We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.
Arbitrary Election
Image via Micah J Murray at www.redemptionpictures.com
Micah J. Murray wrote a blog entitled Five Reasons I Reject Unconditional Election, which was a response to John Piper’s recent arguments for embracing unconditional election. If you’re looking for Scripture-based argumentation, you would do well to look elsewhere (as Micah freely suggests) but if you’re looking for the deep down, intuitive and honest gut stuff, you’ll be glad you read Micah’s thoughts.
From Micah’s blog post:
If God chose before the foundation of the world who He would save and who He would not save, then it is an act of unimaginable cruelty to create those people He has already chosen not to save. They never have any hope of anything other than eternal conscious torment. If God, who is in control of every aspect of the universe, chooses to create people He has not also chosen to elect, is He not simply creating human firewood destined only to stoke the flames of hell forever?
Category: General
Tags: Calvinism, John Piper, Micah J Murray, Neo-Reformed Theology, Salvation, Unconditional Election
Related Reading
God Became What He is Not To Reveal What He Is
We are saved because Jesus became the curse of the law for us (Gal. 3:13). So too, the way Christ freed us from the condemnation of sin and enabled us to “become the righteousness of God” was by becoming sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). What is more, since the curse of the law includes enslavement to…
Finger-Pointing and the Impulse to Judge
To no one’s surprise, yet to the sadness of many of us, several Christian spokespeople, including James Dobson, Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer, are blaming the shootings in Newtown, Conn, on abortion and gay marriage. This is sadly reminiscent of Jerry Falwell’s hurtful response to 9/11 when he divined that “the pagans,” “abortionists,” “feminists,” “gays,” “lesbians,”…
A Calvinist and an Arminian walk into a bar…
Toby Bradbury via Compfight Roger Olson posted A Conversation between a Calvinist and an Arminian about God’s Sovereignty that we thought was dead on. In fact, we kind of wonder if Roger is bugging some of the conversations we’ve had. Déjà vu much? And since Roger has argued that Open Theism should be included under the broader umbrella of…
What happens to babies who die?
The Bible does not directly address the issue of what happens to babies who die before being able to make a decision for or against Christ. People have thus had to arrive at conclusions about this matter on the basis of other beliefs they hold to be true. The majority of evangelicals today assume that…
Divine Accommodation and the Cross: where Calvin was onto something
Over the last few posts, I’ve been arguing that the cross represents the thematic center of everything Jesus was about. Hence, rather than striving to have a “Christocentric” theology — which is so broad it means next to nothing—we ought to sharpen our focus by striving for a “cruciform” theology. I then offered some suggestions…
Authentic Theology
So much theology does not do justice to the reality of the world. Any theology that’s going to claim to be authentic must be done on the edge of a mass grave of gassed children. If we can’t state our theology there, then it’s useless. We must never block out the pain of this world.…