Grace Failure Log

Frustration

There is a Linux utility called 'faillog,' which may provide a helpful example of how to proceed in the case of puzzlement at an unexpected outcome. It may be instructive to study those instances in scripture where grace has failed, where God's extended hand of mercy was not met with anything warm or living, but hovered futilely in empty space, and see exactly how God Himself diagnoses the problem:

It is God Himself who expresses frustration in this cases and denies that the outcome was what He had wanted. What can it mean for God to say, "Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!" unless this was His heart's desire? Certainly it is better, as William of Ockham pointed out, to posit no unnecessary entities, and instead of replicating 'wills' and 'decrees' of God, it is preferable to try to understand what He Himself says about the content of His will. The failure is not His failure:

“Now go, write it before them on a tablet, And note it on a scroll, That it may be for time to come, Forever and ever:
“That this is a rebellious people, Lying children, Children who will not hear the law of the LORD. . .
. . .“For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel: 'In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.' But you would not,
“And you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”— Therefore you shall flee! And, “We will ride on swift horses”— Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift!” (Isaiah 30:8-16).

Who would not? God? No, the people would not. If God is the sole willer, if God is the sole agent, why say this at all? What meaning could it have?

God Himself testifies of His vineyard, that He did everything He could: "What more could have been done to My vineyard that I have not done in it? Why then, when I expected it to bring forth good grapes, Did it bring forth wild grapes?" (Isaiah 5:4). This is God's testimony, not man's.

According to God, He spreads out His hands, but the people are rebellious:

"I am sought of them that asked not for me; I am found of them that sought me not: I said, Behold me, behold me, unto a nation that was not called by my name. I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts; a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day." (Isaiah 65:1-5).

Paul cites this passage, “But to Israel he says: 'All day long I have stretched out My hands to a disobedient and contrary people.'” (Romans 10:21). How can it be understood by a Calvinist? 'I stretched out my hands, but only far enough to tantalize, not to reach'?

Psalm 78 goes so far as to accuse the disobedient children of 'limiting' the Holy One:

"How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert! Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel." (Psalm 78:40-41).

How can a finite human being 'limit,' impede, or set boundaries to an almighty God? Obviously not by main force, a divine/human power struggle ends only one way. But if the Holy One holds out for willing, consensual obedience, not enforced compliance, then they can do what the Psalm says they did.

According to God's word, it was the Pharisees who rejected Him, not He they: "But the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him." (Luke 7:30). If His will for them was reprobation, then what is the force of their having "rejected the will of God"?

It would be possible for God to explain that He Himself has produced these grace failures out of no other source than His own sovereign will; who could fight against Him? If He had desired to populate a world with puppets and robots, who could object? But that is not how He explains it; rather, He stresses His forbearance and His unending diligence to teach and reach out: "And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction." (Jeremiah 32:33)

Lady Wisdom likewise stresses her patience:

"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;  When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof." (Proverbs 1:20-30).

God expects His people to seek His face. Certainly He seeks out the lost sheep, but His people too are to be seekers:

"And the Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded: and he went out to meet Asa, and said unto him, Hear ye me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin; The LORD is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seek him, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you." (2 Chronicles 15:1-2).

It is best to say what the Bible says in Bible words. God's own tears of sorrow at His people's treachery would be a deceptive pantomime if we accept certain man-made theories in this regard:

It is best to describe these situations the way God describes them. To suggest that God is disingenuous in recounting His feelings draws us onto gnostic and blasphemous territory. If there is a clever man-made theory which draws together a number of scriptural threads into a neat package, self-consistent and logically coherent, but which requires us to describe these events in a way markedly different from how God describes them, then it is best to leave the man-made theory alone.

In 1 Kings 14:13, the prophet explains that Jeroboam's son will die, but will be buried, as a special favor, because, "And all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he is the only one of Jeroboam who shall come to the grave, because in him there is found something good toward the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam." The text says "is found," not "was implanted." The choice of words is God's, and should not therefore be 'corrected.'

