PROOF TEXTS FOR CALVINISTIC PREDESTINATION EXAMINED.
THE Scriptures are supposed to teach the doctrine that God hath
foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. It were impossible within the
compass of this short treatise to consider at large all the passages
that have been imported into this controversy. We shall, however,
consider a few which seem to favour the dogma.
THE SONS OF ELI.--In 1 Sam. ii. 25, it is written regarding the sons
of Eli, "Notwithstanding they hearkened not to the voice of their
father, _because_ the Lord would slay them." The whole stress of the
argument from this passage lies in the word "_because_." They were
not able to hearken to their father, because God had determined to
slay them. There are two objections to this view, the first critical
and the second moral. The Hebrew particle translated because is
--_ki_. It is again and again translated by the word "that," and there
is no reason in the world why it should not have been so translated
in this passage. By substituting "that" for "because," there is no
support to predestination. It simply denotes, in such case, that
they would not believe their father, which doubtless was the case
from their depraved habits. The _moral_ objection is that God had
made their return to good impossible, whilst He declares that He is
not willing that any should perish. On these grounds we reject the
interpretation.
MICAIAH AND AHAB.--The parabolic representation of Micaiah is held
as proving not the bare permission of an event, but the actual
deception of Ahab. The matter is recorded in 1 Kings xxii.
Jehoshaphat had paid a visit to his neighbour, the King of Israel,
Ahab. The latter proposed that the former should accompany him in an
attack upon Ramoth-gilead. Ahab's prophets had promised success to
the enterprise. Jehoshaphat wished to inquire of the prophet of the
Lord. Ahab told them that there was one, Micaiah by name, but that
he hated him as he always prophesied evil of him. He was sent for,
however, and when he came he was asked if they should go up against
Ramoth-gilead. He answered, "Go and prosper; for the Lord shall
deliver it into the hand of the king." This was evidently spoken in
such a tone and manner, that Ahab said, "How many times shall I
adjure thee that thou tell me nothing but that which is true in the
name of the Lord?" The prophet then uttered a few words about the
dispersion of the army, which were very unpalatable to the king. He
then said, "I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host
of heaven standing by Him on His right hand and on His left." A
question was asked who would persuade Ahab to go up, and at last one
answered that he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the
prophets, and that he would persuade him. The narrative proceeds,
and it is added, "And He (the Lord) said, Thou shalt persuade him,
and prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, the
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets"
(1 Kings xxii.) It is held that this narrative proves that God
intended to deceive Ahab. I could understand an infidel trying to
make capital out of such a passage; but for a professed Christian to
go to it to prove that God intended to deceive Ahab, appears at
first sight to transcend belief. To do so is to sap the foundations
of religion. How much reason has the Bible to say, "Save me from my
friends!" No doubt, the interpretation of the passage given lies on
the same lines with the general system of the true Calvinists, and
is quite of a piece with their declaration that God foreordained the
Jews to crucify Christ. But, let us look at the passage. If God had
intended to deceive Ahab, as saith Calvin, the course taken was the
very opposite of what was fitted to secure the end. Micaiah was His
recognised prophet; He spoke through him, and warned Ahab against
going up. The result, if he did, was predicted; was this deception?
The method adopted by the prophet was highly dramatic, and fitted to
impress both the kings with the folly of the enterprise. It was a
LYING spirit that was to inspire the emissaries of Baal, and advise
the attack. And if God's prophet intimated disaster--which actually
occurred--where was there deception? When it is said that God told
the lying spirit to go and deceive Ahab, this is the mere drapery of
the parable, and must be held as denoting sufferance, and not
authoritative command. When the literal meaning of a passage leads
to absurdity, we are required, to seek for its spirit or other
explanation. Christ said, "Give to him that asketh of thee; and from
him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away." To carry this
out literally would be impossible; but the _spirit_ of the passage
is beautiful, teaching, as it does, the heavenly charity
characteristic of the good man. Christ demanded of those who would
become His disciples, that they should hate their brethren; but no
honest interpreter would take this literally. The passage evidently
means that we owe a higher allegiance and love to Christ than any
earthly relationship. The parable of Micaiah, taken literally, makes
God to take part in the work of Satan, whilst He also works against
himself, in inspiring His own prophet. Such a method must be
rejected. The great truth brought out in the parable is this--viz.,
that a man rejecting heavenly counsel becomes a prey to evil
spirits, which drive him to ruin.
