as bad as each other?

If you were asked which was worse, Arminianism or Hyper-Calvinism, how would you respond?

I'll say straight out that my initial instinct was to say Hypercalvinism, but after discussing it with various people it seems that opinions are divided nearly half and half, and most of the time we end up saying it's a case of six and half a dozen.

To be clear, I'm thinking of the brand of Arminianism which teaches that God loves everyone, and/or Jesus died for everyone, and that everyone has the power to repent and believe for themselves. The advice of my hypothetical Arminian to someone who wanted to be saved would be along the lines that they should just believe that God loves them, and accept Jesus into their heart.

On the other hand, I'm envisioning Hypercalvinism as the teaching that God only saves the elect, meaning that the gospel is only concerned with the elect. The advice of my hypothetical Hypercalvinist to someone who wanted to be saved would be along the lines that they should just wait for the Holy Spirit to regenerate them, knowing that he only regenerates the elect.

(If either of these descriptions are exaggerated or inaccurate, I'll be glad to know, but this seems to be how the differing positions are conceptualised by the people I've been speaking to.)

The reasons why I suggested that Hypercalvinism was the worst of the two in the first place went something like this.

• Hypercalvinism doesn't emphasise the duty to believe and a person's personal culpability and sin for unbelief. There is a tendency to encourage people to "sit back with their arms folded" and simply wait to be regenerated. When a soul isn't saved, it almost has the effect of putting the blame on God for not regenerating the sinner, since it provides no reason (or compulsion/obligation) for a sinner to take any pains at all about his or her own salvation. On the other hand, of course, Arminianism allows sinners to keep flattering themselves that their salvation is within their own power to achieve - that because the responsibility is all ours, therefore the ability must be ours too. (Does this make it worse than Hypercalvinism?)
• Hypercalvinism over-emphasises the doctrine of predestination, thrusting it to the forefront of the gospel, neglecting the advice of, say, the Westminster Confession that the doctrine of this high mystery is to be handled with special prudence and care. In perpetually proclaiming the truth that God only saves the elect, hypercalvinism fails to proclaim the truth that all the elect are sinners, and that God saves sinners. On the other hand of course, Arminianism fails to make use of the link between regeneration and predestination and glorification, ie that it's all one golden unbreakable chain, providing salvation as a complete package, the purchase of eternal security in its entirety for definite persons. This, maybe, might make it worse than Hypercalvinism?
• Related to the previous point, Hypercalvinism tends to give an austere view of the Saviour, minimising the graciousness of his sovereign purposes, and discouraging sinners from applying to him for salvation by the teaching that the gospel is only for elect sinners (rather than for sinners as such). Arminianism gives an artificially encouraging view of the Saviour, making out that he has saving love for everyone, but if you take the view that a seeking soul needs to be constantly diverted towards God, it is hard not to think that a teaching which provides an appealing view of the Saviour is less potentially damaging than one which provides the sinner with a reluctance to approach him, even if the appeal is over-exaggerated and sometimes misleading.
• Finally, as a threat to the clear publishing of the gospel within reformed denominations, Hypercalvinism may be worse because in their haste to avoid Arminianism people may be less likely to notice the alternative errors of Hypercalvinism, and fail to recognise the seriousness of allowing the pendulum to swing too far away from the extremities of Arminianism into the extremities of Hypercalvinism.

Now let me hedge slightly here and say that I'm not wholeheartedly committed to any of these rose-tinted presentations of Arminianism. As someone pointed out when I discussed it with her, Arminianism is much more flattering to fallen human nature - it's arguably much easier to be attracted to and appeased with a false view of God's love than with a false view of God's sovereignty.

I suppose that the errors of both sides can be classified as mistakes regarding human nature and mistakes regarding God the Saviour. Arminianism over-emphasises the love of God and the spiritual powers of fallen human beings, whereas Hypercalvinism over-emphasises the sovereignty of God and the inability of fallen human beings in spiritual matters. So that whereas Arminianism could be said to offer sinners a false hope, Hypercalvinism can be said to offer sinners no hope. Either way, a massive obstacle is presented to the sinner in need of salvation: neither of these are teachings which are healthy for sinners to be exposed to.

