Link: Critique of Calvin.

A quote from a good summary article exposing more of Calvin’s, and hence, Calvinism’s errors….some claim that Calvin did not embrace the philosophical position that the finite is incapable of the infinite, but here is what Calvin said, and you can read more of this analysis by following the link above.

  But it pleased him that Christ be made like his brethren in all things except sin [Heb. 4:15; cf.ch. 2:17].  What is the nature of our flesh?  Is it not something that has its own fixed dimension, is contained in a place, is touched, is seen?  And why (they say) cannot God make the same flesh occupy many and divers places, be contained in no place, so as to lack measure and form?  Madman, why do you demand that God’s power make flesh to be and not to be flesh at the same time!  It is as if you insisted that he make light to be both light and darkness at the same time!  But he wills light to be light; darkness, darkness; and flesh, flesh.  Indeed, when he pleases he will turn darkness into light and light into darkness; but when you require that light and darkness not differ, what else are you doing than perverting the order of God’s wisdom?  Flesh must therefore be flesh; spirit, spirit — each thing in the state and condition wherein God created it.  But such is the condition of flesh that it must subsist in one definite place, with its own size and form.  With this condition Christ took flesh, giving to it, as Augustine attests, incorruption and glory, and not taking away from it nature and truth.

I found the quote that follows these remarks to be a helpful insight into Calvinist thinking on the Lord’s Supper. My quick response to their "how" question about our Lord’s human nature is simply this…how was it possible for the Risen Lord to suddenly "appear in the midst of them" among His disciples on Easter? What was  His human nature doing after the Resurrection? Was it omnipresent with Him? Or was Jesus hiding out until the Ascension? How did His human nature ascend? Or what about the Transfiguration? It seems that was a pretty amazing event for His human nature, a foretaste of what was to come during His glorification? How is God able to create everything out of nothing? How is a Virgin able to conceive? How is that some are saved, and not others? So man "how" questions! Finally, how is it that Christ fills all things, and yet, not, apparently, according to the Calvinists with also His human nature, which is forever joined to the divine nature, see Eph. 4.

A desire to provide a "logical" explanation to these "how" questions is really Calvinism’s downfall. Again, you notice how the "system" is all important for Calvinism. Whatever doesn’t square with it is out.  There is a reason old John Calvin said, "The finite is incapable of the infinite" and by saying that he thereby effectively, if they are going to be consistent, excludes the Incarnation to begin with!

My "exegetical warrant" for the Lutheran confession of the Supper, is, and remains the words that ever stand sure. The words of our dear Lord Christ, "This is my body."

Link: Triablogue. Here is the quote. By the way, I let them know I’m not a "Dr." but it is a nice thought. I informed them that I’m waiting for a honorary doctorate, the only really Christian one, received by grace alone, apart from any works:

Can Dr. McCain construct an explanation regarding how exactly the human nature of Christ is present “with, under the bread and wine” of the Lord’s Supper and still be His human nature and fully human? After the Resurrection Christ is depicted as being glorified, able to appear and reappear mysteriously, have an incorruptible body, etc., but there is still continuity with the original body. “Illocality” is not depicted of Him in Scripture. When He is present in the room in His incarnate, resurrected body, He is truly bodily present. Nobody orthodox has ever disputed the notion He is always present in His divinity anyway.

One would have to divinize the human nature in order for his assertion about the elements to be valid. Glorfication is not “divinization.” That is classic Apollinarianism and Monophysitism and Greek piety, not Scripture speaking.

Where does Scripture affirm that Christ’s human nature is present in such a manner? To say that Christ’s humanity is present in the elements divinizes His human nature and further restricts it to the elements at the Lord’s Table, so His humanity shares ubiquity with His divinity with respect to the elements at the Table, yet omnipresence (ubiquity) means God (in all 3 Persons) is present everywhere. Think about that for a moment. How can His human nature be in two places at once, specifically in the elements injested at the Lord’s Table, and Christ be fully human? Approaching this from the other direction, how can His human nature share in the divine ubiquity, which means God is everywhere, and be localized only in the bread and wine? You have to create a special category of ubiquity for Christ’s humanity and the communication of attributes in order to accomodate such a view. I’m sorry Dr. McCain, but you need an exegetical warrant for that.

