Below is my response to a blogger regarding an article I wrote for SBC Today. His statements come first, followed by my brief responses.
He said, “In this case, we see that it was God’s desire to allow Adam to freely disobey if that was what Adam wanted.”
My response: The disquieting reality of Calvinism is that according to Calvinism and compatibilism, this was the only thing Adam could possibly want, and it was therefore his predetermined free and only choice. He chose freely, but did not have a choice. That is the disagreement between Calvinism and non-Calvinism, and what I believe is a disquieting reality of Calvinism as demonstrated by Calvinists either not understanding that reality or eliding it.
He quoted me saying, “According to Calvinism, God necessarily desires for the vast majority of His creation to burn in hell forever and ever;” and then he concluded, “This is correct as Calvinism opposes universalism saying that many will be lost forever. Dr. Rogers calls this a “disquieting reality.” OK, Dr. Rogers is an advocate of universalism.”
My response: First, “God necessarily desir[ing]” in Calvinism is in contradistinction to non-Calvinism because it is inextricably bound to Calvinism’s belief that man is merely compatibly free rather than possessing a salvifically otherwise choice. God’s desire for people to go to hell is evident in Calvinism because if God did not desire man to sin or go to hell, he could have either created man with a different nature that would have led inexorably to man choosing not to sin or selectively regenerated all of His creation after the fall, which He undeniably did not.
My comments have nothing to do with universalism. It is not that I do not believe the majority of people will go to hell, but rather I reject the Calvinist notion of compatibilism, selective election and selective regeneration, which assures us that God knowingly withheld what would have inviolably precluded man from choosing to sin and/or resulted in all men going to heaven. I argue from God being the perfect sum of love and not from man’s merit.
With a libertarian view of free choice, once fallen man is grace enabled, he can make a choice to either accept the gospel or reject the gospel, and whatever he did in fact choose, he could have chosen otherwise; moreover, in non-Calvinism, God desires all to repent and be saved. Those who do not repent were given a genuine opportunity and freedom according to God’s sovereign design, which allowed people to choose for or against God’s desire for them to be saved. He is sovereign since man can do nothing apart from the working of God and that God sovereignly chose to create man with otherwise choice without any external or internal coercion.
Of course the vast majority will not be saved, and that is not my objection. I object to Calvinism’s belief that this eventuality is because God “necessarily desires” such end, which is evident in His choice to give man a compatible free will that moves inexorably in that direction. That eventuality is not “necessarily” connected with non-Calvinism. That is the disquieting reality of Calvinism. Calvinism’s default to compatibilism makes man’s end in hell with no option or choice, a product of God’s necessary desire, which non-Calvinism does not.