Now, to avoid straining your patience with an excessively long post, go here for my best stab at the middle way, avoiding the extremes of both sets of unhelpful teachings.

a house with a door

As a companion post to the question of Arminianism vs Hypercalvinism, this argument is based on the analogy of salvation as a house - one where you're safe inside and all your needs are met in ways much better than you could wish for, and you live in a state of reconciliation and friendship with the rest of the members of your family, with a Father, an elder Brother, and many many other adopted brothers and sisters.

Written over the entrance to this fortress-home are the words, "Whosoever cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." These words (or others very like them) form the main reason why those who are inside the house were encouraged to come - they are the promise, the genuine invitation, the implied command, and the warrant which each of them used as the basis for their temerity to come like the beggars they were and knock on the door to ask to meet the head of the house.

Once these people come inside, it turns out that when they look back at the door they came in by, they see that the words written over the door from this side are: "All that the Father gives me shall come to me." These words are what provide their total security and safety - the explanation of why they were ever drawn into the house in the first place, and the guarantee that they will never be allowed to wander out of it, ever.

This is another way of thinking about the free offer of the gospel. It's not Arminianism in disguise, and it's not the teaching of Hypercalvinism. It's simply the presentation of the fact that God has provided a Saviour for sinners, the fact that this Saviour is exactly the Saviour who meets the needs of each and every single sinner, and the fact that any sinner whosoever who trusts in him to be the Saviour who he reveals himself to be will not be disappointed in their trust.

Now this needs to be elaborated in the following ways.

1. There is also the fact that the identity of those sinners who trust in him will be an exact match with the identity of those sinners who were elected by the Father and given to the Son in the eternal covenant. Nevertheless the gospel is not addressed the elect, but to sinners as sinners: it's not a case of establishing whether or not you're elect, in order to know whether or not to pay attention to the gospel. It's rather a case of recognising that you're a sinner who owes God obedience to all his commandments, including his commands to forsake sin and turn to him for salvation.

2. There is also the fact that no one is able to trust in God out of their own resources, nor are they willing - even faith itself is a gift, and one that's given merely out of the good pleasure of the giver, not for any deservedness about any of those who so desperately need it. Nevertheless this is not an excuse for sinners to do nothing but wait and see if they'll be given this gift. Sinners, whether or not they think they are elect, are required to make use of the means of grace, the means which God has ordained for sinners to use, and which he blesses in order to make them effective/effectual to salvation in the case of some of those who use them. For example, nobody has any excuse for neglecting to pray to him to have mercy on them, or for neglecting to read the bible when it's available to be read, or for failing to turn up to church to hear the gospel preached when there's a minister somewhere in the vicinity. The fact that you might not be "one of the elect" is no excuse for doing only what you ought to be doing. (See the quote from Boston in this previous post, eg.) This, I think, is where Hypercalvinism falls down.

3. Notwithstanding that everyone should make as full use of the means of grace as they possibly can, we cannot leave ourselves under any delusions that doing so somehow qualifies us for God to look at us approvingly, or that we can in any way infuse any spiritual life into ourselves by our activity, or that carrying out religious duties can be anything more than going through the motions, without the Holy Spirit giving us new life and enabling spiritual life to be exercised. (This must be why William Gurnall said, "Go and endeavour ... as if all were in thy power, yet looking to Him for the thing, as knowing that it must [all] come from him.") This, I think, is where Arminianism falls down.

