# Does Calvinism make God "impersonal"?



## pgwolv (Dec 2, 2021)

I was talking with a Provisionist who said that Calvinism equals fatalism. I referred him to pieces written by BB Warfield and HM Curry, discussing the difference between the two concepts. He keeps on claiming that Calvinism makes God impersonal. Specifically, he said, " God is personal when he saves someone, but can you really say that God "interacts on a personal level" with the person he has condemned because he determined they would sin?"

My question is, does God interact on a personal level with the reprobate? It can be seen all over Scripture that He interacts with His children, as their Father, Prophet, Priest, King, etc, but what about the rest? Are they vessels meant for destruction, with no form of interaction from God, only the evidence of nature?

As a secondary note, related to God's sovereign decree, which we also discussed, am I correct in saying that the same action can be a sin or not, depending on the intent? The Jews caused Jesus to be crucified in a sinful manner, because of their hatred for Him, whereas God caused Jesus to be crucified because of His love for His children. This person seems to disagree, saying that if God causes sin, albeit in a secondary manner, that means the sin is His intention. I can feel that he is wrong, but it is difficult for me to put it into words. Obviously, the two wills of God, as often discussed by Rev MacMahon and others, is not an easy topic to wrap one's head around, if it is even possible; I just want to know that I am on the right track in a theological sense.


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## Taylor (Dec 2, 2021)

This conversation with your Provisionist acquaintance will never go very far until you demand that all the terms be defined. What does "interact" mean? What does it mean to interact "personally"? And after that has been discussed, it then must be demonstrated why that is even important. Until that happens, the conversation is pointless, and may even be fundamentally heretical, depending on how this individual is using these terms for himself.

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## chuckd (Dec 2, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> My question is, does God interact on a personal level with the reprobate? It can be seen all over Scripture that He interacts with His children, as their Father, Prophet, Priest, King, etc, but what about the rest? Are they vessels meant for destruction, with no form of interaction from God, only the evidence of nature?


Acts 17:26-28 Even the heathen understand God as a father.


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## C. M. Sheffield (Dec 2, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> I was talking with a Provisionist


What is a "Provisionist"?


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## TheInquirer (Dec 2, 2021)

The person who is alienated from God because of sin is considered an enemy until they find reconciliation in Christ. Choosing to remain alienated from God and reject redemption is their choice. God is not the author of sin. I am not sure what kind of personal interaction one would want between God and an enemy. He still provides for their needs - the sinner breathes God's air, eats God's food, and lives in God's world. They are the beneficiaries of so much of God's common grace yet still hate and don't want Him (Romans 3:10-18). They have chosen to worship the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:18). They have no reason to expect any kind of personal relationship with him.

On the flip side, God has known the elect intimately from the foundation of the world. In love He sent His only Son to die and redeem them from sin based entirely on His grace and goodness and upon nothing they have done. They are then adopted into His family and recipients of His special love, protection, and shepherding. They can call on Him whenever they want and can name Him as Father. They will enjoy His blessedness forever.

Frankly, it sounds like your friend neither understands Calvinism nor the Bible but is operating on caricatures.

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## py3ak (Dec 2, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> Specifically, he said, " God is personal when he saves someone, but can you really say that God "interacts on a personal level" with the person he has condemned because he determined they would sin?"


I recognize that there may be several misunderstandings or misrepresentations on your interlocutor's part with this form of expression; but even assuming he properly qualifies all of it, the example of the Pharaoh in Exodus is resoundingly clear. God interacted with that Pharoah through a mediator, issuing demands, answering requests, and demonstrating judgment. The God who says "Let *my *people go" is fully personal.

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## Eyedoc84 (Dec 2, 2021)

C. M. Sheffield said:


> What is a "Provisionist"?


Leighton Flowers, if you are familiar with him. Provisionists deny that the Holy Spirit needs to work personally in a person to bring him to faith. The word read or preached is all they need since it is inspired. 

Provisionism isn’t even allowed in evangelical Arminian circles, as they argue it entails a rejection of original sin and the need for particular grace.


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## Irenaeus (Dec 2, 2021)

py3ak said:


> I recognize that there may be several misunderstandings or misrepresentations on your interlocutor's part with this form of expression; but even assuming he properly qualifies all of it, the example of the Pharaoh in Exodus is resoundingly clear. God interacted with that Pharoah through a mediator, issuing demands, answering requests, and demonstrating judgment. The God who says "Let *my *people go" is fully personal.


Balaam, too; and (perhaps a bit more debatable) King Saul. Unbelievers know God, and God knows them just as intimately as he knows any believer. But this is not a solace to the lost, nor is this "intimate knowing" attended by the love and kinship that stands alongside the knowledge he has of his elect.

