The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Driscoll's "FAQ: Predestination and Election"

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#1

"][size=150]FAQ: Predestination and Election[/size]
Warning: This is a lengthy blog that will read to some as nerdy about an important issue—namely, how God saves sinners. It’s based on chapter 7, “Predestination,” from my book Religion Saves. So, prepare for a mental marathon more than a sprint.

Why are some people saved by God and not others? Is it because they don’t choose God, or because God didn’t choose them?

This leads to the topic of predestination. By predestination I’m asking, is a person’s eternal destiny chosen by God before their birth? Does God predestine people to heaven? Does God predestine people to hell? Theologian Millard Erickson clarifies the applicable theological terms: “‘Predestination’ refers to God’s choice of individuals for eternal life or eternal death. ‘Election’ is the selection of some for eternal life, the positive side of predestination.”

[size=150]Predestination & Election In Church History[/size]
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[size=150]Calvinism & Arminianism[/size]
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Five Points of Arminianism
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Five Points of Calvinism
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What does the Old Testament say about predestination?
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[size=150]Answers To Common Questions About Predestination & Election[/size]
What did Jesus say about predestination and election?
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What does the New Testament say about predestination and election?
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When did God predestine us for salvation?
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Why does God choose some people and not others?
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Does predestination make God unloving?
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Does predestination make Christians unloving toward non-Christians?
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Does God love the non-elect?
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What is the position of the elders at Mars Hill Church?
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I’ve only skim read the rest of the article so far…

Disappointingly the only mention of universalism I saw was a brief mention of Talbott:

"][size=150]Resources For Further Study[/size]
For those who want to study the subject further, the most helpful book would be Perspectives on Election: Five Views. It has chapters from noted Arminian Jack W. Cottrell and Open Theist Clark H. Pinnock, as well as chapters on supralapsarianism by Robert L. Reymond, universal reconciliation by Thomas B. Talbott, and the Reformed perspective by Bruce A. Ware, whom I deeply appreciate. The benefit of the book is that it provides five views as opposed to the typical three (Calvinist, Arminian, and Calminian). Furthermore, each position is then critiqued and reviewed by the other contributors, which helps give a great deal of insight into the issue.
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My definition of EU for my new church to analyse
#2

I am very familiar with the subject of predestination and election having spent over 35 years in the Reformed Presbyterian camp. I cut my “theological teeth” on Loraine Boettner and Arthur Pink. About 6 years ago I began a journey exploring Evangelical Universalism actually on account of recent neo-Calvinists such as Tim Keller, Cornelius Plantinga and Mark Driscoll. It was primarily for two reasons: the emphasis on the restoration aspect of the gospel and the missional thrust of these teachers. I go into this in detail on our new website godslovewins.com. It is a site primarily from a reformed perspective but is not limited to the Calvinist audience by any means. There is much for the Arminian to ponder. But those more familiar with the ideas of predestination/election will recognize the authors quoted and cited throughout.

I invite you to visit and share your thoughts!

Jonathan,
godslovewins.com

#3

Welcome to the forum Jonathan! I’ve been praying that the Holy Spirit opens Driscoll’s eyes ever since I became a EU 18 months ago. I was baptised by the Presbyterians as an infant, and actually ended up joining the Presbyterian denomination as a teenager (for about 16 years), until a few months ago when I had to leave (over EU) and now attend a Christian Reformed Church instead.

I checked out your site the other day and was impressed! :sunglasses: I’ve actually been wanting to create a site very similar to yours for about a year now (just tied up with work & a young family, but still keen to hopefully do it before the end of the year)!

#4

Yes, just took a quick look, and it is a very nice looking website. I didn’t read much yet, but I hope to do so soon!

Sonia

#5

Being a former Reformed “partialist” myself, reading Mark Driscoll’s blog made me cringe. I can’t believe I used to believe and argue for such a view concerning predestination and election; I feel like I’m still recovering from believing the view for which he’s arguing! Anyway, I just wanted to offer a few thoughts on some of the “common questions” he answers.