By making the gospel something that's held out only for the elect, and discouraging sinners from engaging in any activity related to the welfare of their souls, Hypercalvinism ends up looking like a house which has no door - talking about God's salvation, but with no way for sinners to lay hold of it. Meanwhile Arminianism lets people initiate and maintain their own salvation, which makes it look like a wide-open door which leads to a house that's no house at all. The advice of a Calvinist to someone who wants to be saved will therefore run along the lines that they should use all the means of grace with the maximum diligence, acting on the truthfulness of God's revelation of himself as one who has mercy on sinners for Christ's sake, and depending on his Holy Spirit for all spiritual life and ability. Whoever you are, however bad a sinner you are and have been, Christ is a suitable and sufficient Saviour for you: trust in him to be to you the Saviour he declares himself to be, and you will be saved. This, as far as I understand it anyway, is the real door to the real house, the only way of offering hope to sinners while preserving the integrity of the Saviour.

autochthonous onomastic material

Yep, this is what I've been finding out about today, in between spoonerising two-syllable words and recording men with Glasgow accents.

As soon as I read the sentence I just thought: ah yes, a word with four consecutive consonants. Haven't seen one of them in a while. And then I thought: What an excellent title that would be for a blog.

After a bit of work with the dictionary, it turns out that onomastics has to do with the names of people and places, while something that's autochthonic involves native/indigenous things. Knowing that the Cilicians were a non-Semitic group of people living in Asia Minor in some of the centuries BC, you should now have all the information you need in order to decipher this sentence:

"... the Phoenician writing system. It had been adopted by the Cilicians, but
they used it only for writing inscriptions in Phoenician which contain
authochthonous onomastic material."
Swiggers, P (1996), 'Transmission of the Phoenician script to the West.' In Daniels & Bright (eds), The World's Writing Systems. OUP

Which would presumably be similar to you and me using Japanese characters to write the name of Tokyo.

Meanwhile, some fun spoonerisms I've discovered:

• deer, park -> peer, dark
• daisy, log -> lazy, dog
• gifted, sally -> sifted, galley

Anyone got any more?

flying planes can be dangerous

As anyone with family knows, visiting relatives can be fun.

As anyone who's ever dabbled in linguistics knows, that sentence is syntactically ambiguous. Either I'm on a visit to spend time with my relatives, or my relatives are paying me a visit, and you don't know which unless there's more information in the context.

It's similar to the other textbook examples of the same thing:

• Flying planes can be dangerous.

• Changing schedules can cause confusion.

• The shooting of the hunters is deplorable.

Anyway, the point is, blogging output is limited at the moment due to the fact that, unambiguously, I've got family staying. Back later.

transplants save lives

An appeal for blood donors on the radio has just reminded me to become an organ donor. (For blood-related issues, see previous post.) If you haven't registered for this worthy cause, do it here, quick and easy.

ryle quotes flavel

From JC Ryle's Holiness, first chapter, p9.

"I say, then, in the first place, that a scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to that vague, dim, misty, hazy kind of theology which is so painfully current in the present age. It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a vast quantity of so-called Christianity nowadays which you cannot declare positively unsound, but which, nevertheless, is not full measure, good weight and sixteen ounces to the pound. It is a Christianity in which there is undeniably 'something about Christ and something about grace and something about faith and something about repentance and something about holiness,' but it is not the real 'thing as it is' in the Bible. Things are out of place and out of proportion. As old Latimer would have said, it is a kind of 'mingle-mangle,' and does no good. It neither exercises influence on daily conduct, nor comforts in life, nor gives peace in death; and those who hold it often awake too late to find that thye have got nothing solid under their feet."

The quote comes as part of his application or the conclusion to the rest of the chapter, where he's just finished saying this:

"There is a remedy provided for man's need, as wide and broad and deep as man's disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin and study its nature, origin, power, extent and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Though sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded. Yes: in the everlasting covenant of redemption, to which Father, Son and Holy Ghost are parties; in the Mediator of that covenant, Jesus Christ the righteous, perfect God and perfect man in one person; in the work that he did by dying for our sins and rising again for our justification; in teh offices that he fills as our Priest, Substitute, Physician, Shepherd and Advocate ... in all this, I say, there is a full, perfect and complete medicine for the hideous disease of sin. Awful and tremendous as the right view of sin undoubtedly is, no one need faint and despair if he will take a right view of Jesus Christ at the same time. No wonder that old Flavel ends many a chapter of his admirable Fountain of Life with the touching words: 'Blessed be God for Jesus Christ.'"

