Section 6
Go to Chapter 7 – The Indispensibility of Reason and Logic in Biblical Interpretation
But let’s pursue further the Calvinist’s claim that their interpretive conclusions are a mystery of the faith. We may ask, since we all would agree that given our doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture we cannot admit into that Scripture incoherence, inconsistency or contradiction, is it legitimate to justify one’s exegesis as an accurate interpretation of the text on the basis of claiming to have discovered a biblical mystery despite the fact that it results in what certainly can be deemed interpretive incoherence, inconsistency and contradiction?
Geisler goes on to speak of the “mysteries” of faith, where he makes a distinction between propositions that “go beyond reason” and those that “go against reason.” He writes,
“Logic and the Mysteries of Faith. Some object that the great Christian mysteries, such as the Trinity, the incarnation, and predestination, violate laws of human reason. There is a difference between propositions that go beyond reason, such as mysteries of faith, and those that go against reason. Those that go beyond human ability to reason do not go against reason. Human understanding unaided by special revelation cannot reach them. They can only be known by special revelation. Once these truths are known, their premises do not contradict other revealed truth….”[21]
This is a critical challenge for Calvinists whose doctrinal propositions, like their understanding of predestination, contradict other revealed truths. In that Geisler lists predestination as one of “the great Christian mysteries,” this seems to presuppose the Calvinist interpretation of predestination. But we know that definition contradicts other revealed truths, like the free will nature of faith; therefore, according to Geisler’s own criteria, we also know that the Calvinists’ interpretation of predestination is incorrect. Hence, according to Geisler’s own criteria, the Calvinist doctrine of predestination is not one of “the great Christian mysteries.” It is rather one of the “great misinterpretations of Scripture.” I submit, therefore, that Calvinists need to incorporate into their hermeneutic two important points.
The first is to make a distinction between what is beyond reason and what is against reason. We all agree that to exhaustively comprehend God is beyond the abilities of our finite reason, and this leaves us with things we cannot know about him. For example, even though we know God has foreknowledge of future events (something revealed), we do not understand how God’s foreknowing ‘works’ within God himself (something not revealed). So, the non-Calvinist maintains that some things are revealed in Scripture, yet the full understanding of these is beyond our limited reasoning capacity to fully comprehend. Furthermore, it is important to see that among the things revealed in Scripture, the non-Calvinist does not set them against each other. For example, we do not interpret God’s sovereignty as deterministic, which would result in a relationship with human freedom and responsibility that is against reason, not merely beyond reason. Both things are fully understood as revealed in Scripture, or understood enough to see that a deterministic definition of divine sovereignty is a misinterpretation of the text for the very reason that it is logically and morally against the clear witness and teaching of Scripture to human freedom and responsibility.
Now, we can use our reason to probe further into what has been revealed, but the point is that what is made known about God, or other doctrines as mentioned above, should not be against reason. What is made known about God may take us beyond reason, but there should be no incoherence, inconsistency, or contradiction among those things clearly revealed. The relationship among the things revealed, that is, our interpretations of what the scriptures mean, although human reason cannot fully plumb their depths to reach a fuller understanding, should not stand against reason, but evidence coherence, consistency, and non-contradiction among those things that are revealed.
In contrast, Calvinists also maintain that some things are revealed in Scripture, but according to their interpretation of those things, the relationships among them can be seen to be against reason. We see this in their interpretation of ‘divine sovereignty’ as theistic determinism. So the difference here is that the Calvinists’ interpretations of what is revealed can be seen to be incoherent, inconsistent, or contradictory with each other. It is then that the Calvinist claims ‘incomprehensibility’ or ‘high mystery.’ But these claims are without warrant. The interpretive incoherencies are obvious. The Calvinist, therefore, according to his interpretations of Scripture, allows for his interpretations of what is clearly revealed and thereby made known about God and other doctrines to stand in contradiction with each other. That is, his interpretations are against reason. And this leads to our second point, which we can see is most fundamentally a matter of how each interprets Scripture, or more accurately, what constitutes each side’s hermeneutic.
