One of the features of the White and Ross debate was an attack afterwards on Thomas Ross by White followers, because he would not “answer” questions of White. I disagree. Ross answered all of White’s questions. He just didn’t like Ross’s answers. When I watched the White and Van Kleeck debate, White wouldn’t answer Van Kleeck’s questions, really not answer them.
A recent episode of Soteriology 101 with Leighton Flowers popped up on my phone. I’m not a subscriber. The title was “Popular Calvinist Makes a Stunning Admission,” and I could see the Calvinist was James White on the cover. So, as click bait, that worked for me. I had to see what the “stunning admission” from White was.
The Determination by God of All Moral Evil?
The main theme of Flowers’s podcast was the determination by God of all moral evil. Flowers doesn’t believe it, but he quoted Calvin as believing it. He explained the effect of this belief. If this is God, people reject Him because they don’t think He’s good. The Calvinist answers that God is right, these things are just beyond our full comprehension. Here’s the quote by Calvin that says this exact thing:
But how it was ordained by the foreknowledge and decree of God what man’s future was without God being the author and approver of transgression, is clearly a secret so much excelling the insight of the human mind, that I am not ashamed to confess ignorance.
Flowers says that Calvin is saying, “I don’t know how God is good with my view of determinism, just that I know that He is.” Something like that. He’s accepting God decrees moral evil, yet He’s still good, because God is good.
People like myself say, “God does not decree or determine moral evil.” If someone says that God does that, we say, “No, He doesn’t.” We might quote James 1:13:
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.
Guillaume Bignon
White has endorsed the book by French Calvinist, Guillaume Bignon, Excusing Sinners and Blaming God: A Calvinist Assessment of Determinism, Moral Responsibility, and Divine Involvement in Evil. In a recent interview, Bignon says:
Determinism is not the thesis that some things are determined. It’s the view that all things are determined.
Bignon is asked, Did God determine then for other theologians, like Muller, to disagree with you? He answers, “Yes,” because God determined everything. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (Book 1, Chapter 16, Paragraph 3), Calvin said:
Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he knowingly and willingly decreed.
Did God Decree a Rape?
Calvin taught that God destined the will of every man to do whatever man did and does. In his debate with George Bryson, Bryson asks White this:
When a child is raped, is God responsible? Did he decree that rape?
Based on the understanding White and his fans hold for answering a question, White would not answer Bryson’s question. He did answer it, but he would not say, yes or no, until pinned down by the moderator. When White asks a “yes or no” question, he and his followers expect a yes or a no. They don’t hold that standard for White, as seen in the Van Kleeck debate, but also in his answer to Bryson. White answered:
If he didn’t, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose.
Hank Hanegraaff is the moderator and he asks White, “So what is your answer then?” In other words, White wouldn’t answer the question. No problem for White fans. This is James White. Whatever he says will count as an answer.
White then says to Hanegraaff, “I’m trying to go to scripture,” to which Hanegraaff replies, “What is the answer to the question that he just asked?” And so finally White does answer the question. To the question of, “When a child is raped, is God responsible? Did he decree that rape?” James White answers:
Yes, because, if not, then it is meaningless and purposeless. And though God knew it was going to happen, he created without a purpose. That means God brought the evil into existence, knowing it was going to exist, but for no purpose, no redemption, nothing positive, nothing good.
God Does Not Decree or Determine Moral Evil or the Rape of a Child
White, Hanegraaff, and Bryson say much more in this debate (which was in 2003), but White point blank says that God determined evil, even the determination of a rape of a child. This was the stunning admission by the Calvinist, James White.
Is this true about God? No. It perverts a scriptural view of the sovereignty of God. God is sovereign, but sovereignty means He is also sovereign over His sovereignty. The word sovereignty isn’t in the Bible, but the doctrine is there. However, we should allow God to define what His sovereignty is. God allows or causes everything that happens. I don’t agree with Calvin’s, Bignon’s, or White’s view of God’s sovereignty. It doesn’t match up with what God says about Himself in scripture.
Someone asked Flowers, if God determines all moral evil, can God still be a good God? I don’t want to answer that question. I think, it isn’t God though. This is just a hypothetical that could quote me as saying that God isn’t a good God. God is a good God though. If that was God, which it isn’t, then He would not be good. I don’t see a God, who would determine or decree moral evil, as being good. God allows evil. He doesn’t determine or decree it.
