This work may be quoted within the thread, but may not be reproduced outside the thread without the express permission of the author.
_______________________________________
THE 39 STEPS THE ANTI-CALVINIST CAN'T CLIMB
1. This question concerns itself primarily with volition.
Bill’s free will results in a choice for God, and so Bill receives the eternal benefit of residency in heaven.
Fred’s free will results in a choice against God, and so Fred receives the eternal disbenefit of eternity in hell.
The question:
Given that, from God’s viewpoint, Bill made the better choice, and given that God’s viewpoint is the correct viewpoint, what is the reason for Bill’s superior decision?
NOTES
The question is not asking you to consider each of the two decisions in isolation, but why it is that Bill made the better choice than Fred: the question is a comparative one.
Therefore you should avoid telling us that Bill had, for example, a more contrite heart than Fred, for we will then simply ask you why this was the case. So then, you need to give us not secondary causes, but you need to tell us what was the fundamental characteristic present in Bill, but absent in Fred, that provided for Bill to make the better decision.
2. This question concerns itself primarily with faith’s relationship with knowledge.
Atheists often sincerely declare that there is no way to know which of all the gods considered by mankind to date, one should believe in, nor which of all the supposed holy books one should follow.
Moreover, they also see no reason why the true god, “if it/he/she exists”, must necessarily be one of the millions of gods considered so far: (the true god may not have come to light yet).
The question:
How can a non-believer know with absolute certainty which of the millions of listed gods and infinite number of unlisted gods to believe in? What are the ramifications toward your doctrine?
3. This question also concerns itself with faith’s relationship with knowledge, and examines the issue via the principle of induction.
The question:
Given that a believer cannot use faith to increase his knowledge in God above his current knowledge, how can one use faith to know God even a little bit when one doesn’t know Him at all? (Put mathematically, given that one cannot use faith to increase his knowledge in God from ‘level 2’ to ‘level 3’, how can he use faith to increase his knowledge in God from ‘level 0’ to ‘level 1’?)
4. This question concerns itself with grace’s relationship with regeneration, and examines the issue via the principle of induction.
The bible tells us that the grace of God was upon Jesus (Luke 2:40). We know that Jesus was without sin, so we know that the grace upon Jesus was not “forgiveness for sin”, but rather, that which propelled Him forward spiritually.
The question:
Given that we are not greater than Jesus and therefore that we are taught here that the grace of God must also be upon us if we are to increase spiritually, how is it you tell us that one can go from being a non-believer to a believer (the biggest spiritual increase of all) without having to do so by the propulsion of grace?
5. This question concerns itself primarily with whether regeneration should necessarily be resistible.
Let’s for a moment assume that God actually has done with at least one man what Calvinists say He has done: supernaturally converted him involuntarily.
The question:
Given that you assert that, after having come to God, one voluntarily continues on for God, then given that the man in our example would also voluntarily (and happily) continue on for God and in this regard be indistinguishable from any other Christian in the Lord’s work, what would be wrong with his initial involuntary conversion, apart from your resentment toward it?
6. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of faith’s relationship with trust.
In order to trust someone, that someone must first of all show himself trustworthy in things that pertain to him who would trust.
The question:
How can one anticipate the trustworthiness of Christ so that one might trust Christ, when one has never met Christ?
7. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it from the aspect of faith’s relationship with volition.
The question:
Was your belief in Christ preceded by a choice to believe in Christ?
If you answer “yes”, then given that any choice one makes is based on what one believes, explain how the belief you held which made you choose to believe in Christ, was not the same belief as your (resulting) belief in Christ.
If you answer “no”, then explain why you say you had a hand in your believing.
8. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of volition’s relationship with desire.
The question:
Given that not all men have a desire to know God, did you create within your own self the desire to know God?
If you answer “yes”, explain how the desire that led you to create the desire, was not the same desire as the desire you ended up creating.
If you answer “no”, tell us who created it, and what the ramifications of this are with regard to your doctrine.
9. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the depravity of man.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”
Our quote here from Hebrews tells us that faith is inapplicable in the spirit realm, for faith requires that one not see God directly, but instead, that he have evidence of things “not seen”. It follows that in order for an angel to have faith, he would have to have never seen God.
However if Satan had never seen God, he could still never have faith, for we are also taught in our quote from Hebrews that such evidence is inextricably tied to hope: the “things” mentioned as not being seen, are the very same things hoped for.