Secondly, therefore, God has revealed himself in nature and historical events and recorded this for us in a written text. The crux of the Calvinist/non-Calvinist controversy does not involve an insufficiency in our knowledge of God or incomprehensibility as to his nature, or the other doctrinal matters involved in this controversy. Rather, it concerns a difference in approach regarding the interpretation of a written text. As such, this is a hermeneutical issue, and as Koukl stressed above, the only thing capable of arbitrating between opposing interpretations of a text is the application of the canons of reason. The fundamental principles of logic are the means by which we discern valid interpretations from invalid ones. If this is not so, then the text is left untethered from any criteria by which to discern its true meaning and the validity of what someone proposes it to mean. It is, as Koukl says, “We cannot grasp the authoritative teaching of God’s Word unless we use our minds properly. Therefore, the mind, not the Bible, is the very first line of defense God has given us against error.” When Calvinists claim, “the Bible teaches both theistic determinism and human responsibility,” it only begs the question of what constitutes a proper hermeneutic by which we can surely know what the Bible actually teaches.
Reason cannot be summarily dismissed as inapplicable to the interpretive matters in this controversy by affirming “God’s ways are higher than our ways” or that these are “spiritual” issues. Such “explanations” insulate Calvinism by diverting our attention from reason’s critique of Calvinism. The question before us in this controversy is what constitutes the proper interpretation of biblical texts. What interpretive principles, if followed, lead to a valid interpretation of the text? And in the pursuit of the true meaning of a text, sound reasoning is obviously essential.
Geisler is correct in observing that there is a difference between doctrinal interpretations that go “beyond reason” as with the Trinity and the incarnation, and those that go “against reason.”[22] I submit that Calvinist soteriology falls into the latter category simply because we can identify its inconsistencies, incoherence, and contradictions. Its doctrines of total inability, unconditional election, limited atonement, and irresistible grace engender incoherence, inconsistency, and contradictions with other clear teachings of Scripture and the biblical worldview. As such, the Calvinists’ deterministic theology and soteriology go against reason.
C. S. Lewis also makes this point. Although addressing how we should understand God’s omnipotence, Lewis provides an example of how what we know to be reasonable must also apply to God and therefore must shape our theological conclusions. Lewis writes,
“His omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to his power. If you choose to say “God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,” you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words “God can.”
“It is not more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”[23]
In like fashion, neither do meaningless combinations of words gain justification simply by Calvinists claiming “who can know the mind of the Lord?” or that they are “a mystery,” “only apparent contradictions,” “beyond reason,” or “the Bible teaches both.” These Calvinist rationalizations are various ways of claiming that, since we are speaking about God and “spiritual things,” we can ignore the problematic logical and moral results of the Reformed Calvinists’ interpretations and doctrines. As I have demonstrated on this website, non-Calvinist scholars have pointed out the many ways the Calvinists’ doctrines set Scripture against Scripture in mutually exclusive alternatives while all the time insisting that it is what Scripture teaches. But as mutually exclusive, that is, contradictory, the Calvinists’ interpretations are wrong. They are incorrect. As Lewis says, “nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”
Philosopher Linda Trinkaus Zabzebski observes,
“…it is misplaced reverence to think that a religious belief takes precedence over common sense. When faced with a dilemma, I do not see why we should opt for one belief over another either because its content is religious as opposed to metaphysical, or because of its importance. We should opt for one belief over another to the extent to which it seems more likely to be true. It is no less a praise of God to retain what we have come to believe about the structure of time and principles of necessity, whose truth is due to God, than to retain what we have come to believe about God himself.”[24]
In this controversy, it is a “misplaced reverence” to think that a religious belief gleaned from a certain interpretation of the text may be in competition with common sense or sound metaphysical reasoning. Our interpretations, and the beliefs we glean from them, should not be placed in opposition to rational or metaphysical reflection precisely because the truth of these is also “due to God.” Reason and revelation come from the same source – God himself. Therefore, God’s revelation, rightly understood, accords with clear thinking and common sense.
