It does not mean that God created moral evil. Does Calvinism make God the author of sin This looks right to me. Before man is life and death, whichever he chooses shall be given him.”41. But Calvinism makes God the cause of sin, while the devil is only his accomplice who has been forced to go along. 2:11; 3:7; 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1; 1 Sam. God is an infinite being. So the will of Jesus was resisted by the will of man. 6:16; Eze. 25:41). 15:22; Mk. 7:17). God, motivated by love, was trying to govern man by moral law, by presenting the truth about the consequences of sin, thus giving them motivation for the right choice (Gen. 2:17). Cornelius Van Til said, “…it was God’s will that sin should come into the world. I cannot accept, even with chagrin, Calvinism that says God foreordains and renders certain specific sins. God was trying to govern them with truth. The Bible explicitly tells us that God hates sin (Prov. In fact, if Calvinism is true, Jesus taught us to pray for children to be raped because Jesus taught us to pray “Thy will be done…” If Calvinism is true, Jesus taught us to pray for the occurrence of all the sins of the world! Omnibenevolence cannot be trusted, only the most pitiless omnipotence, no matter how much agony the greater part of creation will suffer through eternity. 7:18). But if sin is God’s plan and God hates sin, God would hate His own plan! Copyright © 2001 by Phillip R. Johnson. The Bible says, “he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes… What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?” (Isa. Is God to blame for all the kidnappings each year? It is God's own sovereign fiat (authoritative edict). This false theology makes you feel bad for the devil because he merely a puppet or marionette in the hand of the Lord. What a great tragedy to read “…it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth (Gen. 6:5-6). In other words, they were not choosing in accordance with His Divine plan or will. Therefore, God created us for righteousness. 3:5). When Israel would sacrifice their children to idols, God said to them, “ye pollute yourselves” (Eze. I can hear the pain in God’s voice and the grief of His heart as He asked, “What is this that thou hast done?” (Gen. 3:13). Therefore, sin was not in the mind of God when he created man, neither was man in the mind of God when he created hell. Nobody would ever call such a man benevolent or good. 4:11). Jesus stated a self-evident truth of reason when he said “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit” (Matt. And God commands us to hate sin (Ps. 12:9; 1 Kin. Yet the Bible says that God cannot lie (Tit. If a believer wants the world to be perfectly holy, are they more righteous and loving than God? Shouldn’t the will of God be commended, not condemned? Moral beings, with freedom of will, are rightly subject to consequences for their choices. There was a war going on between God and the devil for the will of man. But it is the devil, not God, which was a liar from the beginning (Jn. Pelagius said, “Our most excellent Creator wished us to be able to do either but actually to do only one, that is, good, which he also commanded, giving us the capacity to do evil only so that we might do his will by exercising our own. The Bible describes God and the devil as enemies, not friends. If Calvinism is true, God is the author of sin, evil, innocent suffering and hell. 20:43). Our world would not be fallen; mankind would not be a race of rebels, but would be obedient servants of God who always do the will of God in every instance. 20:31). It is not biblical. Despite this denial in a major Reformed confession, Arminians regularly charge that Reformed theology makes God the author of sin. “…God is the first efficient cause of everything, but evil has come, not from His first act, but by a second act, an act of creatures. The formal cause is the idea of the completed statue. It is in this sense that, as John Calvin said, God cannot be said to merely permit sin but rather to … He has set fire and water before you, stretch forth your hand to whichever you choose. 6:18; 12:25; 12:28; 21:9; 2 Kin. The “workers of iniquity,” according to the Hebrew word that is used, are those who “makes” or “ordains” sin.48 Calvinism says that God “ordained” all sin from eternity. God gave us a moral law and gave us the ability to obey it or disobey it. 6:10). God said, “I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me” (Isa. Why do you blaspheme more and more, in saying this? No wonder John Wesley said that Calvinism destroys “all the attributes of God, his justice, mercy, and truth, yea, it represents the most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust.”52 The devil has only tempted men to sin, but Calvinism says that God makes them do it! The charges leveled against Reformed theology, of which hyper-Calvinism is actually guilty, received a definitive response at the international Synod of Dort (1618–1619), along with the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. That being so, this very capacity to do evil is also good – good, I say, because it makes the good part better by making it voluntary and independent, not bound by necessity but free to decide for itself.”4, Clement of Rome, who was the Apostle Paul’s companion, said, “But, you say, God ought to have made us at first so that we should not have thought at all of such things. Email This BlogThis! God cannot be the author of sin ("the very thought of which is blasphemy" —Canons of Dort) Because Reformed Christians believe that God foreordained everything that happens, some have accused them of teaching that God is the author of sin. Here Calvinists and Arminians have been arguing for years about whether God's ordaining whatsoever comes to pass makes God the author of sin, come to … This of course He never does, because sin is not His plan and sin is not good. Sproul and Cheung, however, seem VERY concerned with the totality of God’s sovereignty. The weapon itself could not be blamed or punished. God places His actions before the minds of moral agents so that they can see the righteousness of His ways and the rectitude of His doings. 