Election: The Calvinist View vs. The Biblical View

The Calvinist concept of Divine Election which funnels toward Unconditional Election as propagated by their TULIP teaching is a deviant philosophical slant from that of many of the Biblical propositions and/or examples or precedents.

The Jews were certainly elected as God's chosen people, yet many of them are condemned to an eternity without God. King Saul and several of the kings of Judah and Israel were definitely chosen or elected by God. However, they were subsequently rejected based on behavior and obedience to God's prescribed paths.

To emphasize, read 1 Samuel 10:24, ..."Do you see him whom the Lord has chosen, that there is no one like him among all the people?" Samuel declared this statement when the omniscience [see related blog which clarifies that omniscience does not cover the future but only the past and present] of God was supposed to already know David the shepherd who would eventually become king to replace Saul.

In many Biblical cases, God's election is just that... just a choice with no extraneous implications nor guarantees of eternal bliss or unconditional salvation.

Unconditional Election is therefore at best a logical Greek concept. Unfortunately, there is very little Biblical basis for its Calvinistic slant.

Classicists and Calvanists almost always revert to Ephesians chapter 1 to prove specific predestination. However, note that foreknowledge was not even used in this chapter. Foreknowledge implies that God has seen the future and therefore what He has seen CANNOT be changed. "Predestined", however, has been and can be read under the context of God's will, not the will that is etched on stone but the will that means intent or intention.

This divine will is similar to the will of God in the Lord's prayer. "thy will be done on earth..." clearly implies that God's will is NOT done! At least, NOT YET! But clearly, this is a will that can be temporarily thwarted. Hence, substitute the word "intention" to replace "predestination", "intended or designed" to replace "predestined" in Ephesians 1 and one would get a revelation that is far from the Classical Calvinist version but rich in theology and application.

[Added 2017-10-29]
Note that whenever predestination is mentioned in Scripture, the subject is ALWAYS PLURAL. Hence predestined events or actions refer the what God planned for the church or the "elect" and not for any specific individual. Note also that all mention of THE ELECT is always in the plural form with the ONLY EXCEPTION that of the "elect lady" in 2 John, but even then lady is only elect because of the group that she belongs to.

Hence, it is NOT the individual Christian who is elect but it is the church that is elect.  Nor is the individual Christian predestined to anything other than what God had predestined for the elect or the church.

This is the same flavor as the "chosen people" of the Old Testament. God does not refer to individual chosen persons but to the chosen people as a nation or group.

This VERY IMPORTANT distinction is what the Calvinists either have missed or ignored, hopefully, not intentionally.

Natural Law is God's ordinance

Reference: Jeremiah 31:35, 36; 33:25 NKJV

What is Natural Law? What is its role in God's participation in His relationship with His people?

Natural Laws are what the New King James Bible calls "ordinances". These are physical or metaphysical routines or behavior that have been ordained and established by God. Gravity is one example. The orbit of planets in the solar system and the exact distances between celestial bodies so that there is very little, if ever, possibility of collision between the planets are another example.

Other examples are consequences of events. For example, heavy rain clouds mean the high probability of rain. If the temperatures were at freezing point or below, we would have falling snow or hail instead. Two cars driving directly into each others way will collide head-on.

Less obvious examples are consequences of behavior. Too much refined sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in one's regular diet would lead to diabetes or other metabolic syndrome diseases like hypertension or even arthritis. An overdose of aspirin, sleeping pills and alcohol could lead to death.

Now, you may ask, what is the point of discussing the above and others like them?

The answer is a key to understanding the biblical perspective on answered prayers and rejected prayers.

Prayer is a petition to the God who ordains these natural laws or these divine ordinances, to intervene into the natural course of events as he originally ordained and, by such intervention, to change the course of events into something that is favorable to the petitioner. It is obvious that petitional prayers or prayers of supplication seek to change the mind of God either by altering His natural law or by simply changing the natural course of events had He left things alone as He originally ordained them.

This is such an important concept to bear in mind of a Christian who claims to have a real relationship with God. The petitioner needs to know if he is requesting something that would please God and honor Him, or is the petition tantamount to tempting or testing God in a negative sense.

Let me explain. Does God give us privilege to seek healing for a man born blind? or for a leper? or for a demon-possessed person? or for a child bitten by a venomous snake either due to the child's carelessness or adult negligence? In most cases, I would tend to think so, and I believe that the petitioner is in a strong position with the loving God to expect a favorable response.

