But as you delve into the history of the Reformation, you begin to see that issues like justification was actually peripheral to the main, overriding concern of the Reformers: that Christ’s work in salvation be seen as sufficient, and that God be seen as free and sovereign in dispensing His powerful grace to human beings.

“It is wrong to suppose that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, that storm center of the Reformation, was the crucial question in the minds of such theologians as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Bucer, and John Calvin. This doctrine was important to the Reformers because it helped to express and to safeguard their answer to another, more vital, question, namely, whether sinners are wholly helpless in their sin, and whether God is to be thought of as saving them by free, unconditional, invincible grace, not only justifying them for Christ’s sake when they come to faith, but also raising them from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit in order to bring them to faith.” (Michael Haykin, The Reflections of a Puritan Theologian on Regeneration and Conversion)

Haykin’s point is that, in reality, the emphases of justification and the authority of Scripture and empty-handed faith were fought for so vehemently for the sake of protecting and heralding something deeper and most essential, that is, the glory of the Trinitarian God in showing free, sovereign, effective grace towards His people. We’re missing the point of the Reformation, and doing a disservice to the efforts of the Reformers if we fail to see what their true emphasis and concern really was. The God of the Roman Catholic church was simply too small, too limited, and too distant compared to the God that the Reformers saw in Scripture. This God was big. This God was utterly sovereign. This God was jealous for His glory. And this God saved people, completely, from beginning to end, by electing, loving, sustaining grace. The way the Reformers saw the character of God and acts of God in Scripture were consistent with what we’ve come to call “Calvinism.”

Today, this is still no small issue. Churches continue to divide, denominations continue to decry other denominations, church members are kicked out, and preachers rant (on both sides), all due to this preoccupation of the “doctrines of grace,” otherwise known as that terrible word: Calvinism.

I hope to spend the next few weeks discussing what Calvinism really entails, and whether or not it’s that important anyways. I think this is worth doing for quite a few reasons, but I’ll voice two of them:

1. There is an unavoidable resurgence of interest in (mostly) Evangelical, Protestant, and missional churches across the U.S. and globally in theologically robust Calvinism. Take a look at Collin Hansen’s recent book Young, Restless, and Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists to see the renewed interest and passion for Calvinism among especially younger people. Many of the preachers and teachers that younger Christians are growing under and watching on YouTube all happen to be Calvinists in their theology, including Mark Driscoll, Paul Washer, C. J. Mahaney, John Piper, and Tim Keller, to name a few. As the world becomes disillusioned with the failures and ironic irrelevance of megachurches and shallow theology, Calvinism is making a comeback, and opening up forums and discussions for the topic. Considering Calvinism and forming some kind of opinion about it is fast becoming unavoidable, and I think presenting the issue as fairly as I can may help some to start making that decision.

2. From talking to some close friends and mentors, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Calvinism has profound implications for our sanctification and Christian growth in the gospel. As Spurgeon insisted, Calvinism is undeniably bound up in the gospel (see his A Defense of Calvinism) We can be grateful for God’s working in the church to return us to a much more fully-orbed view of the gospel for all of life. God has granted the church a new vision for seeing the gospel as more than just a ticket out of hell, and entrance into heaven, but a proclamation of “good news” that promises grace for today and tomorrow, and a new dynamic for viewing every area of life. But I’m going to go further and say that I’m fully convinced that we can take this knowledge of the gospel deeper when we come to embrace the flooring doctrines of unconditional election, definite atonement, etc. In my opinion, the doctrines of grace emphasize and highlight God’s love and grace exponentially more than alternate views, and allow us to behold the glory of God in fresh and powerful ways. Beholding the glory of God, according to 2 Corinthians 3, is indeed the way we grow, and I’ll hope to show how we can come to a deeper worship and love for God through embracing Calvinism.

There are two things you cannot do with Calvinism, but these happen to be two of the most common responses when people are confronted with such staggering, grounding theology: The first is to caricature it and superficially tear it down without engaging it. And the second is to relegate it to an area of mediocre or of no importance.