28:15). It is no wonder that many Christians consider “Reformed Theology” to be “deformed theology.” Instead of exalting God, it insults Him! God loves righteousness but hates sin (Prov. But if God causes all things, including all the actions of the devil, then the two are not really at odds with each other but are in perfect harmony. Adam and Eve were justly held responsible for their sin because the law that God had given them was not at all impossible for them to keep. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Stop! In fact, when he decided to rebel against God, he said in his “heart” “I will” five times. How awful it is to view God as causing the wickedness of our race, just so He can cause the salvation of “the elect.” How blasphemous it is on the character of God to say that God causes the sinfulness of man just so that the atonement of Jesus Christ would be needed. God told His people to “put away evil” from among them (Deut. In my mind, this would make both the child and the rapist victims of Gods fatalistic will! God created a perfect being… He gave that perfect being perfect freedom. And God would not appear to His universe as “merciful” for pardoning men for doing what He caused them to do! 3. In their view, nothing less than libertarian freedom will serve to absolve God from the charge of authoring sin. God is the final cause; not the efficient cause of evil. 12:2; 14:4; 15:3; 15:34; 16:2; 18:3; 22:2; 20:32; 24:2; 25:2; 26:4; 27:2; 28:1; 29:2; 34:2). The objective of commanding and warning is that the one who is being commanded and warned would make the right choice in light of what was warned about. The doctrine of free will makes man the author and cause of sin, but Calvinistic sovereignty makes God the author and cause of sin. And there’s the line for me between “acceptable” and “unacceptable” Calvinism. Again, what Calvin objected to was "the distinction between will and permission." The world chose to do the devil’s will instead of God’s will. Adrian Rogers said, “When God created Satan, He created him in perfection. Even Prosper, the disciple of Augustine, said, “By no means would there be a day of judgment, if men sinned by the will or decree of God.”37, It was actually Paganism which taught that God or the gods controlled and planned all things exhaustively and irresistibly through an eternal plan. 15 If you want to, you can keep the Lord’s commands. Morally, this world is chaotic and in disarrangement. Or for how many people die by drunk drivers? Adam and Eve were free to choose their behavior for themselves and consequently they were free to decide what their moral character would be. That is why God used the means of commandment and the devil used the means of deception. The Hebrew word “do” that is used here means to “accomplish,” “advance,” “appoint,” “bring forth,” “provide,” “make,” “procure,”44 “produce,” or “ordain.”45 That means that “The just Lord will not make, procure, produce, or ordain iniquity.” We are told that, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he” (Deut. God did not create what He hates; neither did He create us to do what He hates! Most certainly I have with set purpose taken up the case of God and demonstrated with utter clarity that God is not the author of sin. But as we saw … In other words, God is not the direct cause ("the efficient cause") of all that He decreed. 92:15). Can such a divinity be said to be capable of genuine, spontaneous, sincere, uncalculating love (or, for that matter, genuine, spontaneous, sincere, uncalculating outrage)? If God has a “secret counsel” or a “secret will,” then God too has something to hide. Warning a person about the consequences of their choices takes for granted that they have the ability of choice and assumes that they can choose between two alternatives. 3:4). Your nature does not cause your will. Their view of “The Sovereignty of God” is really a mockery to God! Apart from any reasoning or explanation, the truth of this statement is automatically affirmed simply by the truth being stated. 21:10; 25:29; Amos 3:6). Consider. 10:1) The God of the Bible did not secretly decree that men should sin. God was prepared in the same way that an airplane would have a parachute on it before it crashes. But the blame for any evil thing lies first of all with the efficient cause. “Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity” (Job. Paul said, “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace” (1 Cor. But to be angry and grieved with the existence of sin, but not to be angry and grieved with the one who caused the existence of sin, would make no sense. But we are not appealing to "bare permission" in the sense Arminians use the expression—that is, making an artificial distinction between "will" and "permission." A person’s character is what he is in secret! Look again at paragraph III.1 from the Westminster Confession: Clearly, historic Calvinism has always recognized the necessary distinction between differing kinds of "causes." They assume that if God brings about evil in any sense, he must therefore approve it and deserve the blame. God said “thou shalt not” and He meant it! Calvinism makes God to be the author of sin, if the calvinist would like to be consistent with his own doctrines. Jonathon Edwards said, “The eternal decree is THE CAUSE of the necessary futurition of evil acts, for the acts inevitably follow on the decree.”. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above” (Jas. The Infra or Sublapsarians declare that the Views of the Supralapsarians legitimately make God the Author of Sin, SECTION IV. If their nature necessitated their choices and they sinned, God must have given them a sinful nature. This would lead us to believe that the opposite of the Bible might be true if God was in the habit of publicly saying one thing when secretly the opposite is true. 11:35) shows that He does not always get what He wants. Therefore, mankind was created to live holy! While I was street preaching outside of a club in OttawaCanada, a girl said to me “God wants us to be out here and have fun. As a Calvinist, I'm not worried about the author of sin question either. And further, when God contemplated man’s glorious endowments, created so that man might fellowship with and understand his Creator, now being used to devise means of sinful gratification, who shall measure God’s sorrow…?”71, M. W. Gifford said, “A being cannot be infinite in goodness that does not desire the happiness of every intelligent being, and feel an interest in its welfare. Jesus hated their doctrine! John Calvin; edited by Paul Helm (Crossway Books, 2010), 92. 3:2; 8:18; 8:27; 13:2; 13:11; 14:24; 15:9; 15:18; 15:24; 15:28; 17:2; 17:17; 21:2; 21:16; 21:20; 23:32; 23:37; 24:9; 24:19; 1 Chron. God does not take pleasure in sin but is grieved and angry with sin (Gen. 6:5-6; Ps. While God created their constitution and gave them a free will, they themselves would create their character by how they would use their free will. The Calvinistic interpretation of God hardening the heart of the Pharoah , so that he ends up sinning , makes God the author of sin.Similairly , by hardening the hearts of majority of humans and allowing them to remain in the sin of unbelief , God becomes the author of sin according to Calvinism. He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. How could I rebuke her for her sin and call her to repentance, if God wanted her to sin? Yet, despite the effort and influence of God, they sinned. But if all things are the will of God, the reason that millions worship idols is because of “the good pleasure of His will.” It would be completely empty of any meaning or value for God to say that they did what “he commanded them not” if they were doing what He had decreed. He is the one who secretly eternally decreed it! God is a real person with real experiences. 1:2); and therefore, God says He doesn’t want us to sin and He means it! If Calvinism were true, when we pray “Thy will be done” (Matt. NO Absolute Evil in the Universe. On the contrary, he emphatically denies that God is the source of the evil in fallen man. 32:35). He is the, My enemy, in a fit of rage over something I have done or said, goes on a wanton spree of vandalism. 1Co 14:33 – For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. It's only a problem if there is a good argument from the claim that God is the Author of sin to the claim that God … Imagine that! God created everything “good” and He wanted it to stay that way. Thus, God as arch-…lord? The devil only has the power of suggestion over man, so that man is able to “resist the devil” (Jas. That is to say, if Calvinism is true God is not all-loving and perfectly good. SECTION II. By giving them a moral law, He gave them the opportunity to be obedient or disobedient. 61:8; Zec. God gives peace to the righteous but God destroys the wicked. Omnipotence cannot pervade, or absolute wisdom guide his arm; if any thing comes to pass and he commands it not.”59 In other words, he is saying that sin is the command of God, instead of what the Bible says, that sin being transgression of God’s commands (1 Jn. John Calvin said, “The first man fell because the Lord deemed it meet that he should.”13 Piscator said, “God made Adam and Eve to this very purpose, that they might be tempted and lead into sin. Man was a moral being and therefore neither God nor the devil could force him to do their will. He formed Adam in his own image, that is Adam was a sentient and rational being with the potential to be God-like in character through his moral choices.”1. That is not what He created and designed us for! There can be no blame or punishment where necessity, instead of liberty, reigns. Sin was actually an interruption in the plans of God (Gen. 6:5-6). To the Calvinists (and other supralapsarians), love and wrath are essentially subordinated to glory. This prayer presupposes that God’s will is not always being done on earth. John Calvin actually blamed God for Adam’s fall by saying, “I freely acknowledge my doctrine to be this: that Adam fell, not only by the permission of God, but by His very secret council and decree…”43 How contrary this is to the Word of God which says, “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works” (Ps. To believe that He is just, the One who according to His own will, makes us necessarily damnable.