I've quoted from Flavel here and here already - not from The Fountain of Life, but I think the phrase rings a bell from The Method of Grace too.

strong burning language

From Ryle's paper on 'The Unsearchable Riches of Christ' in his book Holiness, first published 1879. He gives five things which might have been in the apostle's mind when he used that phrase in Ephesians 3. There are unsearchable riches, he says, in Christ's person, in the work which Christ accomplished for his people, in the offices which Christ at this moment fills, as he lives for us at the right hand of God, and in the names and titles which are applied to Christ in the scriptures. Finally he says this.

Set down, lastly, in your minds that there are unsearchable riches in the characteristic qualities, attributes, dispositions and intentions of Christ's mind towards man, as we find them revealed in the New Testament.

In him there are riches of mercy, love and compassion for sinners; riches of power to cleanse, pardon, forgive, and to save to the uttermost; riches of willingness to receive all who come to him repenting and believing; riches of ability to change by his Spirit the hardest hearts and worst characters; riches of tender patience to bear with the weakest believer; riches of strength to help his people to the end, notwithstanding every foe without and within; riches of sympathy for all who are cast down and bring their troubles to him and, last but not least, riches of glory to reward, when he comes again to raise the dead and gather his people to be with him in his kingdom.

Who can estimate these riches? The children of this world may regard them with indifference, or turn away from them with disdain; but those who feel the value of their souls know better. They will say with one voice, 'There are no riches like those which are laid up in Christ for his people.'

For, best of all, these riches are unsearchable. They are a mine which, however long it may be worked, is never exhausted. They are a fountain which, however many draw its waters, never runs dry. The sun in heaven above us has been shining for six thousand years, and giving light and warmth and fertility to the whole surface of the globe. There is not a tree or a flower in Europe, Asia, Africa or America which is not a debtor to the sun. And still the sun shines on for generation after generation, and season after season, rising and setting with unbroken regularity, giving to all, taking from none, and to all ordinary eyes the same in light and heat that it was in the day of creation.

Just so it is, if any illustration can approach the reality, just so it is with Christ. He is still 'the Sun of righteousness' to all mankind (Mal 4:2). Millions have drawn from him in days gone by, and looking to him have lived with comfort, and with comfort died. Myriads at this moment are drawing from him daily supplies of mercy, grace, peace, strength and help, and find 'all fullness' dwelling in him. And yet the half of the riches laid up in him for mankind, I doubt not, is utterly unknown! Surely the apostle might well use that phrase, 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.'

Phrases such as 'the unsearchable riches of Christ' are, says Ryle, "the strong burning language of one who always remembered his debt to Christ's mercy and grace, and loved to show how intensely he felt it by his words. ... He is not content to say, 'Grace is given me to preach Christ.' No, he amplifies his subject. He calls it 'the unsearchable riches of Christ.'" This is from p277-280 of my copy (Holiness, Evangelical Press 1995)

somewhere north east of gandhi

I've located myself on the political compass at coordinates -3.13, -2.92, or mildly to the left economically and faintly libertarian. I'm not sure whether I should be pleased or not. Answer the questions for yourself and see whereabouts you end up (although be prepared to go into some detail) - then let me know, so that I can decide whether to be alarmed or reassured.

After you've done that, drop by here and read an article on Tony Blair's skill at boiling frogs. Don't let the source of the article put you off, even if you'd prefer your coordinates to be firmly in the authoritarian right, because it's talking about issues which should bother anyone who cares about democracy. (It even quotes Ken Clarke and David Davis ...)