Quite frankly, we had better be quite certain Calvinism is completely Scripturally false before we write it off. There is simply too much at stake to consider Calvinism flippantly. If Calvinism is faithful to Scripture, it changes everything. It changes our worship. It changes our conception of our God. It changes how we think. It changes how we grow. It changes how we love and evangelize. It’s much easier to dismiss something rather than engage, yet so often we’re content, especially in theology, to dismiss something due to preconceived opinions. I’m personally convinced that one must eventually caricature or misrepresent Calvinism in order to dismiss it, and so part of these blogs will be devoted to working through popular (and often well thought-through) caricatures and misrepresentations of Calvinism. Calling Calvin a killer of heretics doesn’t get rid of Calvinism. Ridiculing Calvinists who agonized over their assurance of salvation doesn’t get rid of Calvinism. Our ultimate, overriding rule of faith and doctrine here must be Scripture, and Scripture alone. There is where the battle must be fought, not in anti-intellectualism and caricature.

And it will not do to write off Calvinism as simply unessential or peripheral. Often the church has faltered for its overemphasis on church unity and underemphasis on strong theology (which build churches, not breaks them!), and our attitude is often to leave issues untouched or shelved due to an unwillingness to engage and take sides. Others here are simply uninformed and ungrounded in Scripture as their lens for viewing the world. God’s character, our joy and salvation, the defeat of evil and Satan, and the renewal of the world are at stake with Calvinism. Our worship is at stake. Ephesians 1 is crystal clear on the truth that our doctrine of God’s character and election of us will determine the extent to which we see His extravagant grace and worship Him for it. Whatever election does happen to mean, election cannot be peripheral. Our worship depends on it. Calvinism is too important, too substantial to be ignored. Disagree or agree, it must be dealt with.

I should end with this: this exploration is not a discouragement or insult to those who would differ before (and maybe after) with the issues I engage and support. Both Calvinists and Arminians who question the reality of someone’s standing in Christ due to their stance on the doctrines of grace have missed it! Though I believe full-fledged Arminianism and much of the “halfway” positions on God’s sovereignty in salvation held in the church are unhelpful and sometimes harmful, I also believe that God has and will continue to work to show His unifying grace through believers from different walks of life and different persuasions theologically. When I come to question theology that disregards Calvinism, I at the same time affirm that Arminians and “half-wayers” stand with me on many essentials, and are able to appreciate and understand God’s character and grace in many profound ways.

We are called to vigorous, relentless pursuit of knowing God in the totality of His character(within the limits of our human finiteness, of course), and to pursue the knowledge of Him and the loving of Him with all our heart, mind, and strength until death, and then beyond. We remain responsible to deal with God’s truth as communicated in Scripture consistently and faithfully, recognizing that our very joy and happiness depends on it. We cannot stagnate over this issue just because there happen to be points of unity on different sides of the issue. If Scripture happens to clearly support the “doctrines of grace” we stand responsible before God to bow before His Word in humble submission to who He has revealed Himself to be, in all his sovereignty, might, glory, and power

I heard something from a friend last night, after they’d been discussing those things that geeky theology-lovers talk about… The context of the conversation had something to do with Calvinism, and the idea came up went something like this: God has been eternally loving, since He has always existed in a self-giving Trinitarian relationship. But He has not always been sovereign in the sense of having a creation to reign over and control. God’s sovereignty came into play when He created a world with creatures and objects to be ruled over. So Calvinists get their soteriology wrong, because they overemphasize God’s sovereignty at the expense of His love, when in fact, God is more “essentially” loving rather than sovereign.

For the first few hours after hearing that, it just sounded so way out in left field that I couldn’t muster a response to it. But I was given some time, and here are my thoughts…

First, there is no need, either on the part of Calvinists or non-Calvinists to pit these attributes (or any attributes) of God against eachother. Like my brother pointed out, it’s not “either He’s more loving, or He’s more sovereign.” God exists simply, meaning that all of what makes Him God exists in perfect unity and equality. The same Bible that makes sweeping claims about His utter sovereignty over all of creation, kings, nations, animals, evil, free will, and history also affirms His majestic, sacraficial love for His creation in sustaining it and saving humans who turn in faith towards Jesus Christ. We can’t make the case biblically that God violates His sovereignty to show His love, or vice versa.

Second, I think it’s incorrect to say that the attribute of God’s love is eternal, while His sovereignty is not. God’s sovereignty is very connected to his aesity, or His self-existence. This means that God exists completely apart from any constraint to exist, is not responsible to or contingent on anything outside Himself; in short, God is free from anything outside Himself. God’s sovereignty, I think (this needs more thinking through) somewhat an extention of his aesity. In creation, God creates freely, but the act of creation does not introduce a new attribute into God’s array of character, but is only a display of his absolute freeness in acting however He wishes. God’s sovereignty is not contingent on there being a universe to direct and guide.