Writing on the Calvinist’s attempts to dismiss the contradictions inherent in their theology, Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell state that,
“Calvinists who believe election is unconditional in this sense do not serve anyone well by obscuring this claim with confusion, ambiguity or inconsistency. Nor does it serve the cause of clear thinking and truth to confuse contradiction with mystery or to suggest that it is a mark of superior piety to be unworried about logical consistency. While the truth about God is beyond our full comprehension, it doesn’t contain contradiction. Calvinists can’t eliminate the contradictions in their theology by fleeing into mystery or appealing to notions like antinomy. To the contrary, the contradictions we have identified are a telltale sign that something is profoundly awry at the heart of Reformed theology.”[25]
They also observe,
“There are aspects of God that transcend our reason to be sure, but God doesn’t call us to believe anything opposed to reason. This distinction is one that some popular postmodern Christian writers often fail to grasp, and they thereby tend to make a virtue of incoherence.”[26]
For the Calvinist, rational coherence, human reason, fundamental laws of logic, moral givens, etc., simply don’t apply to God’s nature and God’s written revelation when it comes to doing exegesis and assessing the validity of their interpretive conclusions. This leaves most Christians perplexed. What they fail to see is that the problem lies in the Calvinists’ interpretive conclusions, which betray the problem in their hermeneutic. They have a hermeneutic of incoherence.
Hence, I contend that Calvinism doesn’t fit the category of “beyond reason.” Rather, I contend that the problems generated by Calvinism are readily discernible problems of logical contradiction, incoherence, and inconsistency. Therefore, their interpretations are “against reason.” As such, they are misinterpretations of the otherwise consistent, coherent, harmonious Word of God.
The Calvinist “doctrines of grace” are perceived as incoherent and contradictory with other portions of Scripture, not because they are beyond our comprehension as the Calvinist would like us to believe, but precisely because we understand them all too well. They are incoherent, not in the sense of true biblical mystery in which we are left with a limitation of knowledge due to incomplete revelation, but because two knowns are being proposed as the truth on a matter, and those two knowns or propositions, or interpretations, land us in a contradiction. The problems generated by the Calvinist definition of sovereignty and election as unconditional in conjunction with human freedom, responsibility, and the gospel message are not of the same “rational type” as divine “mystery.” This is because they are problems that go against what we already know, experience, and accept as valid reasoning. Each of these doctrinal issues being sufficiently comprehended, Calvinism ignores the fact that its definition of God’s sovereignty and human freedom are “mutually exclusive alternatives.” There is no true mystery involved here. “Mystery” is co-opted by the Calvinist on the a priori assumption that the Calvinist exegesis is correct and therefore their doctrines are true. But these justifications provided by Calvinists to excuse the incoherence in their theology hold no weight for the one who thinks coherence is of vital importance in interpretation.
We also need to discern between what is “incoherent” and what is “miraculous.” The two must not be conflated or confused. The latter may genuinely be found in Christian theology, such as in the miracles Jesus performed along with his incarnation and resurrection. The miraculous should not be used to excuse what can only be deemed nonsense. To testify to a miracle is not to speak nonsense. But interpretations of the text that lead us into identifiable nonsense are not valid interpretations of Scripture. To claim that all things are predetermined by God alone (the Calvinist divine decree and sovereignty) and also claim that all things are not predetermined by God alone (genuine human freedom) is nonsense, not “mystery.” To claim that each person’s eternal destiny is absolutely, unconditionally, and eternally predetermined by God alone and also claim that each person, including the non-elect, are held responsible for their believing or not believing the gospel message, that is, if refusing to believe they are culpable for their willful rejection of God’s sincere offer of salvation, is logical and moral nonsense, not “mystery.” There is nothing “apparently” contradictory about the Calvinists’ soteriology. It’s just contradictory in the plainest and fullest sense of the word. Again, C. S. Lewis is correct, “Nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”
In light of the above principles, I submit that the success or failure of the Calvinist to offer convincing solutions to the logical and moral problems their theological position generates speaks to the biblical invalidity of that theology. Many Christians who think through these issues find that, based on logic alone, something is seriously amiss within Calvinism. Why don’t Calvinists acknowledge this? They should, if they are honest.