According to Driscoll’s theology, Jesus’ sacrificial death satisfied the demands of divine justice for those who are going to heaven. But if God’s holy justice can be satisfied in this way for some (so that God can consequently make some of his enemies “his friends by grace”), why can’t it be satisfied in this way for all (so that God can make all of his enemies “his friends by grace”)? Even according to the Calvinist system, the demands of God’s justice would be no less satisfied - and his loving grace no less expressed - with the salvation of all than with the salvation of some. If Christ’s death satisfied the demands of God’s justice and (as a substitutionary sacrifice) was sufficient for all people (as all Calvinists seem to affirm), why then doesn’t God bring about the conditions by which the redemptive benefits of his death may be universally applied? And if God’s not going to do this (as most Calvinists also affirm), how can such a refusal to will the best interests of some of his human creatures be considered “loving” in any meaningful sense? Such willful neglect of his dependent human offspring (creatures bearing his own image!) would betray a calloused, indifferent and cruel heart, and would indeed make God “unloving.”

There is an infinite difference between Jesus’ permitting the temporary suffering and loss of those within the sphere of his influence, and his permitting the endless suffering and loss of those within the sphere of his influence. To love a person means to will their best interests and happiness as an end. The permitting of temporary suffering and loss is consistent with a person’s ultimate and final happiness, and thus may be consistent with love. The permitting of endless suffering and permanent loss, however, is not consistent with a person’s ultimate happiness, and thus cannot be consistent with love.

In other words, God’s “love” for the non-elect is expressed solely in the bestowment of temporal blessings during this temporary state of existence. But the very fact that the persons in view are “non-elect” (as Driscoll understands election) proves that these temporal blessings were never an expression of God’s love for them at all, for long before the non-elect were born and began to enjoy the sunshine and rain of this world, God had chosen to withhold from them the one blessing that matters most, and without which their final, eternal state of existence will prove to be an endless curse to them. This terrible fact turns the temporal blessings they received during this brief lifetime into a cruel mockery. :frowning:

1 Like
#6

Good points Aaron.

#7

Jonathan, I just checked out your site. It is incredible … a treasure chest … exactly what EU needs!!! And I am not even sure I am an EU. Although earlier today told my pastor (after more than a year of study and dialogue with him, a pastor in our parent church, and other Calvinist and Arminian defenders of traditional hell) I “can’t believe it [meaning ECT] anymore”. (The truth is believing in ECT is slowly killing me.) We did not have time to talk more today. I will probably detour from my talks with the pastor at the parent church and go back to speaking with him. (See also Out In The Open .) Your site will be such a valuable resource.

I only spent about 20 minutes reviewing it but from what I can tell it is well organized, well written, easy to navigate, thorough, and respectful. It is also aesthetically attractive. I like how you consider both the Calvinist and Arminian perspectives and how the tension between them can be resolved by EU. I appreciate your focus on addressing the contradictions and absurdities that arise from each approach.

What is especially appealing to me is your references to Tim Keller and the “missional” mindset of many of today’s churches. Both figure prominently into the culture and rhetoric of our church and will certainly resonate with my pastor, though I know he will not appreciate your conclusions. In any case, it is interesting how the Keller/missional message so often feeds right into EU.

BTW Your open letter to Tim Keller (godslovewins.com/blog/?page_id=2) is great and really puts him “behind the 8 ball.” It would be great if he responded in some way.

Thank you. I’m a fan.

#8

Wow, Jonathan!

You have a haunting eye for design. I LOVE your opening page and especially the poignant catch-phrase! Can’t wait to read it all.

Blessings, Cindy

#9

Thank you everyone for the feedback regarding the website. It’s been a long but very invigorating project. You are basically the first eyes to judge it and I appreciate all the encouraging words! You are describing exactly what I had hoped to create. I did send it to Talbott and he called it “irenic”. (I had to look it up) : )

I have listened to quite a few Driscoll sermons and gone to conferences where he and Keller spoke together. Driscoll always introduced him as Dr. Timothy “Killer” Keller so he’s obviously the linchpin for most of the neo-Calvinists. So I feel that if Keller could be challenged then the other “dominoes” would at least teeter.

