Yesterday, I discussed the issue of the stereotypical “Critical Calvinist”. In the article I cited, a number of commentors stated that Calvinists were quick to label something heresy. Their most common accusation was that all Arminians are actually semi-Pelagian. (I’ll admit that I’ve occasionally been wont to note the dangerous tendency of Arminian thought towards semipelagianism.) At any rate, the critical Calvinists are also derided as heresy hunters, judgmental, always trying to figure out what’s right and wrong about everything.
I can see how people get that idea. After all, Reformed thought is very interested in truth. I personally am very interested in truth. I believe that there is truth and there is falsehood–and that believers should critically evaluate information in light of truth as it is revealed in God’s word. I believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to read the Bible. I believe that we should read the Bible with the aim of discovering what God intended in Scripture rather than finding what “I get out of it.”
This insistence on truth being truth and not open to individual interpretation already opens me up to charges of judgmentalism from some.
Yet, I don’t think Scripture would agree. 2 Peter 1:20-21 speaks of Scripture saying: “…no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.”
So the conclusion that objective truth does indeed exist is supported by Scripture.
But I am not just interested in the premise that objective truth does exist–I am interested in knowing what that objective truth IS. I want to know and live by truth–and I want to evaluate and reject falsehood.
When I hear that a student has been told by a speaker that he/she needs to “work to be chosen by God”, I bristle.
This piece of information, this idea is clearly unbiblical. In Deuteronomy 7:6-8, God warns the Israelites against thinking that they have been chosen by any merit of their own: “The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you…” Romans 9:10-13 speaks of Jacob and Esau and how God chose one over the other: “…for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls…” Jacob was not chosen because he worked for God’s choosing–he was chosen because God, in His divine sovereignty chose to choose him.
In the same way, none of us merit salvation (or any of God’s gifts). We do not receive favor from God because we have worked for it. We receive favor from God because He has sovereignly bestowed it. We don’t work to be chosen. We are chosen. Period. God chooses, we’re chosen (by no act of our own).
Truth. Falsehood. I have evaluated this information in light of truth and have rejected it. I have passed judgment on it.
Scripture is in favor of is sort of evaluation and judgment of what others say. The Bereans were praised in Acts 17 for searching out the Scripture “to find out whether these things [that Paul and Silas taught] were so.” To evaluate ideas on the basis of Scripture is a good thing.
On the other hand, I Corinthians 8:1-2 warns “Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone things that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.”
The problem with the “Critical Calvinist” and the “Heresy Hunter” isn’t that he evaluates information critically based on the Word of God–it’s that he becomes puffed up with pride and uses his knowledge to tear down the body rather than building it up.
Some might read I Corinthians 8 and suggest that knowledge is a bad thing. “We need childlike faith,” they might say. “Why bother with all this thinking stuff?” Much of the church has unfortunately grabbed hold of this idea and embraced anti-intellectualism.
But I don’t think that when Paul said that knowledge puffs up, he was arguing for anti-intellectualism. Instead, he was arguing for more love and humility.
Knowledge, by itself, makes one think much of himself–and little of those around him who have less knowledge. But, as Paul points out, anybody who thinks he knows something shows that he really doesn’t know much–after all, compared to the vastness of God’s knowledge, our greatest knowledge is but the smallest subset of His infinite wisdom.
So keep thinking, Christians (or start thinking if you haven’t been already)–but consider all the while the smallness of your knowledge compared to the greatness of God’s, lest you become a puffed-up heresy hunter.
I like the balance that you bring in this post.
I had to laugh when I was reading yesterday because I know one of those stubborn, hard-headed Calvinists. Boy, he’s stubborn and hard-headed!! :)
I agree that there is truth and that discovering it is vitally important. But how you handle it is also important: beating someone over the head v. using it to build up. And most of all, being sensitive to God’s Spirit to know WHEN to be more aggressive with it and when to deal tenderly with someone’s lack of maturity.
Anyway, good stuff! Thanks for writing about this!