I was essentially hit with the proposition [of a Calvinist] that God does not love the damned. He was questioning what good God's love was if it was not efficacious in causing a salvific response in a man. I accused him of being a troll. I think I won that exchange. Interestingly, his type of thinking is the exact same as the universalist's, except the universalist rejects Hell for that reason. I think it's safer to be a universalist than a Calvinist if this view is representative.
so, uh, what do you think: does God love the damned?
4 comments:
The funny thing is, I used to believe that.
Calvinism is a strange beast. It feeds off of pure, cold logic and proof-texting until the mind is corrupted by it. After all, Romans does say "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." So there you go.
There is a motive to it, though. It usually comes out as being the glory of God, God's sovereignty, or the efficaciousness of salvation through faith alone. However, the logic is flawed, because God's sovereignty is not a priori dependent upon him controlling absolutely everything including the salvation of individuals. Salvation through faith alone has its own problems that I will not deal with here. Also, one might think that God might obtain more glory through the salvation of all than the damnation of some. Like you said, universalism makes more sense in that case.
When I encountered Orthodoxy, my Calvinism fell like a house of cards. I needed no elaborately constructed argument to persuade me over to Orthodoxy. I just simply left it behind like like the meaningless drivel it was. Actually, it was quite a relief to not have to defend a monstrosity like that anymore.
So the gist is that "God does not love the damned" really is a typical view of Calvinists? There are actually a lot of things I like and can respect about Calvinists and -ism [perhaps a topic for a later post], but if this is so, wow.
Well, this is where it gets difficult. There are two brands of Calvinism, those who affirm double predestination and those who do not (These are generally referred to as supralapsarian and infralapsarian). The supra- affirm double predestination stating that God made his election to salvation logically prior to the fall and thus without it in view. This is the most hardline stance, held most notably by Calvin himself. The infra- group hold that God's election occured logically after the fall and thus takes into account the sin of mankind. If this is so, then God is just in hating the damned because they have sinned.
That last sentence sums up the matter nicely. A Calvinist believes that it is just for God to hate the damned because of thier sin. In other words, love is not the "default" attitude of God toward mankind. Rather, hatred for sin is the default attitude and love is a gift of grace on account of the sufferings of Christ. God chooses whom he wills to bestow his love upon, and he is just doing so because none are deserving of it anyway.
That's Calvinism in a nutshell. All Calvinists, supra- or infra- generally believe this. Only the so-called four-point Calvinists might believe differently, but they are too lost in a logical conundrum created by their own beliefs to be able to make sense of any of this.
Of course that arbitrary choice is called "mystery" in Calvinism. But you make an excellent point
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