On the other hand, similar to the Israelites continually tempting God in the wilderness during the Exodus years, does a Christian have the right to ask God for strong lungs if he is a habitual smoker? Can he petition for a healthy liver and kidney if he is a drunkard? Can a Christian who overdoses on alcohol and sleeping pills ask for a long life? More subtly, can a Christian who habitually stuffs herself with refined sugar diets and high fructose corn syrup juices have the right to ask God to heal her from diabetes?

In such cases, I think that these are patterns for prayers that will be rejected by God. In the same way that God wants us to reckon ourselves dead to sin in order to be alive to God, the above scenarios require a drastic lifestyle change before God can even begin to deliberate on the petitioner's case!

It is important for a Christian in relationship with God to realize the strength of his petitions based on what he has been doing with or against the natural laws of God before he even begins to make request for divine intervention. Christians who continually and stubbornly defy these ordinances, e.g., the cult where they play with poisonous snakes in their rituals should not expect any response from God at all. These are all part of "turn from their wicked ways" before God can "hear from heaven and heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14). This could be another angle in understanding what it is to pray "according to His will".

On the other hand, we must realize that natural law is something we NEVER have to pray for. Gravity will be gravity without our prayers. A man jumping from the top of the empire state building does not need to pray to God in order to land somewhere down below. We never need to pray that the planets in our solar system will not collide. They just won't until God decides to end everything. We don't need to pray that the ground gets wet when it rains.

Hence, petitional prayer is essentially a request for divine intervention for God to change the natural course of events in our favor.

...to be continued...

Other related topics:

• God's "Trial-and-Error" Attempts to Create a People of Faith for His Kingdom
• Covenant-Relationship Theology in a Nutshell
• Relational Theology Makes Prayer Meaningful
• Relational Prayer that gets Answers vs. the Vending Machine God
• Prayer that God does NOT answer, NORMALLY
• The concept of Faith from a Relational/Biblical Perspective
• Relational Theology Makes Evangelism Meaningful and Critical
• Relational Theology Makes Finding God's Will a Meaningful and Useful Experience

Omniscience vs. Absolute Sovereignty

And you thought there was no difference...

I went back to the story of Hezekiah in Isaiah 36, one of the verses I often cite to prove that God changes His mind. Well, I see an angle here where God did not necessarily change His mind about whether or not Hezekiah should die that very night.

Here are some of the tenets of Relational Theology which may be operative in this story:

1. God has closed most of the future from Himself; this is part of the risk He took when He decided that He would LOVE man and create man in His own image.
2. God only intervenes and opens the future or disrupts the natural chain of events in response to the prayers and petitions of His people.

Let me explain. God told Isaiah to tell Hezekiah to "set your house in order, for you shall die and not live (v.1). Was this God's will or not? Note that it is a DEFINITE DECLARATION from God. We also have to accept that God is the greatest Communicator Who says what He means and means what He says! Note further that after Hezekiah's petition, God made another DEFINITE DECLARATION even proving that He could do it by moving the sun dial backwards for Hezekiah.

There are principles of interpretation that cannot be compromised.

There can only be two logical options here:

1. This WAS God's will and He changed His mind as a response to Hezekiah's plea. This means that God exercised absolute sovereignty twice. The first was when He willed that Hezekiah would die, and the second time was relenting from the first. The downside of this option is that it may look like God can flip-flop and most classicists think that is really bad, even if done out of love! You see, they have boxed God into a dignum deo package: (This is what God should be, This is how God should behave, otherwise, He is not God) which makes them really more sovereign than God since they presume to know Him to the point of erecting standards for Him!
2. The second logical option is that God was exercising omniscience but not absolute control (although He can if He wanted to). This means that He saw Hezekiah with a terminal disease, read the "natural" possibilities and knew that sans Divine Intervention, it is time for Hezekiah to close the curtains.

Added September 20, 2009 -

A refinement of the above would be to say that in Hezekiah's case, God was using omniscience but NOT foreknowledge when He declared that it was time for Hezekiah to die.

Omniscience is perfect knowledge of everything past and present to the last current microsecond, if you will. So God looked at Hezekiah (and the terminal condition of his boil) as the greatest diagnostic pathologist and declared after all knowledge available to God that Hezekiah was 100% going to die that very night. (God even had the time of death "forecasted")

Foreknowledge, on the other hand, would be perfect information about the future (no forecasting necessary!) AND if the future changed then the initial foreknowledge was, in fact, faulty or false (which is worse than imperfect) since it REALLY NEVER happened. Since God cannot have imperfect foreknowledge, therefore, He could never have used it in declaring that Hezekiah would die.