Lutheran theology tries to get around this by saying His human nature is “illocal” in the Eucharist. The problem is this: It’s not really illocal in this view, it is clearly localized in the elements and in heaven; that’s two specific places at a single time, a fly trapped in amber across two levels of existence. Thus, not only is Christ with respect to His human nature in heaven, He is present on earth in the elements in time when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. That makes his human nature subject to time as well as spatial constraints on earth as well as heaven. That’s one reason why Calvin rejected the notion of ubiquity of Christ’s body in the elements; it involves too many equivocations on the nature of time and space and what and does and does not constitute localization that necessitate extra-biblical ideas and doesn’t appear to be supportable from Scripture. Calvin stakes out a position between that of Luther and Zwingli.

I’m monitoring several Calvinist blog sites and continue, sadly, to note how Calvinism simply and clearly does NOT put Jesus at the center. Note the discussion by Even May about assurance of salvation. Note how he talks about salvation and assurance of salvation, but…no Jesus! How tragic.

Link: Triablogue.

It is sufficient that I believe I’m saved, and that I have adequate grounds for so believing. Or, to recast this in negative terms, it’s sufficient that I have no good grounds for doubting my salvation.

In the process of trying to get to the bottom of Calvinism, I’ve learned that Calvinism is somewhat hard to define, but there does seem to be fairly universal consensus that the Canons of Dordt are the most commonly held principles of Calvinism…but….then you talk to other Calvinists who point you more toward the Westminster Confession. And then you have the Belgic Confession, and various other attending documents that go along with Westminster Confession which are apparently of some authority in various Calvinist churches. Of course, one could try to fathom a rather complex chart explaining Calvinism’s view of how a person is saved.

I just feel sometimes that I’m trying to pick up jello with my hands, or herd cats when I try to pin down precisely what is the Calvinist confession of faith. I wish Calvinists could, like we Lutherans, point to a single book and say, “Here is our definitive and authoritative and normative confession of faith.” I appreciate the fact that Lutheranism, though jello-like in its own unique ways, at least brings to the table a single book, called The Book of Concord. No, I’m not saying all Lutherans actually adhere to the Lutheran Confessions, just as I would not suggest that the Presbyterian Church USA is a paragon of Calvinist confession. We have our liberals. Calvinists have their’s. I’m not concerned about either right now.

In my opinion, based on my observation and reading of Calvinist materials now for many years, and most recently of course my exchanges with several ardent Calvinists, I am all the more firmly convinced that Calvinism simply does not put Jesus at the absolute center of their “system.”

Am I suggesting that Calvinists don’t believe in Jesus? No. That they don’t love Jesus? No. I’m simply saying that in the Calvinist system of theology the “warm beating heart” is not to be found, first and foremost, in Christ Jesus and the love and mercy of the Gospel, the good news of forgiveness and new life and hope in Him. For Calvinists it is my opinion that what “centers” them is not the Gospel, so much as God’s eternal sovereign decrees. Am I saying God is not sovereign? No. Am I saying God does not act sovereignly toward His creation? No.

The concern I have with Calvinism is that the fuel driving is train is not the  dynamite of the Gospel of Jesus, the love of God, the kindness shown by God to us in Christ, but….in God’s essence and glory, which Calvinists see most clearly in His “sovereignty” but not actually in His grace, love and mercy in Christ. Of course, they protest this assertion. They say, “But that’s what we mean when we talk about sovereignty.” Well, I say, “Then let’s hear more about Jesus and the Gospel and God’s life-giving love and kindness and mercy in Christ.”