Going back to the OP, it's a question of prior commitments. Does one have a prior commitment to believing that God is just in all that he does? Then that person will try to reconcile God's predestination and his non-authorship of sin in some way - even if it involves attempting to make fine theological distinctions. The unbeliever has no need for such effort; absent a commitment to God's goodness, and in this case quite possibly _wanting_ to see God as evil and unjust, he simply does away with the scholastic niceties and allows God to be the author of sin. Simplest explanation, plain logic, yadda yadda yadda.

For the Reformed, Calvin's discussion in the Institutes is excellent; he gets into the multiple possible agencies behind each event and parses the intent behind each agent. Many deeds are simultaneously the work of man, Satan, and God, and the same deed can be judged differently according to the respective motives of each agent.


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## Irenaeus (Dec 2, 2021)

P.S. On the topic of God being a personal God, the issue of prior commitments again raises its head. For the unbeliever, nothing is worse than the reality of a personal God. It behooves them to exert mighty efforts toward avoiding/ignoring/disproving such a notion.


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## JH (Dec 2, 2021)

Eyedoc84 said:


> Leighton Flowers, if you are familiar with him. Provisionists deny that the Holy Spirit needs to work personally in a person to bring him to faith. The word read or preached is all they need since it is inspired.
> 
> Provisionism isn’t even allowed in evangelical Arminian circles, as they argue it entails a rejection of original sin and the need for particular grace.


So it's the same old error repackaged with a new name, nice.


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

chuckd said:


> Acts 17:26-28 Even the heathen understand God as a father.


I wonder how they could, without being His children


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

C. M. Sheffield said:


> What is a "Provisionist"?


Leighton Flowers really does take a lot of time to show how Calvinism "falls apart." See https://soteriology101.com/ if you dare...


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

TheInquirer said:


> Frankly, it sounds like your friend neither understands Calvinism nor the Bible but is operating on caricatures.


It seems that the Provisionists do operate on caricatures, because they claim that God decreeing sin without being its author is just semantics, so they try and show what Calvinism "really means." Because they say that we make God the author of sin, in effect, we do damage to His holiness.


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

py3ak said:


> I recognize that there may be several misunderstandings or misrepresentations on your interlocutor's part with this form of expression; but even assuming he properly qualifies all of it, the example of the Pharaoh in Exodus is resoundingly clear. God interacted with that Pharoah through a mediator, issuing demands, answering requests, and demonstrating judgment. The God who says "Let *my *people go" is fully personal.


Thank you, this is helpful.


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

Eyedoc84 said:


> Leighton Flowers, if you are familiar with him. Provisionists deny that the Holy Spirit needs to work personally in a person to bring him to faith. The word read or preached is all they need since it is inspired.
> 
> Provisionism isn’t even allowed in evangelical Arminian circles, as they argue it entails a rejection of original sin and the need for particular grace.


For those who want to see a summary of their beliefs, see the image, where they use the initialism "PROVIDE" as opposed to "TULIP."


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

Irenaeus said:


> Balaam, too; and (perhaps a bit more debatable) King Saul. Unbelievers know God, and God knows them just as intimately as he knows any believer. But this is not a solace to the lost, nor is this "intimate knowing" attended by the love and kinship that stands alongside the knowledge he has of his elect.
> 
> Going back to the OP, it's a question of prior commitments. Does one have a prior commitment to believing that God is just in all that he does? Then that person will try to reconcile God's predestination and his non-authorship of sin in some way - even if it involves attempting to make fine theological distinctions. The unbeliever has no need for such effort; absent a commitment to God's goodness, and in this case quite possibly _wanting_ to see God as evil and unjust, he simply does away with the scholastic niceties and allows God to be the author of sin. Simplest explanation, plain logic, yadda yadda yadda.
> 
> For the Reformed, Calvin's discussion in the Institutes is excellent; he gets into the multiple possible agencies behind each event and parses the intent behind each agent. Many deeds are simultaneously the work of man, Satan, and God, and the same deed can be judged differently according to the respective motives of each agent.


Thank you. I think I have reached a point where it seems futile to try and explain this to someone who has decided that, if they cannot understand Calvinism, it must be wrong.


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## Jerusalem Blade (Dec 3, 2021)

PG, I don't know if you would consider this as "personally", though God speaks *directly* to every man who hears the Gospel through His ambassadors:

Paul: "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at [overlooked]; but now *commandeth all men every where to repent*: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:29,30,31). [emphasis added]

When the reprobate hear this command, they say, "I will not have this man to rule over me!", and turn away to their own perdition. They want nothing to do with Him, no personal dealings, save their hostility and disdain.