If God decided to exercise foreknowledge, it would be no different than exercising predestination or foreordination. Obviously, God DID NOT exercise that ability here.

But with God being perfect and with all abilities and resources in His control, He could have used it and Hezekiah would have had no hope of cure since it would have been foreordained.

Ergo, since God refused to use foreknowledge in this case, we have a good case that God can and HAS voluntarily closed the future even upon Himself. It can be established as fact that God does not routinely exercise foreknowledge as he routinely exercise omniscience.

However, this is not openness theology since openness seems to paint God as powerless as far as any control over the future is concerned. In our case for relational theology, it was God's own choice (for reasons of Love which we point out in many of our previous discussions) to withold the future from Himself. The end result is the same but in the relational theologian's case, God's sovereignty is intact and in no way compromised!

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Both options are plausible under Relational Theology. However, it seems that the 2nd option is more consistent with the underlying assumptions of the theology. God has closed the future even from Himself. God knows everything present, current and past (Note that knowing the future is foreknowledge and we have previously defined this ability as NOT included in omniscience).

Hence, when He declared Hezekiah's end through Isaiah, He simply knew where the natural course of events would take him. When Hezekiah pled for his life, God intervened and "altered" the natural course of events. Prayer (or supplication), as we have previously defined, is simply a request for God to intervene in our affairs to alter the natural course of events in our favor or in the way we ask Him to. Prayer even prompts God to "sneek into" the future and change things and events, if you may. Prayer requests God to make an exception to His practice of closing the future, and peep into it in our behalf. This is why prayer is an exciting element of our relationship with God. With it He has endowed us with power and the ability to move His hands through prayer.

There is another great example of how God just refused (and almost consistently refuses) to use absolute sovereignty and foreknowledge in His dealings with man and history. Let us examine the his discussion with Moses in the desert when Israel's rebellion just brought God's patience "over the edge".

Let's examine Numbers 14:10-25.

After hearing the reports of the 12 spies, Joshua and Caleb get overruled by the other 10 and Israel goes along with their unbelief. God gets infuriated and threatens to strike all of Israel and disinherit them from the promises, but Moses intervenes in their behalf. His argument is basically two-fold:

1. It will embarass God among the Egyptians (and the world) that He could not take care of His people and instead of delivering them, slaughters them in the wilderness, an afront to the ability (and sovereignty) of God.
2. He appeals to the mercy and steadfast love of God, maintaining that God's slowness to anger can go "one more stretch" and that He is a God who forgives (Numbers 14:19), a confirmation of God's unfailing love.

Well, who could have guessed what happened especially if one were a classical theologian? God CHANGES HIS WILL AND CHANGES HIS MIND! Why? Because He loves and love has flexibility while sheer sovereignty and omnipotence is not as flexible.

Oh, the great loss of Christians who do not see any power value in praying to God. Read the Bible and LEARN! Then you can boast that you know the Lord (Jeremiah 9:23,24). Boast that you know His lovingkindness!

What a great and awesome God is one who CAN and WILL sacrifice some sovereignty for the sake of Love and relationship!

Omniscience is Limited by Divine Definition, Design and Example

Read 1 Samuel 23:11-13

The context of these series of incidents revolve around the possession by David of the ephod. This was one method by which the priests could inquire of God and get answers to questions about His will (but interestingly NOT about the future). The responses from God, however, clearly show that answers to questions about His will are basically options that God has made available, and whose final outcome is dependent on the actions of man (in this case, David).

The answers to the two questions are quite revealing and should be a matter for theological discussion. "Will Saul come down...?" had the answer "He will come down..." which DID NOT actually happen because David changed plans based on the answer to the 2nd question,"Will the men of Keilah deliver me and my men into the hand of Saul?". The answer again from God was, "They will deliver you." which again did not happen.

The concept now of foreknowledge and predetermination should be modified according to this incident which, by the way, does not seem to be an exception but indeed the norm when inquiring of God.

It is almost quite obvious that our relational God has chosen to lock Himself out of many parts of the future except those which he has pre-ordained, and except those wherein His people have prayed for His divine intervention. In this light therefore, one can see that our loving God has chosen to limit His sovereignty and hence, His omniscience is limited in scope (unless God otherwise wills it and He has NOT!) to the total sum and minute details of historical and current events and the PRESENT thoughts, intentions, and nature of man.

