Incoherence is characteristic of the Calvinist’s hermeneutic. It marks Calvinist interpretation and therefore its soteriology. To believe God created the non-elect to have persons upon whom he could pour out his wrath is the type of doctrinal incoherence that indicates a faulty hermeneutic. This is quite troubling to those Christians that value knowing what God is really like and especially wanting to know God’s salvific disposition towards them personally. It is obviously not as troubling to the Calvinist. At least not to the point of attempting to reconcile their dichotomous knowledge claims. We saw above that Luther did not value a logical and moral correspondence between what he says he knows of God character and his soteriology. But should he? I believe so because the rules of logic and our moral intuitions apply to the interpretation of Scripture. They therefore serve to evaluate the validity of one’s interpretations. The alternative – to embrace a hermeneutic of incoherence – takes us down an interpretive road by which the biblical Christian faith becomes dark and distorted. What Luther is claiming about the nature and purpose of his doctrines of deterministic sovereignty and unconditional election is logically, morally, and exegetically bewildering. We can understand that Luther and Reformed Calvinists claim that their doctrines of deterministic sovereignty and unconditional election are biblical teaching. They claim that is what the Bible teaches. But the question becomes whether reason demands we examine the validity of that claim. When it is found that one’s interpretations generate logical and moral incoherence, inconsistency, and contradiction with other clearly taught doctrines and biblical statements, we can conclude that those doctrines cannot be what the Scripture teaches. We can conclude that because a responsbile hermeneutic surely must include coherence, consistency, and non-contradiction. Here we saw that the very character of God is at stake, but we must affirm the inviolability of logic and morals in interpretation for the sake of the gospel. Because Luther and Calvin have a different soteriology they also have a different “gospel” than the one Paul taught. Therefore, his sobering warnings and statements in Galatians 1 apply.
Whereas Luther defines faith as against reason, the Apostle Paul does not. Calvinist’s themselves will affirm this. For instance, Calvinist professor Kelly M. Kapic writes,
“When proclaiming his faith before Festus, and in response to the charge that he was “out of his mind,” Paul responds that he is not crazy but rather speaks with “true and rational words” (Acts 26:25). Paul’s example shows us how he understood the interplay of faith and reason. Faith expands the parameters of reason without needlessly sacrificing it.” 1
Furthermore, the practical ministry of Reformed Calvinists is inconsistent with their claim that their “doctrines of grace” are the “gospel of Jesus Christ.” If what Luther claims is true – that the promulgation of deterministic sovereignty and election as unconditional brings a man “very near to grace for his salvation” – then why are these doctrines not being proclaimed from the roof tops as the gospel message? If they generate “faith when these things are preached and published” why is it that they are not the core of evangelistic proclamation when preaching the gospel? Why aren’t they preached as the message of “good news?” The doctrines of God’s eternal decree, deterministic sovereignty, unconditional election, limited atonement, and an effectual call should be proclaimed as the “evangel” in every Reformed Calvinist church, let alone other evangelical churches, so that faith is produced and souls will be saved. Why is this not the case among the Reformed Calvinist and moderate Calvinist churches? Why aren’t these doctrines the content of the evangelistic proclamation in these churches? It is because these doctrines cannot be preached or taught in accord with the biblical definition of the gospel as “good news.” 2 There is no “good news” in these doctrines. And it strikes me as disingenuous for Calvinists to equate their “doctrines of grace” with “the good news about Jesus Christ” and “the gospel” (i.e., Ryken) and not be proclaiming their full Reformed Calvinist doctrines evangelistically as the message of “good news” to the saving of souls (i.e., Ryken 3, Keller 4). Indeed, they cannot do so, for the words they must speak for the “good news” to be good, that is, the message they would proclaim in giving the gospel to all those hearing it, would be contrary to their “doctrines of grace.”
I am suggesting that on the basis of this fundamental logical and moral incoherence inherent in Calvinism that their soteriology is not an accurate reflection of biblical teaching. Can God be what we know him to be via his own revelation and yet the Calvinist soteriological doctrines project him as being something inconsistent with that revelatory knowledge and also claim to be sourced from that same divine revelation to us? This certainly compels us to ask whether such an interpretation, that is, one that generates such incoherencies, can be correct. The only arbiters we have for answering this question and for discerning the plausibility, credibility, and therefore the biblical validity of those doctrines, or any other proposed interpretations of the text, are our logical and moral faculties which should not be circumvented or summarily dismissed.
The Calvinist will protest that I have misunderstood and mischaracterized the motivations of their doctrines. I can only say that we are required to carefully examine the biblical faithfulness of a theological position, and we do that by showing whether a position is coherent or incoherent within itself and interpretively within the immediate and broader context of Scripture. If it is not coherent in these ways, I submit the position is untenable and therefore not what Scripture teaches. I have continually sought to examine and provide such evidence on this website. I leave any critiques raised by Calvinist’s for my readers to weigh and decide as to their credibility. I leave it to my readers to decide whether the Calvinist’s rebuttals, if any, defeat any arguments I have made against Calvinism.
Allow me to provide more examples of this “hermeneutic of incoherence” to bring to light the severity and importance of this problem.
1 Kelly M. Kapic, A Little Book for New Theologians: Why and How to Study Theology, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 58.
2 See James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973).
3 Philip G. Ryken, The Message of Salvation, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001)
4 Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, (New York: Riverhead, 2008).
The Truth of the Gospel 