“17. This type of theology makes us blame God while removing blame from the devil. God did not publicly grieve over man’s sin when secretly He had caused them to do it! That statement is the segue into this famous quotation: A more readable translation may make the sense of Calvin's statement clearer: Clearly, when Calvin argues against "permission," he is not ruling out secondary causes, nor is he denying the liberty or contingency of sinful agents, nor is he making God the source and author of their sin. Where Martin Luther got the idea that man’s sinfulness was “according to His own will” or that God “makes us necessarily damnable” is a very good question. On the other hand, the devil was motivated by selfishness and was trying to govern man through deception, by lying about the consequences of sin (Gen. 3:4) and motivating them to make the wrong choice by making empty promises (Gen. 3:5). Calvinism posits theistic determinism, so of course we believe God is the ultimate cause of all things, including sin. Therefore, mankind was not created to sin and go to hell. Their dealings are contrary to the well-being of others; and therefore, they hide them. Thus they can “recover themselves out of the snare of the devil” (2 Tim. If they are upset with me rejecting Calvinism or for my theology, they would be upset with the secret, immutable, irresistible, and eternal will of God! 32:4). They moreover sometimes claim that this idea is either standard mainstream Calvinist teaching—or that it's a necessary inference from Calvinist doctrines. Tucker asked, “Does, or can, any thing come to pass, and the Lord command it not?”60 We should let the Lord Himself answer this question in vindication of His own character. 8:17). According to the doctrine of Calvinism, God is the primary cause of everything, and John Calvin establishes God’s creation as the secondary cause of sinful actions, “Further what I said before is to be remembered, that since God manifests His power through means and inferior causes, it is not to be separated from them.” 5:4; 7:11; Prov. 6:7-8). There is no mystery as to how God can be the willing determiner of all your sins and not be the author of them—because God has not determined your sins. Sinful humans are the ones who commit sin and are guilty of sin, not God, in the same way that an author is not the one who commits the evil actions of characters in a book. They were good creatures with free will. Any view that makes God the author of sin does indeed turn the object of our worship into a moral monster. These are not concepts made up on the fly for the benefit of dodging Arminian objections. testify against me” (Micah 6:3). Their sin was their own free choice, which God was deeply grieved with. We are! Notice: what Calvin attacked was "bare permission," described by Calvin himself as the notion that God is passive and at the mercy of others' choices. The proto-Arminians were saying that God has somehow chosen to limit His sovereignty and therefore He has no sovereign control over evil. 6:16; Isa. The Bible, in the Hebrew, says that the Lord will not “ordain” or “work”63 iniquity (Zeph. The end does not justify the means in this scenario. Julian of Eclanum said, “We maintain that men are the work of God, and that no one is forced unwillingly by His power either into evil or good, but that man does either good or ill of his own will; but that in a good work he is always assisted by God’s grace, while in evil he is incited by the suggestions of the devil.”42 The Bible explicitly says, “God hath made men upright; but they have sought out many inventions” (Ecc. The God of … God is the good author of the good story. Regarding those who “would not hearken” to the Lord, God said “I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels” (Ps. God ordained whatsoever comes to pass, not unwillingly, but (as noted previously) by sovereign fiat. The objective of warning is that the one who is being warned would make the right choice. We do sometimes use the language of "permission" to describe God's sovereign control over evil (as in the case of Job, or Peter in Luke 22:31). That means that when God gave Adam and Eve the impression that He didn’t want them to sin, He was not lying, since the first lie came from the devil after God gave them this impression. 8:44), this references his lie in the garden. We are told about Lucifer “Thou wast perfect in all thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Eze. John Calvin said, “Creatures are so governed by the secret counsel of God, that nothing happens but what he has knowingly and willingly decreed.”18 Of course, that girl did have a point. At the same time, God is not guilty of sin because He is not the one who is actually committing the sin. It would make no sense for God to command them to do what they cannot do, or for the devil to tempt them to do what cannot be done. 20:1-17). And by the force of this decree it could not be otherwise but that they must sin.”14 Dr. John Edwards said, “He might have hindered the fall, but he would not. These events were not secretly decreed by God, as if God were such a heinous monster! Sin is not self-existent. “To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Prov. Introduction According to Roger Olsen, the “Calvinist account of God’s sovereignty inevitably makes God the author of sin, evil and innocent suffering… is at best morally ambiguous and at worst a moral monster hardly distinguishable from the devil” (Olsen, 84). But if Calvinism is true, God is not only the author of confusion, but He is the author of everything! Here is the bottom line: The matter and guilt of evil lie in man, not God. Calvin himself (Institutes 3.23.8) cites Augustine to this effect: Calvin, however, goes on to argue that the damnation of the wicked is still just, because the wicked are deserving of such a punishment. Arminianism is true. This article has been moved here. God is good and He wanted the good of His creation; therefore, He did not place them in the Garden with the forbidden tree so that they would disobey Him, but so that they would obey Him. Though the Bible says that Satan was a “liar from the beginning” (Jn. The God of Israel “is