Omniscience should NOT include foreknowledge, not because God is incapable but because it is obvious in Scripture that God Himself has opted to limit its definition and scope! When God has foreknowledge of something or anything, what God has foreknown CANNOT be changed lest His foreknowledge is in ERROR and that should never happen to The Sovereign God.

If God exercised foreknowledge or predetermination of all events like the classical theologians would have it, then this passage gets arbitrarily demoted again to a meaningless "anthropomorphic" passage, and that is what that word REALLY means - - - Anthropomorphic = Meaningless (don't bother).

Biblically speaking, Omniscience does not include Foreknowledge. Foreknowledge seems to be an optional sovereign act with God, but such is not the case with Omniscience.

Relational Theology's response to the exercise of God's sovereignty in Romans 9

Does God exercise His sovereignty in an unbridled sense? Much of classical theology assumes so. That is why they teach TULIP! Only Relational Theology makes sense out of this chapter and fit the pieces of the puzzle which classical theology has "systematically" scrambled.

Let's call a spade ---- a spade! Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else!

Yes, we will give answers to this very important theological question. However, in the process of studying and dissecting both Paul's explicit and implicit declarations in this oft neglected chapter, I have stumbled in an even more important principle that has to do with the security of the believer's salvation. Of course, this will have tremendous negative implications on the classicist's cherish concept of sovereignty and its implications.

The 9th chapter of the book of Romans has always been touted as one of the anchors of the classicist in discussing the sovereignty of God and its repercussions on the security of salvation, "Once saved, always saved". However, this is mostly due to their tunnel vision on the explicit statements of the English without due regard to the implied presumptions of these very statements from the Greek and with a Jewish perspective!

The first job of an inquisitive exegete is to dive into the mind of the author, using his way of thinking, the context of his discussion and if necessary, the historical background not of the treatise itself but the history behind the subject matter. Conservative and True hermeneutics, after all, is one that exposes the original grammatico-historical context of the author under the socio-religious context of the audience, as well as their level of learning. It is interpreting the passage with the mind and heart of the author.

So here is St. Paul, a scholastic Jew, with a very analytical mind, pro-Israel but with a passion for the Gentiles and he is speaking to the Roman church composed perhaps with a mixture of Jews, Hellenistic Jews, and Hellenistic Gentiles. He has just discussed his magnum opus or doctoral dissertation on Soteriology in all its phases, Justification, Sanctification and Glorification. He has just concluded chapter 8 which is perhaps, the most glorious chapter any child of God would savor word for word about his relationship with God post-salvation.

Then he pauses for an interlude and brings Israel into the picture. Why? A careful exegete must ask what relation does a discussion on Israel have on the dissertation on the doctrine of Salvation by grace through faith on the finished work of the Lord, Jesus Christ. While we are at this, why does St. Paul devote not only chapter 9 but the next two chapters as well to Israel as some sort of backdrop for the doctrine of salvation (of course, strictly speaking, the chapters never came about until 1560 when the Geneva Bible was published, but we mean the length of his discussion devoted to Israel as a focal point)?

I cannot help but believe that there is really only one reason and a side note in the process. The one main reason is to show that Israel is really a very accurate type of the church and that what was true about Israel is essentially true about the church. It was to show that the church is Israel but with borders extended to accommodate the Gentile world. It was to show that, essentially, God would deal with His church the same way He dealt with Israel as a prototype.

Hmmm, simple enough you would say, but only until you analyze the impact of the repercussions of this comparison.

1. Like Israel, the "chosen people", the church is a gathering of the elect (v. 4,5)
   
2. Like Israel, "who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God", so is the church! (v.4,5)
   
3. Like Israel, the church is called by God Himself as "My people" or "sons of the living God." (v.26)
   

Now, these points we have heard before either from the pulpit, Bible study, or even seminary. What we do not usually hear are the next repercussions of this comparison.