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## Irenaeus (Dec 3, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> Thank you. I think I have reached a point where it seems futile to try and explain this to someone who has decided that, if they cannot understand Calvinism, it must be wrong.


I don't know if your friend is truly a believer or not; I have some friends who are likewise staunchly opposed to Calvinism, and I take some comfort in the fact that it's a caricature of Calvinism that they reject, and not the real deal.

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## Poimen (Dec 3, 2021)

The reprobate are vessels that he, personally, has created whom he has _endured_ with much _longsuffering_ (Romans 9:21-22). And the fact that we take this matter personally shows us that God is personal because he is speaking in such a way to offend the person who will not have God rule over him. Why, he even quotes their objection and interacts with it, vs. 19. So it is very personal, and indeed we ought to take it personally (i.e. take it to heart).

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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

Jerusalem Blade said:


> PG, I don't know if you would consider this as "personally", though God speaks *directly* to every man who hears the Gospel through His ambassadors:
> 
> Paul: "Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at [overlooked]; but now *commandeth all men every where to repent*: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead" (Acts 17:29,30,31). [emphasis added]
> 
> When the reprobate hear this command, they say, "I will not have this man to rule over me!", and turn away to their own perdition. They want nothing to do with Him, no personal dealings, save their hostility and disdain.


Yes, that is the type of "personal" I have in mind. As Taylor said above, this is one of those words that need definition when the topic is being discussed. I will make sure to do so in future conversations with those who seem to believe differently.


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

Poimen said:


> The reprobate are vessels that he, personally, has created whom he has _endured_ with much _longsuffering_ (Romans 9:21-22). And the fact that we take this matter personally shows us that God is personal because he is speaking in such a way to offend the person who will not have God rule over him. Why, he even quotes their objection and interacts with it, vs. 19. So it is very personal, and indeed we ought to take it personally (i.e. take it to heart).


Thank you, this is also a valuable perspective


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## Taylor (Dec 3, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> Yes, that is the type of "personal" I have in mind. As Taylor said above, this is one of those words that need definition when the topic is being discussed. I will make sure to do so in future conversations with those who seem to believe differently.


This is a good idea. Again, definition is crucial:

"It may be laid down as a rule, with tolerable confidence, that the absence of accurate definitions is the very life of religious controversy. If men would only define with precision the theological terms which they use, many disputes would die. Scores of excited disputants would discover that they do not really differ, and that their disputes have arisen from their own neglect of the great duty of explaining the meaning of words."​​—John Charles Ryle, _Knots Untied: Being Plain Statements on Disputed Points in Religion, from the Standpoint of an Evangelical Churchman_, 10th ed. (London: William Hunt and Company, 1885), 1.​

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## Eyedoc84 (Dec 3, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> For those who want to see a summary of their beliefs, see the image, where they use the initialism "PROVIDE" as opposed to "TULIP."


Notice the R and I. These basically entail a rejection of depravity and the necessity of prevening grace, which isn’t why even the evangelical Arminians won’t allow provisionism.


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## chuckd (Dec 3, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> I wonder how they could, without being His children


Why do you say that? Paul himself says they are God's offspring (v29).


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## pgwolv (Dec 3, 2021)

chuckd said:


> Why do you say that? Paul himself says they are God's offspring (v29).


I don't doubt God's Word! That section specifically says that their poets called themselves God's offspring. My question is in what way did they and their poets experience God as their progenitor?


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## retroGRAD3 (Dec 4, 2021)

Neo pelegianism


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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Dec 4, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> This person seems to disagree, saying that if God causes sin, albeit in a secondary manner, that means the sin is His intention.


The reality is that no one knows how God relates to sin, while accomplishing his decree. Even if somebody is not a Calvinist, they still have to deal with the same issues. Even Berkhof recognized that God's relation to sin is a mysterious problem that we cannot comprehend.

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## Ryan&Amber2013 (Dec 4, 2021)

God still demonstrates his kindness even to those who are not in Christ. This can be seen in everyday life.

But as far as having a spiritual relationship with God, whether somebody is a calvinist or arminian, they would have to recognize that relationship is broken and hostile. Until somebody embraces God's means of peace, they are an enemy of God. For this reason the Bible regularly teaches us that God does not hear the prayers of the wicked.

"your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that _he does not hear"_

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## Herald (Dec 4, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> Leighton Flowers really does take a lot of time to show how Calvinism "falls apart." See https://soteriology101.com/ if you dare...


