Questioning Authorities

This year I have been trying to better understand Reform (aka Calvinist) theology and practice. I have been attending a Presbyterian Church, and I have watched as the evangelical/charismatic movement in my lifetime has shifted sharply toward the Reform end of the spectrum. I asked two of my Reform friends (from radically different church backgrounds) what they would recommend as a strong statement of Reform soteriology (=the study of salvation). I was encouraged when both recommended the same piece: J.I. Packer's introductory essay to a reprint of John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ. Though the essay is a bit dense, I strongly recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in Protestant theology.

I came away from my first reading with a few criticisms of Packer's work. Firstly, his style is polemical and argumentative. He sets forth that he is refuting the "new gospel" of contemporary man-centered theology, and then promptly proceeds to tear down an Arminian straw man. He focuses not on what I would call the evangelical mainstream but rather on those who have strayed farthest from biblical soteriology, and criticizes them in demeaning terms.

After boiling away the bile and inapplicable arguments, I found that the principal difference between his beliefs and those of the churches I was raised in is the origin of faith. While many today admittedly believe - and even more effectively practice the belief - that faith originates in human conviction, Packer correctly affirms that faith is in fact a grace extended by God, giving Him sole propriety over each believer's salvation. Beyond this, differences are cosmetic.

However, while Packer focuses admirably on the central tenets of Christian faith, he conveniently skirts the harder questions facing Calvinism. To me, the most difficult is the judgment of God. This is the classic question against Christianity: "If God is loving and sovereign, how can people go to Hell?"

We modern evangelicals are trained with a silver bullet with which to shoot down this question. "God created men good, but they rebelled", we say. "A just God must punish sin. But a loving God provides a way out; He offers forgiveness through His Son's death to all who believe." This answer, a product of the "new gospel", places men as rebels, but puts redemption within their reach.

Calvinism, however, does not have the convenience of this human-centric answer. Since God sets his love on specific persons, whom He elects, then it can no longer be said that He loves the whole world, for He offers to those not elected no hope at all. This is entirely just - for the rebellion is in our hearts, not from Him - but no logical gymnastics can make that "loving" in any meaningful sense of the word.

Somewhat unsettlingly, Packer seems to have no trouble with this conclusion. He writes, "Preaching the gospel, he tells us, is not a matter of telling the congregation that God has set his love on each of them and Christ has died to save each of them, for these assertions, biblically understood, would imply that they will all infallibly be saved, and this cannot be known to be true." He echoes this sentiment elsewhere in the essay; do a Control-F for all instances of the word "love" and you'll get what I mean.

Then it comes down to the nature of God's love? Is it universal? If so, Calvinism is wrong on some important points. Is it selective? If so, where do we hide John 3:16?

The Calvinist's only shelter here is to say that God has a general love for the world expressed in his special saving love for specific people. Packer accuses his opponents of cheapening the gospel and reducing God to an impotent outsider begging to be let in to human hearts. Yet, this explanation of God's love rings so hollow that it would seem to reduce Him to an arbitrary, mercurial tyrant. Now, if this is true, we still have to play by His rules, because He is God. Perhaps a better appreciation of His might and terrible justice would make His specific love for me seem more like love and less unfair; for now it seems a pretty ungodlike way to characterize Him.