John R. W. Stott in his small book Your Mind Matters, points out why Christians must use their reason in all they do.
First, by virtue of being created in God’s image, we are intellectual, rational, and thinking beings. We were created to reason and be in a thoughtful, reflective relationship with God, who is a rational, thinking being.
Second, God is a God who reveals himself to us. As such, we need to process with our minds the forms of revelation and what that revelation tells us about who He is. Stott remarks that “all God’s revelation is rational revelation, both his general revelation in nature and his special revelation in Scripture and in Christ.”[27]
Third, God has provided a redemption that is to be proclaimed. Stott writes,
“Indeed, the proclamation of the gospel – again addressed in words to minds – is the chief means which God has appointed to bring salvation to sinners. Paul puts it like this: For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.”[28]
Notice carefully the contrast which the apostle is making. It is not between a rational and an irrational presentation, as if to say that, since that human wisdom could not discover God, God has dispensed with a rational message altogether. No. What Paul is contrasting with human wisdom is divine revelation. But it is a rational revelation, “what we preach,” the kerygma of Christ crucified and risen.”[29]
What then of the Calvinist’s insistence that we are unable to understand the ways of God in unconditional election and predestination because of the fallen nature of our human minds, that is, what the Calvinist calls “total inability?” Stott responds,
“…the fact that man’s mind is fallen is no excuse for a retreat from thought into emotion, for the emotional side of man’s nature is also fallen. Indeed, sin has more dangerous effects on our faculty of feeling than our faculty of thinking, because our opinions are more easily checked and regulated by revealed truth than our experiences.
So then, in spite of the falleness of man’s mind, commands to think, to use his mind, are still addressed to him as a human being. God invites rebellious Israel: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.”[30] And Jesus accused the unbelieving multitudes, including the Pharisees and Sadducees, of being able to interpret the sky and forecast the weather but quite unable to interpret “the signs of the time” and forecast the judgment of God. “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” he asked them. In other words, why don’t you use your brains? Why don’t you apply to the spiritual and moral realm the common sense which you use in the physical?”[31] / [32]
The Calvinist will reply, “We are not retreating into emotion, but leaning upon the revealed truth in the biblical text.” Granted. But Stott affirms the proper working of reason in both the spiritual and moral realms, realms in which the Calvinist says reason cannot function properly. The Calvinist doctrine of “total inability” means just that with respect to responding to God in spiritual matters and especially regarding faith. The sinner cannot believe the gospel unless they are among the elect, which God irresistibly graces with the ability to believe. But all this just begs the question. The question before us is what precisely is the proper interpretation of the biblical text? How do we know what constitutes a proper interpretation? Surely it is required that, at a minimum, any proposed interpretation exhibit rational and moral coherence. Are our minds, which do detect incoherence and contradiction, reliable when it comes to interpreting the biblical text, or can our interpretations exhibit rational and moral incoherence by asserting that since our minds cannot comprehend “the things of God” and we are reading and interpreting divine revelation, it may therefore, at some points, be incoherent and contradictory due to our fallen human reason? The Calvinist may not be retreating into emotion, but due to their incoherence, they must retreat into mystery.
Regarding the skepticism some Christians have about the role of reason in their religion, philosopher C. A. Campbell writes,
“So far as I can judge, what a great many devout Christians really want is to say to Reason ‘Thus far and no further! By all means, subject the superstitions of the benighted heathen to reason’s criticism, but not the one true religion. Hands off the word of God!’ The trouble is that there can be no case for suddenly drawing the line at the Christian religion unless it be that we already know that religion to be true; and there can be no way of knowing that religion to be true, it seems to me, unless we subject it to critical examination by reason. ‘Hands off the word of God!’ is a fine sounding slogan; but it means just nothing at all unless we know, first, that there is a ‘Word of God’, and secondly, if there is, what it has to say to us.”[33]
Although Calvinism may propose a self-contained theological system of doctrine that boasts a certain ‘logical’ consistency (TULIP), when it is subjected to substantial critique from rational, moral, and biblical truths outside its own theological scheme, it cannot coherently explain itself. It leaves us in an intellectual, moral, and epistemological void. Within the confines of its own propositions and theological reasonings, all is well. But subjected to the interference of legitimate, probative questioning – what Christian philosophers Jerry Walls and David Baggett call “philosophy” or clear thinking[34] – it proves to be rationally, morally, epistemologically, and biblically incoherent. For the Calvinist to cry “Hands off our theology as the Word of God because it is a mystery,” is both question-begging and a cavalier dismissal of the application of reason to determine the validity of its exegetical interpretations.