LIMITATION OF DAYS.--Job xiv. 5 is appealed to. The words are,
"Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with
thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." We do not
see any bearing the passage has upon the subject under discussion
--universal predestination, It brings before us the Divine
Sovereignty, by virtue of which God has determined the laws of the
constitution of man, and that there is a period in his life beyond
which he cannot go. But he may shorten this period, for "bloody and
deceitful men do not live half their days," and many people commit
suicide, and break one of God's commands. Does God determine the
number of suicides? Yes, if Calvinism is true; for, according to it,
He hath "foreordained whatsoever comes to pass."
RESTRAINT ON WRATH.--Psalm lxxvi. 10 is appealed to. The words are,
"Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee: the remainder of wrath
shalt thou restrain." Dying men catch at straws, and, to appeal to
this passage is as if one were catching at a straw. It brings before
us the great truth that God overrules evil, and brings good out of
it. The methods by which God does this are not stated, but would be
suited to the peculiar circumstances of each case. We see
illustrations of the principle in the destruction of the Egyptians,
the deliverance of the three Hebrews from the furnace, and the
general history of the Church. But to bring good out of evil and cut
down persecutors, are very different things from "foreordaining
whatsoever comes to pass."
THE STANDING OF THE COUNSEL.--Isaiah xlvi. 10 is appealed to. It is
as follows:--"My counsel shall stand, and I shall do all my
pleasure." Now there is no doubt that God's counsel shall stand, nor
that He will do all His pleasure; but the questions are, what is His
counsel, and what is His pleasure? To bring the passage forward on
behalf of universal foreordination is to assume the point in debate,
and it is therefore inadmissible. God has a definite purpose
regarding individuals and nations. It is to make the best out of
every man that He can in harmony with the freedom of the will; and
it is the same regarding nations. The principle of His dealing is
stated in these words,--"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be
devoured by the sword" (Isa. i. 19). This is the Divine counsel and
pleasure regarding man still.
EVIL IN THE CITY.--Amos iii. 6 is appealed to. It is as follows:
--"Shall the trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be
afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done
it?" The word rendered "_evil_" (_ra_) occurs more than 300 times in
the Old Testament, and has various shades of signification. It is
translated as meaning "sorrow" (Gen. xliv. 29), "wretchedness" (Neh.
xi. 15), "distress" (Neh. ii. 17). It is applied to "beasts,"
"diseases," "adversity," "troubles." It stood as the opposite of
"good," and sometimes meant "sin." To determine its meaning in any
particular instance, we must consider the context. In the beginning
of the third chapter of Amos, punishment is threatened against the
people: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth;
therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities." When trouble
and distress come upon a people, they may be said to come from God
as the result of their disobedience. He vexes them in His "sore
displeasure."
There are various species of evil--as metaphysical evil, or the evil
of limitation; physical evil, or departure from type; moral evil, or
sin; and penal evil, or the punishment of sin. Looking at the
context, it is perfectly clear that the prophet has reference to the
last-mentioned. The people had broken God's laws, and were punished
by God for their misdeeds. It might take the form of pestilence or
famine, but whatever was its shape, it was a messenger from God. He
sent it because the people had done wrong. This interpretation is in
harmony with the usage of the word, and satisfies the moral
conscience.
The passage in Isaiah xlv. 7, "I make peace and create evil," has
obviously the same meaning, as it stands in contrast to "peace."
"Peace" is representative of blessings; "evil" is the synonym of
distress and sorrow. The prophet is supposed to allude to the
Persian religion, according to which there were two great beings in
the universe--viz., Oromasden, from whom comes good, and Ahriman,
from whom comes evil. It is very doubtful whether the prophet had
any such reference. Barnes says,--"The main object here is, the
prosperity which should attend the arms of Cyrus, the consequent
reverses and calamities of the nations whom he would subdue, and the
proof thence furnished that JEHOVAH was the true God; and the
passage should be limited in the interpretation to this design. The
statement, then, is that all this was under His direction."
