KFC debate
I invited Dominic out for lunch and to debate Calvanism and Arminianism. The subsequent discussion made me realize that my views (and attitude) of this controversy have changed a lot over the years. So much so that to a lay person, my views would be very confused and self-contradictory.
This post will be a chance for me to better articulate what I believe currently.
Just for the record, I believe that Christ died and rose for my sins, and by this faith I’m saved. Ok, this point settle.
How does Calvanism and Arminianism come into the fray then. I guess several philosophical issues lend fuel to this controversy.
1) The Euthypro Dilemma: Is God good because of what he commands, or is his commands good because He decreed it so.
2) Determinism and Free Will
3) Do certain actions have intrinsic moral value and are we allowed to pass moral judgements based on our conscience alone.
4) The degree of God’s transcendence: Does God’s ontological transcendence imply that He is ethically transcendance as well? (i.e. it is optional whether God wants to subject himself to the morality that ‘binds’ us as human beings)
These are by no means an exhaustive list of philosophical issues that we discussed. There were more but I couldn’t really remember. We discussed general and special revelation as well, but I felt that it was not really relavant to the discussion at hand.
My stand on Calvanism and Arminianism is this: Theorectically, I’m Calvanist, but in the outworkings and day to day crunch, I’m a practising Arminian. The discussion with Dominic helped me work this out clearly.
The tenets of predestination, probation and regeneration makes it very hard to motivate me to share the Gospel in my daily life. Indeed the very premise of evangelism (as recorded in the bible) is simply that time is short: Christ is coming again as judge, hence the urgency of reaching out. Knowing that God has already set in place some who will go to heaven and hell doesn’t help in evangelism neither does it help in spiritual formation. It seems to me that a Calvanist cannot see himself committing apostasy. By the very tenet: "Once saved always saved" an apostate Calvanist cannot even come to the conclusion that he has left the faith. For all that matters, he could be backslidden and yet cannot bring himself to admit it because he is convinced that he cannot lose his salvation. This is very dangerous, in Apostle James words, " A faith that is dead." On the contrary, wise christians heed the fact that if they do not maintain spiritual disciplines and formation, they will backslide. This constant self examination as appraised in 1 Peter has been taught to me since I was a child.
This is why, I say I am a practising Arminian. I live out the faith as though my ultimate destination depended on what I do.
On the other hand, knowing that God has predestined me into saving faith provides a deeper incentive to do all these (good works, spiritual discipline and worship). On one hand, I know that God had to intervene to overcome my rebellion against him, but what takes my breath away is that God forknew that these would happen and set events in motion so that I would be saved. One one hand, I am grateful that God has forgiven my sin unconditionally, but what astounds me is that He has this idea of forgiveness even before I was born. Even before I was I, He had already known me.
This tells me something important about God. It tells me that God is distant and yet so near. If I can learn anything from the doctrine of predestination, it is that paradoxically, God is intimately involved in my world and life but yet doing so from a mysterious distance. God is far, yet because he is far, he is near. God’s will is transcendent, yet it infuses all of life.
Now I have come to notice that the combination of this mysterious fact and the practical warnings afforded by an Arminian point of view create a proper cradle and expression for my love for God.
While Christ was still on earth, his disciples could express their love to Him by simply expressing brotherly love. But then Christ ascended into heaven. In the meantime, how are we able to love Christ without reducing our love to a love for doctrine about Christ? How can we love the ascended Jesus without falling into the trap of loving facts about him.
I contend that it is the mystery of predestination and the practise of spiritual disciplines provide both the proper expression of my love for Christ and the means of doing so. By contemplating the mystery of predestination, we see very clearly grace, mercy and judgement. Because of grace, we are set free to obey whatever God commands us to do, whatever spiritual formation and discipline for the right reasons. And love is always a good reason to do. But yet predestination is a mystery, not a well defined concept or an axiom in a chain of reasoning. It is a mystery because we do not fully understand predestination, though we simply know it. Indeed the very logical impasse of reconciling determinism and free will prevents us from understanding predestination.
So this is one long overdue thesis. Oh gosh, it sounds so verbose and ….blah.
