Thought for Today

What are some of the other issues with Kirkland’s book?

Straw-man arguments abound. The author cherry-picks the writings of the more extreme Calvinists to make his points. Doing so is much easier than wrestling with actual nuanced positions. Another trick he uses is to rewrite Scripture according to how he maintains Calvinists must interpret any give passage in order to stay true to their theories. Much of it is flat-out nonsensical, an effect he doubtlessly was after, and at times even admits. At no point does the author ever quote one of the Reformed Confessions. On the other hand, quoting one would undermine at least parts of the author’s thesis.

One of the most disingenuous aspects of the book is the way the author describes Calvinists as heretics. We will find Kirkland state that Calvinists preach one of the worst forms of “another gospel.” He says (page 86), “Calvinism is not just heresy, it is dangerous and pitiful heresy.” He adds (page 89), “In essence Calvinism presents “another gospel.”

 Galatians 1:6–10 immediately comes to mind, that those who preach a different gospel are to be accursed. Yet, nowhere in the main body of his manuscript does Kirkland even mention the Galatians 1 passage. The passage only appears in an appendix, and there without comment. To me, by handling the passage in that manner, the author avoids the direct accusation of saying C.H. Spurgeon, Charles Hodge, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, and others are accursed. He makes the reader connect the dots between “another gospel” and Galatians 1:6–10.

To me that tactic is unconscionable, as it enables the author to say—technically only infer—a clear belief without directly proclaiming it. If an author insists that Calvinists preach another gospel, have the courage to say directly that you believe they are accursed. Of course, saying C.H. Spurgeon is accursed for preaching “another gospel” is something most of the true church would find laughable—better to only imply it.

Kirkland doesn’t mention how the “free will” debate was framed during the Reformation. At no point does he speak of Erasmus’s view in favor of free will, or Luther’s response, in his book, “The Bondage of the Will.” Summing up Luther’s view in a couple sentences:

Originally the human race had free will. Both Adam and Eve made the conscious willful choice to sin, a free choice, and in consequence of their sinful choices, human free will has been in bondage to sin ever since. In a sense one can say that while we technically still have “free will,” that will, apart from God’s quickening, consistently chooses sin. As Scripture declares, apart from Christ we are slaves to sin: sin is our master, and we obey sin.

Kirkland’s omission is a serious oversight, but it does enable him to avoid the broader theological issue, the non-Calvinist aspects of the “free will” debate. We will find that the author appears to believe that all human beings still have total free will, that on our own we are still fully capable of coming to faith in Christ. His reasoning reads like Pelagius on this one point (though the author is not a Pelagian), a view that many verses of Scripture appear to contradict.

Sadly, there is more, as we will discover in the next post.