Concerning Fate
Here are some quotes from a sermon I recently heard. These are disturbing comments from my former pastor Erwin McManus. Some quotes are more disturbing than others.
* “For love to exist there has to be freedom” – A very interesting concept. This quote, in context, is defending the doctrine of free-will, that the love God requires of mankind could never really qualify as love if man did not have the freedom to choose or reject God. "God wants us to love Him, so He must give us freedom to choose or not to choose."
* “Christianity is just like Buddhism and Islam and Hinduism. You see, once anything becomes a religion, it becomes legalistic – ‘these are the things you have to do to earn God’s love,’ or it becomes fatalistic – ‘God is sovereign and you really don’t have a choice.’” Christian history is full of legalists, but it is also full of devout, God-fearing, God-loving saints. Erwin says in his books, interviews and sermons he is on a mission to destroy Christianity and rebirth a revolution [like unto the first century]. But what is at stake in this destruction? A carnal, dead religious institution? Good. But what if the destruction spreads to doctrine, to the history of God's work from the first century until now? What are we gaining in this destruction? What are we losing?
* “…By the way Calvinism says it doesn’t matter in the end what you choose because God has already chosen who belongs to Him and who is damned to hell. And they’re all the same – all these religions [Buddhism, Hinduism, Calvinism] – they are fatalistic…" Calvinism is a false religion? The Calvinism of Spurgeon, Knox, Owen, Moody, Piper, is a false religion? Now a lost person or a new Christian may have no clue what Erwin is talking about. There is an indoctrination going on here. Mosaic is full of impressionable young people, mostly in their early 20s, who are spellbound as they listen to this very charismatic orator. And Erwin is constantly committing the error of eisegesis, employing human wisdom and philosophy over the correct and careful handling of the Word of God. I fear for my friends at Mosaic who hear this human wisdom week in and week out. It must have a deleterious effect on their faith, right?
Fatalism and Labeling
Concerning fatalism: it seems that if someone wants to immediately render something questionable or downright objectionable, there is a sure-fire way of doing it – label it! I remember John Piper saying something about that in the sermon or series entitled “The Righteous are as Bold as a Lion.” He said that the thing we are most afraid of as we speak the truth is that someone will label or categorize or pigeonhole us. If we say something slightly controversial, we might be labeled a fundamentalist, a right-winger, or fanatical Christian. “Oh let us get over out fear of being labeled!” (paraphrase)
Here’s Erwin’s strategy – label Calvinism as fatalistic. By labeling this biblical system of theology as something characteristic of a false religion, he is able to summarily dismiss it as untrue and uncharacteristic of truth, as he defines it. And Erwin’s system of theology boils down to eisegesis – coming to the Bible with a preconceived belief or set of beliefs about God, humanity, salvation, etc., and then using the Bible to support those beliefs. That’s what Erwin did with Deuteronomy 30:19, and it’s what he has done with many of scriptures over the years I have listened to him speak.
Now back to fatalism. My immediate response to hearing anyone say Calvinism is fatalistic and like all other false religions is nausea. But after the initial shock wore off, I thought about it some more. Don’t half the verses I have memorized demonstrate some fatalism in my relationship with God? My personal hope is resting on this fate called assurance of salvation. My eschatological hope rests on this fate called Revelation. God has written history from beginning to end. The end is right there in the Bible, though we can hardly understand it all. They are mysteries to us, but God knows them all because He is bringing them about according to His sovereign will. And don’t tell me Jesus’s life wasn’t "fated" in a sense. His life and ministry were prophesied in Isaiah and a dozen other prophetic books. Every step Jesus took, every word He spoke, every person He called, was fated (foreordained) by God. We would still be lost in our sin if this were not so.
You see, two thing that make fatalism so repulsive and terrifying. The first is that there might not be any meaning in the fate laid out for us; no rationale; no logic; no justice. In a sense, according to our own standards, it's not "humane." The second is that the Person who is controlling our fate might not be trustworthy, good, just or benevolent. But what if both of these objections could be answered? What if it all made sense and what if the One calling all the shots was an all-wise, all-just, all-powerful, all-benevolent God who loves us enough to die in our place. I have no problem having my fate resting in the hands of a Person like this. The book of Revelation used to scare me to death until I realized it's all good news written to encourage us who have been called by God.
