I got an email from Joel Osteen today, telling me I could pay $15 to come hear him tell me how much God wants me to get rich. Um, no thanks. But it did get me searching the Internet again to see if anyone else has caught on how much Joel Osteen really isn’t at all about the Gospel or the God of Scripture. And I found Nathan White commenting on Joel Osteen.

Unfortunately, while he starts out OK, he turns this into a plug for Calvinism? Where the heck did that come from!?!

“I must say that Arminianism, or an emphasis on free will, is certainly (emphasis mine) the root of this man-centered approach by Osteen. Sure, not all Arminians take their free will theology to his extreme, but most certainly he is only acting consistent with this foundational belief. When man is that captain of his own ship; when man gets to decide if he deems his Creator worth the time to submit to and worship; when man’s sinfulness is covered up to the point where he still has the innate goodness within to make the most important ‘decision’ in all of eternity; when God’s kingdom is more like a self-help club which members choose to enter into as they see fit, then these types of ministers and messages will only continue to flourish. This is precisely why we should proclaim God’s sovereignty in all situations, whenever possible.

This is certainly a gross exaggeration. Let me break it down: free will states that our will is capable of choosing between right and wrong, not that we get to decide God’s role, or make our own salvation. To claim that our ability to actually make choices somehow diminishes our need for (or the efficacy of) Grace is completely and utterly wrong. Arminianism != a self-help gospel.

Sure, it is certain that determinism doesn’t leave room for self-help theology, but that doesn’t mean that Joel Osteen’s bad doctrine is merely the result of him believing in free will. If you drink motor oil it will kill you, but if you put it in your car it will keep your engine running smoothly. In either case, reason demands that we attribute the outcome to you, not the oil. If you turn Arminianism into a self-help gospel, you’re to blame, not Arminianism.

Nevertheless, if you want me to proclaim God’s sovereignty whenever possible… “God’s sovereignty means that He is making Joel Osteen preach this health-and-wealth message,” so don’t complain when God’s will is being accomplished. Quit fighting against it! Why must you kick against the goads?!

Joel Osteen may be wrong and Arminian, but his being wrong is not the natural result of his being Arminian.

First of all, if you haven’t read it yet, please read my opening remarks and disclaimers on these posts on Calvinism. It’s worth it, trust me.

Total depravity as purported by Calvinists, states that there’s nothing we do that’s “good” at all. We’re totally depraved, and thus cannot bring anything good from ourselves. The big proof text? Romans 14:23, which states “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin”.

Excuse me when I scream “CONTEXT!!!!”

Paul is talking about eating food dedicated to idols, and other questionable practices that, if done with the wrong motives, can be sin. He’s not talking about every single act imaginable.

Let me clarify. When I eat breakfast in the morning, I do not do so out of faith. I do so out of hunger, or habit. According to Piper’s reasoning, eating breakfast in such a matter would be considered sin.

Or how about going a little deeper? The main point of Total Depravity is that it means we can’t be the origin of saving faith, for that faith can only come from the Grace of God. If then, our faith doesn’t come from faith (for how could it?) this reasoning would make that faith itself sin. Kind of twisted, huh?

The intended point is that man cannot even come up with the faith required to accept God’s grace, because they’re entirely against him. Therefore, Salvation originates entirely in God, and “free will” has nothing to do with it.

I personally don’t claim to have it all figured out, but I look at it this way:

1. We are flawed, sinful creatures, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t do good
2. What good we may do, however, can’t earn us favor in God’s eyes, because they are stained with our other sins (Is 64:6)
3. Just like Adam and Eve, despite being perfect beings, were able to sin even though that wasn’t “in their nature”, so we as humans have the capacity to make right choices, even if we are fundamentally evil

The whole bit about men being condemned regardless of what they do is fine by me—once man has fallen the only way to remove the guilt of sin is death (Rom 6:23)—but using this reasoning to prove we can’t have faith without God forcing us to, is a weak argument at best.

When I refer to Piper in these upcoming posts, I am citing “What We Believe about the Five Points of Calvinism”, a position paper of the pastoral staff of Bethlehem Baptist Church, written by John Piper, and available from Piper’s website.