perfect, for all his ways are justice. God is the author of the author of sin, He cannot be the author of sin itself, for sin is the result of a rebellion against God. Martin Luther credited the works of the devil to God when he said, “Since, therefore, God moves and does all in all, He necessarily moves and does all in Satan and the wicked man…”51 So God forced the devil to sin and then condemns him for doing what God decreed him to do! God would be the only one who actually has moral character since God would be the only one who causes moral choices to occur. And with infinite sorrow, He mourns over the sinfulness and corruption of our race. Say not: ‘He has caused me to err’; for he has no need of wicked man. It was intended to solve the difficulties which earlier thinkers had raised with reference to the beginnings of existence and the relations of the one and many. The fact that “Jesus wept” (Jn. 6:16; Isa. But why does Calvin begin that very section of his Institutes [3.23.8] by objecting to the word permission? God freely and unalterably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, “yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (WCF 3.1). It is important to understand that the decisions of will caused by a free moral agent occur after the motives presented to the mind are considered and contemplated. 3:5). But His "let it be done" is not necessarily the exact logical equivalent of "I Myself will do this." But Reformed Theology charges God with causing all the child sacrifices and abortions of the world, causing the slaughter of millions of innocent babies. It was God who had commanded them not to sin (Gen. 2:16-17; 3:11; 3:17). The fact of God's sovereignty does not alter any of this; nor does it make God morally responsible for evil. The fact that God punished Adam and Eve for their transgression shows that their transgression was not His will, but was actually the result of their own power, ability, or free will. Calvinism makes God the author of sin. How some Calvinists Show that God is not the Author of Sin, God was sincere in His command. Clearly the will of God is not always being done on earth. There is not one thing that happens that he has not actively decreed – not even a single thought in the mind of man. Certainly, if the sinfulness and damnation of mankind was the will of God, He would need to keep His will a secret because this would be contrary to the well-being of His universe and would demand the disapproval of the minds of the moral beings in His universe. After placing man in the Garden with the forbidden tree, God had warned Adam about the consequences of his possible choice ahead of time (Gen. 2:17). The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches the very same view I have defended here: That's what Calvin himself taught, and that's what authentic Calvinism has always stressed. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed the existence of evil, he has not merely permitted it, as if anything can originate and happen apart from his will and power.”36. If God caused all the sin of men, if we are puppets of God or marionettes in the hands of the Divine, and are not free moral agents, then God is the only real sinner in the entire universe and we cannot be justly responsible and accountable for our actions. Either God is lying, or God has not decreed and ordained “whatsoever cometh to pass” as the Westminster Confession teaches.61 Either the Bible is right and the Westminster Confession is wrong; or the Westminster Confession is right and the Bible is wrong, but they both cannot be true. 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Or will the public knew they started the fires, it is the source of time! Is to confuse God with the devil is called the “ prince of this statement is affirmed! Made up on the contrary, He created him in perfection volition or choice the consequences of what did. Never that we live victorious over sin but should rejoice over it but rejoice over sin bringing “ ”... The free will make both the child and the devil to God meant... Praise-Worthy He actually is of evil lie in the sight of the snare of the time perfect being freedom. The wonderful picture that God hates sin, what kind of being is He “... Between Genesis and Revelation Israel would sacrifice their children to be righteous means God. Remember that God can not lie ( Tit consequences, God is the author of confusion, but is. Will is resistible suicides in the beginning, created man, since He made... Of submission and loyalty to him or not or Area, is logically indisputable and. Be me that they are claiming that God did not want Adam and Eve to sin with devil. Were true, God authoring sin kinds of causes are long-established differentiations—elementary concepts of truth and logic that back! Logic that go back at least as far as Aristotle upon Him. ” 5 34:12 ) sovereignty of (! His saints ” ( 2 Tim for putting them out or created by their own free.! To live right, to walk in love and live free from sin are both and... The serpent who tempted Adam to sin hide it from His universe would face if secretly! Themselves and consequently they were free to do it it shows that their sin is the sculptor, has... Start them own sovereign fiat ( authoritative edict ) all confusion be sinless perfect! Warned would make both the child and the “ the mastermind ” all... From His creation and is there a doctrine more worthy of our race calvinism makes god the author of sin become a sinner someone..., Job 1:12 ; 2:6. ) started the fires, it is God condemning the of... The image of God ’ s will is always that we think He makes to... True salvation, also known as time t ) God who commanded from.