Lines in the Doctrinal Sand: Logic vs. Scripture

This article is the second in a series on man's free will and God's foreknowledge.  Read part 1 here.
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“The five points of Calvinism stand or fall together!”  You may have heard that polarizing statement before (as have I) from both those who would reject all five points as well as from those who accept all five points.  But I'm going to have to cry foul for a very simple reason: I accept some points, but not others.  And there is an ever-increasing number of four-point Calvinists out there, as well as Lutherans who accept at least two of the points. Even classical Arminians accept one of the five.  So the facts show that many believers do not hold the five together.  This question has important implications for how we relate logic and Scripture to each other.  

When a person argues that the five points of Calvinism stand or fall together, what they most likely mean is that the five points of Calvinism are a whole, logical set.  One can at least see how the points do work together logically, but that doesn’t mean it’s all or none.  Why not?  To understand, we have to push a bit further.  One might continue the line of reasoning and say that the five points of Calvinism also logically imply the lack of necessity to evangelize, or the supralapsarian position (a minority position among Reformed believers that the logical order of God’s decrees first chose the non-elect for damnation and then ordained the fall to accomplish this, thereby implicating God in a sort of “cookies-made-to-burn” theology.)  These are positions more often associated with what might be called hyper-Calvinism.  They are also positions which an overwhelming majority of Reformed believers would reject.  We would do well to remember that, in engaging with believers of other persuasions, we must learn to interact with what they actually claim to believe, not with what we think their position implies.  Anything less is dishonest and only leads to division and accusation, rather than healthy discussion.

If you wanted to press this logical progression, you might argue like this: “Well, IF, as the Calvinist says, God’s grace is irresistible, then it is impossible that any of the elect should fail to receive Christ.  Therefore, it is unnecessary to evangelize.”  Now, we might say that this is a solid, logical progression.  But it is obviously not biblical, as Christ called us to preach the Gospel to the whole world (Mk. 16:15).  At the end of the day, our goal is to be ruled by Scripture, not human logic.  This is true for the Reformed believer as well as the non-Reformed.  Aside from the rare hyper-Calvinist (who traditional Calvinists usually have little patience for), you will not find a Reformed believer who thinks that evangelism is futile and unnecessary.  The Reformed believer also draws his line in the doctrinal sand at some point and says, “I can see how it might be considered logical, but it is not biblical and that settles it.”  The difference between the Reformed and non-Reformed believer is where we think that line ought to be drawn, not the basis on which it should be drawn—Scripture.  

For example, one can see how the Calvinist doctrine of limited atonement is a logical consequence of the other four points.  It is claimed, “If Christ’s death truly did pay for the sins of all those for whom He died, then He must have died only for the elect, since God would be unjust to punish those sins for which Christ already bore the penalty.”  Is that a logical argument?  Sure. The problem is, in my evaluation, it is not biblical.  Clear passages like 1 Jn. 2:2 say that, “And He [Christ] Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.”  Our job is not to find a logical reconciliation for everything taught in Scripture, but rather to hold everything that Scripture teaches in faith, whether we can exhaustively explain it or not.  Sure, we try to make the best sense of it we can, but ultimately we have to humble ourselves and admit with Paul, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” (Rom. 11:33)

We have generally learned to practice this kind of biblically faithful humility when it comes to the being of God Himself.  For example, we might concede that there is a certain humanly-logical consistency to the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view of God.  Their reasoning would go, “The Bible says clearly that there is one God.  God is a personal being, not an impersonal force.  The essence of a personal being is his personality.  And if there is one God only, then it stands to reason that God is uni-personal.  To state that God has multiple personalities is to state that there are multiple gods, which is heresy.”  Is their argument logical?  Sure, to a degree (we won’t get into the incorrect assumptions this argument makes here).  But is it biblical?  Absolutely not!  The Bible states that there is One God, eternally existent in three distinct persons.  Is that “logical”?  Well, I haven’t yet met a person who has fully wrapped their head around that one.  But is it biblical?  Absolutely.  At the end of the day, we need to draw our lines in the doctrinal sand not according to the dictates of supposed human logic, but in submission to the inspired and infallible text of the Bible.  We tend to have more of a humility about this when it comes to the ineffable being of God, realizing that we finite mortals shouldn’t actually be able to fully comprehend Him.  But we ought to also realize that the principle is the same when it comes to salvation.  After all, if “salvation is of the Lord” (Jon. 2:9) as Scripture says, why would we assume that we should be able to completely figure it out any more than we could figure out the being of God?

Does this mean that God is not logical?  No, it simply means that our logic, along with the rest of our being, was distorted and broken at the Fall.  Theologians speak of the noetic effects of the Fall—that our thoughts and reason are also impaired as a result of sin.  If we cannot square the truths of Scripture with our understanding of logic, surely the problem is with our own sin-broken mind, not the Word of God.  But that means that we will likely run into Scriptural truths that defy our deficient human logic.

Returning to the original question of why the logical consistency of the five points of Calvinism doesn’t mean that they “must stand of fall together”, the answer is this: logic is not the final authority; Scripture is.  I, for one, hold that man is entirely fallen and unable of himself to come to Christ “unless the Father draws him.” (Jn. 6:44)  I also hold that we ourselves are not the cause of God’s election, but rather His own love and good will towards us is the source of His election (more on this in the next article). (Eph. 1:4-5)  But I would also say that doctrines like limited atonement or irresistible grace (the L and I of Calvinism’s TULIP), while perhaps having a measure of logical consistency, are not consistent with the biblical text. (I Tim. 4:10, Lk. 7:30 respectively.) Can I exhaustively harmonize all this?  No.  Fortunately, that's not my job.  My task—and the task of every Christian—is to hold what Scripture teaches as best I am able.  My own soteriological middle-road position (and that of many others) is proof that the five points do not have to stand or fall together. Whatever stands must stand on Scripture, not mere logic.  

So, if you are guilty of trying to caricaturize Reformed believers (or Arminians for that matter), claiming that they must believe what we think are the logical implications of their position, stop.  It is neither honest nor gracious nor productive.  Plus, it actually just makes us look ignorant of the other person's position.  We must realize that Reformed and non-Reformed Christians alike are drawing a line in the doctrinal sand where they believe the Bible to draw that line.  Granted, we draw the lines in somewhat different places, but we all hopefully acknowledge that we must be ruled by the Scriptural text, not our own understanding of logic.  This gracious acknowledgement will leave room for discussion between Reformed and non-Reformed brothers and sisters on the common foundation of Scripture.  And hopefully it will help us to stop wrongfully ascribing extreme positions to those who do not hold them.

Second, we must beware of the trap of our own fallen logic.  The Scripture is our guide to truth, not our reasoning and implications from it.  Any one doctrinal position pushed ad absurdum to its logical end will lead to imbalance and even heresy (as in the example of God’s oneness noted above.)  We must be willing to be honest with ourselves and ask if some of our doctrines aren’t built more on logic than on Scripture.  The truth is that as soon as we think we have the mysteries of the divine boxed into our own broken logic, it’s probably a good sign that we’ve got something wrong.