I believe that the New Testament clearly indicates that we can not, and must not, look any farther than Jesus Christ when we talk about God. All talk of God that drifts free of Christ and Him crucified leads in a wrong direction. Jesus Christ is the only way we know God as He wants to be known. We are not to try to peer past, or around, or above Jesus and try to look into the hidden counsels of God. And his is precisely where I think Calvinism as a system is highly problematic.
Is referring to Calvinism as a system unfair? I’m sure it could be so in some senses, but, as one Calvinist web site puts it succinctly:

Calvinism is the name applied to the system of thought which has come
down to us from John Calvin. He is recognized as the chief exponent of
that system, although he is not the originator of the ideas set forth
in it. The theological views of Calvin, together with those of the
other great leaders of the Protestant Reformation, are known to be a
revival of Augustinianism, which in its turn was only a revival of the
teachings of St. Paul centuries previous. But it was Calvin who, for
modern times, first gave the presentation of these views in systematic
form and with the specific application which since his day has become
known to us as Calvinism.

It is this “system” that has me worried for my Calvinist brethren, for it seems to me that this “system” is quite a bit more concerned first with an articulation of the eternal decrees and hidden counsels of God than with putting Christ Jesus at the heart and center. Please let me explain.

Calvinism concerns itself first with God’s glory and making sure God gets what God deserves: glory. A noble goal! But, is this truly the New Testament presentation of what is at the heart of Christianity? It would, to me, seem to be working things from the wrong direction. We are not given, first, to know and contemplate God in Himself, but rather as He has chosen finally to reveal Himself to us, and that He has done through His Son, Jesus Christ. This is not a “system” this is a Person, the  God-Man, Christ Jesus our Lord. Beginning with God’s glory is stepping off on the wrong foot.

Consider this explanation of Calvinism’s “beating heart”

The central thought of Calvinism is, therefore, the great thought of
God. Someone has remarked: Just as the Methodist places in the
foreground the idea of the salvation of sinners, the Baptist the
mystery of regeneration, the Lutheran justification by faith, the
Moravian  the wounds of Christ, the Greek Catholic  the mysticism of
the Holy Spirit, and the Romanist  the catholicity of the church, so
the Calvinist is always placing in the foreground the thought of God. The Calvinist does not start out with some interest of man; for
example, his conversion or his justification, but has as his informing
thought always: How will God come to His rights! He seeks to realize as
his ruling concept in life the truth of Scripture: Of Him , and
through Him, and to Him are all things. To whom be glory forever.

Here’s an example of what concerns me, from a self-described Calvinist gadfly I’ve come to know. Alan
is an earnest and sincere Christian young man who writes this about himself:

I am a sinner saved by God’s grace alone. He didn’t save me by
trying somehow to “woo” me by whispering in my ear hoping that I would
cooperate. He saved me when I was spitting in his face. God took my
creaturely rebel heart and sovereignly penetrated my will and performed
the miracle of regeneration by raising me up to spiritual life. It was,
and is, amazing grace.

Compare what our Calvinist friend Alan has to say to how St. Paul talks in
Gal. 2:20.

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the
faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

I trust you will notice a striking difference. I’m not
saying we have to mention Jesus with every other word, but….please
let me hear about Jesus, not just about the sovereign will of God. The
lofty grandeur of the God high in the heavens is a wonder indeed. But
that does me no good. No, talk to me of God who lies in the manger, for
me, as a baby. Let me hear more about God who lived perfectly in my
place, who walked this earth, in the same flesh and blood I have. Speak
to me of God who fed the crowds, healed the sick, raised the dead and
calmed the storms. Put my eyes on Jesus, God in the flesh, who took my
sins on his shoulders, who suffered and bled for me, as the
all-sufficient atoning sacrifice for my sins, and the sins of the whole
world. That’s the God I want to hear about more. You see, God has come
down in the flesh and now to all eternity, He is the only way I know
the Father, no other way. I can ponder the “sovereign will” of the
grand Creator, but I prefer to ponder God in the face of Jesus Christ,
who is, my Lord and my God. Let me hear of Jesus. He is the One who
shows us the Father. Please put Jesus back where He belongs.

The quotations in this post are from an essay based on the book The Basic Ideas of Calvinism, Chapter I, pp. 29-40 (Grand Rapids, Baker Book House, 1939).