I take it that those who are familiar with Reformed Calvinist soteriology have been confronted with the various types of questions and issues it raises that seem troubling and incoherent. For those baffled by Calvinism, here are two crucial questions that may be posed to our Calvinist friends when they interpret certain sections of Romans incoherently with other sections of Romans and the larger scope of Scripture because of their underlying deterministic theology.
1) “Would you agree that rational and moral coherence, consistency, harmony, and non-contradiction are essential to a sound hermeneutic and reliable indicators for discerning the validity of an interpretation of Scripture?”
2) “Do you believe the presence of logical, moral, epistemological (i.e., how I can know God loves me, desires my salvation, whether I am among the “elect,” if I can be saved, etc.), and theological incoherence in one’s interpretations and theological constructs should drive the interpreter back to the text to seek an understanding of the text that is logically, morally, epistemologically and theologically coherent?”
If they answer “no” to the first question and don’t think rational coherence is important in one’s hermeneutic, or try to skirt the issue of interpretive coherence, then there can be no more meaningful or fruitful discussion. Since these foundational principles of interpretation have been abandoned (i.e., coherence, consistency, harmony, and non-contradiction), verses can be quoted back and forth with no rational or moral controls while the Calvinist is at liberty to present God’s “sovereignty” and man’s responsibility as merely an “apparent” contradiction under the question-begging assertion that “the Bible teaches both.” But this is not a substantive defense of their position and simply begs the question of the validity of their interpretations. The very thing we are trying to discern is, whether the Reformed Calvinist interpretations are really what the Bible teaches. If they dismiss logical and moral coherence as essential to determining the validity of an interpretation, then they are only making an a priori assertion that the Bible teaches their theology. They are begging the question in favor of the truth of their position. Without the control of rational, moral, epistemological, and theological coherence, consistency, harmony, and non-contradiction within one’s interpretative methodology there can be no sound, principled interpretation or sure interpretive conclusions in these matters. If the justification of one’s interpretations can ignore logical, moral, and theological inconsistency, incoherence, and contradiction, then their interpretations and theological position remain untethered from the biblical text. They may be the tenets of one’s theological tradition derived from proof-texting. They may be taught by one’s favorite respected Bible teachers or preachers. They may also be the unspoken doctrines that lay below the surface of one’s church ministry or Christian environment. But to put rational coherence “out of court” with respect to one’s hermeneutic allows one the license for creative theologizing. Given this hermeneutic of incoherence, anyone can maintain a theology divorced from a responsible reading of the biblical text.
The sections to follow survey the first four chapters of Paul’s letter to the Romans in consideration of two essential elements in Calvinist theology and soteriology. The first element is their exhaustive, theistic determinism. That is, the Calvinist claims that God has ordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” God has willed and causes all that happens down to the minutest detail. Even everyone’s eternal destiny, either in heaven or hell, is unalterably predetermined by God. This understanding of God’s “sovereignty” generates various incoherencies and contradictions with the clear teaching of Scripture, not the least of which, as we have seen, is faith. It also is incoherent with the Bible’s witness to genuine human freedom and the fact and presence of evil. In effect, the Calvinists definiton of “sovereignty” as a universal divine causal determinism conflicts with the biblical testimony to moral responsibility which in order to remain a coherent concept requires human free will. Neither can the Calvinist’s exhaustive determinism coherently explain evil. Given their universal divine causal determinism, God must be the source and cause of evil and indeed evil himself. But given the clear teaching of Scripture on the nature of God, this, of course, cannot be. I have dealt with these issues in previous chapters. The question here is whether or not Paul’s statements throughout Romans are coherent with this Calvinist theistic determinism.
The second element in Calvinist theology to be considered is a logical extension of their theistic determinism. It is their understanding that faith must be a gift of God granted only to those unconditionally predestined to salvation. I examined this issue thoroughly above, so I will only give a quick summary here. On Calvinism, since man is totally depraved, which is often referred to as “total inability,” election to salvation is unconditional, that is, the sinner is “totally passive” with respect to their eternal destiny. We are either predestined to life or predestined to death. There is nothing anyone can do to alter their eternal destiny. This total passivity includes the phenomenon of faith. Sinners don’t exercise faith as a free will response to God’s gracious salvation accomplished for them in Christ. Rather, faith is caused by God only in the individual’s he has chosen to save. And since total inability is a characteristic of all sinners, God must regenerate the elect sinner first and then they will believe. Hence only a limited number of people – the elect – will believe. All others cannot and will not believe the gospel. God has no intention that they do so. This must be so in Calvinist thinking because it is said that if sinners could believe in the sense of a free will response that is undetermined by God, they would be contributing to their salvation. Salvation would then be by their “works” or “meritorious,” and they would have something to “boast” about in their believing and God would not get “all the glory in salvation.”
Faith is a central theme throughout Scripture which directly bears upon the nature of our relationship to God and salvation. It is a central theme in Paul’s theology. Let’s look at the first four chapters in Romans to see what Paul has to say about faith and whether his understanding and teaching is consistent with the Calvinist view of the nature of faith. Are the Calvinist’s theistic determinism and understanding of the nature of faith as a gift God gives only those he predestined to salvation Paul’s teachings? Let’s see.
The Truth of the Gospel 