The question:
Given that one who does not like God (genuinely dislikes who He is as a person) also does not hope for His appearing, and given that hope is prerequisite to faith, how can such a one come to God by faith?
10. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of volition’s relationship with knowledge.
We are told in scripture that hell is not so much a geographical place, as the experience of the non-believer standing in the presence of a Holy God without the advocacy of Christ (cf Rev 14:10, Heb 12:29, Dan 10:17-19). Heaven is of course the opposite: standing in the presence of a Holy God having already been joined to Him as one spirit (1 Cor 6:17) before having gone to be with Him, via the advocacy of Christ.
The question:
How would one who does not know God and who therefore does not know that meeting God will be hell, know that the way to avoid being in the hell of God’s presence for eternity, would be to (counter-intuitively) choose to be in God’s presence for eternity?
11. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s dichotomy of [the gift of salvation] vs [the receiving of the gift of salvation], and examines it primarily from the aspect of what the gift comprises.
You believe that the ‘free gift’ of salvation from God, does not incorporate the accepting of itself: the accepting of the gift and the gift itself, you believe, are separate.
The question:
Given that a gift is only considered to be a gift if it is understood to have positive value, how can salvation be indeed a gift, without its incorporating the perception that it has positive value (thereby resulting in the natural receiving of it by the one who so perceives it)?
12. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s dichotomy of [the gift of salvation] vs [the receiving of the gift of salvation], builds on the previous question, and examines the issue primarily from the aspect of volition’s relationship with necessity.
The question:
Is the word “voluntary” applicable with regard to the receipt of that which one perceives as necessary to receive?
If you answer “yes”, explain why one would not volunteer to receive that which he perceives as necessary to receive.
If you answer “no”, explain why you tell us that the gift of salvation is voluntarily received.
13. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of faith’s relationship with the sovereignty of God.
You agree with the scripture that tells us that God begat us of his own will, and understand this to be speaking of regeneration. However you believe it means that God begat us after we came to Him by faith.
The question:
Given that the character of God necessitates that it is not possible for Him to reject someone who comes to Him by faith, how can it be that He begat us of His own will, when He had no choice in the matter once we came to Him by faith anyway?
14. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of experience.
You believe that at the exact precise moment that one chooses for God, he is the old man, and that his choicethen transforms him into the new man.
The question:
Given that initial believing cannot be separated from believing thereafter (both ‘believings’ believe the same thing), what does the old man who chooses for God experience as he is subsequently translated into the new man (who continues to choose for God), that tells him that (stage 2 of) the transition from old man to new man is now complete?
Or put alternately…..
Given that the new man only knows he has the Holy Spirit by virtue of his faith toward God, how can one be absolutely sure that he (now) has the Holy Spirit and is not still the old man who has chosen for God but who is still waiting to become the new man?
15. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it from the aspect of change of state, with regard to the indivisibility of time.
You believe that at the exact precise moment that one chooses for God, he is the old man, and that his choice then transforms him into the new man.
The question:
Is the reason for your doctrine’s small time delay in the transition from [the old man who chooses for God] to [the new man], an arbitrary time rule set in place by God, or a limitation caused by the existence of time itself?
If you answer “an arbitrary time rule set in place by God”, explain why such a rule would please God.
If you answer “a limitation caused by the existence of time itself”, explain why the delay is not infinitesimal and therefore, whilst not zero, nevertheless unable to occur by virtue of its necessarily undefined length.
NOTES
The indivisibility of time is represented in mathematics by the statement: “a point on a number line has no breadth or height or depth”.
16. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the fruits of the spirit.
You believe that at the exact precise moment that one chooses for God, he is the old man, and that his choice then transforms him into the new man.
The question:
At the exact precise moment that the old man chooses for God (just before he becomes the new man), is he “in the flesh”, or “in the spirit”?
If you say “in the flesh”, then given that faith pleases God, and given that those in the flesh cannot please God, explain why you have created a hybrid who pleases God (via faith) while still “in the flesh”.
If you say “in the spirit”, then given that your new man is also “in the spirit”, and given that two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, explain how your old man is not in fact your new man.
17. This question concerns itself primarily with the identity of the believer.
We are told that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us. Conversely, we are told that when we sin, it is not we who sin, but sin in us [that sins].