Interestingly I stumbled upon an online tutorial Driscoll provided for pastors coaching them through how/what to preach on Easter Sundays since there were likely to be more unbelievers in attendance. It was very detailed but ironically he never brought up eternal hell nor even alluded to it. It had been posted a few years ago and when I listened to the podcast of the Mars Hill Easter service this past year, right after Bell’s book had come out, I was wondering what he was going to say. The pressure was on and he did speak firmly but briefly about EH but it was soft by reformed standards and then he totally invalidated the seriousness of the subject by a joke he made shortly after about the Seattle weather being “like hell” (comic relief?). (There were 16,000 in attendance BTW.)

Also during the interview he did with “Nightline” when asked about his Calvinism, and predestination in particular, he evaded the question altogether and said, “Yes, I believe God saves people. I believe in Jesus and I believe in the Bible. I believe people are really going to hell…” That was his explanation of election. (Then Bell gets the heat for having trouble in some of his interviews.)

So yes, I do pray for these guys too. I believe we still need them (ideally minus the ECT view of course). For me and others they brought us to the very brink of UR. In fact I can listen to whole sermons and hear the full gospel of restoration because they often never mention EH and never qualify their statements. They are so close!

This is a great forum and I appreciate the warm welcome…

Grace and peace,
Jonathan
godslovewins.com

#10

I want to respond to everyone’s comments but I am new and still learning the system (how to highlight quotes for one!)

Alex…I look forward to your website! …I am wondering how you are faring in the CRC as an EU (?)

Thank you Aaron for the response to Driscoll’s points…more clarity.

And firedup, I sympathize with your sentiments about ECT slowly killing you. That has been true for so many of us. It wears you down and wears you out, that is if you let yourself think about and process it.

#11

There are a few ways. e.g. in a reply if you press the “Quote” it inserts {quote}{/quote} (except with square brackets), which is just a blank quote. However, if you changed it to {quote=“Alex”}Hello{/quote} when you post it, it would appear as

(You can put whatever you like between the " ", it just adds “wrote:”)

From what people are saying about your’s, I might not need to make it after all :wink:

Surprisingly well! Fortunately my minister is excellent; Gospel focused, mature, loving and willing to read anything I send him. Not only that, the elders who know my position (This is what I gave them when I first attended a few months ago) and are ok with it, so long as I don’t hassle young Christians at church, which I had no intention of doing!

#12

Hi Alex,

I read your statement of faith and all the constructive criticism to help hone it. That was great. That was helpful for me. I know I will be tweaking and changing things on the site to continually clear up potential misunderstandings. If you profess EU you are under the microscope that’s for sure. One stray word and they are all over you…!

That’s amazing that your leadership is dialoguing with you and allowing you to remain in the church. We told our former A29 pastor and he acted very open to discuss it and was initially very supportive to our family but eventually there was obvious strain and caution around us and we felt we ought to leave. We realized he couldn’t be too sympathetic or, as he said, he would lose his job!

They did a sermon a few years ago on the topic of social justice that absolutely knocked me over. The parallels between temporal justice and God’s ultimate justice that should have been drawn were absolutely staggering. I just thought to myself, it’s just a matter of time before the tension of the conundrum gets too much and they look for a solution. I thought the same thing when Rob Bell wrote in his first book how “everyone in hell was forgiven”.

We now attend a missional minded non-denominational church that is more Arminian. But after being in Reformed churches for so long we are drinking in hearing so often how Jesus loves the whole world and died for every single person that ever lived! And then the unqualified statements they make constantly about the restoration of all creation etc., Loving it!

PS Thanks for the tutorial Alex. I tried what I thought you were saying but I didn’t get it. I will work on it later : )

#13

To clarify a possible bit of confusion regarding Alex’s instruction about the “quote” button: there are two quote buttons!

