Monday, June 23, 2014

Calvinism is not the problem


Calvinism is deeply unpopular in some circles. But Calvinism is not the problem. If there is a problem, reality is the problem. Calvinism is a very realistic theology, and that's what provokes the backlash.

Same thing with Scripture. The Bible has many enemies, both inside and outside the church, because the Bible is unsparingly realistic. The Bible is not the problem. If there is a problem, reality is the problem.

For instance, you have professing Christians who are deeply offended by OT warfare. They "solve" the problem by censuring the Bible. They may consign the offending passages to fiction. 

It's as if you had a film censor living in Mogadishu. He edits out all the violence in Blackhawk Down because that's too gruesome and graphic. After the violent scenes in Blackhawk Down wind up on the cutting room floor, he can revise the rating from R to PG. It's now suitable for family viewing. Problem solved!

He then exits the editing room to go outside, where he gingerly picks his way through the body-strewn streets of Mogadishu. 

Likewise, you have professing believers who rewrite the story to give it happy ending. Universalists. Or Jerry Walls, with his theory of postmortem salvation. Or William Lane Craig, who supposes that God shakes the dice in his dice cup so that not a single person who never heard the Gospel in this life would believe it even if he had he been evangelized. 

Like filming a Disney Princess flick during the Siege of Sarajevo, the contrast between reality and wishful thinking is a bit jarring.  Some professing believers have a very compartmentalized outlook. They take great pains to sanitize the text of Scripture, yet they live in a world that bears a striking resemblance to Scriptural depictions. 

If there's a problem, it's not with God's word, but with God's world. 

4 comments:

  1. How does Craig believe "that God shakes the dice in [H]is dice cup..."? Also, how is your second point about what Craig believes connected to the first exactly?

    Thanks for the help!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The metaphor of shaking the dice until you get the desired combination.

      You need to state how you think the second point is not connected to the first. It's not my job to guess at where you imagine the alleged disconnect lies.

      Delete