PREDESTINATION AND THE CRUCIFIXION OF CHRIST.--Acts ii. 23 is
appealed to. It reads thus: "Having been delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain." But how can these words
prove universal foreordination? It might be said, that if God
foreordained the bad deeds of the crucifiers, the principle is
established. True; but did He foreordain them? The words simply
declare that God had given up Christ, and that in so doing He had
acted in harmony with a settled plan, and that the Jews had wickedly
taken the Saviour and slain Him. From the throne of His excellency
God saw the character of the people that lived in A.D. 33; that they
stood upon religious punctilio, and "as having the form of godliness
whilst destitute of its power," that they would do as the Scriptures
foretold; and yet He determined to send His son into their very
midst, and when He came, they took Him and crucified Him. In all
that they did they acted freely. Had it not been so, had they been
acting under an iron necessity, then the apostle could not have
brought against them the charge of having done what they did with
"wicked hands." That charge, that homethrust, explodes the
Calvinistic argument, as far as the verse is concerned.
Another passage is Acts iv. 27, 28. It reads thus: "For of a truth
against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod
and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel,
were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy
counsel had determined before to be done." But the question is
simply this,--what was it that God had determined to be done? We
cannot admit that God had fixed unalterably the doings of Herod,
Pilate, and their unholy allies, for the simple reason given in
explaining Acts ii. 23--viz., that if such were the case, then there
is no foothold upon which to condemn those high-handed sinners. They
were verily guilty, but we cannot find a shadow of fault with them
if they were only doing what they were foreordained to do. What,
then, had God determined to be done? He had determined to send His
son into the world to make an atonement for sin. But this might have
been done without the betrayal, the trial, and the crucifixion. I
may determine to go to a distant city without determining the _mode_
of travel. One way may be pleasant, another disagreeable in the
highest degree, and yet the latter may be chosen because of certain
collateral issues.
So Christ's death might have been determined on, but not the _mode_.
Atonement might have been made in another way than on the cross. It
was not the crucifixion that made the atonement, but its value lay
in the death of the Son of God. Had He expired during the sore agony
in the garden, would not His death have been meritorious? The
adjuncts, the trial and crucifixion, were not therefore necessary to
give His death atoning power. But God saw what the Jews would do,
--that they would, in the exercise of their free agency, and without
any decree, put Christ to death; and yet He sent Him at the time He
did. All the glory of grace, therefore, redounds to the praise of
the Lord, and the ignominy rests upon the Jews and the Gentiles. As
a proof of universal foreordination, the passage proves nothing.
GOD WORKETH ALL THINGS.--Ephes. i. 11 is adduced as upholding the
predestination of all events. It reads thus: "In whom also we have
obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the
purpose of Him who worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will." The stress of the passage as a proof rests on the words, "who
worketh all things." But according to the canon of interpretation
already stated--viz., that when the literal interpretation of a
passage leads to absurdity, it cannot be the true one. John in his
first epistle (ii. 20) says, "But ye have an unction from the Holy
One, and ye know all things." To take these words literally would be
to make those Christians to whom they were addressed to possess all
knowledge, and thus make them equal to God, which is absurd. The
words must be limited to the subject matter in which they are found.
The apostle is speaking of the anointing of Christians, the
imparting unto them of the Holy Ghost, and the phrase "all things"
denotes things necessary to salvation, It is said (Acts ii. 44) that
the first Christians "had all things common." But to take the words
literally would be to outrage propriety. In Philippians ii. 14, it
is written: "Do all things without murmurings and disputings." Here,
again, the words must be limited in their application, otherwise the
Christians were commanded to do all kinds of evil if commanded,
without a murmur or dispute. This could not be, hence the words must
be restricted to the duties devolving on them. So there must, of
necessity, be restriction upon the passage in Ephesians quoted in
the Confession of Faith. It must be restricted, otherwise it will
follow that God is the only worker in the universe. And what is done
in the world? God's laws are broken; but if He is the only worker,
then He is the only breaker of His own laws! This is absurd, hence
the literality must be given up. The obvious meaning is, that in the
redemptive scheme God has wrought it all out according to the wise
plan He had formed respecting it, just as He works out all His plans
in nature and in providence.
We know of no stronger passages than those mentioned, although
others have been quoted. It is the easiest thing in the world to
quote verses from the Bible as supporting a dogma; it is quite a
different thing to show that they prove it.