The first two blog posts in this series were introductory; the first was intended to explain the purpose of the series, the second was an attempt to describe what a Calvinist is. In this post, we’ll begin to dive into the substance of this series.
As stated previously, Calvinists and Arminians do in fact agree on at least one head of doctrine. While there are some professing Christians who deny this doctrine altogether, most groups within the various expressions of Christianity do hold to the doctrine of Total Depravity to some extent or another. In short, this teaching asserts that through the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (Gen. 3) sin entered into the world. As the earth and all therein fell under condemnation, so all of Adam’s progeny fell under the curse and bondage of sin— bringing about the now-normal experience of death. (Throughout Church history, this doctrine has been commonly referred to as Original Sin.) God made man good and in His image, but through the fall man became “dead” in a certain sense according to the previously promised judgement by God in Genesis 2:17. For disobedience to the one Law given, God warned of this death: “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16–17 ESV) Ofcourse, naturally speaking, Adam and Eve did not die a physical death that day, yet God was not lying when He warned them not to eat the forbidden fruit. Man died, but it was a spiritual death — separation from God, barred from the Tree of Life, and cast out of the garden where God’s immediate presence was enjoyed. Most Christians would hardly debate this point (though some have certainly tried).
In the New Testament, Paul tells us plainly of the condition we are now in several places in various ways throughout his epistles. A verse that explicitly teaches that the fall of Adam made his offspring sinners is Romans 5:19a: “For as by the one man’s (Adam’s) disobedience the many (the rest of us who descended from Adam) were made sinners,…” Paul isn’t here suggesting that some persons were not made sinners by his use of the word “many” —as some have wrongly interpreted— for in the verse just before this one he makes this parallel statement: “…as one trespass led to condemnation for ALL men…” (Rom. 5:18a ESV emphasis added). Paul, in the whole passage, is making the point very clear: man fell in Adam. Look there even in verse 12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to ALL MEN BECAUSE ALL SINNED—“ (Rom. 5:12 ESV emphasis added). A man would have to be quite the theological gymnast to evade the conclusion Paul is drawing here: due to the fall men were made sinners.
Romans 5 is not the only place Paul speaks to this issue in direct statements. Writing to the believers in Ephesus about their past condition pre-conversion, he declares: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” (Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV). Again, in another place: “For as by a man (Adam) came death, by a man (Jesus) has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Corinthians 15:21–22 ESV). From these passages as well as many others, it is very clear that the effects of the fall are universal. Every man, woman, boy and girl comes into the world under sin and in need of the Savior. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23 ESV).
For nearly all Christians of the past 2,000 years these truths have been relatively uncontroversial up to and including those of present times. Though at different times waves of objection to this doctrine have arisen igniting theological debate within the Church, for the most part, Christians agree — we are all sinners by nature; we possess a sin nature. Where disagreement often surfaces (especially between Calvinist and non-Calvinist perspectives) is in determining the effects of sin on individuals. All agree that sin affects every person, but to what extent does sin affect man? From here, the Calvinistic assertions are hotly contested. For the remainder of this blog post and in the next, I’ll attempt to show that we Calvinists only affirm what we believe the Bible teaches concerning the scope of the effects of sin.
So what is it in the T of the Calvinistic TULIP that is so controversial? Obviously we go further than just saying men are sinners due to the fall, yet we only do so because we believe the Bible does as well. Two particular conclusions that we draw from the Scriptures usually prove problematic with non-Calvinists: (1) that man’s bondage to sin (John 8:34) does severe damage to their Free Will, and (2) that man cannot come to God in faith without God having done a special work of grace upon their heart first. Though these two conclusions are closely related, as you will see, there are important features to both. We’ll tackle the first to finish this blog post, and then cover the second and discuss how the two are connected in the one following.
(1) The “Loss” of Free Will: this one certainly produces that initial “shock” factor upon first hearing it that I spoke of experiencing myself in the first blog of this series. That we have free will is one of the most commonly held notions amongst people from every sphere of life. It’s one of those assumptions we all have that typically goes unquestioned. So the first time you hear a Calvinist say something along the lines of, “We do not have free will,” our initial thought is, “You have lost your mind!” After all, we make choices every day: what clothes we will wear, what we will eat for lunch, what time we will go to bed, how we will spend our money, etc. We think, “Our whole lives are filled with making uncoerced, personal decisions; how could anyone think that man does not have free will?” Now, for those who may be wondering, Calvinists are not just mindless morons (generally speaking) who really think people do not make choices. We make choices all the time just like anyone else. However, when we say that man has lost his free will we are referring to man’s ability to choose rightly in spiritual matters. Yes, we can choose which kind of ice cream to eat after dinner, but we cannot choose to live righteous, holy lives in the fear of God before our conversion to Christ. This is due to the sin that we are all originally bound by from birth. Let’s look at the biblical evidence for this assertion.