Finally, I somehow came across this campaign, dramatically named saveparliament.org.uk. Except it's not so laughable when you find out what it's all about: the legislation which the government wants to bring in under the guise of cutting red tape, but which actually gives any minister the power to change almost any piece of legislation by him/herself, without consulting parliament. I can't remember if I've written about it here before - I've a feeling that an awareness-raising article about it by the Lawyers Christian Fellowship was featured in the English Churchman several issues back (I know I couldn't find the issue in question when I looked for it some time ago, which suggests that I might not have taken the risk of quoting from memory.) But again, the fact that the English Churchman and the Independent are singing from the same, erm, hymnsheet on this one goes to show that these issues cut across traditional divides, and indicates there are some pretty serious problems developing on our collective hands.

in the post

I got back from a weekend away to discover an item of mail with disturbing contents.

It was a newsletter from a doughtily conservative denomination, but to say so belies its message. As I reached the second paragraph on the first page, I was confronted with a startling proclamation of the view that "the holiness of the children [of one or more believers, as mentioned in 1 Cor 7:14] is real, inward, infused, spiritual holiness or sanctification (...) whereby they are cleansed from sin and consecrated to God by the Holy Ghost."

After presenting some arguments in favour of this belief it concluded as follows: "How are believers ... to view their children? Not as unholy, little vipers but as 'holy by supernatural grace' possessing 'the new spiritual life' (Calvin, Institutes 4.16.31). For God sovereignly makes a difference between the children of believers and the children of unbelievers by His eternal covenant of grace."

Whiffs of this idea have come my way more than once recently, but this is the first time I've seen it explicitly set down on paper. And unfortunately, being put down on paper, it only gains concreteness, not credibility. It struck me that the main way it seems to fall down is by stretching a couple of uncontroversial views just a bit too far. This comes out in two points anyway.

One point is this: it's evident that some children of some believers are elect just like their parents (and end up being converted in due time). But the view put forward in this article seems to be that children who are born to a believer should be viewed as having been "cleansed from sin" etc simply by virtue of having been born to a believer. This is problematic, partly (a) because it discriminates between some members of the human race and others, whereas all mankind descending from Adam by ordinary generation are equally lacking in original righteousness, equally sharing the same corrupt nature, and equally in need of salvation. (b) It also makes your parentage a reason for your salvation, whereas not even a pharisee of the pharisees gains any merit from being one of Abraham's children. The sovereign difference that's made in the covenant of grace isn't really between the children of believers versus the children of unbelievers, but between some sinners of the human race versus other sinners of the human race, regardless of anything about them, any characteristics or privileges or family members they may have (grace doesn't run in the blood).

The second point concerns cases of individuals who were regenerated before they were born. It isn't controversial to believe that in itself (Jeremiah is an uncontroversial case anyway). But in the article this is stretched and stretched so as to imply that children being regenerated in the womb is actually part of the promises of God to believers for their children. This misses out a whole massive step in the argument though. It's one thing to show that infant regeneration can happen - but they still need to show that it's the norm for the children of believers, far less that it's an outright promise.

There are also bigger issues surrounding our understanding of "the covenant of grace" and the nature of the privileges belonging to people who are baptised, which I'm not going to venture into within the space of one wee blog (oh, and the issue of when and where it's legitimate to quote snippets from Calvin's Institutes). But to wrap up for the night, the main point would be that phrases like "holy children" and "our elect children" can only refer to a subset of children born to believers, not all children born to believers. Many people who have been saved have come from families where one or both parents was born again; but before they were saved, they were just as much "little vipers" as anyone else, with the same corrupt nature and the same enmity against the gospel as anyone else's children. We're all Adam's children after all. People aren't saved because they had godly parents, or for any other human reason: the reasons for salvation are all in the Saviour.

"The Lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people (for ye were the fewest of all people) but because the Lord loved you ..." Deuteronomy 7. "For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God." Romans 2.