I have had my encounters with Mr. Flowers on another venue. Besides his Provisionism, he is also a proponent of corporate election. Both doctrines make the individual the sole arbiter of their conversion. There really is nothing new under the sun.

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## Irenaeus (Dec 4, 2021)

Herald said:


> I have had my encounters with Mr. Flowers in another venue. Besides his Provisionism, he is also a proponent of corporate election. Both doctrines make the individual the sole arbiter of their conversion. There really is nothing new under the sun.


What is corporate election?


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## Eyedoc84 (Dec 4, 2021)

Irenaeus said:


> What is corporate election?


1. God elected Christ
2. The church is Christ’s body, and also elect.
3. One becomes elect by joining oneself to the church by faith.

Flowers being a traditional southern baptist would “lock salvation in” at this point, but more classic Arminians would say one could also become unelect by rejecting faith and leaving the church.

There were strong seeds of corporate election sown by Arminius himself. One of the best modern treatments are found in Robert Shank’s two works _Elect in the Son_ and _Life in the Son_ (By “best” I mean one that Arminians rely on).


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## Irenaeus (Dec 4, 2021)

Eyedoc84 said:


> 1. God elected Christ
> 2. The church is Christ’s body, and also elect.
> 3. One becomes elect by joining oneself to the church by faith.


Sooo, salvation by works, with the work in this case being joining a church?


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## Taylor (Dec 4, 2021)

Irenaeus said:


> What is corporate election?


It's this idea that God elects not individuals, but groups. So, when God says, "Jacob I loved; Esau I hated," he is talking about not the _individuals_ Jacob and Esau, but the groups of people represented by each, namely, Israel and the rest of the world. What matters, then, is what group a sinner _decides_ to be a part of. Again, the whole purpose here is to give people the idea that they are the masters of their fate.


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## The Original Secession (Dec 4, 2021)

Taylor said:


> It's this idea that God elects not individuals, but groups. So, when God says, "Jacob I loved; Esau I hated," he is talking about not the _individuals_ Jacob and Esau, but the groups of people represented by each, namely, Israel and the rest of the world. What matters, then, is what group a sinner _decides_ to be a part of. Again, the whole purpose here is to give people the idea that they are the masters of their fate.


The only place I have ever heard of corporate election popping up is with FV... so I am intrigued by this. FV does make God incredibly impersonal though.


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## Eyedoc84 (Dec 4, 2021)

Irenaeus said:


> Sooo, salvation by works, with the work in this case being joining a church?


No it’s by faith, which brings you into THE church. But God doesn’t choose which particular individuals are in the church, He just chooses that those that ARE in the church, whoever they are that believe, are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. 

It’s like those that enter the ship (by faith) are guaranteed to reach the destination, so long as they don’t jump off in unbelief. You are elect by virtue of being on the chosen vessel. If you don’t make it, it’s not through any defect in the vessel, and it’s the only vessel that goes to that destination.

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## Irenaeus (Dec 5, 2021)

Eyedoc84 said:


> No it’s by faith, which brings you into THE church. But God doesn’t choose which particular individuals are in the church, He just chooses that those that ARE in the church, whoever they are that believe, are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.
> 
> It’s like those that enter the ship (by faith) are guaranteed to reach the destination, so long as they don’t jump off in unbelief. You are elect by virtue of being on the chosen vessel. If you don’t make it, it’s not through any defect in the vessel, and it’s the only vessel that goes to that destination.


Ok, so God has predestined the salvation of the church as a body, but it's up to you whether or not you choose to join the church - according to this viewpoint. Am I understanding it correctly now?


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## Eyedoc84 (Dec 5, 2021)

Irenaeus said:


> Ok, so God has predestined the salvation of the church as a body, but it's up to you whether or not you choose to join the church - according to this viewpoint. Am I understanding it correctly now?


Yep.


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## pgwolv (Dec 6, 2021)

Ryan&Amber2013 said:


> The reality is that no one knows how God relates to sin, while accomplishing his decree. Even if somebody is not a Calvinist, they still have to deal with the same issues. Even Berkhof recognized that God's relation to sin is a mysterious problem that we cannot comprehend.


This is my line of thought, too. The Provisionist's argument also comes down to what he accuses me of in separating God from sin in my theology: semantics. To me, his problem is greater, making God's actions contingent on human free will.


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## Irenaeus (Dec 6, 2021)

pgwolv said:


> This is my line of thought, too. The Provisionist's argument also comes down to what he accuses me of in separating God from sin in my theology: semantics. To me, his problem is greater, making God's actions contingent on human free will.


That's the ultimate problem with any Arminian/non-Calvinist views: carried to a logical end they make us God. I respect the problem they're addressing but it's the wrong answer to it.

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