My contention here is that even while we acknowledge the results of the fall into sin upon the totality of our being, the use of our rational faculties in philosophical reflection and our moral intuitions remain reliable and essential elements in the interpretive task. Therefore, the accurate understanding of revealed truth requires confidence in reason to detect what is a valid interpretation of a text on the basis that the interpretation is rationally coherent and non-contradictory.
But this is precisely the hermeneutical divide that perpetuates this controversy. Non-Calvinists require interpretive coherence. Calvinists do not. So the question is whether rational and moral coherence are essential elements in a sound hermeneutic and necessary for discerning the validity of a proposed interpretation. Divine warnings, personal responsibility and culpability, the gospel as “good news” and ultimate divine judgment, make no sense, given the Calvinist doctrines of divine sovereignty, unconditional election and predestination understood as deterministic. It is this reality of “sense” or “nonsense” that confronts us, given the Calvinist interpretations. Hopefully, more and more Christians will see the importance of this matter of whether rational and moral coherence are essential to sound biblical interpretation and theology. Hopefully, they will see that what is ultimately at stake here is the very message of the “good news” gospel itself.
Read the next section – Tolerance, Love and Respect is Not Incoherence or Theological Relativism
Footnotes
[21] Ibid. 429.
[22] Interestingly, Geisler listed predestination as one of the “mysteries of faith.” Why? I submit that Geisler himself is a “moderate Calvinist.” In his book, Chosen But Free, he attempts to demonstrate that his Calvinist deterministic definition of God’s sovereignty and the reality of human free will don’t “go against reason.” I will explain the flaws in Geisler’s argument in a separate post, but for now, one wonders why Geisler is unable to apply his own insights about logic to his definitions of sovereignty and election, which place him squarely in the camp of what he calls the “strong Calvinist” position, although he attempts to avoid this designation. Geisler’s Calvinist convictions on sovereignty and election certainly “contradict other revealed truth.” Furthermore, they “go against reason.”
Geisler unsuccessfully attempts to relieve his position of logical contradiction through God’s foreknowledge and the doctrine of divine simplicity. Indeed, once Geisler sets out his position on God’s sovereignty in Chapter One of his book, we are forced to conclude that he is a “strong Calvinist” with respect to defining God’s sovereignty. Therefore, his own “reasoned” critique of Calvinism applies to his own inevitably deterministic position. See Norman L. Geisler, Chosen But Free (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1999), chapters 1-3. See also my post for my critique of Chosen But Free.
[23] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (Macmillan: New York, 1962), 28. In this book, Lewis deals with the topics of divine omnipotence and divine goodness as they relate to the pain and wickedness we observe and experience in the world. “If God were good, he would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness or power, or both. This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form.” Lewis goes on to examine under what conditions God made the world, which entailed the consequent possibility of pain and wickedness. Divine omnipotence and divine goodness are further defined; exhibited in a world of fixed laws, divine self-limitation, and the free will of creatures. This book has bearing upon the issues of sovereignty and human freedom and is a must-read.
[24] Linda Trinkaus Zabzebski, The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 180.
[25] Jerry L Walls and Joseph R. Dongell, Why I Am Not A Calvinist, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 185.
[26] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 80.
[27] John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), 18.
[28] I Corinthians 1:21
[29] John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), 21-22.
[30] Isaiah 1:18
[31] Matthew 16:1-4; Luke 12:54-57.
[32] John R. W. Stott, Your Mind Matters, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), 16-17.
[33] C. A. Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1957), 17.
[34] David Baggett and Jerry L. Walls, Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 68.
The Truth of the Gospel 