If you say, like White, that God determines or decrees everything, then you also, like White does, must say that God determines or decrees evil, including the rape of a child. Scripture does not teach this kind of determinism. God determines things, it’s true, but not moral evil.
So what about the most terrible wicked evil performed by man in crucifying the perfect sinless Jesus Christ? Was that not decreed by God according to his determinate counsel, predetermined plan? Acts 2:23 Could not God have prevented the rape of the girl? God can prevent any evil from occurring, but often chooses not to, and that also must be in line with a good and perfect plan that we don’t always understand.
Hello Andy,
I said in my article above that God either causes or allows everything to happen, because He is sovereign. Another aspect that comes into God’s ability or power is His omniscience. He knows everything past, present, and future. Nothing occurs to Him. He knows it all, sees it all, like it is an eternal present. So He can use what men freely do and then predetermine what will happen by some combination of knowledge, permission, and cause. This is the providence of God. There are many examples of this.
When we go through the gospels, Jesus, I think it is eleven times, says something about it is not yet time. He doesn’t determine people not to kill him too early. He does things that will both allow and cause Him not to be killed until the timing is there. This fits into the predetermination aspect of Acts 2:23. I can believe all that very easily from scripture without having God predetermine evil.
God allows evil actions to take place. He is not the agent of these actions. One way this occurs is through judicial hardening. God knows their hearts, that they will harden. He does a right or good thing and it hardens an unbeliever. He knows the outcome of this hardening. He uses it for good.
It’s interesting to me that the verse you referenced says determinate counsel and foreknowledge. Both were at work. What I find is that Calvinists will say that determinate counsel and foreknowledge are one and the same. They say that foreknowledge is more than knowing ahead of time, but some kind of action that takes place, saying that “know” means “love,” like Isaac knew Rebekah. That’s a force.
My example of using the natural means, allowing men to take their natural course, knowing what they will do, mixed with some determination as it relates to his dying on the cross, allows for God’s sovereignty and His goodness and love.
Kent, it seems to me that you believe exactly as James White here, other than being willing to use terms like “predetermine evil” or “decree evil.” What you say here about “allowing men to take their natural course”, preventing them from doing it until “the timing is there” is exactly how I explain it as well. It’s a good explanation. I just think James White would agree as well and say that is what I mean by when I say God decrees evil. It is my will for this evil to occur, at this time, to accomplish my purposes for man’s good and my overall glory.
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the comment. I know we’re fairly close on things, like 95 plus percent the same, but those 5 percent or less, we butt heads. It’s okay. I rejoice in the 95-98 plus.
It’s different, what James White and I believe. It might seem like a fine line and maybe it is. These doctrines sit on a razor’s edge and you can easily fall off one side or the other. I appreciate your not thinking we differ, but I would suppose that James White thinks we’re different on determinism, especially if I quote Leighton Flowers and agree with him on this.
I mentioned the definition of foreknowledge. This causes a difference. A big word I read among White and others like him, especially John Piper, is “decisive,” God the decisive factor in the moral evil. I’m saying He is not the decisive factor. They say though, for instance, Judas Iscariot did not believe and God was the decisive factor in that. It was not his resistance, but God deciding He would not receive it. I know you get what I’m talking about.
Andy, do you believe that God is the decisive factor in moral evil?
Brother Brandenburg I agree, I believe a sovereign God can sovereignly give man (whom He made in His image and to share in some of His attributes) a moral will. The omniscience of God allows the Lord to know not only the true outcome, but all possible outcomes. The Lord’s omnipotence gives Him unlimited calculation power, making it perfectly simple for Him to incorporate all human moral determinations to ultimately work into His end goals. God allows our moral determinations for a season but will ultimately set all sin and evil right at His judgment seat. To the humble and repentant believers, life eternal; and to the self-willed and unrepentant, eternal damnation in Hell. God is perfectly holy and pure, no sin can be attributed to Him in any way. Doing so I believe places someone in danger of Luke 12:10. If all that is good is by the power of the Holy Ghost to the glory of God, and if Calvinists by their philosophy insist the same to all that is evil and sin, I fear for them for they may run the risk of blastpheming the Holy Ghost.