On is at the top-left of the composition window when working on a comment (or an originating post) for a thread (or for a private forum mail), just to the right of the Bold Italic and Underline buttons. Clicking that Quote button inserts a {quote}{/quote} bracket set into the window at the cursor location (except with square brackets of course for BBCode formatting). Alternately, if a portion of text has been selected already, clicking the button drops the bracket code set around the portion. So if I selected “a portion of text” in the previous sentence, and clicked the Quote button, the result would look like this: {quote}a portion of text{/quote}, and the system would print that on screen inside a quote block.

Adding an equal sign and then simple double-quote marks enclosing a description =“like this”, inside the original quote bracket, after the word ‘quote’, will tell the system to print “like this, wrote” as an introduction to the block quote.

So using the prior example {quote=“like this”}a portion of text{/quote} (except with square brackets instead [which look like these]), will result in:

All that can be done manually, too (as I just did when writing this, since I had to substitute something other than [these square brackets].)

Be aware that composing a message somewhere else (which is otherwise recommended in order to keep from losing it due to software or hardware glitches!), may result in the quote marks being specially formatted to be open and close quote marks. The system software doesn’t recognize those at all, and will think you intend for everything to be printed out.

The other Quote button can be found at the top right of any thread comment or original post. Clicking on that button will open a reply composition window, with the whole previous post already included within a valid set of quote format brackets. In effect you’ll be quoting the whole post in followup–which is actually rather impolite to do on the internet (unless you’re sourcing from another page) as it adds completely redundant length. But you can erase what you aren’t directly referring to, and it’s a handy way to copy-paste a valid opening-quote-command to other places you want to refer to (although you’ll have to manually type a closing {/quote} command when you’re ready to stop quoting.) I use this process quite frequently.

…um, there! All qualified, with no confusion! :wink: :mrgreen:

#14

Philip, ( — or is it Jonathan? I’m confused …)
On quoting, in addition to what others have said … when you are writing a reply, there is a “Topic Review” section below the reply box. You can scroll through the whole thread there, and each post has a Quote button in the upper right corner. If you click that button, the entire post will be quoted in your reply box. OR you can highlight the portion you want to quote and then click the button and only that part will be quoted in your reply.

HTH,
Sonia

#15

Thanks everyone for the help. Wow, the pressure’s on…now I had better get it right!

Sorry about the confusion. “Phillip MacDonald” is a pen name for the site as most of us involved with the site are remaining anonymous at this time. We have family members that we are protecting from the undue reactions and accusations brought about by confessing this view. We are waiting on the Lord for the right timing.

I will eliminate further confusion by using “Phillip” from now on.

#16

I’m glad it was helpful, it was surprisingly difficult. Although I reckon I’ll need to refine it some down the track as I learn more.

I was surprised too, but enjoying the blessing while it lasts :sunglasses:

Sorry to hear that, that kind of thing sadly happens too often. We must keep praying God opens people’s eyes and that people would be brave enough to even loose their jobs for the sake of God’s name, the truth and the removal of the stumbling block of ECT.

I know that feeling, I’ve often heard sermons and have been astonished that the penny hasn’t dropped :confused:

I bet, that sounds great.

#17

Hi Phillip, Just adding my appreciation for your godslovewins site. Just been browsing through and I think you have done an awesome job. I’ll certainly be recommending people take a look and engage with your questions and study materials. Thanks! Drew

#18

Looks great so far. Funny that you didn’t mention one Jason Gray song. :laughing:

#19

God Bless you all. I am in your boat. Undercover lover of all.

#20

Thanks Drew for the encouragement. Much appreciated as we are just embarking out on the territory and wondering what the reception will be (!) Please feel free to push on anything that needs to be challenged or needs clarification. We need to “midrash” over the material more broadly as we are only an isolated group. What an awesome thing to have this forum where this Jewish practice can take place, globally!!