The question:
What can you deduce from these two complementary declarations about the personal identity of the ‘part’ of us that doesn’t sin?
18. This question concerns itself primarily with the structure/constitution of the believer.
The question:
Given that, according to you, whether or not we remain saved doesn’t depend upon the belief of Christ who dwells in us (doesn’t depend upon Christ’s own belief), but upon our own belief, then given that according to you we started out believing in Him before He dwelt in us, what is the point of His dwelling in us?
19. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of righteousness.
You believe that at the exact precise moment that one chooses for God, he is the old man, and that his choice then transforms him into the new man.
The question:
Is a choice for righteousness, a righteous choice?
If you say “yes, a choice for righteousness is a righteous choice”, then given that your doctrine entails the old man’s making a choice for righteousness, and given that the new man is characterised as he who makes righteous choices, explain how your old man is not in fact your new man.
If you say “no”, explain why a righteous choice excludes a choice for righteousness.
20. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of conversion’s relationship with wisdom.
The scripture tells us that Christ is the wisdom of God. We understand from this that when we make a choice for Christ, we are making a choice for God’s wisdom.
The question:
Is a choice for God’s wisdom, a wise choice?
If you answer “yes”, then given that God’s wisdom is the only wisdom that is actually wisdom, and given that your labelling such a chooser as “wise” tells us you consider such a one to have God’s wisdom, explain why such a one would need to receive God’s wisdom when he is apparently already in receipt of it.
If you answer “no”, explain why choosing for God’s wisdom is not a wise choice.
21. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of power.
When we speak of God’s power, we do not speak of “kilowatts”: God’s power is not quantitative, but qualitative. And thus we are told not that “the Son of God” is the power of God, but that “Jesus Christ” is the power of God, which although referring to the same person, speaks to the revealing of God’s character/quality as seen in the cross.
We understand from this that God’s power is evidenced in overcoming, specifically, in making Christ-minded choices in the face of temptation.
The question:
Is a choice for Christ-minded choices (a choice for God’s power), a Christ-minded choice?
If you answer “yes, a choice for Christ-minded choices is a Christ-minded choice”, explain how one gets to make a choice for Christ-minded choices without first of all having the mind of Christ.
If you answer “no”, explain why a choice for Christ-minded choices is not a Christ-minded choice.
22. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of God’s protection.
You declare that God guards what we entrust to Him (God guards our souls once we entrust ourselves to Him).
The question:
What is the value of God’s guarding us once we entrust ourselves to Him, when the thing He guards us from, is our not entrusting ourselves to Him?
23. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of God’s delegations.
You declare that we guard (by the Spirit) what God entrusts to us. Given that the Spirit is Himself God, you therefore declare that we guard (by God) what God entrusts to us. The following question will clear things up.
The question:
What do we guard that God doesn’t guard?
24. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the works of the law.
The question:
Given that the defining characteristic of one who seeks to be justified by the works of the law, is self-initiated activity intended to please God, and given that we are told that “the law is not of faith”, how is it you claim that one’s faith in God is initiated by his own self?
25. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the works of the law, although unlike the previous question, does not confine itself to conversion only.
We are informed in the NT that righteousness does not come by the law. This means that our attempts at conformance to the law do not count with God. We therefore understand that, because the law includes the greatest law, “thou shalt love the Lord thy God…”, our attempts at loving God do not count with God.
The Question:
Explain this conundrum using your doctrine.
26. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the segregation of the jurisdictions of the law and faith.
We are told that “the law is not of faith”, and that when we were the old man (ie before we came to Christ), we were under the jurisdiction of the law.
The question:
How is it you say that the old man, who was under the jurisdiction of the law, came to Christ by that which is not of the law?
27. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s logical problem of recursion, and examines it primarily from the aspect of atonement as it relates to faith.
The question:
What is the purpose of Christ’s atonement for our sin of unbelief, given that we are only forgiven for our sin of unbelief once we believe, at which point we are acceptable to God anyway?
28. This question concerns itself primarily with the source of the believer’s works of faith, and examines the issue via the integrity of God.
If we hear someone say: “this novel is the work of Mark Twain”, we understand that Mark Twain is responsible for the entire content of the book.
If a manager at work declares to two subordinates, Tom and Harry, that getting the monthly report ready by tomorrow is Tom’s work, we would never expect Harry to get to work on the report.