1. Like Israel where "they are not all Israel who are of Israel", SO IS THE CHURCH!!! Christ Himself declared this grave truth in Matthew 7:21, "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES (emphasis mine) the will of My Father in heaven". So let us not rest complacent on the fact that we are elect to declare that we are secure. There is really no foundation to this claim and this belief. Where am I going with this? God's sovereignty has a lot to do with His power of election but that truth has very little to do with the security of the salvation of the elect!
2. Like Israel, the chosen people, the church who are the elect can be rejected by God for disobedience and unfaithfulness. Just look at the letter to the church in Laodicea in Revelations 3:16, "I will vomit you out of my mouth!"
3. Israel was a chosen people, but not all will go to heaven! In fact, Israel was exiled and rejected by God because of its disobedience and unbelief, and it is these very passages in the book of Romans that will assure the church that they would be treated by God the EXACT SAME WAY. See Romans 11:20-21, "Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either."
4. Like Israel where only a faithful remnant will be saved, so is the church. How many times does one read in God's word that "he who endures to the end will be saved" compare that to how many times the Bible actually declares, "Once saved, alway saved". The real honest answer is ZILCH for the latter, preponderance for the former.
5. I will make this the last but there maybe more: Note that v. 4,5 declare this about Israel's special dispensation, " to whom pertain the adoption (same as the Church), the glory (same as the Church), the covenants (same as the Church), the giving of the law (same as the Church), the service of God (same as the Church), and the promises (OH YEAH! same as the Church); of whom are the fathers (same as the Church) ..."

Now, the side note of St. Paul is a short but precise discussion on the Sovereignty of God. Again, this is often taught especially in Reformed and Presbyterian circles but they seem to always teach a monolithic perspective on sovereignty, i.e, "this is God's behavior and He CANNOT help but exercise it just this ONE WAY", a totally false conclusion if one includes Biblical experience into it!

Again, let me emphasize that this is a side note and not a main discussion point with Paul. Making this a major subject issue for the book of Romans clearly tends to NEGATE the sense of the rest of the book! If God is sovereign and He pre-ordains everything because He cannot help but do it just that one way, WHAT IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS OTHER DISCUSSIONS ON SALVATION????

If everything is carved on stone by God, why bother doing anything out of our own free will (including accepting the Love of God!)?

Now that we've stretched that classical theological point to its extreme logical (but ridiculous!) conclusion, let us now get our bearings straight and interpret this with what I believe is the mind of Paul.

The issues at hand are the following statements:

1. v.7 - "In Isaac, your seed shall be called". Note that literally, NOT ALL of Isaac's descendants are saved!
2. v.11 - (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls)
3. v.12 - “The older shall serve the younger.” This is a clear predestination statement.
4. v.13 - As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”
5. v.15 - For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
6. v.16 - So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
7. v.17 - For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” This is another clear predestination statement.
8. v.18 - Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

One who happens to be purely classical and has heard only a little about the relational theological viewpoint would be tempted to say, "Here is proof of God's absolute sovereignty. Any other view like relational theology only tends to depict God as weaker or less powerful or less sovereign than He really is!"

And here is Relational Theology's response:

On the contrary, Relational Theology upholds a MORE POWERFUL and MORE SOVEREIGN God than classical theology proclaims. We declare a Sovereign God Who CAN CONTROL the exercise of His sovereignty depending on His wisdom and His Love. The classical view of sovereignty is unbridled, as if God cannot help but exercise His Sovereignty only ONE WAY and what He does for one, He does for all! May it never be that God would be so impotent that He abides by a dignum Deo predictable behavior! That is the classical view at its logical extreme!

The relational view has a FLEXIBLE God and His flexibility is derived from His infinite wisdom and His infinite love. The relational hermeneutic applied to this passage in Romans is simply that to remind the Roman audience that God is indeed sovereign and He can do ANYTHING He desires but ONLY IF He wants to. And the Biblical record shows that for the most part, God has NOT CHOSEN to arbitrarily exercise His sovereignty. Hence, what He has ordained for Isaac, Jacob, Esau and Pharoah may NOT BE NECESSARILY applicable to anyone else!

To claim that it applies to everyone is an subtle and implicit claim that God CANNOT control Himself nor His powers which makes Him indeed a lesser and weaker God! And here is why we believe this is a side note, precisely because although it emphasizes God's absolute sovereignty, this particular exercise of such sovereignty is not necessarily applicable to all people nor all events nor all situations.

Apart from this, Relational Theology highlights the best attribute of God which is LOVE! Precisely, because He HAS CHOSEN NOT to apply this kind of exercise of sovereignty to all!

This is now the powerful context by which we approach the rest of Romans chapter 9, especially verses 19 to 33. We not only appreciate God's absolute sovereignty, but we appreciate His absolute unconditional agape.