Third, it’s just not true that Calvinists, or at least those trying to be biblically balanced, are wild about God’s soverignty to the point of undermining His love. In fact, when it comes to soteriology, God’s love and His sovereignty work closely together. In fact, the love of God requires the sovereign action of God in enlightening anyone’s eyes to see that love for what it is.

In some ways, I find the Calvinistic take on the love of God to be more captivating and biblical than it’s opponents. It’s a love that “goes the distance,” that does not wait on the sidelines for ultimate decisive human action, but breaks through rebellious human hearts. Blogger Steve Hays has said it so well:

“[Arminians] … say that the Augustinian tradition subordinates the love of God to the will of God … But this is not what distinguishes the Augustinian tradition from the Arminian tradition. The distinction is between intensive and extensive love, between an intensive love that saves its loved ones, and an extensive love that loves everyone in general and saves no one in particular. Or if you really wish to cast this in terms of willpower, it’s the distinction between divine willpower and human willpower. Or, to put the two together, does God will the salvation of everyone with a weak-willed, ineffectual love, or does God love his loved ones with a resolute will that gets the job done?”

I decided to do the unthinkable: really dig into Dawkins well-known diatribe against religion in general in Christianity in particular: “The God Delusion.” Just the title sounds utterly scare-the-pants-off-the-Christians-ish. I appreciate what Dawkins has to say, at least some of it, as I do the rest of the New Atheism crowd, but I think the fashion of militant, neo-atheism will die down at some point soon, mostly for three reasons:

1. In the U.S., they’re working against 2,500 years of Western tradition that has shown respect for and integrated religious values and thought into the core of its identity. It’s true that there simply is no modern civilization known past or present that has not had some knowledge of a god or the divine, and practiced forms of religion, but for Western culture, and the United States in particular, this strain is especially strong. Reports of the massive shift towards secularism, or the massive shift towards spirituality come and go, but religion, especially of the Judeo-Christian sort, remains vibrant and strong.

2. Religion, especially orthodox Christianity, is on the rise in other continents, especially in Asia, Africa, and South America (see http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/november/38.46.html?start=2 and http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-jesus-1-1-webjun22,0,2458211.story) Many Christian pastors and theologians predict that the center of Christian thought and activity will soon move away from America into a different continent. The new atheism simply isn’t something people are listening to in these continents, where people are seeing the tangible, transformative results of deep, orthodox Christianity. Even more amazing is the agreement of some atheists that this surge is both positive and to be encouraged! (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece – this article is particularly intriguing). The people in these countries are being confronted with a Christianity that is real, challenging, and satisfying, and not the sleepy American brand of “Jesus helps you feel good about yourself.” Moreover, some of these countries have been sitting in the muddy puddle of Communist atheism, and have seen enough of it to know it’s something not worth having… I don’t think the new atheists have the means to fight this battle worldwide.

3. But the biggest problem, and one that none of the new atheists seems to address sufficiently is: how exactly to we go about imposing this new atheism? What is unique about “new” atheism is not that they argue religion is bad, or belief in God is irrational. People have been saying that since the Enlightenment. What is new is the insistence that even tolerance of religion or respect for religion is bad, even dangerous, and should be banned. But how do the new atheists plan on implementing their goals for society, without falling into a vicious cycle of degrading, demeaning, and ultimately oppressing religious members of society?

Religion will not die easily, as is seen in the case of Christian persecution throughout the ages. A systemic removal of religion would not be as simple as a subtle shift towards educating children in schools that religion is wrong, or implementing new federal laws banning religion and its voice. Historically, that just hasn’t worked. The only solution would be one that absolutely disrupts civil order and reeks of the immense evils of previous Communist and tyrannical civilizations: oppress and exterminate religion by exterminating its adherents. This can be the only realistic way to implement the change the new atheists seek. And it’s one that no one is willing to argue for (yet) or stand by and watch happen. This is one of the most particular reasons I find the new atheist books dishonest: they simply don’t deal with the practical implications of their arguments, in terms of how they would look fleshed out in society. The rhetoric and demeaning attitude of new atheism towards any kind of religion is a recipe for civil and societal disorder and chaos, not enlightenment and freedom from dogmatism.

We’re hoping to choose one topic we’re wrestling with each month, and have a few posts up for people to think about, consider, hate, love, bash, any of those options (and more). I (Aaron) am hoping to have the first blog up soon on the issue of justice.

- Aaron