Another instance is Deuteronomy 5:29: "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!" If they did not have this heart simply because He did not give it, then against whom is His complaint directed, "O that there were, etc."?

The invitation goes out to all: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-3).

Is it sincere or disingenuous? The parable of the sower presupposes some obduracy in the material which impacts the outcome: "Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away." (Matthew 13:5-6). God does not will that any should perish: "And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." (Matthew 18:13-14). Taken at face value, these scriptures leave some element of human nature which God will not constrain but which can leave Him in tears. This obdurate element need not be described as 'free will' because there is no Biblical basis for such a description, but denying that it is there takes us outside the Bible paradigm.

Hen and Chicks

Matthew 23:37 is the most widely quoted example: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Without grasping for any unnatural restriction of the context, this implies a divine will capable of frustration: "how often would I. . .and yet would not." Certainly, God's will can admit of frustration only insofar as He will allow; He could have made us robots or puppets had He so chosen. Nothing can stand against His will, except if He refrain from utilizing all His power. By His own testimony, He does so refrain.

Or else where is the promise, where the threat, in verses like Isaiah 1:19,

"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 1:19-20).

God's bewilderment expressed in passages like Jeremiah 8:4 is either real or it is a pose:

“Will they fall and not rise? Will one turn away and not return? Why has this people slidden back, Jerusalem, in a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit, they refuse to return.” (Jeremiah 8:4-5).

Do they refuse to return, as it says, or has God refused to return them, and this verse is empty mockery? Who stiffened their necks, the children of Israel, or God?:

“But they and our fathers acted proudly, hardened their necks, and did not heed Your commandments. They refused to obey, and they were not mindful of Your wonders that You did among them. But they hardened their necks, and in their rebellion they appointed a leader to return to their bondage. But You are God, ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abundant in kindness, and did not forsake them.” (Nehemiah 9:16-17).

If it was He who stiffened their necks, as Calvinists claim, then what is the force of the antithesis? Who is willing, and who is not willing?:

The fictional movie character the 'God-father,' an imperious crime boss, proposed to 'make him an offer he can't refuse.' The Calvinist God prefers to make them an offer they can't accept. Scripture contains categorical commands, like the command for "all men" to repent:

“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30-31).

Certainly it is a matter of common observation that not all heed God's commands. To the Calvinist, the "all men" promiscuously addressed by the command fall into two categories, those who can obey, and indeed cannot help doing so, and those who cannot. Under Calvinist assumptions, commanding the unregenerate to repent is like commanding a bird with a broken wing to fly. But then why does God so phrase these instructions?

Some Calvinists adhere so scrupulously to their own principles that they will not look out at the congregation, point in the general direction of their hearers, and say, 'Christ died for you!' After all, how would they know their hearers are of the elect? If not, then, according to their system, He did not die for them. Some are better than their principles, though; Spurgeon goes so far as to confide in his reader, "I was thinking of you when I wrote this page, and I laid down my pen and solemnly bowed my knee in prayer for everyone who should read it." (Charles Spurgeon, All of Grace, Chapter XIX, Kindle location 1310). "[E]veryone"? Surely many readers are not elect. Why shake your fist in defiance against God? According to some Calvinists, this kind of thing would cause a fissure in the indissoluble Trinity, if allowed to get out of hand! Perhaps he only meant, not literally "everyone," but 'a sampler, containing one of each type.'

How does John Calvin himself explain away the conundrum of the hen and chicks? He says it's anthropomorphism, a figure of speech in which human characteristics not properly belonging to Him are assigned to God. Didn't say it was plausible, just said that's how he explains it:

“'God wills to gather all men,' say they; 'and therefore all are at liberty to come, and their will does not depend on the election of God.' I reply: The will of God, which is here mentioned, must be judged from the result. . .And I am astonished at the obstinacy of some people, who, when in many passages of Scripture they meet with that figure of speech (ανθρωποπαθεια) which attributes to God human feelings, take no offense, but in this case alone refuse to admit it.” (John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Volume 3, p. 82).