Outside of this treatise, my arguments will come from two sources: Scripture, and my own human reasoning. There are two things to keep in mind here:

1. I hold Scripture to be infallible in its original writings. This means that our modern translations could be slightly off on some wordings, but I believe that God has been faithful to preserve the root meaning of the text for our use.

   However, this also means that I believe nit-picking at words and such—while it can be tremendously helpful at times—is de facto a risky enterprise, and could lead us to reading a lot into a text that was never intended to be there. I have witnessed very smart, educated, well-intentioned readers and scholars mis-interpret literature (as confirmed by the authors themselves) in the past, so I understand the danger.

   That is to say, I heartily accept that seeking clarification in the original languages of scripture is both beneficial, and indeed, necessary in many cases, but I also caution scholars that one of the marks of a false teacher that Paul laid out to Timothy is “He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.” (1 Timothy 6:4b-5, NIV)

2. I understand myself to be human. This means that both my interpretation of said infallible Scriptures, and my own human reasoning should be examined in light of the Scriptures. I pray that I listen to the Holy Spirit well enough to properly see God through these two mediums, but I dare not consider myself infallible. I will state what I state as it if were fact, because I in all sincerity believe it to be so, but I also accept that I have made mistakes in the past (see my previous blog entries if you want proof of my fallibility!) and that I will make mistakes in the future.

   By this same reasoning, when I question Piper (or Calvinists in general) I do not intend to make him out to be evil nor purposely deceptive, (for I am sure that he believes he is faithfully perceiving the truth of God) but rather assert that he, too, is human and therefore inherently fallible.

Finally, I must also state that this doctrinal disagreement seems pointless to waste too much time on. Some of the most heated arguments occur between two side who will both categorically state that salvation is by grace alone through faith. While it may have further theological impact farther on down the road, if you are reading this (or interested in the debate) out of curiosity of whether or not you’re actually “saved”, simply ask yourself this:

Do you believe that Christ was the Son of God who died for the forgiveness of sins, and have you trusted that act to be the sole reason for your salvation?

If you’ve answered “yes,” both sides would probably agree that you’re saved. I certainly do.

Now, if that satisfies you, I would advise that you move along to other more pressing concerns in your mind rather than blindly plunging ahead into this endless circle of debate. If God ever lays it on your heart to revisit this issue, or if you’re up for a lot of smart people arguing against each other about where that faith came from, I suppose you could read on. I don’t want to say that the question isn’t a valid one, but I do want to say that there are much better things you could be thinking about, and much more useful ways you could be growing in your Christian walk.

In the question of Calvinism, ignorance is bliss, and I would argue that it’s not always necessarily a detrimental type of bliss.

I figure that I’ll certainly be behind some of my classmates entering school this fall, since I have no really formal Biblical training. (Unless you count a high school sunday school class and 18 years of listening to sermons)

So I decided that now was as good a time as any to start getting educated, and since I’ve had a few discussions about Calvinism/Arminianism in the past, I decided to start by reading John Piper’s position paper on the issue. If you aren’t familiar with the topic, [click here for a primer].

• Total depravity
• Unconditional Election
• Limited Atonement
• Irresistable grace
• Perseverance of the saints

These five points make up the most notorious bit of Calvinism, and are what people generally assume you to believe these days if you call yourself a Calvinist. This is not the whole entirety of what Calvin taught, but certainly the five points that have caused the biggest controversy, and the five that are in contrast to Arminianism.

Now, I am no expert on Arminianism. In fact, I’ve never read Remonstrances (although I hope to do it soon) and I don’t claim to be an Arminianist, because I’d hate to align myself with something that I don’t even know what it says. That being said, I’ve got some disagreements with Calvinism. I’ll be posting my way through the five points—please feel free to comment, and point out my logical fallacies. Please do not throw lots of scholarly references and high-faluting mumbo-jumbo at me, because I’m a simple guy, and I could care less what Saint whoever said 800 years ago unless it can be simply shown to be scriptural—and if it’s scriptural, just point at it in the Bible, and maybe comment that the idea started with said Saint holy-guy so he doesn’t come out of the grave and sue you for stealing his intellectual property.

I’ve got little respect for scholarship for scholarship’s sake alone: if the idea has merit, it shouldn’t have to stand solely on the reputation of some famous guy.