13 Reasons why Election is not Foreseen Faith

Is it that important to believe in unconditional election – God’s sovereign pre-creation choice to save specific people, irrespective of anything they would do or be? Can’t we just agree with other Christians who say that election simply means that God foresaw which people would believe and therefore chose them?

In his chapter on Unconditional Election, in Whomever He Wills, Andrew Davis lists 13 damaging consequences that follow from understanding election as merely foreseen faith (pages 58-74).

The Damaging Consequences

1. It robs God of His glory as sovereign King of the universe: If God is the responder and man the initiator, God has surrendered control of the universe to the creature. God is a student of the human heart rather than the potter shaping the clay.
2. Gives man ground for boasting: If our faith is the fundamental cause of our election before the foundation of the world, we can stand on our faith and boast.   Continue at David Murray

Does Calvinism Make God a “Moral Monster”?

Among the caricatures of Calvinism is the widespread claim that it renders God the author of evil, suffering, sin, and even the fall of humanity itself. In his recent book, Against Calvinism, Roger Olson carefully distinguishes the official teaching of Calvinism from where he thinks it logically leads. However, there are over three dozen statements in his book about Calvinism leading by good and necessary logic to a deity who is a “moral monster,” indistinguishable from the devil.

I respond to this charge directly in my companion volume, For Calvinism. A thoughtful review of my book from an Arminian perspective came to my attention today and this question again rose to the surface. (By the way, Calvinists talk so much about predestination more because of the charges leveled repeatedly against it than because of its alleged centrality.)

If God knew that Adam and Eve were going to transgress his law, why didn’t he change the circumstances so that they would have made a different choice?

Why would God create people he knew would be condemned for their original and actual sin?

The questions multiply.

Taking on this question in a blog post is a little dangerous. For a statement of the Reformed position and its scriptural basis, I’d refer readers to For Calvinism. 

However, there is one point that is worth pondering briefly: Non-Calvinist theologies are just as vulnerable on this question. Classic Arminian theology shares with Calvinism—indeed with all historic branches of Christianity—that God’s foreknowledge comprehends all future events. There is nothing that happens, nothing that you and I do, that lies outside of God’s eternal foreknowledge.    Keep Reading >>>