He Marvelled

We all have occasion to say, 'I can't believe I did that,'— forgot to take the warmed-over food out of the microwave, or whatever,— but surely Jesus is immune. We can marvel at our own actions, or omissions, but is it likely He will? And yet He is astonished at the faith of the centurion,

“When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, 'I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!'” (Luke 7:9).

No doubt is to a very great extent the gift of God, but if there is not some extraneous element left over, some creaturely recalcitrance, or longing, then at what is Jesus marvelling? If He caused this result in its totality, why marvel at all? Do we put the laundry in the laundry bin and then marvel that the laundry is in the bin? We read in scripture that God delights in the repentance of the lost:

"Say to them, 'As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (Ezekiel 33:11).

"Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:10).

We know, from scripture, that God wills the sinner to repent: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9). If the sole factor in bringing this desired result about is God's own will, then what prevents Him? There must be some x-factor, some remainder left over, which is not God's will but extraneous to it. Scripture may not give us adequate information to isolate exactly what this factor is, given the complexities of the interplay between grace and human response, but the certainty that it is there is sufficient to repudiate Calvinism.

We know it is God's will to extend mercy to all, "For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all." (Romans 11:32). Not all will have His mercy, but it is His will to extend it to all. He wills to draw all, though not all will ever come: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all [παντας] [men] unto me." (John 12:32 KJV). God is not a liar; they should be wary of blaspheming. He is not concealing His true disposition in these passages.

My Mind

Some of the modern Calvinists take all free agency out of the world, leaving none but God as able to initiate any action, even one so trivial and morally neutral as choosing whether to wear the red socks or the blue socks. They defend Calvinism by explaining that God would be altogether incapable of predicting the future (which, they think, is future to Him just as it is to us) were any freedom allowed to the creature. How, they indignantly demand, can God possibly be expected to know what an agent will freely choose to do before he has done it? No, they explain, like us, God knows the content of His own mind, and only the content of His own mind; He foreknows all things because He causes all things. This has the unfortunate consequence that God becomes the sole moral cause of evil. This they accept, explaining that God hardens Pharaoh's heart.

But is it Biblical? No; God casts all evil away from His will, He never thought of it at all:

These statements by God cannot be reconciled with Calvinism. As is pointed out by this author, if Calvinism is true, then not only did this behavior come into His mind, but it came into no one else's mind, because He ordained these events as the sole freely willing agent in history:

"But if God has, by an express decree, ordained whatsoever shall come to pass, he has ordained. . .that Cain should murder his brother; that the old world should be immersed in sin and sensuality, and then be drowned. . .also that the Israelites should murmur, tempt God, commit fornication in the wilderness, and their carcasses should then fall; in like manner, after they were settled in the promised land, that hey should fall in with the various abominations, such as burning their children to Moloch, use enchantments, witchcrafts, and every other abomination which we find them charged with." (Thomas Taylor, A Solemn Caution Against the Ten Horns of Calvinism, Kindle location 66).

"[N]or did it come into My mind" doesn't mean that He is unaware of what these people are doing, either while they are doing it, or after they have done it, or indeed even centuries prior. No, He means this is nothing He willed or intended. Therefore He is not the sole willing, choosing agent. Man-made theories which leave Him as such must accordingly be discarded.

Blot Me Out

"Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written. And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book." (Exodus 32:32-33).

The vehemence of John Calvin's protest startles:

“By 'the book,' in which God is said to have written His elect, must be understood, metaphorically, His decree. But the expression which Moses uses, asking to be blotted out of the number of the pious, is an incorrect one, since it cannot be that one who has been once elected should be ever reprobated; and those lunatics who, on this ground, overturn, as far as they can, that prime article of our faith concerning God’s eternal predestination, thereby demonstrate their malice no less than their ignorance.” (John Calvin, Harmony of the Law, Volume 3, Four Last Books of Moses, Return to the History, pp. 266-267).

The reader will notice, this arrogant man is not just correcting Moses, who he correctly realizes is not using these words in Calvin's strained sense, but God Himself, who takes up the same expression. What else in the Bible does he dismiss as "incorrect"?