If we hear someone say: “Winston Churchill should be given the credit for England’s victories in WW2”, we would immediately object that, although Winston certainly played an important part, by no means can he take any more credit than the most lowly-ranked of soldiers who served and died on the battle field, the nurses who served in the army hospitals, or the code-breakers who served at Bletchley Park. And we are sure Winston would agree.
The question:
How is it that your God acts contrary to the universal code of integrity, in taking full credit for your work for Him (thus taking what is not actually due to Him), just because the work was His idea?
If you answer “He doesn’t take all the credit, for He rewards us for our works”, explain then why the Spirit of God leads Christians to permanently refuse to take any credit whatsoever for what they have done for God.
If you answer “because…..He is the very reason we are even able to begin to work for Him, so we are not justified in taking any credit for our work”, understand that such an answer is beside the point, and begin your answer again.
29. This question concerns itself with the sovereignty of God, and examines it from the aspect of [the absolute vs the subjective].
We are told in scripture that God is love.
The question:
Is love defined as [who God is], or is God defined as [what love is]?
If you say “love is defined as [who God is]”, then given that God’s ways are “past finding out”, explain why you limit God to your understanding of love.
If you say “God is defined as [what love is]”, then given that in order for something to be defined by something else, that something else must be independent of the thing it defines, explain why you have created another absolute (another god called “love”) alongside God.
30. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s post-conversion election.
You believe that one is elected to salvation once one is converted.
The question:
Why is it necessary for God to elect to salvation those who have come to trust Christ, when those who trust Christ are in fellowship with God and therefore necessarily precluded from hellfire anyway?
31. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s dichotomy of [receiving Christ] vs [being born again].
You declare that, by receiving Christ, we gain the right to become born again.
The question:
Given that one cannot improve on receiving Christ, why would God implement an additional step (the changing of one’s state from non-born-again to born-again) after receiving Christ?
32. This question concerns itself with your doctrine’s dichotomy of [reconciliation] vs [received reconciliation].
You believe that God has reconciled with “man”, but that individual men then need to appropriate this reconciliation in order for it to take effect in their individual souls. You thus declare a 2-step process:
1. God reconciles (ie has reconciled) with man corporately (via the cross).
2. Individual men appropriate God’s corporate reconciliation to themselves, resulting in salvation.
The question:
What benefit does God obtain in reconciling with man corporately (step 1), given that it is not possible for Him to have fellowship with man corporately anyway?
NOTES
In answering this question you might like to consider the utility of your doctrine’s corporate reconciliation in a situation where no-one ended up accepting Christ at all.
33. This question concerns itself primarily with the depravity of man and the limits of atonement.
You agree with Rom 1:20 that the witness of creation renders man without excuse with regard to believing in God.
The question:
Given that God has given man sufficient reason to believe, and given that, according to you, man can come to God at will, why doesn’t the ratio of [those who choose against God] vs [those who choose for God] pan out at around 50/50 over an extended period? Why is it more like 999/1? What is the reason for the strong negative bias no matter how long a period we consider?
34. This question concerns itself with a Christian’s security, and examines it primarily from the aspect of your doctrine’s tenet of personal autonomy.
You assert that a man has authority over his own person to give himself to God. And you assert that any man who uses his authority this way uses it for good.
The question:
Does a man also have authority in your scheme of things for the even better purpose of giving himself to God irreversibly (ie to give himself away to God without future recourse to capitulation)?
If you say “yes”, explain why you assert it is not possible to lock in one’s own salvation once and for all.
If you say “no”, explain why God has given man authority to do well, but not to do exceedingly well.
35. This question concerns itself with a Christian’s security, and examines whether your scheme of things is submitted to its own logical implications.
The question:
Given that, according to you, it is God’s will that you do not forsake Him and lose your salvation, and given that it is presently your will that you will never forsake Him, if you ask God right now once and for all to prevent you from ever forsaking Him, will He grant you your request?
If you answer “yes”, explain why you assert you can lose your salvation?
If you answer “no”, explain why God will not grant you something that is both your and His will.
36. This question concerns itself with a Christian’s security, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the experiential dynamics of communion with God unto salvation.
You have told us that it is possible that a born-again believer might, in the end, reject God and thus lose his salvation. And because you are a believer just like any other believer, you do not exclude yourself from this possibility.
