Ive just finished watching the first part of a recent debate between two advocates and two opponents of Calvinism (video below). For anyone interested in the subject, I believe this debate does an excellent job of pointing up the flaws inherent in Calvinism in stark fashion. Specifically, I believe this debate makes very obvious the following two flaws in the Calvinists arguments in favour of unconditional election for some, and its flip side of unconditional damnation for others (Im sure there are other flaws, but these are the main two that leapt out to me as I watched): 1. The two guys arguing in favour of the Calvinist position rely very heavily on appeals to mystery. Now, given our limited human understanding, an appeal to mystery is sometimes the only option available to us as we try to wrap our minds around aspects of God. However, in my experience, an appeal to mystery is more often than not simply an excuse for intellectual laziness. Such an appeal is often wrapped up in scriptures such as Isaiah 55:8 (Gods ways and thoughts are higher than ours) or, as in this video, passages in Job where God asks Job how dare he question Gods sovereignty. An appeal to mystery should only be used as a last resort, i.e. where there appears to be no other viable explanation for the data. As the two non-Calvinist debaters ably demonstrate, this is not the case here. In the words of leading British philosopher Stephen Law, the more we rely on mystery to get us out of intellectual trouble, or the more we use it as a carpet under which to sweep inconvenient facts, the more vulnerable we are to deceit, by others and by ourselves (source: stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/appealing-to-mystery.html) 2. It seems glaringly obvious to me that the two pro-Calvinist debaters are reading their Calvinist doctrines into the text. Their statements are littered with bible verses yanked out of their contexts and pressed into service in support of the doctrine being defended. More interesting still is that they insist that the Calvinist interpretation of their selected texts is the plain reading of scripture. As one of their opponents points out, there is no such thing. They are labouring under the delusion that we can read and understand a text without any interpretive filters. Even setting aside the fact that the biblical text comes to us through multiple layers of re-transcription and translation, we each read it through our own interpretive matrix fashioned by our personality, default mode of thinking, social, economic and religious background, experience, etc. Let me say it again: there is no such thing as a plain reading of scripture. The only way to hope to properly understand scripture is, at minimum, to let its context inform its interpretation (i.e. the opposite of the kind of proof-texting seen in this debate). In conclusion, I agree with Brian Zahnd when he points out that the doctrines of Calvinism uphold Gods glory only if you define His glory as power, might and the ability to terrify. Once you properly understand Gods glory as His beauty, which is seen throughout His creation and most perfectly revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the cold, implacable logic of Calvinism is exposed as absolutely incongruent with the nature of the One who is summed up in the words God is love.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 13:30:27 +0000
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