Turn back to the third chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans and see how he draws from various verses from the Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah’s prophecy to illustrate this point.
Romans 3:9–18 (ESV): What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
Paul connects mankind’s (both Jews and Gentiles) being under sin to their (a.) not being righteous, (b.) not understanding, (c.) not seeking God, (d.) not doing good, (e.) deceiving, (f.) cursing, (i.) having no fear of God, and so on. Surely if all men had truly free wills some of them would choose to seek God or to live righteously or to fear God. These verses, however, tell a different story. NO ONE seeks God. NO ONE is righteous. There is NO fear of God before their eyes.
But suppose one made the objection that “this passage says nothing about whether anyone could seek God or live righteously.” “This passage,” our interlocutor might say, “only says that they do not.” As much as this passage does speak to the condition or nature of mankind due to the fall and arguably implies that there is a certain impotence involved, it doesn’t explicitly seem to address man’s ability or inability to do or not do this or that. Let us turn then to some that do.
Jesus makes some startling remarks to Nicodemus found in the third chapter of John’s gospel. Nicodemus had come to Jesus during the night hours (likely to avoid being seen with Him by fellow Pharisees). It’s not exactly clear what Nicodemus is there for but it is easy to see that he has taken an interest (or, at the very least, a curiosity) in Christ. That being said, Jesus’ response seems to come out of nowhere. Yet, our Lord, who knows all things and always speaks timely words, discloses two truths relevant to our present conversation: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (Vs. 3) and, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (Vs. 5). We will come back to the born again topic later in the series, but according to Jesus these two actions (seeing and entering) require conversion before they can be done. This means that before conversion, man is UNABLE to see and enter. This is the very point Calvinists are trying to make when we say man does not have free will — that man does not have the free will to see or to enter the kingdom of God. These are limitations on the will of man pre-conversion, therefore, in what way can we say that the will is truly free? We are not asserting that man does not have a will, but rather, that the will is not free to choose any options — specifically, proper spiritual things pleasing to God. There is within man a spiritual inability that prevents him from doing things that somebody with a free will ought to be able to do.
Further down in the same discourse we come to the most popular Bible verse of all time, John 3:16. Many who have 3:16 memorized haven’t spent near as much time on the following verses, but let us see what Jesus goes on to say:
John 3:17–21 (ESV): For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”
Vs. 17: Shows God’s purpose in sending His Son into the world — “that the world might be saved through Him.”
Vs. 18: “Whoever does not believe is condemned already…”— this is the point of agreement amongst Christians that we spoke of in the beginning of this post, that ALL are condemned until they believe and are saved.
Vs. 19: This verse speaks to the universal effect sin produces on man — “light has come…” BUT “people loved the darkness rather than the light…” Why? “because their works were evil.” Whose works were evil? Everyones! (“None is righteous, no, not one;” Rom. 3:10).
Vs. 20: Jesus, here, states the problem again — “those who do wicked things —> hate the light”, but then He adds that they “do not come to the light,”. We see, then, that the problem is not so much that they cannot come (though we will look at some verses in a moment that do say that they “cannot”), but He says that they “do not come”, meaning they will not come. The lost man does not have the desire to come to the light and have their deeds exposed. Yes, man has a will, but he does not have a free will that is able to equally desire to come or not to come to the light. This inability to come flows from a will bound by sin that makes man unwilling; they are unable because they are unwilling.
I’ll try to keep the commentary to a minimum in the following couple relevant scriptures as we end, but all of these are worth looking at closely in their particular contexts.
Romans 8:7–8 (ESV): For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
— Notice, Paul here gives 2 examples of things “they that are in the flesh” (unbelievers, the lost man) CANNOT do: they cannot submit to God’s law, and they cannot please God. One would assume if man truly had a free will, they would be able to choose to submit to God’s law if they so desired to, yet Paul says they are unable to.
1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV): The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
— Again, Paul speaks about a natural inability in the man without the Spirit of God indwelling him (the post-fall, pre-converted man): “he is not able to understand them…”
Hopefully, by reviewing these passages in Scripture, you can see why the Calvinist concludes that man’s will has been severely affected by sin even if you do not go as far as concluding that our “free will” has been relinquished by the fall. Of course we believe that man still makes choices and even good choices relatively speaking. Unbelievers do things all the time that we consider good — donating to charity, helping the little old lady across the street, saving the animal found on the side of the road, etc. However, the God-breathed Scriptures tell us that there are certain limitations on the ability of the will. For that reason, we think it inappropriate to assert that man has a free will. More accurately, we would say man has a bound will (bound to sin) that is made free by the Spirit in conversion. In John 8:34, Jesus says, “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” Sin so affects everyone after the fall that man, if left to himself, cannot and will not come to God. But, that is the subject of the next post.
Soli Deo Gloria
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