The question:
Given that you should tell God what you tell His people, if you went to God right now in prayer and told Him directly with the same degree of conviction with which you tell His people, that it is certainly possible you might one day reject Him, would He regard you as someone who loves Him?
If you answer “yes”, explain how your advice to Him, being deliberate and cognitive, would not constitute blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
If you answer “no”, explain why it is you think you are still saved.
NOTES
To assist you in answering this question, you might like to consider the analogous situation of just how a husband would respond to his wife’s telling him that, although she certainly loves him now, she cannot absolutely guarantee that she will stay with him forever.
37. This question concerns itself with a Christian’s security, and examines it primarily from the aspect of apostasy and the depravity of man, via anecdotal evidence.
When one meets another person, one acquiesces to that person’s existence and would never think to declare otherwise: the meeting of another person is self-evident, and real.
Similarly, meeting Christ is real, and if anything, more real than meeting another human, as it is predicated upon the witness of the Spirit of Truth. It is this very real meeting of the living Person in whom the Christian trusts, which sets Christianity aside from all other so-called ‘faiths’, putting it and it alone in the ‘supernatural basket’.
The question:
Given that those who have left the faith sincerely declare that not only is Christ no longer their Lord, but that He does not even exist, how is it you assert that they actually met Him (let alone knew Him) in the first place?
38. This question concerns itself with a Christian’s security, and examines it primarily from the aspect of the sustainability of God’s kingdom.
The question:
Given that you declare that free will is an eternal property of man, one which he, if he is saved, will take with him into heaven, what absolute guarantee can you offer that he will not once again use his free will to rebel against God some time after he has entered heaven (just like Lucifer), and so set the whole problem off all over again?
NOTES
Avoid answering with things like “because the bible tells us so”, for then we will simply ask you why the events forecast in the bible just happen to not include another rebellion.
39. This question is the last in the suite. The nature and effectiveness of the conviction of the Holy Spirit is discussed via anecdotal evidence. The question basically places the first question of the suite (Question 1), in an experiential context, relating what many mature Christians have witnessed.
When the Holy Spirit convicts a person, there commonly results one of two divergent responses:
1. The message the person hears makes him feel fearful of the God it speaks of, and there is not even the remotest thought of the possibility of ever communing with such God …. no identifying with the message ….. only a certain dread and uncomfortableness, and a desire to close one’s ears and distract oneself from the conviction. No matter how lovingly the message is given, no matter how much effort is made to avoid condemning the hearer, and no matter how clearly the idea of salvation is presented, the hearer only feels discomfort, anger, and an intense desire to evade the message and remove himself from its proximity. Often subtle and manipulative measures are employed by such a person in order to evade conviction (eg subject-changing), and mature Christians who are sensitive to the Holy Spirit will discern this. And when finally out of such environment, the hearer assumes a cynical spirit toward ‘those foolish of God’ with whom he once spent a Saturday evening.
2. The message the person hears causes a conviction which urges him to move from the uncomfortableness brought on by the message, in one direction only: toward God. It is as though the conviction carries with it an overwhelming presumption that the convicted will as a matter of course ‘fall in to the arms’ of the rightful Lover: the sense is not so much a brand new introduction, but that of a Gomer being called back to a Hosea. Although the conviction confronts at the very depths of the soul concerning the hearer’s sin, such only adds fuel to the fire of redemption in the belly: grace proves its superiority over condemnation in deriving its very strength from the magnification of sin underpinning the condemnation, to the effect that where the knowledge of sin inherent in the conviction abounds to the hearer, the perception of grace abounds much more. The conviction ‘argues within itself’, resolving the internal court case with the persistently-stronger advocacy of the Lover, an advocacy so overwhelming in the perception of the hearer, that it categorically subsumes its theretofore companion of condemnation, to the effect that every fibre of condemnation is transformed to love, and the certain-and-soon-to-arrive relief from condemnation becomes its one and only characteristic. Such conviction is therefore found to constitute an illocutionary act, and is accordingly discovered as the fruit of the Tree of Life, containing within itself the life of itself.
So the two convictions are markedly different: one conviction manifests itself in the literally dead-ended forensic meaning of “to convict (one of a crime)”, and the other in the meaning of “an irrepressible redemption from a life of crime”. Both hearers are of a truth, convicts, but one unto death, and the other unto life.
The question:
Given that both hearers are equally deserving of the status of criminal convict, why is the Spirit of Truth polarised by the two hearers?
lain:
