Last week a man or woman who is friends with the other Josh Crain (see “ebating Myself [Katrina, Laura, and Calvin: A Plea to the Church, Part 2]">Debating Myself&rdquo commented on my blog (from this point out he/she will be referred to as J-Friend). They didn’t leave a name, but I wanted to respond to some of their concerns. In the future I would appreciate it if you’d leave a name (even just a first name is helpful) if you choose to comment. Otherwise it’s tough to respond. Thanks for the post, though.

The first thing I want to talk about is John 17. I feel that J-Friend went a little far by saying that my discussion of it was an “inaccurate representation of those particular verses.” What he/she meant is that I didn’t address the particular issue that they wanted me to in those verses. I was going for the overall picture of what Christ is saying: that He does indeed want a love relationship with us. J-Friend, however, wants to define the precise group He was talking about, and he/she wants to do that with a Calvinistic slant. My article was not misrepresenting, it just didn’t address his/her specific concern. I would like to do that now, however.
John 17, which speaks of “those who will believe in me,” is hardly evidence that appeals to Calvinistic thought. As I’m sitting here right now, I can pray for those who were affected in Hurricane Katrina even though I only know a few of them by name. In addition, I can pray that God will give wisdom to my church’s new long range planning committee, even though that committee has yet to be formed. Once it is formed however, my prayer is applied to that committee. It is not necessary to believe that Christ had specific individuals in mind in this passage. If we come to the text with certain presuppositions, however, it is possible for us to think that Christ is speaking of specific individuals in this passage.
A similar instance would be the first chapter of Ephesians, which opens with this in verse three: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”
The question is, whom is Paul referring to here? Did God predestine Josh Crain and David Calavan to be adopted as his sons? I believe what Paul is talking about here is something called general election. From the beginning of time, God knew that He was going to set apart for Himself a people to be His own. But the specific individuals that comprise that group are not whom Paul is talking about here, or whom Jesus was speaking of in John 17. It would be the same as if I had a Halo 2 LAN party at my house. My friend Matt my come in and say, “What game are we playing tonight?” I would say, “Halo 2,” because I had decided several days ago for us to play that particular game. Matt could then turn to everyone there and say, “Okay, guys, it was predestined that we would play Halo 2 tonight.” But it wasn’t predestined that Matt or Dave or Josh would play Halo 2; it was predestined that whoever came to the party would play Halo 2.
In Ephesians and John, it is not the individuals that are spoken of, but the group. It is my contention that a Jewish person reading Paul’s letters would have never understood his writings on election to be specific in the sense most Calvinists insist they are. ———————-
Another thing that was criticized in J-Friend’s comment (have I mentioned that I wish he/she’d leave a name? ha ha) is the puppeteer analogy. I realize that Calvinists hate this analogy, but it seems to me that is because it hits so close to home. He says, “you seem to imply that his (Albert Mohler) view of the compatibility of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will is simply illogical. If God has complete control, then man’s will cannot be free; hence the puppeteer analogy. If they are, as you claim, incompatible, an either/or situation, then the inverse must also be true. That is, if man has free will, there must be some areas that can somehow be outside of God’s control, whether they be spiritual entities or physical molecules.”
That is precisely what I am saying. If God chose to set the world up in such a way that His spiritual and physical creation had free will (at least to some degree) then He cannot guarantee how they will use it. By definition, free will entails that some things are outside of God’s control. This is why the devil is truly an enemy of God. God’s decision to grant a degree of freedom to His creation has necessarily caused some things to be out of His control. Satan really can do things that the Lord doesn’t want him to do. What we need to remember, however, is that our freedom (as well as Satan’s or any other spiritual being’s) is finite. Just because God has granted us the ability to have some physical and spiritual say-so in the world doesn’t mean that He has given all (or even a great deal) of His sovereign power or control away. In the eschaton, God’s will is all that is left as evil is ultimately destroyed for the rest of eternity.
Finally, J-Friend charged me with coming “dangerously close to dualism” in my assertion that God is at war with the rebellious evil powers in the world. He claims to argue along the lines of C.S. Lewis that “sin and evil are perversions of everything good that God is and has created.” I don’t disagree with that statement; but who perverted this goodness? I found it funny that he chose to use C.S. Lewis to accuse me of dualism. In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis says, “I freely admit that Christianity…goes much nearer to Dualism than people think…The difference is that Christianity thinks this Dark Power was created by God, and was good when he was created, and went wrong. Christianity agrees with Dualism that this universe is at war. But it does not think this is a war between independent powers. It thinks it is a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel.”
Furthermore, C.S. Lewis opposes hyper Calvinism when he says in Mere Christianity, “Free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give [creatures] free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
This is what I have been saying throughout two lengthy articles now. Calvinists should never enter a debate on providence armed with C.S. Lewis because he does not agree with their providential beliefs.
As far as J-Friend’s assertion of God’s sovereignty, if I understand it correctly then I agree with him. God is always working in the world to bring about His redemptive plan and to further His name and glory. We are presented with and make free choices every day; though we may feel the Spirit of God urging us to follow Him, we have the choice to reject that urging. If this is basically what J-Friend believes about God’s providence then I’m on board with him/her.
Once again, I appreciate the dialogue. I welcome anyone else who wishes to discuss this very pressing issue to join in.

Tags: Josh Crain, Calvinism, open theism, Arminianism, hurricane Katrina, Southern Seminary