Confusion, Contradiction, and Compatibilism

I received an email today from a woman who has at least seen my blog. The email contained a few questions/accusations, and I’ve decided to answer  them in a blog post because the criticisms are ones that are frequently made against compatibalism. (The email has a bit of a canned objection feel to it, so if you’re a compatibalist blogger, it may be that you have received a similar one.)

Here goes.

I’m always amused with the Calvinists determination to stay confused instead of trying to discover what makes their teachings contradictory. Compatibilism is just another way of saying….we’re still confused.

What you see as “determination to stay confused” is, for the compatibilist, a determination to not speculate about things that are not revealed in scripture. The compatibilist sees both the sovereignty of God over human choices and the responsibility of human beings for the choices they make taught in scripture. It’s because they see them both revealed to us by God that the compatibilist embraces the two.

The compatibilist, of course, does not believe that these two things are contradictory, because they are both taught to us by the God of truth—the God who never contradicts himself. The compatibilist does not, however, think that creatures will necessarily be able to explain everything about how their Creator works, because in comparison to the infinite wisdom of God, humans have pea brains.

I’ve challenged those who believe that God’s sovereignty over human choices and responsible human choice are contradictory concepts to explain how the two are contradictory—how it is impossible for both be true—and no one’s ever taken me up on that challenge. A simple intuition that they are contradictory won’t do, because our intuitions come from minds that are both created finite and distorted by the fall.

So here’s the challenge for you: If you think compatibilist are confused, then show me. Formulate things to show exactly why God’s sovereignty over human choices is incompatible with responsible human choice. Why are the statements “God is sovereign over human choices” and “human beings are responsible for their choices” actually contradictory and not just something that is intuitively contradictory to you?

As you know, the Calvinist has never been able to reconcile his definition of the ‘Sovereignty of God’ with the ‘Freedom and Responsibility of man’, where salvation and condemnation are concerned. Happiness with leaving those ideas in contradiction, paradox, confusion, and mystery is not good enough for men or a God who commands ‘full proof’ of one’s ministry. (2 Tim 4:5)

I’m not sure what 2 Timothy 4:5, has to do with it, but the full proof of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man is that the text of scripture. God reveals there that He is sovereign over human choices and human beings are responsible for them. See, for instance, Isaiah 10, where God chooses to send the  nation of Assyria against the Israelites and then punish them for their actions. Do you not think what is taught in scripture is enough proof to be “full proof”?

I’d like to know your opinion about the most important question one could ask a Calvinist, which is this: Does God give a reason (‘show cause’) to man in the Scriptures for what Calvinists say was his prior determination of some to salvation and the rest to condemnation? Or did God simply decree the eternal fate of all either to salvation or condemnation without judgment or any standard of judgment?

The reason for judgment is human sin. Those who are condemned are condemned because they “fall short of the glory of God.” The reason for any sinner’s salvation is God’s grace—God’s choice to spare some already condemned sinners from the judgment they deserve on the grounds of their sin.

Down the River with a Paddle

This morning I saw one of this blog’s readers off at the start of the Yukon 1000 Canoe and Kayak Race. Kerry is the Amish looking fellow on the left and at the back of the voyageur canoe above.

Kerry and his wife are the only blog readers previously unknown to me that I’ve met in real life. This is the third year in a row that Kerry has driven from New York to race his canoe in a Yukon long-distance race. This year he’s decided to enter the brand new really long one, the one advertised as “the longest canoe and kayak race in the world.”

Kerry may look Amish—and his hat is indeed an Amish one—but he attends a small Orthodox Presbyterian Church back in his hometown.

God's Infinitude

Another repost (and substantial re-edit) of an old attribute of God post. I’ll be linking to it in this week’s Theological Term of the Week.

That God is infinite means that He is not limited in any way. There is no way to measure any of His characteristics, because they are are without bounds.

Because God is infinite, He is also incomprehensible. Psalm 145:3 tells us that God’s “greatness is unsearchable,” which means we will never be able to fully grasp all that He is. We may understand some of what He is, but we will never, even in eternity, come close to wrapping our pea brains around his infinite greatness.

That God’s attributes are infinite just means that God himself—his nature—is infinite. As finite creatures, we can only begin to grasp the infinity of God by separately considering the unlimited nature of his various attributes. So we look at God’s infinity in relation to time and call it God’s eternity, and his infinity in relation to space and call it His immanence and transcendence. We call His infinite knowledge omniscience and his infinite ability omnipotence. By looking at each of these aspects of the infinity of God separately, what it means that he is wholly infinite becomes a little clearer to us.

In thinking of God’s infinitude in relationship to all of His attributes, we need to go beyond thinking of each attribute as a boundless amount of a certain characteristic to thinking of each attribute as unlimited in quality as well. All of God’s attributes belong to him in perfection and without defect. His goodness, for instance, is not only boundless in quantity, filling the earth and beyond, but it is also of boundless quality. As with all his other attributes, God’s goodness is perfect. It cannot be added to or improved upon; it is always expressed flawlessly.

What does God’s infinitude mean to us? It means that the aspects of his character that He extends to us will never run out. God’s kindness toward us in Christ Jesus shows us the “the immeasurable riches of his grace” (Ephesians 2:7). Yes, he stoops down, way down, to raise sinners up, but no sinner is too low for the reach of God’s immeasurably rich grace. And throughout eternity, his people will remain in his presence on the basis of his neverending—or infinite—grace. Now that is graciousness we can rest in!

That God is infinite means we must “honor him as God”—as someone not like us, but in a class by himself (Romans 1:20-23). A right response to Someone so far beyond what we are and what we know is worship and awe.

I will extol You, my God, O King;
And I will bless Your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless You,
And I will praise Your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
And His greatness is unsearchable.

(Psalm 145:1-3 NKJV)