Molinism and Calvinism - making an idol out of understanding?

I have just finished reading Salvation and Sovereignty by Kenneth Keathley. It is a book on Molinism with critiques of Calvinism and Arminianism, though focusing more on Calvinism. 

Here are a few thoughts.

I found its critique of Calvinism very fair and helpful. What I like about Molinism is that it gives proper weight to both the sovereignty of God and to human responsibility (I prefer this term to free will, or human autonomy). What I don't like about Molinism is its attempt to explain how the two work together. ie all the stuff about middle knowledge, possible worlds, counterfactuals etc. There are two things I don't like about this. First, I think holes can be picked in the explanation, and people like James White have done so. But what I really don't like is that the focus can then be on the explanation of the facts rather than the facts themselves. Fortunately Keathley spends relatively little time on the Molinist explanation, and more on the Biblical truths.

This set me thinking.  Do we make an idol out of wanting to understand? Let me explain.

It seems to me that the Bible is very clear on two things (it is of course clear on lots of things):

1. God is absolutely sovereign and we are utterly dependent upon Him for our salvation

2. The attitudes we have, the decisions we make and the actions we take matter. They are real and effect our own life, the lives of others, and they matter to God. In particular, on the matter of salvation, the Bible is perfectly clear that we need to repent and believe.

Now when James White, or someone else, attacks Molinism the target of their attack is the middle knowledge stuff, not the two basic Biblical tenets out lined above. Where does Calvinsim go wrong? Or first of all what are the strengths of Calvinism? They lie in its respect for the Bible and seeking to do justice to what it says, and its affirmation of the sovereignty of God, the effectiveness of Christ's sacrifice, and the personal application of it. Where does it go wrong? It seeks to establish an intellectual framework for explaining how God's sovereignty works in the world. Hyper-Calvinists end up in some very odd (and sometimes repugnant, not to say unbiblical) places.

"Molinism" is right to assert the two truths of God's sovereignty and human responsibility, but I believe it is a mistake to make an intellectual framework a key part of it. Why do I believe God is sovereign? Because the Bible says He is. Why do I believe what I do with my life matters? Because the Bible says so. I do not believe these things because of some intellectual framework. Molinism having the framework means the focus goes on the framework when what counts is proclaiming and living the truth of God's word.

In the case of Calvinism the intellectual framework can easily lead to denial of truths that the Bible states clearly. I have not read much Arminian theology, so I will not say anything about that.

Now all this is not to say we should not seek to understand how things work, nor am I saying that there is no benefit in seeking to understand, but we must not make an idol out of it. The basis for all understanding is the word of God, not any intellectual framework.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

    and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶ 

in all your ways submit to him,

    and he will make your paths straight. (Prov 3:5,6)

Ezra and Calvinism

Below is a blog that will appear as part of my Bible Musings blog in about 7 or 8 weeks time. I got sidetracked with some thoughts on Calvinism while studying Ezra, and all this at 6:30 in the morning. This seemed an appropriate topic for my Thoughtful Resources blog, so here it is.

This is inspired by Ezra 8:1-14

We now get a list of those who returned with Ezra. It amounted to about 1500 men and included 40 Levites. We need to realise how few of the Israelites actually returned to Jerusalem in total (approx 50 000). God had opened up the way of "salvation" but few chose to take it. In a sense it is no different today. On the cross Jesus made the way of salvation, but still few choose to take it.

Can I go on a wee aside here on Calvanism. Calvanism is often summarised by the acronym TULIP. The L stands for limited atonement, this means that Christ died on the cross not for the sins of all but for the sins of the elect. (This is just a rather crude summary, please accept all its imperfections, there isn't time to go into the whole doctrine of Calvinism!) The strengths of the arguments for this view are mainly twofold. The first is that it stresses the personal aspect of Christ's sacrifice. It wasn't just a general thing, Christ really did die for you and for me, personally. We weren't just included in a general collection. It was a deliberate act of love. In fact, it would be far better for "limited atonement" to be replaced by "specific atonement". Limited atonement paints God as mean and nasty, that is most definitely not what the doctrine is saying. It is stressing the particular, the personal, and the effectiveness of Christ's death and resurrection. However, TUSIP doesn't have the same ring as TULIP, so we are stuck with limited.

The second aspect is the effectiveness of the cross. Under an Arminian view the cross provided the means or the way of salvation, but it doesn't actually save (again apology for deficiencies in this summary). Calvinism stresses the effectiveness, Christ's death on the cross actually did win my salvation, not just the possibility of my salvation.

So what has all this got to do with Ezra? You may well ask! Well I find many aspects of Calvinism attractive and true to the Bible, but here, in Scripture, we see that God has made a way of salvation but few have chosen it, and there was much urging and persuading trying to get people to take up the way (see Zechariah 2, also remember Jesus' parable on the banquet). So the Arminian perspective is not as unbiblical as Calvinists sometimes seek to make out! 

It seems to me that both are declaring part of the truth, and they cannot see how if their part is true the other bit can be true as well. Or, rather, if the other bit is true, how can their bit be true. So we have the "war" between Arminianism and Calvinism. Can we square the circle? Well maybe we can, a little. God knows the beginning from the end, so when Christ died on the cross He knew who He was dying for (by the way, I am not going into Molenism here). Yet from our perspective we hadn't made the decision yet. You see part of the problem is eternity. God is eternal (and that means much more than just going on forever), we are temporal. We see one event happening after another, God sees them all at once. Now I am fully aware that there are holes in what I have just said, but it us 6.30am in the morning and I have to go to work (what a wonderful way to start the day, thinking about the cross!). But what I am confident of is that some of the contradictions are not real. Eternity and all its consequences are too big for us to understand, and we need to remember the limited perspective from which we see things (1 Cor 13:12). We need to be absolutely  bold about what we do see, but we also need to beware of thinking that we see everything.