Calvinist Memes

I'm sure everyone has seen these memes cluttering up Twitter and Facebook. They pick up some Christian cliche and breathlessly announce that the Bible never says that. It's an odd pastime for a sect whose doctrine is man-made altogether and whose vocabulary is distinctive and anything but Biblical. But here's an example:

Really, nowhere in the Bible? We are told that Jesus dwells in the believer's heart:

"...it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20);
"...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith" (Ephesians 3:17).

Similar statements are made about the Holy Spirit and the Father, perhaps as an illustration of circumincession or perichoresis:

"Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16)

No such promise is made to unrepentant sinners. But those who are in Christ are indwelt by Him:

"Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.'" (John 14:23).

This promise is for those who receive Christ:

"He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:11-13).

The KJV doesn't use 'accept' much. Is that the sticking point? 'Receive' in John 1:12 is λαμβανω, which means,

1) to take
    1a) to take with the hand, lay hold of, any person or thing in order to use it
        1a1) to take up a thing to be carried
        1a2) to take upon one’s self

1b) to take in order to carry away
        1b1) without the notion of violence, i.e. to remove, take away

1c) to take what is one’s own, to take to one’s self, to make one’s own
    1c1) to claim, procure, for one’s self
        1c1a) to associate with one’s self as companion, attendant
    1c2) of that which when taken is not let go, to seize, to lay hold of, apprehend
    1c3) to take by craft (our catch, used of hunters, fisherman, etc.), to circumvent one by fraud
    1c4) to take to one’s self, lay hold upon, take possession of, i.e. to appropriate to one’s self
    1c5) catch at, reach after, strive to obtain 1c6) to take a thing due, to collect, gather (tribute)

1d) to take
    1d1) to admit, receive
    1d2) to receive what is offered
    1d3) not to refuse or reject
    1d4) to receive a person, give him access to one’s self
        1d4a) to regard any one’s power, rank, external circumstances, and on that account to do some injustice or neglect something

1e) to take, to choose, select

1f) to take beginning, to prove anything, to make a trial of, to experience

2) to receive (what is given), to gain, get, obtain, to get back

Part of Speech: verb." (Thayer's Dictionary)

To judge by the meaning of the English word 'accept,' it's not radically different from 'receive'. Merriam-Webster makes this out of 'accept':

"1a : to receive (something offered) willingly, accept a gift
  b : to be able or designed to take or hold (something applied or added), a surface that will not accept ink
2 : to give admittance or approval, to accept her as one of the group
3a : to endure without protest or reaction accept poor living conditions
   b : to regard as proper, normal, or inevitable, an idea that is widely accepted
   c : to recognize as true : BELIEVE, refused to accept the explanation
4a : to make a favorable response to, accept an offer
   b : to agree to undertake (a responsibility), accept a job
5 : to assume an obligation to pay also : to take in payment, we don't accept personal checks
6 of a deliberative body : to receive (a legislative report) officially." (Merriam-Webster, 'Accept').

Or is 'asking' the sticking point? Perhaps they prefer 'forced'? 'Asking' it is and must be, though:

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." (Revelation 3:20).

So what is the problem with asking Jesus into your heart? It is solidly scriptural! It's hard to imagine why it is being placed in opposition to faith and repentance. Or is it the same reason why they cannot look a random pew-sitter in the eye and say, 'Jesus loves you,' because, who knows, Jesus might hate the guy? 'Invite Jesus into your heart all you want, Sucker; if you're not the elect, He ain't coming!' The problem here isn't with asking Jesus into your heart, it is rather that some love tradition more than God's word.

Here's another meme which you'll find on the internet:

One unusual feature of Calvinism, unlike other inventive doctrines, is that it's directly and intentionally refuted by scripture. The Bible says, "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:3-4). There are other scriptures also which delineate the ground and extent of the atonement, who Christ died for, who God loves, etc., and none of the "alls" in scripture really 'work' for the Calvinists. Now both in scripture and in common usage, in Greek as well as English and other languages, "all" does not always mean 'all, exhaustively enumerated;' there are usages like hyperbole, for example. This however, does not work for the Calvinists either, because the most hyperbole gives you is that sometimes 'all' means, as a practical matter, 'almost all,' and they do not believe God wants to save almost all men any more than they believe He wants to save all men. So what to do?

