Thought for Today

I’ve now had the chance to read through and take notes on “Calvinism: None Dare Call It Heresy,” by Bob Kirkland, published by Lighthouse Trails. The book has been popular enough that it is now in its second edition, third printing.

Kirkland’s book is difficult to assess. There are places in it where the author is well-reasoned, and the points he raises should give every thinking Christian pause regarding some of Calvin’s most extreme views, views sometimes still held by so-called hyper-Calvinists. Unfortunately, much of the book reads like a polemical diatribe, an exercise in reductio ad absurdum, of taking an opponent’s position to an extreme to make one’s own view appear stronger. While doing so may elicit strong emotional reactions from one’s supporters—“Yes! What Kirkland says must be true,” it does little to further meaningful discussion.

Before proceeding, I’d like to disclose my own theological position: I’m neither a Calvinist nor an Arminian. There are too many Scriptures that have to be shoe-horned in, or somehow explained away on both sides of the debate. For now, it enough to say that some Scripture points in the direction of God’s sovereignty, while others point in the direction of man’s free-will.

The best illustration I can think of is a story told us while I was in seminary at Multnomah Biblical Seminary (then a viable conservative biblical institution), by one of my professors, Dr. John Wecks. He remarked that in attempts of opponents to discredit him, they sought to label him as a bibliophile. He told us that he wore that label proudly.

The study of theology is vital, it seeks to help us wrap our heads around what the Scriptures say, of what the Infinite God has told us. As finite creatures, we will never fully grasp what the Scriptures state, something that at one point even Kirkland admits. A sense of humility should be the result, a humility the book is sadly lacking.

The main trouble comes when we start to place a favored theological system above the Scriptures, forcing the meaning of the text to fit within that favored system. Forcing the meaning of any given text may give us comfort of resolving what we see as a Scriptural problem, but doing so often leads to violating the meaning of the text itself.

Due to my real-life limitations—legal blindness in particular—I am not a top-level theologian: I have to rely on Greek dictionaries and lexicons: with what eyesight still remains, doing either Greek or Hebrew was not feasible, even during seminary days. As a result, I may sometimes miss a fine nuance on a given point. I also am not as widely read as I would like—reading, while still possible, is very difficult, and I have to choose the books I read carefully, usually choosing ones that relate to a specific topic I’m studying, as was the case when I wrote my first book: “Will God Save Everyone: Christian Universalism, Hell, Heaven, and the Scriptures,” a book that has almost 900 footnotes. Be that as it may, friends do regard me as something of a serious theologian, and I’m often the one referred to when someone has a serious theological question.

In the past, I’ve deliberately avoided getting into the Calvinist/Arminian debate—it is one I don’t think will ever reach a satisfying resolution—but Kirkland’s book requires a thoughtful detailed response.