“They say though, for instance, Judas Iscariot did not believe and God was the decisive factor in that. It was not his resistance, but God deciding He would not receive it. I know you get what I’m talking about.” I’m not sure I have heard Piper (or White) put it that way. Like you, they are pretty careful about how they say things, especially on this topic.
So Judas was born in sin with a morally corrupt human nature. He nevertheless was granted an extraordinary opportunity of viewing the revelation of Jesus Christ intimately and first hand. He is fully responsible for his rejection and betrayal of Jesus and rightly stands guilty before God for his sin in this matter. Acts says the people who crucified Jesus had wicked hands. Same with Judas. Judas could have believed but didn’t. That is on him.
At the same time, God could have intervened, like he did with Paul. If he did, I believe Judas would have been saved. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. But God doesn’t harden those who are not already against him, and unbelieving. Judas did not believe and that was his choice. He bears the responsibility.
“It was not his resistance, but God deciding He would not receive it.” — the problem is that Judas did resist. God never decides that a morally innocent person should not receive grace.
If God is sovereign, and he is, then he is in control of all that happens, good and evil. He is decisive in what he allows to occur. He does not commit the evil, originate the evil, or tempt with evil, but he does use evil to accomplish his purposes.
Andy,
You and I are saying this very much the same. But this isn’t what White said, and not what Piper says on the determinism of moral evil. The one point we’re not the same is saying that if God intervened, Judas would have been saved, as if God did not intervene. Judas defected. God can receive full credit for everything good without predetermination. It does not lessen His glory one bit. Thanks for commenting.
The difference between Calvinists and non-Calvinists in this:
Calvinists believe that God decreed (determined) everything that happened, including human thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Biblical non-calvinists believe that everything that happened was allowed by God to happen.
This might seem similar, but actually very different.
To put it sharply, the difference lay in whether man has power of otherwise choice.
Let’s take the example of Adam.
The crux of the matter is whether Adam could have chosen not to sin.
In the determinism of Calvinism, Adam could not have chosen not to sin, because his every actions were predetermined by God (through secondary causes according to them).
But this view will put the responsibility of evil squarely on God’s shoulders.
Non-calvinists can say that God allowed Adam to sin, and maintain that Adam could very well have chosen not to sin. There was no decree for Adam to sin.
Thanks Benjamin and Tenrin. Interesting to read, both.
There is a logical incoherence, a kind of craziness, to this level of determinism. In his last DL, which I admit, I’m zooming through for mentions of Thomas Ross debate, he talks about a band member of a CCM one-time troup, Caedmon’s Call, a former member, Derek Webb, who left the faith. This character is Calvinist, and in an interview he says that he wants to follow the Lord, but like a dead Lazarus, he is waiting for God to call him from the tomb, because it’s absolutely determined by God. He knows he can’t do anything, so he awaits this regenerating miracle and it hasn’t occurred. White mocks this. Says he shouldn’t be non-chalant, should be more concerned.
1) How can he be concerned? He’s dead. 2) How can he react with some kind of reverence or fear? He’s a rebel that can’t come to God. 3) Shouldn’t White be rejoicing that God is glorified in this man’s damnation? God is always good. God must be doing something for His glory, so we should rejoice in it, since it is God determining this, shouldn’t we?
We need a new manual from Calvinists on how to react with the proper affections for the sovereignty and predetermination of God. White is reacting like I would to this man’s “testimony,” as if the man isn’t determined or predetermined. He criticizes this man for not being terrified. Dead men can’t show terror, can they? White says that God does everything to the glory of His grace. Isn’t that what he’s doing with Webb? So why coach Webb on the proper reaction. Just praise God for His pure predetermination. Rejoice in it.
White talks about sinners getting a tremendous amount of light. Why does it matter how much light they receive if God already determined they wouldn’t receive it and didn’t give them the miracle that would even allow them to respond to light. Dead men can’t respond to light. Blind men can’t see light. White doesn’t have the right with his theology to chide Webb for his deadness.
White says the Webb testimony proves his point. He’s having a very hard time proving that. It’s too contradictory. He needs to humble himself? Yes or no? The light matters, the light doesn’t matter? It’s impossible to square this. Scripture is not incoherent. God is not.
The man about whom White speaks can’t help God along, right? This is monergism, right? White acts like this man can do something about it, some synergistic cooperation with what God does. It sends this incoherent message, that belies that White even believes what he says.