At this point they, like the Jehovah's Witnesses, let their eyes travel down to the lower reaches of the lexicon entry, to see if there is anything there that will 'work' for them. And there is, they discover; the sampler. Sometimes 'all' can mean 'a sample of each kind,' as for instance in Acts 10:12, also listed in this meme. But the unanswered question would be, why such an uncommon usage in a passage where context in no way suggests any such meaning, like 1 Timothy 2:4? But there is such a usage. To look for it, you're be looking for instances where the translator has inserted a 'kinds' or 'types' not found in the text. Here our compiler has included an instance which already has a 'kinds,' James 3:7, which talks about "every kind" of beast, 'physis,' meaning nature or genus. Perhaps this compiler thinks you can keep daisy-chaining these, in infinite recursion.

What I wanted to draw attention to, though, is the fairly bizarre example where Matthew 19:26 is understood to be an example of a 'sampler:'

"But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26).

That is to be corrected to all "sorts" of things are possible, because, you see, we know that some things are possible to God, but others quite frankly are not! Therefore we are left with a 'sampler' of possible things and, sadly, things which are just plain not possible to God. So much for omnipotence!

It is true that God does not do things that go against His own nature or that are logically impossible. It is not helpful to correct for this, though, by flatly denying omnipotence. Oftentimes things which are logically incoherent can be better expressed, removing the difficulty. For instance, to give one hackneyed example, 'The present king of France is bald.' True or false? Well, it certainly must be false; it can't be true, there is no present king of France; the last French king had his head removed by the guillotine. But 'correcting' the statement to 'The present king of France is not bald' is no help at all; that statement, too, is false! There is no present king of France, and he is no more not-bald than he is bald. Just be careful you are not making statements about things which have no real existence in the world; that is the royal road to logical incoherence.

But the genius who produced this has 'corrected' the Bible so that we have no omnipotent God, but one who offers us a sampler; there are some things He can do and others, you're just plain out of luck. You have to laugh, but in the end it's really not funny; souls are deceived by this material.

About this next Calvinist meme, the less said the better. Here is the every-quotable Voddie Baucham:

This particular 'teacher' is controversial because, among other things, he insisted that his adult daughters had to live with him whether they wanted to or not, that this is somehow Biblical. He is, it would seem, an ongoing, ever-unfolding train wreck of bad doctrine.

Bad Calvinists

Most of those who accept this recondite, man-made philosophy are in no sense any sort of menace to society, or threat to the church. But there are exceptions. One popular modern Calvinist author who is surprising well-accepted by his colleagues is Douglas Wilson. Some time ago he and a collaborator, affiliated with the secessionist League of the South, wrote a pamphlet singing the praises of Southern slavery. After the controversy kicked off by that publication had died down, Douglas Wilson sought to re-ignite it by a publishing a book called 'Black and Tan,' a disorganized and meandering account of the original pamphlet, reactions to it, and such non-retraction retractions as seem prudent. This author identifies himself as a 'paleo-Confederate' and describes the South as a 'nation:'

Kindness of God

In Romans Chapter 2, we see two tendencies struggling, at war with one another. One guiding light, the kindness of God, we are told, is intended to lead ther sinner to repentance. So then when we hear of a hard and impenitent heart, we cannot trace this back to God as is required by the Calvinist system, which assigns God to be the source of all evil. Rather, it must be extraneous to God:

God's goodness, His kindness, His long-suffering, is stated here with reference to its desired end-point, namely the sinner's repentance. We do not read that God is kind in order to exasperate the sinner into impenitence. Something has failed here, and the diagnosis given by scripture iteself does not place the blame squarely on God, or indeed on God at all, the way Calvinism does. So in the conflict between the two, scripture and Calvinism, it is Calvinism which must fall to the ground, being the man-made system and thus vulnerable to collapse.