I have been dwelling upon this consideration of late: should Calvinists popularize a new expression called the Drop to complement the Fall?
This imagery would help explain how God is well-pleased to Drop the creatures and thereby necessitate their Fall into sin and death. But, the question remains, how is it that God could be well-pleased in cursing His sinless and righteous creatures? I am always eager to know how it is that anyone should ever believe that God is the author and approver of sin. Or, in the least, how it is that some should think themselves acquitted of this defamation without just reason.
If we attempt to avoid “Equal Ultimacy” by saying God’s merely withholds that divine grace necessary to continuance in obedience without first considering anything within the creature moving Him thereunto, then, I ask:
What is the difference between a kind and loving father who intentionally and actively casts his own child upon the rocks without a cause and a kind and loving father who intentionally removes the supporting hands from under his child and thereby purposely drops them upon the jags without a cause? But let us press this imagery even further. Now suppose, after this kind and loving father has purposely dropped his beloved child down upon the rocks, he kneels over the bloody corpse and with terrible indignation rebukes the child for purposely casting itself upon the rocks! This is obviously nonsense. What moral responsibility could the child possibly have under these circumstances?
Notice, the child is as of yet without sin and therefore this act is devoid of any notion of justice. In fact, it is an act of grace, since this curse is an unmerited gift. We are left wondering: what manner of love is this?
The mode may differ somewhat in the appearance but the heart motive of God remains the same as any malicious murderer. Calvinian Predestination fails to accommodate any meaningful understanding of the supreme Justice of God. For this very reason, if God actually acts this way, then we may rightly call the righteousness of God into question; as it is entirely absurd to ascribe unto God the character and attributes of a devil. And we can not carelessly brush away these terrifying implications with an out-of-context “Who are you, O man, to reply back to God?” Would we accept such a meager reply from someone attempting to ascribe unto God dishonesty? Indeed not.
These are moral objections that must be addressed face forward.
Speaking of which, if anyone happens to be considering the task of properly addressing the teachings of Arminius’ sentiments on Predestination then you could do no better than rebutting the following discourse:
The Works of James Arminius, On Predestination
Therein you will find Arminius forwardly addressing three kinds of Calvinian Predestination followed by his own instructions on the matter. The only minor fault I found with the articles was when he made the Hyper-Calvinian charge that the continuance and occurrence of evangelism or preaching would be diminished among adherents to Calvinism (this is obviously not necessarily true); yet, the claim that the necessity of evangelizing and preaching are undermined, that is rightly charged.
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