The Christian Vanguard

I was having a discussion with a Calvinist friend of mine, and he presented this argument from analogy to me, and I thought it was interesting. He was wearing a hat, and he tossed the hat upon the table. He asks me, "Do you believe I just tossed the hat on the table?" I nod. "And did you have a choice in believing that I just tossed the hat on the table?" I say probably not. So likewise, when God presents us with His grace, we have no choice but to accept it.  It's a cute and memorable argument. I don't think it really works though. So, I have this belief about his hat being tossed onto the table. Why? Because I visually sensed it and I abstracted from it with my intellect, and when my senses and intellect function properly, I have knowledge, and we are knowledge/truth oriented beings. So, it seems like a strange question to ask, where in the process of knowledge did I have a choice?  It isn't clear that grace works in the same way. Grace is not...

Here is an argument I heard from Jerry Walls. I'll be putting it in my own words and I won't be directly quoting him.  Take any person that you love, like a child, spouse or parent. Would you die for that person? As Scripture says, there is no greater love than laying down your life for a friend. Suppose you say, Yes, you would die for your child. Now, would you die for the salvation of your child? Presumably, yes to that as well. Under Calvinism, God does not love everybody, and God loves only the elect, or at least, died for only the elect. Suppose now that while you love and would die for your child, your child happens not to be a member of the elect. It seems then that you love this person more than God loves this person. This is counter intuitive. 

I was talking to one of my Calvinist friend after some St. Patrick's Day drinks on some points of theology, and not being a Calvinist myself, we found ourselves disagreeing on some important issues. I claimed that God loved everyone, while my Calvinist friend denied that God loves everyone. He said, "So you're telling me that God loves both the saint in heaven praising him and glorifying him and the damned in hell who hate him?"  Why is that controversial? Of course he does. As I have said a thousand times on this blog, love is the willing of the good for the other. For those in heaven, it is uncontroversial that they experience some good, and so it is no surprise that God loves them. But what about those in hell? Can God love those in hell? Well, to translate, or to plug in a definition, does God will the good for those in hell? I don't see why not, and I certainly don't see why hell isn't precisely that good. Hell is good? Yes, hell is a good becaus...