Thursday, January 06, 2011

Strongest Objection to the Doctrine of Unconditional Election

The strongest objection to the doctrine of unconditional election, which, to be honest, is also the one with which I am currently struggling, is the charge that it is unfair. Note that I am making a clear distinction between fair and just. The argument that infralapsarian election is unjust has no leg to stand on because the decree logically took into account the results of the decree to allow the fall. So this objection is only that it is unfair. The OED defines fair  as "treating people equally without favoritism or discrimination". Based on this definition, I would say that election genuinely is unfair: 1) By definition it treats people unequally. And 2) even granting that election is "without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto", at the end of the day, it is just inescapably sovereign favoritism. So in my mind, given the fact that it is unfair, the question boils down to this: "How can I still worship a God that I consider unfair?" I have found four answers that help me.

​The first reason is that my intuitive sense of fairness, although originally deriving from my being created in God's image, has been corrupted because of original sin. Thus, it is no longer a reliable standard for measuring fairness, and I, in fact, am unable to rightly judge fairness. It is for this reason (as well as for the reason that by nature there exists an infinite gap between Creator and creature) that God says in Isaiah 55:9, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." And again in Romans 11:33, "Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!" The second reason is that God through the free external gospel call in fact equitably gave the non-elect a chance to believe. It is for this reason that Jesus can speak of people's decision not to follow him in John 8:43-44, "Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires." And again in John 5:40, "[Y]ou refuse to come to me that you may have life." The third reason is that Adam in the covenant of works knew that the wages of sin was death and still sinned. God cannot be faulted when he gives us our consensual wages, nor can he be faulted when he generously spares some their wages. The logical inverse of Matthew 20:13-15, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? ... Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" The fourth, and frankly the most silencing, reason is that as the creature I have no right to impose on the Creator my intuitive sense of fairness. This is the force of Paul's argument in Romans 9:20-21, "But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?' Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?" In summary, these four reasons enable me to still worship God even though election offends my human sense of fairness.

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