I hate using movie analogies in a theologically-oriented argument, but there is a wonderful analogy in the movie The Matrix. In a certain scene, Neo is being asked if he believes in fate. He answers no because “I don’t like the idea of not being in control of my own life/destiny” (paraphrase). So, it seems, the opposite of fate is being in control of one’s own destiny. Is this biblical? Are we in control of our own destinies? We are certainly able to choose how we act in any given moment, but that decision births new choices which then exponentially birth choice after choice. Does this exponential chasm between a choice made now and a choice to be made at some far off point in the future where a thousand other choices have been made between now and then sound more like choice or fate, especially considering every external factor that will affect what that so-called choice might be? Yes, we have to factor in anything that comes into contact with our world – from the weather to accidents to death! No, if the truth is between fate and being in control, I think fate wins hands down.
But what if there is some kind of spectrum? What if it’s not completely fate and it’s not completely in our control, but rather somewhere in the middle? Perhaps there is a certain element of choice AND there is a certain element of “fate” involved, if fate can be defined as God’s immutable, preordained, sovereign will. However, if it is possible that every choice we make is hamartia, whether we mean it for good or not (Isa 64:6b - …all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags), and this is due to an God-ordained curse (Gen 3; Gal 3:10, 13; Romans 3:9b), then no matter what choices we make, good or evil, we are still cursed because of something we never had any control over in the first place. “Choose life,” (Deut. 30:19) then, is an impossible command because every choice we could possibly make even if we willed and moved toward life would only lead to death. Why? Because we are cursed unto death!
This sounds a lot like fate to me. We have no control over our destinies because no matter what we do, we are still cursed. There is no more visible evidence to this than our own mortality. Therefore, only God can bring about something so extraordinary that can set us free from this curse. And that something, or rather Someone, is Jesus, who made propitiation for our sins, appeased God’s wrath, and absorbed our condemnation in His flesh on the cross.
So all humanity is free now to choose Jesus, right? If this were so, it would be impossible to make a case for fate (fate again being God’s sovereign pre-ordained will) because we now have control over our destinies if we choose Christ. But Romans 3:9ff communicates very clearly that no one seeks God. Romans 8:7 goes further to say there is not merely apathy toward God, but hostility, and that humanity does not and cannot choose God. Jesus told his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…”(John 15:16). Jesus also said, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” (John 6:44) and, "…no one can come to Me unless it has been granted to him by My Father" (John 6:65). We must be given permission even to come to God, not that we want to. We must be drawn (Greek: dragged) to God. The Apostle Paul later wrote, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:13). Not only does God work in us to do good, but He must work in us for there even to be a will to do good.
Martin Luther once wrote, “Hence it follows that free-will without God's grace is not free at all, but is the permanent prisoner and bondslave of evil, since it cannot turn itself to good.” (The Bondage of The Will, 1525)1. Even the will that, thinking it is free, acts freely in its own estimation is not free at all, but a slave to it’s own sinful nature (Romans 7). There simply is no freedom to choose righteousness apart from the granting of faith for righteousness – apart from God Himself choosing us and dragging us to Himself. And there is no spectrum. God chooses whom He wills to choose. We are slaves that cannot choose even when we think we are choosing. Our destinies are not our own, for as long as we are not chosen by God, we are imprisoned in our own choiceless fate under the condemning wrath of Almighty God. We are hostile to God, not wanting to have anything to do with Him. Again, that sounds a lot like fate! 2
1 It should be noted that Martin Luther wrote this when John Calvin was barely in puberty; it would not be possible to consider Martin Luther a Calvinist since there was no such thing as Calvinism at the time.
2 God's sovereign will is not fatalism at all but Providence. But in this blog entry, I merely use the term to make a point in my argument against the statement that Calvinism is a false religion dominated by the concept of fate.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon best summed it up like this:
What is fate? Fate is this – Whatever is, must be. But there is a difference between that and Providence. Providence says, Whatever God ordains, must be; but the wisdom of God never ordains anything without a purpose. Everything in this world is working for some great end. Fate does not say that. . . . There is all the difference between fate and Providence that there is between a man with good eyes and a blind man. Ω
posted by Ron | 4:34 PM
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