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SHOW NOTES:
JIMMY AKIN PODCAST 006 (7/30/11)
* Philip from Fullerton, CA asks about Calvin and Double Predestination
http://www.reformed.org/master/index.html?mainframe=/books/institutes/ (Calvin's Institutes)
http://www.the-highway.com/DoublePredestination_Sproul.html (Sproul's article)
* Steve from Dayville, CT asks about the reasonableness of faith
* Faith and Evidence
* Evidence for the Unseen
* The Role of Experiments
* Josh asks about feeling God's presence in nature
Psalm 19
[1] The heavens are telling the glory of God;and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.[2] Day to day pours forth speech,and night to night declares knowledge.[3] There is no speech, nor are there words;their voice is not heard;[4] yet their voice goes out through all the earth,and their words to the end of the world.In them he has set a tent for the sun,[5] which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,and like a strong man runs its course with joy.[6] Its rising is from the end of the heavens,and its circuit to the end of them;and there is nothing hid from its heat.
Romans 1
[19] For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. [20] Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; [21] for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. [22] Claiming to be wise, they became fools, [23] and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
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Jimmy — thanks for answering my question. On a side note, what is the code for that’s listed on the bottom of the blog post?
It says “secret information is coming”. It was at the bottom of the last episode’s show notes too.
Wow. This is the best podcast yet by far. And I didn’t even have a question on it this time. 😉
The second part was the best refutation of the central beliefs of atheists (especially the jerky kind you find on the web) I’ve ever seen (or heard).
Oh, and I’m diggin’ the new intro music too. 🙂
With all due respect, I can’t see any way around the conclusion that Jimmy is being rather to kind to the Calvinists here. I read through the recommended RC Sproul article, and it just comes up appallingly short of doing anything useful (other than clarifying the horrid Calvinist position). Despite all his considerable verbosity, Sproul still leaves us with a God who looks at some people and says “You, I will favor with the greatest blessing imaginable” and looks at others and says “Go home and die.” He insists that, because mercy is beyond justice, we cannot criticize God for not exercising mercy in every case.
What he (and all Calvinists with him) forgets is that the Christian God is not wandering about looking to make sure He fulfills what is needed, but then gets tired doing works of supererogation part way through. God does the best or equal-best (given two equally good options) action always. He is not good, pretty good, or very good – He is perfectly good, goodness itself. To imagine God simply “passing over” people whom He could save *at no further cost to Himself* is to imagine a God I do not know.
The real error at issue is the fact that Calvinism misses what God’s most basic characteristic is. For Calvinists, it is His glory and honor. God always acts to bring Himself the most glory (we have hard words for humans who act that way). For orthodox Christians, by contrast, God’s fundamental characteristic is love, and He always acts in the most loving way possible.
At the end of the day, it is frankly time we stopped giving Calvinism such deference and respect. Calvin’s so-called god would not be a god but a demon, and Calvinism is a vile heresy.
Jimmy I am really enjoying these podcasts, thank you so much for posting them.
I kind of agree with rjak, as humanly speaking a God who selectively damns or allows people to be damned is either not the all-loving God we know or the all-powerful God we know. Of course His ways are not our ways, but we can and shouldmake good educated guesses about Him based on divine revelation, right?
I guess I agree with Rjak and gather too. But I accept Jimmy’s challenge that to do so is to jettison much of St. Thomas’ theology at the same time. Which I guess I do as I’ve always found (to the moderate extent I understand the free-will/predestination debate) something closer to Molinism to be much more intuitively appealing and capable of accounting for both God’s sovereignty and mercy.
I’d love to hear Jimmy expound more on Molinism – I’ve heard him express his own tendency to be more Thomistic on more than one CA Live program and should like to know quite why. Perhaps I’ll eventually call his podcast line to put this one to him …
But I accept Jimmy’s challenge that to do so is to jettison much of St. Thomas’ theology at the same time.
St. Thomas is much misinterpreted on this issue. A standard supposedly Thomistic teaching of sufficient and efficacious graces, which avoids the Calvinist idea of God giving grace only to the elect, is not actually from St. Thomas. His teaching on the issue is found in two places: 1)Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae Partis Q. 109 – 114, although the entire Secundae Partis concerns this issue, directly or indirectly and 2)Summa Contra Gentiles, 3. 159.
The concept of sufficient and efficacious grace seems to have been introduced by Banez, a sixteenth century Dominican who was one of St. Teresa of Avila’s early supporters in two works, the Tractus and the Apologetica, the latter, specifically written to refute Molina in the so-called, De Auxiliis controversy between the Dominicans and Jesuits which flourished during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries as a way to summarize St. Thomas’s teachings.
I don’t want to get into a technical discussion of either the Thomistic or Molinist school of grace, just to point out that St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace, is the jumping off point for Calvin, Banez, and Molina, although Calvin had a misunderstanding of St. Agustine.
This is probably what Jimmy means.
For more reading, I recommend an under-appreciated classic by Fr. William Most: Grace, Predestination, and the Salvific Will of God. Unfortunately, Banez’s works are not on-line (would be a nice Master’s thesis for some apologist).
Fr. Most has some excellent articles, on-line (type in sufficient grace, Fr. Most into Google). The Institutes of Calvin are on-line. Jimmy’s book, The Salvation Controversy, is must reading. A technical discussion of Molinism can be found in Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. Many many more articles may be found, on-line going into the subject, in-depth.
The Chicken