against everything I thought was true about our Lord.  But wouldn’t that seem to go against his loving nature? 

            Question #1--is he just as bound to his loving side as he is his holy and sovereign side?  There are verses in the Bible supporting both Calvin and Armenian views, but which one is right?  It makes a BIG difference, in my opinion, because they are basically opposing views.  For a person trying to place their faith in Jesus and then to find out that there are two totally different approaches to it, and that one of them basically says that God just randomly or selectively chooses some for his glory and some for hell…it makes it hard to trust the gospel—who is it for?  When I consider this distorted version of the God I thought I knew, I don’t know how he can be trusted.  If he desires to save you he will and if not, he just sends you to hell?  Why would he want anyone to perish?

            Question #2—does it actually state anywhere in the Bible that man was given “free will” to accept Christ, or was that a man-made term based on assumption?  Why would God purposely deny some people even the ability to have faith?  This also seems to go against his loving nature.

            Question #3—if God can’t stand to be around sin, then how could Jesus walk the earth in our midst?  He was God, yet he tolerated being in the presence of sinners.  How is it that he could do this, but the Father has no choice but to send sinners to hell?  And why does he want us to forgive unconditionally, yet there are definite conditions to his?  I feel like I’m questioning him way too much and I hope I’m not committing some kind of blasphemy in doing so.  I really want to know God’s love and to accept him.  I thought I had, but now there’s this whole predestination thing! 

            Question #4—do you think that the fact that I’m having this struggle means that I’m not one of the chosen (because I’m not just accepting him without questions)?

            I’m sorry this was so long.  I look forward to your reply.  You don’t have to post this if you don’t want to, I just need some personal answers.

            Thank you very much,

            Robin

Answer:  Dear Robin,

            Thanks for your questions, and for your transparency.  Here’s some thoughts by way of answer:

1.      You note that you are concerned that your struggle with this issue may be de facto proof that you are not one of the chosen.  One of the great insights of books like Job and Psalm is that we can see real human beings discussing real topics with God, and that he listens, rather than “zotting” them.  I don’t believe that God is worried about one of his children (in this case, you) questioning him too much.  I was talking to a mother recently who told me that there was one day when her daughter was four years of age that she counted the questions that her daughter posed that day—over 400!  But she enjoyed them all and did her best to answer them all.

2.      We have a fair to moderate understanding of the Calvinian and Arminian positions.  PTM leans to the Arminian, so you will not find a spirited, or perhaps even fair defense of the classic Calvinian position here.

3.      Having said that, I believe that God is holy and sovereign, but that he is unconditionally love.  Beyond any one attribute, love predominates--certainly in all of the literature after the cross.  Therefore, I believe it is safe to err, assuming God to be more loving and compassionate, than hard, clinical and unyielding (all words describing our perspective of him, not his reality of course).

4.      I do not believe that God selects any to be lost—and you would have to find a hardcore 5 point “TULIP” (acronym for the five points that define a true-blue staunch Calvinist), believing/affirming Calvinist who believes in predestination of both the saved and the lost.

5.      Without a long discourse on predestination, there appears to be biblical evidence supporting some kind of predestination (perhaps not the predestination that some teach), but that predestination regards calling to salvation.  Whether it removes choice or not is an issue Arminians debate.

6.      We have to be careful, whether we are Calvinists or Arminians, that our ideas about what is fair and good and proper are not projected into what we think God is (ought to be like).  Once again, having said that, I see more of that in the Calvinist position than I do in the Arminian (and that is natural given the position I favor!).  I do not see a calculating, mechanical God who has little or no emotion (to ascribe a human attribute to him) in the Bible.  I know, once again, that what we think God ought to be does not determine his righteousness, holiness or his love.  But I am trying to have the Bible lead me, not my feelings.

7.      Of course, from a theological and legal position, God cannot and will not coexist with sin.  But that does not mean that he can’t be around sin or that he doesn’t love sinners.  As you note, Jesus—God in the flesh—“tolerated” sinners, and in fact he went a lot further than simply “tolerating” us.

8.      The Bible, from my view, is filled with choices that are given to humans— from the beginning in the Garden with Adam and Eve, into the new life in Christ when Jesus beckons to us, stretching out his hand.  We are not forced, we are not intimidated.  There is nothing automatic about our response to God.  We are not robots—we make decisions.  Salvation does not depend at all upon our works, but we must accept, believe on and trust in Jesus Christ as being sufficient and enough for salvation.  In this case, I believe that Jesus is enough, even beyond our theological attempts to understand and explain him.

9.      No view of God should limit God, devalue him or place him into some theological or denominational box.  Such a conclusion is potentially blasphemous, for it places God at our mercy, as we define and re-define him in the light of our conceptions and conclusions.  God is outside of our reality and cannot be defined or limited by finite humans.  We would do well to speak more of the God who loves us and sent his Son that we might be saved, for this is the way he revealed himself to us—rather than peripheral issues that may sound grandiose and by which we flatter ourselves by our insights.

            Hope this helps, Robin.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht